U56 Preview 1: Archetype Overview

[nobodynobody1426]

You are creating new trees, which are essentially prestige classes from PnP, to give us different, but not more, options to spend enhancements on. Since you are removing trees and replacing them with the Archtype tree.

I guess my main question is if you have time to create new trees for these Archtypes, why don't you have time to fix broken trees that already exist?

Yes I know it was mentioned that U56 will also include a revamped Divine Disciple but holy cow are there others that need to be looked at. I mean we have been waiting for Archmage for several years now.

I will never understand the need to constantly introduce new stuff when the current stuff already needs work. There are so many things that need fixing in this game yet you keep adding to the heap. U56 is going to launch and there will be dozens of bugs that will take the next 3 months to fix which will push any fixing of existing stuff down the road.

I feel you would get a better response from your players if you just fixed what was bad already instead of introducing things like this.

The decisions made by your staff baffles me to no end.

This is how they will "fix" the last terrible Heroic tree's. Instead of going back and fixing them, they'll just release "new" versions with different names.

I get it, just seems like something you'd do after the final few heroic tree's are done with.

[Lynnabel]

This is how they will "fix" the last terrible Heroic tree's. Instead of going back and fixing them, they'll just release "new" versions with different names.

I get it, just seems like something you'd do after the final few heroic tree's are done with.

We are actually doing the literal opposite of this that's why we revamped Divine Disciple - to go along with Dark Apostate.

[nobodynobody1426]

We are actually doing the literal opposite of this that's why we revamped Divine Disciple - to go along with Dark Apostate.

It made it sound like the tree changes were part of the alternate Dark Apostate.

Plus the nerfs to alignment spells greatly diminish changes to DD. They were the only good "light" nukes as Sunburst had terrible damage dice for it's level and Divine Wrath is more a heal that also deals moderate damage for it's level, plus 20s cooldown.

Actually ... just got done reviewing and .. you nerfed Divine Disciple... that's an accomplishment all on it's own.

Like not sure you guys realize it yet, this version is actually a step down from the previous one. Fire spell are the stronger DPS option for both Cleric and Favored Soul, by completely removing support from Divine Disciple you reduced it's strongest option. The second strongest option was the Alignment spells, but you guys nerfed those into oblivion as well. This leaves cleric ... Sunburst a laughably weak DPS option at 1D6+4 per caster level, and Divine Wrath.

You couldn't even be bothered to add in the standard third +CL/MCL everyone else gets.

At this point just dump DPS cleric entirely and relegate it to healing and necro builds only.

[Madja]

This honest sounds super exciting! I love stuff that enables more niche builds and the amount of freedom this gives you in designing them fills me with hope!

On a related note: With yet another form of reincarnation being added is there any chance that there will be some work done on the reincarnation process to make it smoother? Now that you're tackling the bank that might be another worthwhile quality of life feature!
I'm thinking features like remembering your build, not resetting your UI, quick-fill of skill points etc.

[nobodynobody1426]

This honest sounds super exciting! I love stuff that enables more niche builds and the amount of freedom this gives you in designing them fills me with hope!

On a related note: With yet another form of reincarnation being added is there any chance that there will be some work done on the reincarnation process to make it smoother? Now that you're tackling the bank that might be another worthwhile quality of life feature!
I'm thinking features like remembering your build, not resetting your UI, quick-fill of skill points etc.

You realize it's the exact opposite of that right. It's a pretty severe nerf to Light path DD, making necro cleric the only decent caster cleric build. Death domain necro cleric, aka DC caster cleric, was already the stronger built option and this update just killed any viable alternative.

[SpardaX]

so this isn't the obvious question but lets say i already have 3 lives of paladin, will that prevent me from getting 3 lives of the new paladin arch-type?

If I'm reading this right, no it won't. If I'm reading this right, it'll go:

Paladin Past lives: 3/3
Sacred Fist Past lives: 0/3

Completionist requirement: [Paladin Past life OR Sacred Fist Past life]

Or to put it another way if that's still unclear:
Sacred Fist will have it's own set of 3 past lives, but Completionist only requires 1 of either to qualify you as having completed "1 Paladin Past life".

So effectively I guess it's like saying that now Paladin has 6 past life stacks. 3 that do one thing, and 3 that do a different thing, but you still only need 1 total life to qualify for Completionist.

If I'm reading this right.

[Sowahh]

We are actually doing the literal opposite of this that's why we revamped Divine Disciple - to go along with Dark Apostate.

DD feels like it got slightly nerfed actually. Plus, there are trees that were promised to receive more love in the past (archmage for example) that are not being touched. It feels like adding more trees instead of balancing existing ones is an odd move, as it makes balancing of trees even harder due to multiple new interactions.

[SpardaX]

Tiny but relatively funny bug Im sure is already known and will be fixed

The Charisma to AC works, but in the AC drop down is still listed as a "Wisdom" bonus to AC.

[santiago66]

I'm not sure why Archetypes, which lock you into a fixed enhancement tree for that class, are preferred to simply introducing some new class-based enhancement trees so that players can create their own combinations. What's the thinking on that?

[Pandjed]

I'm not sure why Archetypes, which lock you into a fixed enhancement tree for that class, are preferred to simply introducing some new class-based enhancement trees so that players can create their own combinations. What's the thinking on that?

Easy question, many possible answers that probably overlay each other.


1.) Business-POV. DDO is a business, even though I'm positive that the devs love the game. Still, that alone doesn't pay bills, so each decision needs to be looked upon on the business POV, and while investments (free stuff) are important, there can't be only that. As Cordovan said in the producer letter thread "These archetypes are free", means that there will also be ones that can only be accessed via VIP or DDO-points, which will curb the sales somewhat, while they also got the option to add archetypes instead of trees or even races in expansions.
Aside from that, it also helps with the problem of finite grind by introducing new PLs. That these aren't needed for completionist is certainly a good move, which will not only grant some player good-will, but also makes introducing more archetypes much less of a hurdle (other than races and racial completionist).

2.) Structure-POV. This was mentioned in the producer letter, but archetypes do help with structuring the dev cycle. DDO is a huge game, with a myriads of construction sites, and it's hard to fit in gameplay changes in a business-oriented development cycle. There is no money in overhauling enhancement trees, so they had to be pushed aside whenever needed, therefore we only got changes whenever there was some dev time left and it happened to be finished.
With archetypes there is a business benefit in overhauling classes and class trees. Why? Because you want to sell the product, so polishing everything around it makes sense, and the best part is: It also helps all of the other players. Heroic completionist as an auto-feat? This might have been a huge undertaking, which had to be pushed back a few times, but now with the archetype launch, there was reason to revisit Heroic Completionist and therefore the auto-grant was now feasible to do.
Same for balance updates, which hit Divine Disciple badly, and Angel of Vengeance (since it's close to DD) at the same time. These changes weren't made by a dime, they were planned for a longish time and never had a chance to be implemented before.

3.) Creative-POV. For the creative process, design space is important. If the business says you need to get some more options for the players, you take a good look at what you have and where you can open up these options. Archetypes fill a niche, which iconics didn't really do, as iconics needs a race and mostly only alters the racial tree (there is the bladeforged, which adds to the paladin tree by including repair spells, but after that iconics became slightly fancy races with exception of the SDK, who is an actually fancy race).
Would it make sense to add the new trees as trees for the class itself and let players decide? Sure. Would doing that open up the class features? No, unless everything becomes multiselector base, which can be problematic in several ways. Would barring future enhancement trees for specific classes behind a paywall provoke the player's wrath, sealing off this approach altogether? Absolutely.
Archetypes provide the chance to make new classes without actually do new classes. DDO with a hundred classes that play almost the same wouldn't be fun, so just lending the chassis of an existing class doesn't only make building it less time-consuming, but also doesn't bloat any player expectations. Your caster bard won't play different from a stormsinger bard, except that the stormsinger bard does that better without much change to its core bard class fea--- oh.

[LightBear]

Past Lives and Completionist

Archetypes have their own past lives that fit in with the current Heroic Past Life system. If your majority class is an Archetype, you will earn that Archetype's past life.

An Archetype's past life counts as a prerequisite for the Heroic Active past life feats. Furthermore, an Archetype's past life feat will qualify someone for Heroic Completionist, assuming they haven't earned it already. If you have 1 copy of all heroic class past lives done on a character except for Cleric, for example, you'd be able to qualify for the Cleric portion with either base Cleric or with Dark Apostate. This means that as we release new Archetypees, Heroic Completionist won't be removed from players that have already earned it, and new options will open up for players still on that journey. Finally, with this release, Heroic Completionist will become automatically granted to characters that qualify.

In summary, Heroic Completionist will become: You win DDO! You gain +2 stats and +2 skills. This feat is automatically obtained at level 3 for all characters that have completed at least one class or archetype past life for each of the available classes in the game.

Thank you so much for this.
Would have loved to see a new reincarnation system as a whole but this is the best next thing and I can see a boon for both new players and vets this way.
Best news yet is that the heroic completionist now is auto granted at level 3 and only needs one copy of each.

Am I correct that this feat is now named "You Win DDO!" ?

And maybe even more important, does this mean we (those we have spend a feat for it at level 3 right now) have a free feat swap at Fred?
Not that it really matters all that much as I am going to TR into my Iconic cat now and get a triple of past lives this way.


Again, thank you so much for this.

[hit_fido]

DD feels like it got slightly nerfed actually.

Losing searing light, holy smite and flame strike sla is way more than a slight nerf. It's totally destroying the point of the tree, which was a choice of light-based offensive spell casting or negative based spell casting. Coupled with significant loss of in-tree spell power.

Speaking of losing spell power, how in the hell is soundburst connected in any way to the idea of a divine **LIGHT** path cleric? I'm sorry, I see a lot of good quality of life tweaks like free completionist feats and character banks but once again all the good steps forward are crippled by inexplicably bad design choices like this. There's no sonic spell power in this tree. How can you justify removing holy smite and adding soundburst?

Shield of Dusk and Dawn, a damage-guard effect? C'mon, why in the hell would you add any garbage guard effects in the first place, let alone to a non-defense oriented tree? That's just bad design.

I'm sorry, no, these changes to DD are absolute trash. I think most players are going to be upset when you so clearly nerf and destroy aspects of characters like this but will at least give you some credit if you just come out with honesty and say yeah the goal here was drastically reducing offensive casting power for the cleric tree dedicated to offensive casting, we just think it was too powerful and this is how we decided to reduce it. But instead we get gobbledygook about trying to "shore up other parts of the class" and being "thematically appropriate" and these change, I'm sorry, I really like you folks at SSG for doing what you do and keeping this game alive, but this is absolute trash, it doesn't shore anything up and it's thematically schizo.

[Kza]

We are actually doing the literal opposite of this that's why we revamped Divine Disciple - to go along with Dark Apostate.

Keep up, super excited!

[droid327]

We are actually doing the literal opposite of this that's why we revamped Divine Disciple - to go along with Dark Apostate.

Revamp....yeahhhh as others have pointed out, this is a significant nerf to the current state of Cleric casters. I was excited for Apostate at first, giving Clerics a pseudo-EK/PM option, a hybrid melee/caster...but Light & Alignment casting is so gutted now, between the loss of efficacy in DD and Holy Smite no longer being a relevant spell past mid Heroic (even if it was unarguably overtuned for its level). That was pretty much all that was propping it up over all the other flaws in the build...

Apostate is like a really really bad version of EK/PM now. No auto-heal like Death Aura. Lower imbue damage than Spellsword. Far worse spell selection, particularly in late Heroic and beyond. And a mere 1d6 damage on their quasi-SLAs...it just feels like you didnt learn your lesson with FI Shadowblades, where 1d6+2 per clvl just isnt enough to make it worth using, and this is like 40% less.

There's just nothing there that makes me want to play the archetype. Its just too weak in every aspect.

Light path needs better SLAs. Toss Holy Smite back in there, now that its back to being level-appropriate. Divine Wrath is OK, but that's T5, and the fact that a L9 spell is available at L12 as an SLA is just highlighting how undertuned L&A casting is in the Cleric spellbook right now. Change Sunburst to appropriate damage die for a L8 spell. Change Divine Wrath to appropriate damage die for a L9 spell with a 20s CD. Maybe add in a frontal cone AOE L&A spell at L6 with appropriate die, and make that the T5 SLA. Have T5 Apostate change the Bane/Bless/Prayer damage rider to 1d6+6. I think that'd smooth out the progression and make Apostate a complete build.

[Sowahh]

Losing searing light, holy smite and flame strike sla is way more than a slight nerf. It's totally destroying the point of the tree, which was a choice of light-based offensive spell casting or negative based spell casting. Coupled with significant loss of in-tree spell power.

Speaking of losing spell power, how in the hell is soundburst connected in any way to the idea of a divine **LIGHT** path cleric? I'm sorry, I see a lot of good quality of life tweaks like free completionist feats and character banks but once again all the good steps forward are crippled by inexplicably bad design choices like this. There's no sonic spell power in this tree. How can you justify removing holy smite and adding soundburst?

Shield of Dusk and Dawn, a damage-guard effect? C'mon, why in the hell would you add any garbage guard effects in the first place, let alone to a non-defense oriented tree? That's just bad design.

I'm sorry, no, these changes to DD are absolute trash. I think most players are going to be upset when you so clearly nerf and destroy aspects of characters like this but will at least give you some credit if you just come out with honesty and say yeah the goal here was drastically reducing offensive casting power for the cleric tree dedicated to offensive casting, we just think it was too powerful and this is how we decided to reduce it. But instead we get gobbledygook about trying to "shore up other parts of the class" and being "thematically appropriate" and these change, I'm sorry, I really like you folks at SSG for doing what you do and keeping this game alive, but this is absolute trash, it doesn't shore anything up and it's thematically schizo.

My math might be off, but at a quick glance:

Previosly you had:
Light: 5 (core 1) + 5 (core 6) + 15 (T1) + 15(T3) + 15 (T5) = 55.
Universal: 9 (T2) + 9 (t4) = 18.

Now you have:
Light: 30 (core 1-6) + 10 (core 6) + 30 (T2, if you keep stacks up) + 5 (T3) = 75.
Universal: 0.

So overall, it might come up ahead in terms of SP.

The new tree also opens up chance for higher crit chance (2% from T5), 5% crit damage and possibly higher DCs (you don't trade SP vs DC in multiselectors, +2 wis and +1 evo DC in capstone).
Haven't done the math, but keeping the SP in cores also might open up APs for other stuff.
The loss of 1 CL / MCL from T5 hurts.

The lowered damage on Holy Smite hurts a lot, but I'd take that outside of the changes to the tree itself since it affects fvs as well.

I totally agree about dubious changes to the selection of SLAs though, and the terribad "Shield of Dusk and Dawn".

[Lynnabel]

I'm not sure why Archetypes, which lock you into a fixed enhancement tree for that class, are preferred to simply introducing some new class-based enhancement trees so that players can create their own combinations. What's the thinking on that?

Because an archetype is more than that! For example, Sacred Fist has the Ki System that scales with a different stat - something we can't really do without changing core class features. Its baked into the Sacred Fist archetype itself. Plus, changing spellbooks is another large chunk of what makes a class a class - we couldn't do the Inflict swap without making Dark Apostate its own Archetype.

[nobodynobody1426]

My math might be off, but at a quick glance:

Previosly you had:
Light: 5 (core 1) + 5 (core 6) + 15 (T1) + 15(T3) + 15 (T5) = 55.
Universal: 9 (T2) + 9 (t4) = 18.

Now you have:
Light: 30 (core 1-6) + 10 (core 6) + 30 (T2, if you keep stacks up) + 5 (T3) = 75.
Universal: 0.

So overall, it might come up ahead in terms of SP.

The new tree also opens up chance for higher crit chance (2% from T5), 5% crit damage and possibly higher DCs (you don't trade SP vs DC in multiselectors, +2 wis and +1 evo DC in capstone).
Haven't done the math, but keeping the SP in cores also might open up APs for other stuff.
The loss of 1 CL / MCL from T5 hurts.

The lowered damage on Holy Smite hurts a lot, but I'd take that outside of the changes to the tree itself since it affects fvs as well.

I totally agree about dubious changes to the selection of SLAs though, and the terribad "Shield of Dusk and Dawn".

The biggest pain isn't in light, though there is only one decent light damage spell now and it has a 20s cool down, it's in losing casting support for fire spells.

Cleric / FvS live and die by their fire spells, Flame Strike, Firestorm and Celestial Bombardment. Previous tree had support for +CL/MCL, +Spellpower, +Spell Crit and SLA's for those, now it has absolutely nothing. Furthermore it's not even a good light tree as it lost Searing Light and Holy Smite while gaining a small amount of spell power.

I can't imagine Lich doing this on purpose, it must be an oversight.

[Lynnabel]

Howdy all, happy Wednesday, its time for a quick Bugfix Roundup!

Note that nothing here is meant to be an adjustment design - that part comes later - this is all just bugs getting squished.

Bugs fixed so far (and therefore do not need to be reported):

• dojo telepad no longer takes you to the dread dojo
• artificer past life now correctly works for completionist flagging (this means that next lam completionist auto-grant will work correctly)
• leveling up as a different class after taking 1 level in an archetype no longer completely breaks everything (aka you'll lose your spellbook or gain extra spellbooks)

If you see a bug that's not on this list, let me know! Happy testing

[Havocthedemon]

Ok I have to say this is pretty awesome. I was getting pretty tired of basically being shoe horned into Sorc/Fvs/Druid/Alch for endgame. Not saying these options will be better but man do I love the design space that keeps coming here. I still wish the gap between melee and casters/ranged weren’t so blatantly and painfully obvious but at least we get new toys. A+ for thematic archetypes

[blarhblarhblarh]

Hard to understand the place that DDO staff is trying to take the game.

DDO is already a complex game for beginners and I don´t see it getting better or friendlier for steam deck or other new win 11 devices. Since I am over 40 my eyes are tired and really could use some UI scaling.

I tought they would put all efforts on the legendary levels to implement it as fast as they could be forgetting about all the rest of the game but they are adding more heroic content. Not sure how I feel about it. I like what they are doing but I dislike that they are not fixing good content / trees that they already have but are outdated or born outdated. If the solution to a problem creates two or more bigger problem them stick with the original problem. In time it will make the classes outside of the new content useless and outdated.

I still would rather have more Epic Destinies to grind and have the cap at 30. So far the update 50/51 changed the numbers but didn´t changed the game. And limited more our builds without the twists of fate.

So I have one question. A simple one. Why they changed the silver longbow, an item as old as DDO if it is not gamebreaking? just to **** off players? all the promises of update 50 and 51 are still not implemented, feywild still have map problems, saltmarsh quests can be unfinishable because of bug and in The Stone Crypt Chronicle I have less than 20 fps in the outside areas. A simple yes/no question for not redoing all the heroic levels when epic reincarnating would save hours of boring chores for all players.

Will these issues be dealt with? to me the QOL changes is all that matters for DDO surviving in the long run. Otherwise it will be unplayable by old fans and gated for the new generation.