Thoughts on difficulty problems

[TheAlicornSage]

I think there are three major problems with difficulty scaling. I'll discuss them first and then propose possible solutions near the end.

1) the number scale
2) lack of lesser monsters
3) encounter structure

1) The number scale. There are two aspect to scaling numbers, the first is numbers relative from one level to the next, and the second is the range of numbers from the minimum reasonably expected number to the maximum reasonably expected number.

Now, in the ttrpg, there was already a problem with the range from minimum to maximum values growing too large at high levels. I suspect this is even worse in DDO especially given all the new ways to add more modifiers, which makes the range from someone who has put moderate resources into a value vs those who have skyrocketed those values is large. You have enhancement bonuses to weapons and abilities which add more bonuses, then you have insight and exceptional bonuses, defense mitigation, and a slew of others. The range between casual and hardcore and "I-have-no-life-outside-the-game" players is so drastic that making content to challenge one is either too easy or impossible for the others, just numerically.

Even something like invisibility becomes meaningless very quickly.

Of course, in other cases the problem is reversed. There is a quest in the harbor in which one has to get past kobolds without killing the priests. I tried using a sleep spell. Even though I was so far above them in level that I didn't get xp for the quest, my sleep spell affected like one kobold in the entire quest. I had great int bonus and everything, yet it basically made the tactic, and the spell, pointless.

There are several cases where moderate ability in something becomes pointless because the stats on enemies are so high to deal with players that stack as many bonuses as possible, and thus leave anyone else falling back on pure dmg to overcome enemies. Heck, I win with battlefield tactics which still boil down to applying dmg because no cc effects ever work.

For the longest time I thought this was just because I was always facing opponents 4-6 levels above mine, but now that I'm at higher levels where the difference between lvls is so vast that fighting 1-2 levels above my level has become very difficult, I still don't land anything. Then I went around doing some odd low level quests I hadn't done before mostly for story, only to find that even being massively overleveled wasn't enough to do much other than win through DPS.

2) No lesser monsters. Frankly, the lower level spells become nearly useless at high levels. Largely because there is no one to use them on. The lesser encounters are often at least on par with player level so none are low enough to fall for lesser spell effects, making them pointless.

3) Encounter structures. Encounters seem to be built around dps. There is little organization, and little variety in tactics. The kobold assault quest in the harbor is the only one I know of that tries to overwhelm with numbers, except even that is hindered by breaking the numbers up into much smaller groups losing any advantage that greater numbers provide. There are no formations, little in the way of enemies providing support, and enemies are always stupid. I mean I know that making AI smarter is difficult, though the AI can easily be improved even if running on decision trees and aggro, but aside from that, the design of encounter groups is not very good. The use of terrain is not good.

4) The lack of feeling powerful. In the ttrpg, lvl 5 was the most powerful any real world person could ever expect to be, and lvl 15-20 is like Superman from the comicbooks. While DDO might not follow the exact same numerical expectations, there is a problem when being a lvl 20 feels very much the same as level 5. Always facing enemies of about equal power and the impact on the environment is always the same, so I never feel like a powerful character because big numbers alone will never make me feel powerful, I need to see it in the results of those numbers. Taking out a monster in one hit that used to be a boss that I couldn't solo would be a good example, except such a thing almost never happens.

Fixes.
First, the number squash that happened recently, I think the idea was good, but too limited. Why was it only legendary? I think the whole graph of number ranges needs to be shrunk and smoothed. Have a measure of the different types of bonuses that can apply to any one thing and set absolute limits for the different categories and make a smooth and slow transition from level 1 to level 30, such that A) the difference from level 2 to 3 is nearly the same as from 27 to 28, and B) such that the minimum that can be reasonably expected and the maximum that can be reasonably expected is around a difference of 20, or at most 30, and C) that going beyond that reasonable maximum, if possible at all, requires hefty drawbacks to other equally important stats, like giving a +2 attack beyond that max requires a -4 or even -6 to AC. Making it something that really only works in group with people using tight-knit teamwork.

Spell DCs range from X to X+9, so this leaves room for up to +10 DC from other sources. Of course, the ttrpg range of ability scores, from 3-20 gives up to +5, of course adding so much to ability scores raises that a lot.

These numbers also need to be linearly different rather than proportional, since proportionally different values will only diverge more and more.

So for example, high, medium, and low bab can be lvl, lvl -2, and lvl-4 respectively, making the difference the same from level 1 to 30. Then at certain points we can expect new types of bonuses to make a difference to counteract the aspect of a difference of 4 meaning less relative to the total attack bonus at higher levels.

Thus, you might say that when it comes to numbers, you have the core stat (bab, skill ranks, etc) which scales by level, then ability score bonuses ranging from -2 to +10, enhancement and insight each range from +1 to +6, and all other bonuses cap out at +4 and never stack more than two of them for +8 from these other bonuses. This means that at max lvl with every last bonus achievable, there is only +30 over the base stat. From this core, special bonuses such as from the DDO store items giving up to +2 or even +4 won't be much of a problem and can still be sold, but also makes it much easier to keep the numbers from growing so far out of control that optimization is required to achieve anything.

So then the question comes to advancement, if you only gain up to +30 from all bonuses over the course of a life, that is roughly +1 per lvl, which many might say is rather lackluster. Well, indirect growth can help here. For example, instead of bonuses directly improving ability scores, make it so that any bonuses to ability scores are like additional ability score points like those spent at chargen, thus more and more points are needed for each +1 growth of the ability score. Doing that means that even a player starting with a score of 20 needs an extra +80 points to reach an ability score of 30. That is plenty of space to add all kinds of bonuses to ability scores while making sure that the actual effect of those bonuses on combat are useful yet not overwhelming.

The misc bonuses that only stack a max of two is a chance for making builds a creative endeavor that still seeks plenty of loot. For example, if a good alchemical bonus is found, then maybe that only stacks with divine bonus, leading the player to seek out a good divine bonus so that it will stack with their alchemical bonus. Plenty of loot options and variety of builds without bonkers crazy number growth.

However, the biggest key here is A) making things other than numbers be very important, and B) making the important numbers not simultaneously improved. This means that environmental effects and positioning as important factors needs to be made stronger, as well as battlefield tactics. And AC and attack should be improved separately, not just by requiring separate stats to improve, but by having an item that improves one, not improve the other, nor provide two bonuses to the same thing. Equipping multiple items should be a bit like a puzzle which makes it impossible to add all the bonuses one wants.

As for monsters and combat. I expect these to be decision trees, though obviously I'm not certain. But if that's true, there is a lot that can be done to improve them. But even if not, the encounters can be improved by the design of the encounter groups. Firstly, including more lower level monsters in large groups as lvl goes up increases the feeling of being powerful while still adding challenge. Imagine the kobold assault for epic lvl 20 where the leader is a lvl 20 trog while the chieftain is a lvl 18 with 6-8 lvl 15s elites and the rest of the 200 kobolds are lvl 1-10. Now have them attack 20-40 at a time with multiple units, where you have a squad of shield tanks getting close, and a squad of spearmen behind them followed by a squad of fire throwers with a few healers scattered in there. That would be challenging, especially with a few sorcerers to dispel cloud and AoEs. These kobolds wouldn't be individually challenging at all, but in a massive group with this kind of group design, and they'd be a problem. And this is just an off-the-top of my head build. Spend a little bit of time and this can be made even more difficult without increasing stats at all. And the neat aspect is that players can still feel powerful because they will obviously be far better than the individual kobolds, with them falling after 1-3 hits.

And dmg needs this numerical treatment as well. Especially on spells. Part of the problem here is the idea of raising difficulty simply by increasing HP. Terrible idea. I play SAOIF and solo guild raid bosses by spending 20-30 minutes chipping away at HP. Not challenging. The same applies here, simply raising HP does not make a battle more challenging. Certainly enough HP is needed to not die without taking any actions, but beyond that, simply raising HP is the wrong move. I hate those fights the most, the ones where the enemy has literally tens of thousands of HP against my 400. If they need that much HP just to challenge me, especially someone like me that doesn't do any optimization nor has many bonuses, and my defense rating at lvl is sitting as 37-43%, and those high HP guys still lose, that is a sign of bad design, too much focus on the dmg vs hp aspect and not enough on tactics, cc, type strengths/weaknesses, etc.

Personally, I think the entire reason the numbers got out of control in the first place with the numbers getting bigger every expansion is that the design hasn't been looked at as anything other growing numbers.

What is needed for this is A) increased tactical differentiation and B) more scope for versatility. Make it so a lot of advancement is about gaining versatility rather than numbers, and make that versatility useful.

Well, I;m out of time. Hopefully this sparks some thought and productive discussion.

[DYWYPI]

Regarding Stealthy Repossession, the Kobold Prophets have reasonable Will saves whereas "A blind Kobold Prophet will not thank you for a looking-glass." >;-)

[Aelonwy]

Well, I;m out of time. Hopefully this sparks some thought and productive discussion.

I'll be honest my eyes glazed over about 2/3 of the way through that and I'm not sure how much information I absorbed after that point.

2 things my brain caught on to and agree with are "too much stacking" and "no lesser monsters?"

I've said it myself, multiple times, there are just way too many stackable bonus types in this game we have competence, insightful, exceptional, sacred, profane, luck and/or morale, alchemical, quality, primal?, and I'm sure I'm forgetting at least half a dozen. What the heck were they thinking with all this^? Of course power gamers are going to try to stack every single one they add, and we're going to have issues staying on the D20.

Lesser monsters. I don't know why they do it but there is absolutely no reason that every monster needs to be the CR of the quest. I would like to see less "epic" rats and vermin in general. I know this isn't PnP but at the same time in PnP if an animal or vermin is powerful enough to be "epic" its no longer a natural animal but a magical beast. I would like to see things like rats and vermin in particular be lesser monsters in quests and only orange-named creatures of those types be quest appropriate CR. I don't know why we don't see things like tiny normal harmless spiders mixed in with some larger magical beast variety lorded over by a truly dangerous queen instead of the whole group being essentially an equal nest of inexplicably epic monsters. I envision some Eberron god dipping all the animals and vermin in toxic waste/arcane oozes mixed in with mysterious remnants to make all these ridiculously supped-up critters for giggles.

I actually like the rats running away from me in Friends in Low Places... that is how it should be, lesser creatures should run and be nothing to us and by definition rats and vermin are lesser creatures.

[TheAlicornSage]

...
Lesser monsters. I don't know why they do it but there is absolutely no reason that every monster needs to be the CR of the quest. ...

Interestingly, 3e was designed against this, but the early modules got a ton of negative feedback specifically about not having every encounter approximately equal to level. It baffles the mind, it really does. It led to wotc no longer publishing modules that followed the book in terms of encounter difficulty ranges. But that has made things worse in my opinion. People often ask for things that actually make things worse. There was even one time in which a company had the employees get angry at management for not giving a bonus that were not required to give (and had previously done so purely out of generosity) citing that the company's finances couldn't handle it and the company would collapse. Well the employees took them to court, and got their bonus along with a pink slip. The company collapsed as predicted. How do you think the employees felt then about getting their bonus?

Same applies here, it is better for the game to have a range of difficulties in encounters. Not sure if there would still be such an outcry against it, but it'd be better anyway.

====================================

As I thought of in another thread, I think the devs need to step and redo all the math from top to bottom. They could do what Final fantasy did and make a massive plotline about it leading up to the final change.

If anyone wants a write up on how it might be done, I'd be happy to do so, but it'll take a while as I'm working 14-16 hours a day at the moment with only a little bit of time for anything else.

Some key pointers though would be to make advancement double layered, so players can gain an exponential number of points to advance each +1 of particular stats. In my system, it takes over 1000 character levels to get +20 BAB for example. Of course, I really went into how 3e lvl 5 is the max of real world humans, so I wanted to stick with that but have more advancement without leaving the realm of real world power limits. Of course, in 3e, level 50 is for creatures that kill gods. In my system, CL 3 is lvl 19, CL 6 lvl 91, CL 10 is lvl 271, and CL 30 is lvl 2611 and is considered a minor deity, with the major gods being CL 50 at lvl 7351. And even at that lvl they wouldn't have ability scores over 50, if they balanced their scores anyway, but even if they put all points into a single ability score, such a major god still wouldn't get higher than 120 in that single ability score, something that is very possible to beat in the current DDO system.

I fully believe that an MMO like DDO needs advancement to focus on expanding versatility rather than numbers and making that versatility matter. Never ever should someone choose an item based entirely on that item's bonus.

[Monkey_Archer]

1) The number scale. There are two aspect to scaling numbers, the first is numbers relative from one level to the next, and the second is the range of numbers from the minimum reasonably expected number to the maximum reasonably expected number.

Now, in the ttrpg, there was already a problem with the range from minimum to maximum values growing too large at high levels. I suspect this is even worse in DDO especially given all the new ways to add more modifiers, which makes the range from someone who has put moderate resources into a value vs those who have skyrocketed those values is large.

...

Spell DCs range from X to X+9, so this leaves room for up to +10 DC from other sources.

This general point about the DC system has been brought up many times on the forums, including by myself. It generally gets ignored by the devs (either they don't understand the problem or don't care about build diversity, alts or newer players), and the forum player response is typically along the lines of "Git good scrub, my triple completionist, 100+ RP magister alchemist can land spells, your doing it wrong, etc..."

X to X+9 is realistically all that the D20 system can handle (since you probably shouldn't waste your time casting a spell that fails more than half the time). Unfortunately DDO in its current implementation is roughly X-40 to X-20 from gear, X-20 to X-10 from past life/grind and X-10 to x+9 from min-max build specialization. ie. be a triple completionist one-trick meta build or don't bother... perhaps you can get away with one or 2 less than min-max choices for flavor.

Meanwhile top dps builds can tank and dps down entire packs of r10 mobs in seconds, but a first life cleric not getting one-shot or having a 50/50 chance of landing a destruction every 8 seconds would be overpowered apparently

While your point about shrinking the number ranges to appropriate values for the D20 system would work in theory, it wont ever happen in DDO because too much of those numbers are derived from earned past lives, reaper points and build specialization. Good luck convincing the devs (or the player base for that matter) to remove past lives or reaper points from the game and reworking all the feats/enhancements that give dc bonuses. Not going to happen. (nor should it). The only viable change to fix the problem is the D20 system itself. We currently have around a 50 DC spread between basic investment first life characters to last life everything invested specialists. So the current DDO climate should be using a D100 system, or ac-style curve. The AC system was already reworked due to this and the PRR/MRR system was introduced for similar reasons.

[TheAlicornSage]

Like I said, a total rework.

Now, your point about existing bonuses and reaper points and stuff, that's where my idea about indirect bonuses comes in. For each of those major stats, instead of getting a +X to the roll or check, you get +X to the stat which needs a logrithmic amount of points for each +1 to the check. This would allow top tier players to have 50-100 more points than a first lifer, and yet still only get a +5 or so to the check from those points. Useful, especially for those folks who want to get ebety last point they can, yet not so crazy as to put top tier players and first lifers on completely different scales of power.

Add in my reaper difficulty changes and get something manageable for the long haul.