U56 Preview 3 Release Notes

[Kielbasa]

This is what the sonic blast change should be:

for Sorcs, Wizards and Bards:
Level 1 the addition of
Sonic Bolt Evocation
(Sonic) Fires a small sonic orb at a target, doing 1d6+2 sonic damage per caster level (max 10d6+20 at caster level 10). This spell shares a cooldown with Freezing Bolt, Shocking Bolt, acid bolt, and Flaming Bolt.

Level 3 the addition of
Sonic Blast Evocation
(Sonic) Blasts with an explosion of loud high-pitched sound, dealing 1d6+3 sonic damage per caster level, (Maximum damage 10d6+30), in a 20 feet radius. The targets must make a successful Will save or be Dazed.

(keep its existing cooldown to recast).

Yes please this is a good compromise to keep base bard from getting thrown into the dumpster.

Might want to swap the slas in spellsinger around as well. t1 Sonic bolt sla, t2 shout sla, t3 sonic blast sla remove reverberate as it is mostly useless.

[Havocthedemon]

Trance isnt optional at endgame- the lack of trance means you have the ridiculous situation where endgame Sorc EK builds taking the harper agent trance. The same will happen with Sacred fist or they will be splashed with fvs as the current capstone is weak

Divine Might is so iconic to the DDO Paladin I would include it over the Char to hit and Damage

100% this. It’s actually impossible to hit the required combat tactics DCs in legendary content without the insightful boost to tactics that a trance provides (as well as PDK racial tree). Without any CC the content is just not possible to run as a melee toon. I don’t care if “you don’t like it” then change the game so we wouldn’t need it. You designed the game. W T F logic is that


EDIT: I know it’s not you, this is just in reponse to what the other guy posted.

“That was in a Strimtom stream: Lynn doesnt like the 4E style Everything can be shifted to a single primary stat and by extension the trances.”

[anatomyofaghost]

I wanted to be excited about a lot of the QoL changes (the storage changes and auto-grant Completionist are amazing and long, long overdue. A huge & well-deserved kudos on those!) but... these nerfs you are sneaking in are off the rails.

There is a pernicious & severe lack of communication for what amounts to devastating & illogical changes to quests, skills, spells, items, builds and playstyles etc that have been around for years. YEARS. And worst of all seldom even a line or two if that as to why you're going full nuclear on stuff people barely care about while leaving broken quests, enhancements etc untouched. Also... for years. Quite frankly I don't understand how some of these things even register on your radar as being worthy of your time. I can only speak for myself here but they certainly haven't been of any significant concern to me.

Max BAB nerf; Sonic Blast changes that completely cripple heroic caster bards; FvS orbital strike; incoming dodge nerfs for melee.. why? Blanket nerfs out of nowhere with no clear end goal, no justification other than "it wasn't WAI" is neither helpful, kind or respectful to your players. I don't see any point in going into further detail beyond these because from experience I know that by the time changes make it to Lamma they tend to be mostly set in stone but if you are actually listening and taking some feed back... Scrap the whole balance changes and start over, devs. Please. Open a dialogue with players and ask us for a list of things we prioritize and want balanced before you go any further, or break this down into an actual bug + balance update and let it bake good & long before pulling the tray out.

Quite frankly the weird, unwarranted changes sneaking into the last few Lamma previews have made me very happy I waited on buying IoD and I am really struggling more and more to see myself making any more purchases if this trend continues.

PS: Having to do a plethora of awful ToEE elemental node quests instead of ONE just to flag for the end quest-- effectively quadrupling the time we spend in bad xp quests-- is horrifically misguided but seems to perfectly capture the corrupt a wish theme you've been on for the last few updates... Are we forgetting the point of games is to have fun? I think we need to step back here, this is not working.

[Paladin_of_Power]

After upsetting Wizards, Sorcs and Bards you have a chance now to make it up and get goodwill from another caster class by giving Warlocks their Eldritch dice back. And making Chain shape scale with 130% spellpower. Make all Eldritch shapes have a longer range and home in on targest. You know, like the bottle throwers.

[TitusOvid]

I am positively suprised about the amount of QoL changes. I hope the quality equals the quantity.

Cheers,
Titus.

[nobodynobody1426]

Guess they up and stopped all the Lamania dev feedback events and are just filtering posts they like from here?

[cmckronos]

Guess they up and stopped all the Lamania dev feedback events and are just filtering posts they like from here?

Yep, out and out deleted mine.

[Fisho]

I started playing DDO 10 years ago because I love D&D (DM in my town). I love DDO because there are so many builds, Im not a fast leveler nor a HC server player, I just enjoy the game and all its builds at my own rythm.
Im in my third sorcerer life trying Magus of the Eclipse (melee 2h sorcerer, fire sorc, ice sorc) and all I can say right now is that the Sonic Blast nerf makes me sad. I havent tried bard yet. guess I wont play it.
I've found plenty of bugs, bad tooltips and typos and those dont get fixed. Yet a really fun spell gets destroyed. Many people with more experience than mine have mentioned great solutions in posts above, I hope the devs read them and apply them.
This is my first post, a grain of sand to save Sonic Blast.

[catweasle]

If the Sonic Blast nerf goes through, it will be a game changer for me literally. That will be a sign to me to change games, cancel my VIP and move on. I've played a staff monk for the past year and spent hundreds of dollars on the game. I was about to try out Spellsinger soon, but doesn't seem much point if they remove the central attack feature of the build at low to mid level heroics.

[dogsoldier]

The sonic blast nerf kills Sonic bard altogether. They only get 4 total offensive spells, 3 of which have major targeting problems. They only get 3 SLAs, 2 of which have major targeting problems. Sonic blast allowed you to daze mobs to make the other spells and SLAs actually land. There are also the problems in epics from no longer having a useful Master of Music feat at level 24, and no longer getting useful upgrades from Fatesinger abilities.

u55 Bard is A Tier from 1-8, B Tier from 9-18, C Tier from 20-23, back to B Tier from 24-25, and C+/B- from 26-32.

u56 Bard is D- Tier from 1-11. C- from 12-18, back to D- Tier 20-32.

[dgtgtd]

Please do a fourth preview before you put this to live. Because this will be landing in the middle of a Hardcore season, it would be nice if you did one more preview to try and iron out as many bugs as possible. Since death by any reason, whether it is by game bug or not will never be reversed by a GM, it would be really horrible to die to any bugs that may be introduced from these changes. Pushing this out too fast just encourages the smart players to avoid the game for an entire week to wait for fixes to any bugs you might miss.

[Arkai]

Please, leave Sonic blast the way it is. Just create that Sonic bolt SLA as someone suggested, this change is really bad for the game.

[Lotoc]

Would it be possible to give an epic destiny some support for these imbue dice? (and maybe Law on Your Side dice too, law is kind of thematically divine)
I believe Lynnabel had said on a strimtom stream that if they were to get ED support it should be in a divine ED because they're for divine classes, personally I feel the best fit under those rules would be as a multiselector alternative to Bring Down Wrath but that may be a bit late when it comes to epic leveling and kinda hardlocks your primary ED choice when building a melee Apostate or a Sacred Fist.

As a side note, I imagine a lot of DA support is going to be in the yet unnamed 'Warlock' destiny with the corresponding filigree set "Keeper of the Curse", I hope we'll be hearing something of the corresponding Arcanomage, Serpent and Keeper of the Curse destinies by the end of the year.

[Karthunk]

Please do a fourth preview before you put this to live. Because this will be landing in the middle of a Hardcore season, it would be nice if you did one more preview to try and iron out as many bugs as possible. Since death by any reason, whether it is by game bug or not will never be reversed by a GM, it would be really horrible to die to any bugs that may be introduced from these changes. Pushing this out too fast just encourages the smart players to avoid the game for an entire week to wait for fixes to any bugs you might miss.

A 4th would be the absolute bare minimum.

[thegreatcthulhu]

I know I do not use the forums but I feel like I need to weigh in, especially since I am one of the people who do nothing BUT SOLO and I also stick to pretty much one class (Paladins). It's pretty frustrating to see all of these seemingly "we don't care about you, we're nerfing stuff" changes, especially since I have played this game on and off since 2012; its still one of my favorite games of all time. I was really happy to come back this year after a hiatus and see how much more solo friendly the game is, compared to how it was several years ago. Heck, if you look at my post history, one of the longest posts I made was a (mostly nonsensical/wordy) request to make the game more soloable. So you can imagine how happy I am with the game right now. But seeing this change to BAB and also the rumored dodge nerf for melee classes... my confidence in SSG/Turb is again being stretched to its limit.

I know I am sounding harsh and nasty here, but without more transparency and reasoning behind these changes, I can't say that I am fully confident that I will stick around. For example, if these changes are meant to be done with others (I.E. Is AC getting more love?) that make for a more enjoyable end-game experience, I will accept that, but you need to actually spell it out. At this point I am at best left guessing what your main objective is here, and I of course am free to assume the worst - deception, dishonesty, etc.

Suffice to say - I think everyone would at least like to see SSG at least ACKNOWLEDGE that this negative feedback is being heard. Customers do NOT like being kept in the dark about product changes that have no acceptable explanation or guidance.

[voxson5]

I know I do not use the forums but I feel like I need to weigh in, especially since I am one of the people who do nothing BUT SOLO and I also stick to pretty much one class (Paladins). It's pretty frustrating to see all of these seemingly "we don't care about you, we're nerfing stuff" changes, especially since I have played this game on and off since 2012; its still one of my favorite games of all time. I was really happy to come back this year after a hiatus and see how much more solo friendly the game is, compared to how it was several years ago. Heck, if you look at my post history, one of the longest posts I made was a (mostly nonsensical/wordy) request to make the game more soloable. So you can imagine how happy I am with the game right now. But seeing this change to BAB and also the rumored dodge nerf for melee classes... my confidence in SSG/Turb is again being stretched to its limit.

I know I am sounding harsh and nasty here, but without more transparency and reasoning behind these changes, I can't say that I am fully confident that I will stick around. For example, if these changes are meant to be done with others (I.E. Is AC getting more love?) that make for a more enjoyable end-game experience, I will accept that, but you need to actually spell it out. At this point I am at best left guessing what your main objective is here, and I of course am free to assume the worst - deception, dishonesty, etc.

Suffice to say - I think everyone would at least like to see SSG at least ACKNOWLEDGE that this negative feedback is being heard. Customers do NOT like being kept in the dark about product changes that have no acceptable explanation or guidance.

I think there must be a real problem with management/direction/process/professionalism in their workplace. We have one of the better communicators (Lynn) telling us that feedback needs to be only on "official" sites (one can only assume this forum, as he only ruled that discord was not appropriate), and then you have Steelstar in discord engaging in feedback from a smaller group of very vocal players. Then we have our community manager who mainly only seems to delete or modify forum posts that are negative, and so on.

It seems very strange to not have a community liaison role at SSG. Someone who can be the voice of the company, and someone who players know they can at least have accessible engagement. They don't even need to spill the beans, just be there to discuss things.

I'd do it! Just pay per hour and lets get this into a better place.

[Karthunk]

I think there must be a real problem with management/direction/process/professionalism in their workplace. We have one of the better communicators (Lynn) telling us that feedback needs to be only on "official" sites (one can only assume this forum, as he only ruled that discord was not appropriate), and then you have Steelstar in discord engaging in feedback from a smaller group of very vocal players. Then we have our community manager who mainly only seems to delete or modify forum posts that are negative, and so on.

It seems very strange to not have a community liaison role at SSG. Someone who can be the voice of the company, and someone who players know they can at least have accessible engagement. They don't even need to spill the beans, just be there to discuss things.

I'd do it! Just pay per hour and lets get this into a better place.

Oh, I can attest that the FVS nerf is 100% because of the discord crowd.

[Xezom]

I think there must be a real problem with management/direction/process/professionalism in their workplace. We have one of the better communicators (Lynn) telling us that feedback needs to be only on "official" sites (one can only assume this forum, as he only ruled that discord was not appropriate), and then you have Steelstar in discord engaging in feedback from a smaller group of very vocal players. Then we have our community manager who mainly only seems to delete or modify forum posts that are negative, and so on.

It seems very strange to not have a community liaison role at SSG. Someone who can be the voice of the company, and someone who players know they can at least have accessible engagement. They don't even need to spill the beans, just be there to discuss things.

I'd do it! Just pay per hour and lets get this into a better place.

I'll agree on some of this as well. I've always admired Lynnabel for their communication and engagement especially on the forums/lam previews (I don't forum surf a ton to know them from other places). There's been a couple times we don't see eye to eye on how we think things should go or how I see them vs how they do, but they do a good job of explaining the end goal and what the hang ups for a certain idea or set of feedback is. They'll say when they think an idea is good, sometimes say why a certain idea can't fit or wont work with current framework. I don't feel very connected to any of the other devs, and I'm not even sure who the community manager even is (Cordovan?). So I'll take a short second to say, Lynn if you read this, Thank you for your engagement and hard work. I truly do appreciate all our devs, but Lynn has a special extra badge of respect from me. Part of that might be also because I've never once gotten on the Discord servers because discord chat is just like it's name... nothing but discord. If I'm going to engage with someone in an official fashion, I feel, it should be done on the official site. My opinion, I know that not everyone likes forums cause people like me write walls of texts xD

It does seem like lately there has been an increasing disconnect between the Dev/Gameplay team and the community. I'm not sure why that is but I definitely agree that some better feedback and interaction with the community from SSG would go a long way to calm some of the raging frustration players feel when nerfs come popping up out of the blue. Kinda like when they talked about the numeric and scaling nerfs done not too long ago. They made a big long post about addressing the power creep, standardizing, yatty yatty yatta. While it didn't exactly put out the fires of rage that some people felt (you're always going to have the loss bias group), for me personally, I felt more respect and understanding of WHY the nerfs were happening and was no where near as upset about it as I would have been if they'd have just come up in Lamannia/Live with no context. Also, we have to face the music, sometimes changes are made that just simply don't sit well with players, especially in a game as old as DDO. The IPS change could've been explained til the entire SSG team was blue in the face and it still would've hit wrong, but this is one of those things I think could've PROBABLY been avoided by better discussion and problem solving between player/Dev/SSG.

To me the most important thing in managing a community is respect for both sides, from both sides. I'm getting the feeling lately that, despite the recent Producer's Letter, the communication from SSG to the players on the direction of the game has been a little... lacking (yes we get info on upcoming packs, adventures, expansions, etc, but we get very little in the way of knowing the thoughts on where the devs feel the state of the game is in terms of balance, where it should be heading, and potential system changes). This in turn leads to doubt and hardfeelings, which then leads to more changes with low communication to avoid negativity, and the cycle continues. Someone has to break that cycle for things to improve.

I would suggest putting out a "State of the Game" Thread every quarter or so. Use this to communicate current thoughts by the dev team about what they feel is either over or under performing, what systems are being looked at for tweaking (And importantly WHY), and what some upcoming balance goals are. No firm dates need to be put in them, nor do firm commitments need to be made in them, but it would give the community a good point of connection with the devs to see if we as a community are in the same mindset as the devs, while also allowing for discussion and feedback about the potential changes. The community can only give feedback on what we know. Doing this would make the community feel more included in the direction of the game, while also potentially giving the devs ideas from it's players that they may not have thought of before. Unfortunately, the old "better to beg forgiveness later, than ask permission beforehand," philosophy does not work out very well in the gaming world.

If community liaison ever came up as a position I would definitely throw my hat in the ring too. I think it's something that would go a long way to help recover some of the dwindling community opinion.

[Havocthedemon]

I'll agree on some of this as well. I've always admired Lynnabel for their communication and engagement especially on the forums/lam previews (I don't forum surf a ton to know them from other places). There's been a couple times we don't see eye to eye on how we think things should go or how I see them vs how they do, but they do a good job of explaining the end goal and what the hang ups for a certain idea or set of feedback is. They'll say when they think an idea is good, sometimes say why a certain idea can't fit or wont work with current framework. I don't feel very connected to any of the other devs, and I'm not even sure who the community manager even is (Cordovan?). So I'll take a short second to say, Lynn if you read this, Thank you for your engagement and hard work. I truly do appreciate all our devs, but Lynn has a special extra badge of respect from me. Part of that might be also because I've never once gotten on the Discord servers because discord chat is just like it's name... nothing but discord. If I'm going to engage with someone in an official fashion, I feel, it should be done on the official site. My opinion, I know that not everyone likes forums cause people like me write walls of texts xD

It does seem like lately there has been an increasing disconnect between the Dev/Gameplay team and the community. I'm not sure why that is but I definitely agree that some better feedback and interaction with the community from SSG would go a long way to calm some of the raging frustration players feel when nerfs come popping up out of the blue. Kinda like when they talked about the numeric and scaling nerfs done not too long ago. They made a big long post about addressing the power creep, standardizing, yatty yatty yatta. While it didn't exactly put out the fires of rage that some people felt (you're always going to have the loss bias group), for me personally, I felt more respect and understanding of WHY the nerfs were happening and was no where near as upset about it as I would have been if they'd have just come up in Lamannia/Live with no context. Also, we have to face the music, sometimes changes are made that just simply don't sit well with players, especially in a game as old as DDO. The IPS change could've been explained til the entire SSG team was blue in the face and it still would've hit wrong, but this is one of those things I think could've PROBABLY been avoided by better discussion and problem solving between player/Dev/SSG.

To me the most important thing in managing a community is respect for both sides, from both sides. I'm getting the feeling lately that, despite the recent Producer's Letter, the communication from SSG to the players on the direction of the game has been a little... lacking (yes we get info on upcoming packs, adventures, expansions, etc, but we get very little in the way of knowing the thoughts on where the devs feel the state of the game is in terms of balance, where it should be heading, and potential system changes). This in turn leads to doubt and hardfeelings, which then leads to more changes with low communication to avoid negativity, and the cycle continues. Someone has to break that cycle for things to improve.

I would suggest putting out a "State of the Game" Thread every quarter or so. Use this to communicate current thoughts by the dev team about what they feel is either over or under performing, what systems are being looked at for tweaking (And importantly WHY), and what some upcoming balance goals are. No firm dates need to be put in them, nor do firm commitments need to be made in them, but it would give the community a good point of connection with the devs to see if we as a community are in the same mindset as the devs, while also allowing for discussion and feedback about the potential changes. The community can only give feedback on what we know. Doing this would make the community feel more included in the direction of the game, while also potentially giving the devs ideas from it's players that they may not have thought of before. Unfortunately, the old "better to beg forgiveness later, than ask permission beforehand," philosophy does not work out very well in the gaming world.

If community liaison ever came up as a position I would definitely through my hat in the ring too. I think it's something that would go a long way to help recover some of the dwindling community opinion.

Their problem is that their perspective of the game is absolutely and consistently flawed. Like worse than someone who literally started playing 5 minutes ago. It’s so bad. They nerf things that are fine while leaving egregiously overpowered full casters like alchemist and druid. They refuse to give melee the tools to cc by requiring DCs to be so high in legendary content that without an insightful boost (i.e trance) it’s useless. All because they “don’t like” people using a trance that matches their main stat. WHILE DESIGNING THE GAME WHERE ITS NEEDED.

They consistently waste time on things no one cares about but leave endless bugs in the game. Anything minor that is useful to a player gets nerfed but the numerous glitches we have to deal with go unfixed update after update. They never revisit any decision ever made even if it was a nerf that made absolutely no sense at the time and it borderline comical in the current game state - they never reverse it. They don’t want feed back - they want you to pat them on the back and reinforce their own warped perceptions.

Who in their right mind thinks pajama toons need dodge nerfed? Are you kidding? Remember when they gutted tbe W out of the monk? Remember when they nerfed warlock dps? Those classes are in the trash can - and they were barely “good” at their peak. Who remembers them saying max caster level shouldn’t even be a thing anymore, yet here they are gutting FvS. You idiots need to leave the casters alone and throw a bone to the least useful and worst play style melee - then just leave it balanced and stop fking it all up.

[Shedrakzo]

Would it be possible to give an epic destiny some support for these imbue dice? (and maybe Law on Your Side dice too, law is kind of thematically divine)
I believe Lynnabel had said on a strimtom stream that if they were to get ED support it should be in a divine ED because they're for divine classes, personally I feel the best fit under those rules would be as a multiselector alternative to Bring Down Wrath but that may be a bit late when it comes to epic leveling and kinda hardlocks your primary ED choice when building a melee Apostate or a Sacred Fist.

As a side note, I imagine a lot of DA support is going to be in the yet unnamed 'Warlock' destiny with the corresponding filigree set "Keeper of the Curse", I hope we'll be hearing something of the corresponding Arcanomage, Serpent and Keeper of the Curse destinies by the end of the year.

My suggestion for this would be to create a T3 in Divine Crusader to accomplish this.

Aligned Spellsword:
You gain +1/2/3 die to the following abilities: Slayer of Evil (KotC), Sacred Fist, Apostate’s Curse, Spiritual Retribution (Enlightened Spirit), and Law on Your Side.

Additionally, The Rule of Law from Unyielding Sentinel has its cooldown reduced by -1/2/3 seconds.