Fix the preselected character paths and your server population will grow.

[yfernbottom]

They need to either update them to the degree that 90% of the builds aren't simply a "push this button to gimp the **** out of yourself" option or just pull them.

Literally the only purpose they serve right now is helping new players not bounce immediately off of the game. However it's basically doing that by tricking them into thinking those builds are decent, and that it isn't pretty much necessary to either (1) do a lot of trial and error yourself or (2) doing a ton of research outside the game. They are kicking medium term retention in the teeth to help with "first five minutes of playing" retention. Wouldn't it be better for the preselected paths to help with both?

And yes, it would be some work to update them. But it wouldn't be That much work. It's not like we are asking for new graphics assets or something. We are talking at most a month of work for someone. Strimtom or someone else really knowledgeable could probably improve all of them in a few afternoons.

I also highly don't buy the argument that players wouldn't learn anything if the paths were good because they wouldn't understand how they work. Does being tricked into playing a build that is actively bad really make it easier to learn the game than no guidance at all? Degimp them or ditch them.

[Ereshkigal]

I watched that stream. Power sharing is a bad idea.

SSG has no incentive to spend the resources to dive in to old code to give us new competent pre-defined builds.

I suppose if they don't want increased revenue and population growth, then there would be no incentive... o.0

[Diracorvus]

I'm all for just making all kinds of respecs free or only cost platinum. The game is so complex it's a shame how expensive feat changes or a lesser reincarnation still is. And paths will never be up to date, I doubt that is a real good solution. I don't think newer classes and archetypes even still have predefined paths.
Let new players explore the game and it's complexities themselves, but don't leave them hanging if they make a mistake.

[Eantarus]

I'm all for just making all kinds of respecs free or only cost platinum. The game is so complex it's a shame how expensive feat changes or a lesser reincarnation still is. And paths will never be up to date, I doubt that is a real good solution. I don't think newer classes and archetypes even still have predefined paths.
Let new players explore the game and it's complexities themselves, but don't leave them hanging if they make a mistake.

This.

Feat swaps should be available for largish amounts of plat. Point re-specs are fine. I think every character gets 1 free lesser heart at character creation, and this should stay as-is.

The pre-defined paths are a waste of time. They suck and will never be good enough.

[droid327]

I'm all for just making all kinds of respecs free or only cost platinum. The game is so complex it's a shame how expensive feat changes or a lesser reincarnation still is. And paths will never be up to date, I doubt that is a real good solution. I don't think newer classes and archetypes even still have predefined paths.
Let new players explore the game and it's complexities themselves, but don't leave them hanging if they make a mistake.

I want to see more useful plat sinks in the game, so at first I liked this idea

But then I realized....if it was expensive, then it'd only gate out newer players, while older players would simply continue to use their Dragonshards they've saved up to do feat respecs. If it was cheap enough to not gate out newer players, then it'd cheapen respecs to the point where players start planning to respec, and that's not a healthy design.

I will say I think there should be a special LR heart you can only use at L30, and its available for 42 Heart seeds - essentially letting you do an ETR without getting the past life, but also not actually having to relevel to 30. For players who have gotten all their EPLs and are locked out of ETRing, that would keep the ability to respec. It also would help any players at 30 who simply want to update their build without having to relevel.

Maybe that means making a "ML 20" LR0 heart available for 20 Tokens too...and then you could talk about also making it available for some quantity of Remnants, or 2M Plat

[Coffey]

SSG has no incentive to spend the resources to dive in to old code to give us new competent pre-defined builds.

What was the last character path SSG made?

[Eantarus]

What was the last character path SSG made?

That would be the imaginatively named "Tabaxi Trailblazer" path on, of all things, the Tabaxi Trailblazer iconic.

Interesting. The archetypes not only do not get archetype-specific paths, but they don't get any paths.

[DoctorOfLiterature]

I don’t see why this would take much time or cost much. They already have the paths coded; they just need to change the inputs. Pay Strim to design the builds. Then change inputs. Way easier and cheaper than all the resources going to make archetypes and this would have immediate impact at retaining new players who now use the paths and then discover they suck after they invest play into a flawed toon.

[Coffey]

That would be the imaginatively named "Tabaxi Trailblazer" path on, of all things, the Tabaxi Trailblazer iconic.

Interesting. The archetypes not only do not get archetype-specific paths, but they don't get any paths.

They should be able to redo all of the old paths quite easily then.

I can see archetypes taking a bit more effort though.

[Coffey]

I don’t see why this would take much time or cost much. They already have the paths coded; they just need to change the inputs.

Exactly.

[Eantarus]

They should be able to redo all of the old paths quite easily then.

Except they would have to play the game. The devs clearly don't know their own game well enough to fine-tune the paths - and if they did, what are you fine-tuning them for?

Is the path for reaper? Hardcore? Casual? These are all going to have considerably different build-choices and vary wildly based on play-style.

[Coffey]

Except they would have to play the game. The devs clearly don't know their own game well enough to fine-tune the paths - and if they did, what are you fine-tuning them for?

Is the path for reaper? Hardcore? Casual? These are all going to have considerably different build-choices and vary wildly based on play-style.

I think new players would be the ones that need the help so an effective general build would do.

As Droid said they could make an adjoining builder and all players would benefit from that.

[KoobTheProud]

I think every Iconic comes with a preset. So that would make the last one the Tabaxi Trailblazer.

[Eantarus]

I think new players would be the ones that need the help so an effective general build would do.

Thats exactly what the devs think the pre-set paths are right now.

Good luck convincing them otherwise when we can't even get them to see very obvious short-term problems.

[C-Dog]

There's also no need to have so many paths, if it would be too much work. Maybe just make 4? 1 melee cleric, 1 arcane caster blaster, 1 ranged build with trappy skills, and 1 melee build.

A good idea (and one I missed earlier, my bad! )

I was going to say "those are not the ones I'd suggest", but it turns out they are..

• Melee (pure 2HF barbarian, nothing fancy)
• Caster blaster (simple sorcerer)
• Cleric/healer (easiest healer is cleric, easiest from there is melee)
• Ranged/Trapper (dual-purpose - the obvious trapper is Mechanic Rogue, which then serves to cover "ranged")

While there are certainly other "archetypal" character tropes the players associate w D&D, (e.g. paladin, assassin, bard, to name but a few), a) those can get a little trickier, more complex to understand/run for the starting player, and b) are potentially(?) more prone to rules changes crippling the build.

[Coffey]

Thats exactly what the devs think the pre-set paths are right now.

Good luck convincing them otherwise when we can't even get them to see very obvious short-term problems.

Edit: I think SSG knows pre-set paths are out of date but will not acknowledge it and add it to the growing pile of unfinished work.

I would like to see a shift of SSG employees and hardware from LOTRO to DDO to right the games wrongs and make serious improvements all round.

Im a Dreamer lol!

[Eantarus]

Edit: I think SSG knows pre-set paths are out of date but will not acknowledge it and add it to the growing pile of unfinished work.

The key problem is the devs don't play the game in any real meaningful way. Back when I was playing WoW you could always tell exactly what class the devs were playing because they kept getting drastic improvement. In DDO we get to see long-standing problems fester.

[Antheal]

The key problem is the devs don't play the game in any real meaningful way. Back when I was playing WoW you could always tell exactly what class the devs were playing because they kept getting drastic improvement. In DDO we get to see long-standing problems fester.

They probably don't even like DDO.

I imagine, back when Turbine were bidding on the rights for a new D&D MMO, they got stuck with the brand new Eberron setting, instead of the highly-desired Forgotten Realms, and as such they put the bare minimum into throwing up, I mean out, a workable game just to get it out of the door and get some return on their "investment".

[Coffey]

A good idea (and one I missed earlier, my bad! )

I was going to say "those are not the ones I'd suggest", but it turns out they are..

• Melee (pure 2HF barbarian, nothing fancy)
• Caster blaster (simple sorcerer)
• Cleric/healer (easiest healer is cleric, easiest from there is melee)
• Ranged/Trapper (dual-purpose - the obvious trapper is Mechanic Rogue, which then serves to cover "ranged")

While there are certainly other "archetypal" character tropes the players associate w D&D, (e.g. paladin, assassin, bard, to name but a few), a) those can get a little trickier, more complex to understand/run for the starting player, and b) are potentially(?) more prone to rules changes crippling the build.

I think barbarian THF is good because it suits all Enhancement trees.

Other classes that have varied Enhancement Trees all need basic represented builds IMHO.

[lbroyles]

If they never plan on updating those paths then they simply need to remove them. To me it is just giving an option for failure.
If they really wanted to create a path, they should think about a quest path from 1 to whatever.