Half my friends left the game. How devs are making my group feel (Second thread)

[Merrillman]

FIRST: SSG is stopping people who criticize them from speaking on the forums. Hence thread #2.

The game is HIGHLY over nerfed in u50. Half my friends left the game. I’d like to see that become undone. Under NO circumstances do I want this thread closed. This is how you get honest feedback. If someone is going to close it, at least have the guts to comment, and say why. Lastly, I will say cordos livestream Yesterday sounded a LOT more open minded than the forums have. That is the right direction.

Example: Percentage buffs. Take PRR. 50% damage reduction is 50% damage reduction. It should not matter whether the previous damage was 100 and now it’s 50. It’s proportionally the same reduction. So there was NO REASON to change percentages except to over nerf and reduce player damage, damage reduction, etc...

[Pandjed]

FIRST: SSG is stopping people who criticize them from speaking on the forums. Hence thread #2. [...]Under NO circumstances do I want this thread closed. [...]

Cordo closed the thread because ppl were calling each others names and insulted each other, pried to get personal data out of others, etc. That's exactly what gets a thread closed and this should be done further. If you don't like it, try to keep this thread clean.

Thread closed due to fighting and insults. We hope to see your friends return to the game in the future, OP.

Please don't fan the fire once more with declaring devs doing this and that that you can't pinpoint with a quote.

[Merrillman]

Cordo closed the thread because ppl were calling each others names and insulted each other, pried to get personal data out of others, etc. That's exactly what gets a thread closed and this should be done further. If you don't like it, try to keep this thread clean.




Please don't fan the fire once more with declaring devs doing this and that that you can't pinpoint with a quote.

I didn’t call anyone anything. I do not know how I would control other people’s actions, and I didn’t see cordos comment. If that’s the case I am totally fine with it. If someone else did Get nasty then I definitely understand. I just wish they’d have deleted their comment. I personally don’t call people names.

[TheAlicornSage]

I didn’t call anyone anything. I do not know how I would control other people’s actions, and I didn’t see cordos comment. If that’s the case I am totally fine with it. If someone else did Get nasty then I definitely understand. I just wish they’d have deleted their comment. I personally don’t call people names.

No, you were fine. That was someone else doing that.

I'd still like to get a more detailed and specific account of what you think the source of the problems are. Not only would that be better feedback for the ssg devs, but it'll get added to my own list of things to be careful of.

[rabidfox]

The game is HIGHLY over nerfed in u50. Half my friends left the game. I’d like to see that become undone.

Builds, gear being used, content being run... details like this help. Were you and your friends all running pre-29/t1 legendary content while using t2 grade gear to power thru it? One of the few class/build types that seem to have felt the endgame stat crunch more than others? Details please.

[Hawkwier]

I didn’t call anyone anything. I do not know how I would control other people’s actions, and I didn’t see cordos comment. If that’s the case I am totally fine with it. If someone else did Get nasty then I definitely understand. I just wish they’d have deleted their comment. I personally don’t call people names.

Yep. Cordovan was quite right. Closure had nothing to do with you OP. I was one of the offenders. Guilty as charged. Apologies. I should have just ignored things earlier instead of goading. Having apologised to you OP, I won't comment further on this thread, so you should be safe enough.

[Merrillman]

No, you were fine. That was someone else doing that.

I'd still like to get a more detailed and specific account of what you think the source of the problems are. Not only would that be better feedback for the ssg devs, but it'll get added to my own list of things to be careful of.

1) Non-specific "nerfs." in other words, saying the word "balance" means very little to me and to my friends, when not backed up with specific numbers. I want to know if sorcerers are putting out 30% less, vs Paladins 15% less, on average, etc... for dps. I want to know the average chance to land a hold before vs after. In my short experience, 20-30% LESS hold/cc effectiveness before to after. That kind of detail shows me where this update actually affects one class vs others.

2) HONESTY on how much spells will cost vs new spell pool as a % of points. With the stat squish, spell point costs are proportionally more expensive per spell, as spell costs are static, vs reduced spell point pools from the stat change. This means spell point per cast or spell points per point of damage is more expensive. This means over time significantly more spell point pots are needed to do the same proportional damage. Are more shrines going to be added to make up for it? Are spell costs going to be reduced? this seems to have been a backdoor way to reduce the effectiveness and utility of all casters.

3) How crit % reductions reduce overall damage output per 1000HP, in percentage terms of monster HP, before vs after.

4) Why would % items or effects like MRR, PRR, Crit% Crit% Chance, etc...need to be changed at all? For instance, a 20% crit modifier is 20% whether half, double or whatever difference from what it is now. It is perfectly proportional from before to after. Therefore, there is no reason to reduce these in any way, except to reduce further any effectiveness of toons. This is not at all clear why it was done. THIS IS MY BIGGEST GRIPE. this is a huge and disproportionate effect before to after.

That's a few big ones. LMK what you think.

[rabidfox]

4) Why would % items or effects like MRR, PRR, Crit% Crit% Chance, etc...need to be changed at all? For instance, a 20% crit modifier is 20% whether half, double or whatever difference from what it is now. It is perfectly proportional from before to after. Therefore, there is no reason to reduce these in any way, except to reduce further any effectiveness of toons. This is not at all clear why it was done. THIS IS MY BIGGEST GRIPE. this is a huge and disproportionate effect before to after.

It was about closing the huge gap between 28 and 29 gear sets and keeping a common scaling (by reducing that huge bloat). So mrr, prr, crit, etc. all are now reflected correctly for a small power gain from 28. I thought they were quite clear about why it was done. With the monster nerfs, those modifications to your stats should be okay. Or are you on a class/build/gear setup where the monsters are overpowering you now; if so, what class/build/gear/instances are the issues...

[Hobgoblin]

its been a while since i saw this one.

[Merrillman]

It was about closing the huge gap between 28 and 29 gear sets and keeping a common scaling (by reducing that huge bloat). So mrr, prr, crit, etc. all are now reflected correctly for a small power gain from 28. I thought they were quite clear about why it was done. With the monster nerfs, those modifications to your stats should be okay. Or are you on a class/build/gear setup where the monsters are overpowering you now; if so, what class/build/gear/instances are the issues...

See that’s the thing. My gear is fantastic. I have full filigrees. I have the right artifacts, top level gear. My problem is the nerf was:

1) not at all 1:1 for casters who do damage, nor DPS (trees could fix this next update, so that may be temporary).

2) More severe for casters, healers, and those that need the “percentage” stats on gear for survival. Did your to hit percentage go down? Did your damage as a % of the nerfed monsters HP pool go down? It seems not for melee builds. A few lower PRR FOR A FIGHTER? Meh. They shrug it off. Not so for casters. Those “percentages” should NOT HAVE BEEN CHANGED. Why? Because percentages AUTO SCALE to whatever numbers are involved. Nerfing percentages lower means that you will ENSURE not having a 1:1 reduction from before to after. If you change Static numbers? Fine. That’s 1:1. If you lower percentage AND the static is 1:1 then the result is ALWAYS worse than 1:1. Significantly so for casters. Spell pools are lower because of stat squish. Fighters can’t swing any less times to do damage. Casters can now cast fewer spells IN ADDITION to damage nerfs and percentage nerfs.
This is a far worse outcome for casters than melee. All in play is DPS caster and no desire for anything else. If i am now 30% less effective tube with damage, DPS and protection? Well then that’s not at all making me want to play.

That’s not my idea of a rescaling. It’s not fair to many players. If you’re melee class you got an upgrade. You’re fine. If you’re a flavor build caster, DPS element caster, FVS, PM especially, you’re far less viable post 50 than pre 50. That’s not balance. Could have brought up the low end instead of screwing up the high end, some a little to both and the effect would be the same. Only messing up end game changes the whole end game for a lot of people. For those who don’t have 10 hours a day to play, that means an hour dungeon may now take 90 minutes. If I only have an hour at a time to play? Well I’m really screwed. Those dungeons are now not useable. Same for raids.

My server Pop is low. I can’t almost ever get a raid group because I can wait. Hours before even starting. If I only generally have an hour, then raids are also off limits to me.

Raid scaling needs to be done so four, 6, 8 & 10 people can raid. Otherwise merge servers. I seriously have no access to Greensteel because of this. Now? GS & past lives are VITAL for endgame vs before.

[Pandjed]

Even before U50, many ppl were clear of the result: You won't be able to compensate as easily with items anymore.

Pre-U50, the items were often as weighty as the build if not even more (half of your ability score, more than half of your flat damage, etc.). Now they're roughly between a half and a third of the end-numbers, which means: The builds that are supposed to do things, can do things better now.
A tiefling fire sorcerer with points in the racial tree will do % more damage vs. any other fire sorcerer before the update, because these +60 fire spellpower will just weight more. Any sorcerer will do more % damage vs. a wizard, because sorcerers just get more elemental spellpower from their trees.
Now you should have PRR/MRR in your actual enhancement trees, instead of relying solely on your 3 types of sheltering items (enhancement, insightful, quality).

Also, what is vital for endgame... it's not like there is a super-dominance in this. I mean, I never, ever crafted a greensteel item (neither heroic nor epic) and still can run endgame r10 and pull my weight, as long as I don't use an experimental build (though some of them deliver). It just takes some player skills and understanding of the game.
I mean, I have a first life character (3 epic past lives though) that does what was needed, and another toon has been lvl 24 and was able to reliable mass hold feywild mobs at r4 while wearing sharn gear (spell resistance was a problem, but never saves). There is a lot of depth in this game, if you're willing to dive in, and I know, that many people feel too restricted to do so, but what I want to say is: A lot of alternatives and paths exist to succeed at high difficulties at endgame.

What may I see as strange is, that there seem to be a lot of people, that more or less demand to be able to play endgame at high difficulties with little to no time-, money-, or research-commitment to the game. Endgame at high difficulties isn't meant to be for you, it's meant to be for those, who are willing and able to put their resources into the game.
It's like complaining to the creators of Super Mario 64, that there are ppl that can finish the game in under 2 hours, while you need 20. You either spend the time and practice to become a speedrunner or you play at your level, and both are absolute viable choices to enjoy a game.
Isn't it great of the devs, that they provide something for those commited people to do (given that these are also the people that tend to buy the highest tiers of the newest expansions, because they like the game enough to get even more of it)? Aren't there lower difficulties that accomedate those that aren't there yet or aren't able to become such individuals?
Aren't there many helpful people out there, that are ready to pull others through higher difficulties while leveling up by making LFMs? People willing to teach some tricks, the moment they learn you're a casual gamer or a beginner? Like how you can skip the big Izek/devil-fight in Mad Tea Party, how to look for Graz'zt in Desire in the Dark from above, how to skip most of the maze in Maze of Madness, etc.? Do they deserve to be the target of resentment?


However, whatever you think U50 did, this will be nothing to what U51 will do. While U51 is planned in fall, we shouldn't count our eggs before they're laid.

[TheAlicornSage]

See, some of this is interesting. Getting closer to the details. I can't agree with very much here though.

1)

Non-specific "nerfs." in other words, saying the word "balance" means very little to me and to my friends, when not backed up with specific numbers. I want to know if sorcerers are putting out 30% less, vs Paladins 15% less, on average, etc... for dps. I want to know the average chance to land a hold before vs after. In my short experience, 20-30% LESS hold/cc effectiveness before to after. That kind of detail shows me where this update actually affects one class vs others

Too much focus on the spreadsheets. A big rescaling like this isn't going to feel right by glancing at a few numbers. How it impacts play is the important part, and the aim may not be for making things exactly the same as before.

You mention in one of the later points about "needing" GS and pastlives for endgame. Well, as the game has both casual and hardcore 12-hours-a-day players, perhaps that is part of the point, to have the high end challenging to those extreme players and having a smoother scaling so tjose less extreme players can go as far as is comfortable for them. Much easier amd better design than trying to make it so bith casuals and hardcores can run the same content.

Also, you focus too much on numbers. Last night I took my lvl 22 unoptimized, unspecialized, wizard and soloed a cr 28 fire bomb construct thing after being warned about how a full group is needed to handle it, I still took it down alone without dying. That was last night, no GS, no epic destinies (because I can't afford to buy that), no past life stuff, no raid gear (I did one raid without any trouble by myself, until hitting a puzzle that needed more than me and my pet). I have no endgame gear at all. I have two sentient capable weapons from raider boxes, but can't even use them yet.

It really isn't about the exact numbers and what's fair in terms of how much percentage change everyone got. The important things are maintaining self-balancing gameplay, and making sure that multiple players in a group of about the same lvl and gear can party up without one player or type outshining everyone else. For example, what the ttrpg guys call the "linear fighter, quadratic wizard" problem, which needs to be avoided here. If you have martials and casters, each needs to best at what they do without outshining the other in general. This means martials need to be best at the purest aspects of combat, dps and tanking, while casters are best at utility, cc, and getting around resistances. Think about it, if a caster's dps equalled a martial's, then a caster would be better due to having dps and also everything else.

2) [quote]With the stat squish, spell point costs are proportionally more expensive per spell, [/quote
Firstly, see above. Secondly,

more spell point pots are needed

***? Mana potions are a considetation here?! The only mana potions I know of are ddo store things or rarely from daily dice. Frankly, I have never used a single one in 12 + years of playing this game. I rarely hit bottom on SP. Now I build my strategies around the SP limit but still, I'm amazed anyone actually considers mana potions a requirement. And no, I have not run out of SP more often post u50. Heck, I don't even use all the rest shrines available. Granted, I do concede that I run hard/elite depending on what's unlocked rather than reaper, but still.

C) I think you are a bit too focused on the numbers rather than gameplay. The gameplay is what's at stake here, not the numbers. This is not Dungeons & Spreadsheets (though I imagine some folks would love D&S [My name, I think I'll try doing something with it] )

That’s not my idea of a rescaling.

This part in particular is misunderstanding what is meant by scaling. It isn't a uniform scaling down of existing player stats. Rather, it's about fixing the scaling of expected values relative to level. For example, BAB ranges from .33-1 normally (in the ttrpg). So you can actually graph that range. Then, if you make a few assumptions about expected gear, you can adjust that graph. That graph is how the generally expected range of numbers scale, from lvl 1 to lvl 30. That is the scaling being fixed, because they started gaving a problem with how that graph was different for different expansions. MotU had a very different graph of expected values from Sharn for example. They needed to make it so that all content had the same expected values graph. The largest impact was of course the endgame levels as that was where the problem was the strongest.

Such a rescaling will seem bad at first, because you are comparing what you just had to what you now have, but that doesn't make it bad nor unfair. Give it a moment amd adjust to the changes, then see if there are ussues that need resolved, for example...

D)

My server Pop is low. I can’t almost ever get a raid group

This is a far more reliable problem that needs addressed as it isn't based on how you feel things compared to before. Difficulty in grouping is the same regardless of stats.

The best way to fix it however, is to make the game a better game overall that more people will enjoy in spite of the game's obvious age. And maybe merging servers, or perhaps making a raid server, where players from all the servers can group up for a raid. Dom't know if that's technically feasible, but it'd help a lot.

[TheAlicornSage]

Ninja'd.

I noted this,

What may I see as strange is, that there seem to be a lot of people, that more or less demand to be able to play endgame at high difficulties with little to no time-, money-, or research-commitment to the game.

This seems like a growing a problem across all of American society to me, not just in games, but definitely felt a lot in games. As far as I'm concerned, this attitude of wanting great stuff for nothing is one of the worst things to happen to humanity.

A great video on youtube talks about this, the title is something like "Why games like CoD are bad for you and games like Runescape are good for you."

I got the link, but not sure if those are allowed.

[Marshal_Lannes]

U50 feels more like a buff than a nerf once you get over not seeing the big numbers on gear. I've played it with both casters, melee, and ranged. Melee combat is easier. It just is. You crit far, far more now that monster fortification has been eliminated/reduced. Mobs die faster. And while all my melee characters lost from 300-500 HPs, combat feels better. The bloated stat blobs (perhaps PCs included) have been taken away and everything feels more organic.

For a caster, this has been a big net win for DCs. I have a 3rd life caster who can suddenly land things they couldn't before the update. From my gameplay experience, once people got over the massive drop from +22 to +13/14 and started playing the experience has been positive.

[kpak01]

I didn’t call anyone anything.

Your very first post in the other thread was full of name-calling & insults. There's no point in denying it now, just try to keep that out of this thread if you actually want a discussion.

[rabidfox]

What may I see as strange is, that there seem to be a lot of people, that more or less demand to be able to play endgame at high difficulties with little to no time-, money-, or research-commitment to the game. Endgame at high difficulties isn't meant to be for you, it's meant to be for those, who are willing and able to put their resources into the game.

That's just a reoccurring theme. Not everyone needs to be at the edge of pushing progressive content; there's plenty of difficulty settings to work for anyone's available level of commitment. One just needs to get over comparing oneself to others who have different goals and availability for play.

[Sythe777]

1)
Too much focus on the spreadsheets. A big rescaling like this isn't going to feel right by glancing at a few numbers. How it impacts play is the important part, and the aim may not be for making things exactly the same as before.

Also, you focus too much on numbers. Last night I took my lvl 22 unoptimized, unspecialized, wizard and soloed a cr 28 fire bomb construct thing after being warned about how a full group is needed to handle it, I still took it down alone without dying. That was last night, no GS, no epic destinies (because I can't afford to buy that), no past life stuff, no raid gear (I did one raid without any trouble by myself, until hitting a puzzle that needed more than me and my pet). I have no endgame gear at all. I have two sentient capable weapons from raider boxes, but can't even use them yet.

It really isn't about the exact numbers and what's fair in terms of how much percentage change everyone got. The important things are maintaining self-balancing gameplay, and making sure that multiple players in a group of about the same lvl and gear can party up without one player or type outshining everyone else. For example, what the ttrpg guys call the "linear fighter, quadratic wizard" problem, which needs to be avoided here. If you have martials and casters, each needs to best at what they do without outshining the other in general. This means martials need to be best at the purest aspects of combat, dps and tanking, while casters are best at utility, cc, and getting around resistances. Think about it, if a caster's dps equalled a martial's, then a caster would be better due to having dps and also everything else.

Rescaling PRR/MRR linearly, for example, will affect people differently. If you had a lot of either, you won't notice much of a change. If you had only a bit, you *will* notice a significant difference. This also applies to many other stats in a different manner where the relative change in power is slight for each individual stat, but then accumulate into a larger change in power when summed up. For example, damage on a caster is comprised of a number of different stats, like spellpower, spell lore, spell crit multi, caster level, max caster level, and spell damage dice. If we adjust each of them linearly (in either direction), the percentage change in average damage is more than the percentage change in one of those stats. This also applies to melee and ranged characters, but hopefully you get the point so I don't have to repeat it for those characters.

CR is meaningless. Could you at least clarify what you meant by "fire bomb construct thing"? On what quest? On what difficulty? Same goes for your example of raid, what level were you; what raid was it; what difficulty?

It is about the exact numbers, that's the whole problem. Explain to me how doing EE Gianthold for pre-eTR sagas is the same difficulty between pre-U50 and U50? It's not. The mobs were not re-scaled as they were not regarded as legendary. As such, players *will* notice a difference in difficulty after U50. That goes for all endgame epic/non-legendary quests.

Do not equate tabletop to this game, they're not the same and probably never will be. Tabletop has all the nuance and freedom that this game lacks. The closest argument you can make is that you want the game to be what's called as "The Holy Trinity" where classes are set into dedicated archtypes (DPS, Tank, and Support/Healer). I don't know if the devs want this as it forces unique classes to become generic and bland where the only flavor of the class is how the abilities cosmetically appear. Either way, there is nothing wrong with non-DPS archtype characters doing good DPS damage because the game currently lacks the population to actively group.
For example, if you played a healer, knew nothing about this game, and wanted to run quests but couldn't find a group, you'd be forced to solo. If you do solo, you will either struggle, or take such a significant amount of time to do quests that you'd rather give up and play a different game altogether.

2) Firstly, see above. Secondly, ***? Mana potions are a considetation here?! The only mana potions I know of are ddo store things or rarely from daily dice. Frankly, I have never used a single one in 12 + years of playing this game. I rarely hit bottom on SP. Now I build my strategies around the SP limit but still, I'm amazed anyone actually considers mana potions a requirement. And no, I have not run out of SP more often post u50. Heck, I don't even use all the rest shrines available. Granted, I do concede that I run hard/elite depending on what's unlocked rather than reaper, but still.

Do you run raids at end game? If you don't, then you don't know how rough SP upkeep is without potions. I'm with you on not using SP pots at all, but even when I had run a sorc with over 8k spell points, I would run out eventually if the raid was taking too long. As of U50, players could expect to see about 400 SP lost from wizardry, double if they were a sorc or fvs. On top of that, they've halved the amount of percentage SP you get from LGS/feywild set which is pushing the loss to nearly 1k or 1.5k. Since U50 has reduced the amount of total spell points, but not reduced the cost of spells, it is fair to assume that you *will* run out of spell points more quickly compared to pre-U50. They did reduce monster health, yes, but let's say you're a DC/necro caster. The spell still does what it did before U50, but now you have less casts, and cannot progress as far as you once did.

C) I think you are a bit too focused on the numbers rather than gameplay. The gameplay is what's at stake here, not the numbers. This is not Dungeons & Spreadsheets (though I imagine some folks would love D&S [My name, I think I'll try doing something with it] )

This part in particular is misunderstanding what is meant by scaling. It isn't a uniform scaling down of existing player stats. Rather, it's about fixing the scaling of expected values relative to level. For example, BAB ranges from .33-1 normally (in the ttrpg). So you can actually graph that range. Then, if you make a few assumptions about expected gear, you can adjust that graph. That graph is how the generally expected range of numbers scale, from lvl 1 to lvl 30. That is the scaling being fixed, because they started gaving a problem with how that graph was different for different expansions. MotU had a very different graph of expected values from Sharn for example. They needed to make it so that all content had the same expected values graph. The largest impact was of course the endgame levels as that was where the problem was the strongest.

Such a rescaling will seem bad at first, because you are comparing what you just had to what you now have, but that doesn't make it bad nor unfair. Give it a moment amd adjust to the changes, then see if there are ussues that need resolved, for example...

Powergaming (focusing on the numbers) is a part of every RPG, even your esteemed ttrpgs. You can try to exclude or dismiss them as "not enjoying the game", but that is in fact how people enjoy it. Consider the reverse, a game where the motive is to powergame the best, and anyone who attempts to roleplay is barred from joining the campaign; is that really fair?

Regardless, your argument fails because the devs did not put all epic items on the same scale. The MotU items you are comparing to sharn were not updated to current expected values as of U50, nor do they ever intend to update them according to discord (I would post proof, but unfortunately, the channel it was posted in has been deleted). One of the main arguments against these item changes was that it would be a waste of time in the first place because the end result is intended to be unnoticeable. However, clearly the end result is noticeable. Not only that, but the late epic content is actually comparatively harder (like I said in the first point) to pre-U50. So now, even more dev time is required to put in balance changes which won't be seen for the foreseeable future. As a result, players are obviously and rightfully unhappy because their characters are no longer performing as well as before and the gear they have put both time and money towards (expansion pack purchases, chest re-rolls, etc.) are no longer BiS.

[Merrillman]

Your very first post in the other thread was full of name-calling & insults. There's no point in denying it now, just try to keep that out of this thread if you actually want a discussion.

No, it wasn’t. I didn’t call anyone a name. I ACTUALLY QUOTED SOMEONE ELSE. It was not in any way me calling a name. I was passing along an actual text conversation about the game — you need to reread what you think you read. Posting a quote is NOT the same thing as saying it yourself. It’s a reference. That is all. If I was calling anyone a name I’d do it directly, and would not hide behind a keyboard. When I am calling someone a name, it wouldn’t be a quote. I’d directly message them. Check your inbox. Just kidding. Haha. Lighten up!!

[TheAlicornSage]

Rescaling PRR/MRR linearly, for example, will affect people differently.

Yeah, I'm not arguing for that and never was. I think you're confusing me with the other guy on this point.

... This also applies to many other stats in a different manner where the relative change in power is slight for each individual stat, but then accumulate into a larger change in power when summed up...

Yea, but you're missing my point. The gameplay experience is affected differently than you might expect from a pure numerical analysis. Additionally, the other poster seems to be assuming the player experience is intended to be exactly the same as before but with simply rescaled numbers, which is explicitly not the case.

CR is meaningless.

It's not meaningless, it's misunderstood. Possibly by the devs as well. CR was intended as a rough guideline for expected values such that the GM can use that CR to judge whether their players would find the battle easy or difficult, not by how the CR compares to the player's lvl but by how the CR compares to the what the GM judges to be the general capability of the party accounting for higher or lower wealth and how much optimization the group has and how good the tactics and strategies used are. Basically, the GM should be able to judge that the party can handle most creatures of similar CR with similar difficulty accounting for any particular strengths and weaknesses. (the 5e tt dnd devs obviously never understood this, judging by the 5e take on CR)

Now this game took CR from 3e, and it served basically the same purpose, except that it lets the player make the judgement about difficulty rather than the a non-existent GM. The devs have perhaps not followed through on this over time, or maybe it just worked that way in the beginning by chance, but that was indeed how it worked in the early days, and I have mostly ignored it since.

Could you at least clarify what you meant by "fire bomb construct thing"? On what quest? On what difficulty?

It was one of the cannith quests, the one where you blow up all the big crates. I'm terrible with names sorry. The difficulty was Hard I think, it was the hardest I had unlocked at least.

Same goes for your example of raid, what level were you; what raid was it; what difficulty?

That was years ago so I have no idea. Well, it was normal difficulty at least because I have to unlock the higher difficulties. (I'm not a rich person, so I don't waste money on subscriptions.)

The raid was the one where you have some see through wall down the middle of the hallway and you have to hit several targets at the same time on either side of the wall in order to open the doors.

It is about the exact numbers, that's the whole problem.

On the contrary, different kinds of players have different things they focus on. The devs need to account for these various differences. Numbers alone do not make the game work for everybody. Gameplay is just as important and focusing exclusively on exact numbers will not lead to better gameplay. Never has, never will.

Explain to me how doing EE Gianthold for pre-eTR sagas is the same difficulty between pre-U50 and U50? It's not.

Of course not, which was the explicit intent. Not saying they did a good job, just saying that they explicitly are not making everything of equal difficulty pre and post u50.

The goal very explicitly is to remove power creep, so that all high level content from any expansion is of similar difficulty to all other content of same level across all expansions.

PreU50, the earlier high level content was much easier than quests of equal lvl in later expansions and that is a very bad thing. The devs wanted to fix that because it is a bad thing. Therefore, it should be obvious that the difficulty of things will not remain the exact same pre to post U50.

The mobs were not re-scaled as they were not regarded as legendary. As such, players *will* notice a difference in difficulty after U50. That goes for all endgame epic/non-legendary quests.

Yeah, as I said, it was intentional. Doesn't mean all those quests are exactly where they need to be, but a system-wide rescaling will of course have plenty of spots that need to be hand tweaked once the problem has been both identified and the precise changes needed identified. Comparison between pre to post U50 however is useless in this regard.

Do not equate tabletop to this game, they're not the same and probably never will be.

They are different but built on the same foundations. They are not as different as you think. And despite those differences, the game was originally intended to be rather faithful to that, though obviously it hasn't remained so, the game still has not lost many of the original foundations it was built on.

That said, many of the aspects I was discussing are general concepts that apply more generally than just this game alone, and I used the ttrpg vs ddo as contrast.

The closest argument you can make is that you want the game to be what's called as "The Holy Trinity" where classes are set into dedicated archtypes (DPS, Tank, and Support/Healer).

The holy trinity was never part of the original game, and was never part of what I discussed. Not sure where you got that idea. Possibly from my spotlight balance comment? That is something different from the holy trinity.

Either way, there is nothing wrong with non-DPS archtype characters doing good DPS damage because the game currently lacks the population to actively group.

There is a difference between "good dps" and "dps as good as martials." It is a very bad thing when casters are "martials plus more," cause then, why would you play martial when a caster can do everything a martial does plus more?

Martials have always been the direct combat guys, they are supposed to be better at dishing out and taking/avoiding dmg. Casters are supposed to either support or use cc or de/buff or something else to compensate for their lack of ability to match martials in dmg output/soaking

Heck, you still have the casters listed as being harder to solo precisely because direct combat is their weak point and without other players to take the monster's attention it leaves casters at a disadvantage, hence them being harder to solo as it requires better strategies and better mastery to succeed that way, which is as intended.

For example, if you played a healer, knew nothing about this game, and wanted to run quests but couldn't find a group, you'd be forced to solo. If you do solo, you will either struggle, or take such a significant amount of time to do quests that you'd rather give up and play a different game altogether.

Only if you lack the creativity to actually understand the game and figure out to play.

I exclusively solo because I hate the way other players play. Rushing through as quickly as possible and relying entirely on optimized numbers so one can ignore using strategy and tactics is neither fun to play with nor to watch. It's boring.

And hey, I solo just fine without optimizing, without great gear, and without struggling, so if I can do it, so can everyone else. Unless their is a puzzle requiring several players to act simultaneously, there is no reason for anyone find soloing so difficult as to leave the game. Of course, if someone thinks they should solo the same reaper levels that they do in a party, then that is a major on the player's part, not a game dev problem.

Do you run raids at end game? If you don't, then you don't know how rough SP upkeep is without potions.

This is the sort of thing that should not change just for endgame raids. If it does, that is bad design by the devs. Or players playing in a way that has inherent issues and complaining about it. For example, a good complaint, in example, might be that enemies can one-shot a player that is unable to avoid the attack regardless of player skill. An invalid complaint is that avoiding being hit with a one-shot (that you chose to face by selecting that high of a difficulty) requires player skill. A god complaint might be that enemies that can one-shot a PC with any attack are the also one hit kills with any attack. An invalid complaint is being unable to solo the same difficulty lvl as what can be fought in a party.

Since U50 has reduced the amount of total spell points, but not reduced the cost of spells, it is fair to assume that you *will* run out of spell points more quickly compared to pre-U50. They did reduce monster health, yes, but let's say you're a DC/necro caster. The spell still does what it did before U50, but now you have less casts, and cannot progress as far as you once did.

What you seem to forget is that fewer castings will be needed, thus consuming fewer SP.

Powergaming (focusing on the numbers) is a part of every RPG, even your esteemed ttrpgs.

Incorrect, most (but not all) rpgs can be powergamed, but that doesn't make it a part of the games, similar to how chess can be played as strip chess, but that isn't inherent in chess itself.

The same here, you might focus on powergaming, but that doesn't make it an inherent part of the game.

You can try to exclude or dismiss them as "not enjoying the game", but that is in fact how people enjoy it. Consider the reverse, a game where the motive is to powergame the best, and anyone who attempts to roleplay is barred from joining the campaign; is that really fair?

It's usually called 4e and yes it's fair. When you go to play a campaign, getting everyone on the same page of what is expected for that game and deciding what is or is not to be included is exactly what should happen, and if the group decides to run a highly optimized campaign and they do not want an unoptimized PC in the game (plenty of valid for that), then yea, they should state as much and require characters fitting to that game. (claiming that all campaigns should be run that way is a different story however)

Regardless, your argument fails because the devs did not put all epic items on the same scale. The MotU items you are comparing to sharn were not updated to current expected values as of U50, nor do they ever intend to update them according to discord (I would post proof, but unfortunately, the channel it was posted in has been deleted). One of the main arguments against these item changes was that it would be a waste of time in the first place because the end result is intended to be unnoticeable.

The bold is explicitly not true. You can't and don't rescale things to be equal when they previously weren't without making the changes noticeable. The two concepts are inherently incompatible.

As for motu and sharn, I'm not interested in which content is legendary vs not, so I'm sorry if I got exact expensions wrong, it does not invalid the point I was makiing, just the example, go ahead and fill in with any two legendary content expansions you want.

Not only that, but the late epic content is actually comparatively harder (like I said in the first point) to pre-U50.

Honestly, not sure how this is a bad thing. The whole point of the multiple difficulties is that players can go with whichever difficulty is right for them. And supposedly the crazy optimizer players have been finding things too easy. If they are going to rescale, then it is purely beneficial to make the end result range from the current very easy up to something harder than previously so those high end players can have a bit of challenge again.

Frankly, with a rescale, players need to adjust their expectations. The idea that such a rescale will result in equal difficulty in all cases is obviously false since changing that is the whole point of the rescale in the first place. Besides, the expectation that such a massive overhaul will be perfect across the board is also ill-founded.

So now, even more dev time is required to put in balance changes which won't be seen for the foreseeable future.

Considering that most of the arguments here are along the lines of "it's not like it was before" when the explicit point to make things different from before, I doubt there are as many changes needed as you think.

Since this was a rescale, players need to rescale their expectations. For example, if you used to run R6, well maybe you will now need to run R5 to get a similar level of difficulty. And asking players to shift down to R5 from R6 is not a bad thing, rather it is a perfectly reasonable way of handling the rescale.

As a result, players are obviously and rightfully unhappy because their characters are no longer performing as well as before

This depends entirely on how well you measure. Each expansion had power bloat, and getting rid of that bloat is the whole point, so if you are measuring your performance by how much power bloat you have, then of course you will be performing less since removing that bloat was the whole point.

Seriously, I think people really need to stop comparing directly from pre to post, and instead focus on two things, mainly, the current play experience especially as it would be experienced by those who know nothing of pre U50, and secondly, comparison of pre to post in indirect non-numbers ways, such as whether you can complete endgame raids (not whether you can complete them at the same reaper lvl). Things like how hard monster A is relative to monster B on any given difficulty is the sort of thing that should remain unchanged, but comparing monster A pre-U50 to monster A post-U50 is not a valid comparison since that misses the point of the rescale.

and the gear they have put both time and money towards (expansion pack purchases, chest re-rolls, etc.) are no longer BiS.

This is what I figure is the biggest point of contention, but if the players would forget for a moment the numbers they previously had, and which difficulty they previously ran, and instead chose a new difficulty to run based on how it "feels" rather than by what the numbers are, they should find a good difficulty level and their gear will be fine.

The only aspect of this that has any legitimacy is that endgame gear from early compared to endgame gear of later expansions are now closer to equal, so if someone bought an item because it was better than other items, rather than because of it's impact on gameplay, then that might feel bad, but it is still a good thing, one of those good things that is a pain that is good, like ripping off a band-aid, it hurts but it is still a good thing. Where as previously, only the most recent expansion had top end gear, now most expansion's gear is top end, expanding the selection and possibilities for top end players to build with.

[DYWYPI]

Iron Fire Bomber, appears within the House Cannith quest: Blown to Bits.

It was one of the cannith quests, the one where you blow up all the big crates.
[...]
The raid was the one where you have some see through wall down the middle of the hallway and you have to hit several targets at the same time on either side of the wall in order to open the doors. ...

Wild guess, you might have been describing the House Kundarak raid: Vault of Night. The northern trapped wing, but since no traps were mentioned it's a little too hard to say for certain.