LET'S TALK: Introduction

[Chai]

I've not seen these threads.

I do, however, think that pre-U9 balance was at least less-bad than what we have now. Casters played an important role, melee played an important role. It wasn't ideal, since there was a problem with not needing more than one or two casters, but it was obviously better balance than "casters can do everything better".

The major difference between then and now is casters were doing 95% of the work but allowing melee to collect the kill count tally then, while now casters can do all the work and reap all the kills now.

Melee was piking the entire time, both then and now. They were also demanding casters have a 44 DC to join groups, then waffled when 44 NECRO DC was what was brought to the table.

"No no no, I dont want you to kill it, I want you to make it harmless so I can kill it. I had a wizard, barbarian, coupla bards, and a rogue back then, and I thought playing a melee was equally as boring during those times as it is now.

Cant wait for the individual threads.

[dkyle]

The major difference between then and now is casters were doing 95% of the work but allowing melee to collect the kill count tally then, while now casters can do all the work and reap all the kills now.

Kill count is irrelevent. And melee doing the killing is still strictly more contribution than doing nothing.

But trash isn't really the point. Casters have always owned trash. The difference post U9 is that casters now easily own bosses, too. That used to be the niche for Melee. No longer.

Either melee need their niche back, or they need to be balanced vs both trash and bosses.

[GermanicusMaximus]

The major difference between then and now is casters were doing 95% of the work but allowing melee to collect the kill count tally then, while now casters can do all the work and reap all the kills now.

Melee was piking the entire time, both then and now. They were also demanding casters have a 44 DC to join groups, then waffled when 44 NECRO DC was what was brought to the table.

"No no no, I dont want you to kill it, I want you to make it harmless so I can kill it. I had a wizard, barbarian, coupla bards, and a rogue back then, and I thought playing a melee was equally as boring during those times as it is now.

Cant wait for the individual threads.

Chai, some people in the game really have a strange love/hate relationship with casters, not only arcane but divine as well.

"Nerf those rascally divine casters! But people will still play them, right? And they will still be able to hjeal me?"

Those same people wonder why there is a shortage of divines in the game, and why such a large percentage of them are anonymous

[dkyle]

Chai, some people in the game really have a strange love/hate relationship with casters, not only arcane but divine as well.

"Nerf those rascally divine casters! But people will still play them, right? And they will still be able to hjeal me?"

Those same people wonder why there is a shortage of divines in the game, and why such a large percentage of them are anonymous

My FvS is one of my most played characters right now, and I absolutely think FvS is overpowered. It's ridiculous how much DPS she can put out, sustainably, while also being massively more self sufficient than a pure melee class. Not to mention being able to keep a whole party up if needed.

Good balance makes a game better. That's it. It's not about jealousy or envy.

[GermanicusMaximus]

My FvS is one of my most played characters right now, and I absolutely think FvS is overpowered. It's ridiculous how much DPS she can put out, sustainably, while also being massively more self sufficient than a pure melee class. Not to mention being able to keep a whole party up if needed.

Good balance makes a game better. That's it. It's not about jealousy or envy.

Congrats on playing a high player skill, high impact toon. Based upon your join date, I would expect you to be doing so.

Balance and equality are most definitely not the same thing. I wouldn't make the case that the classes are equal. Quite frankly, if they were I would consider it a major issue.

Playing a caster, either arcane or divine, is a high player skill position. If you roll a caster, you are in a tough competition to establish yourself as the best of the best. A mediocre (or worse) caster is useless in this game. Finding groups that will accept you will be next to impossible, and eventually the toon will become either a mule or deleted.

High risk, high reward, in terms of game impact.

The average melee toon? Sorry, melee just don't scale with player skill the way casters do. If they did, Shade would actually be a god

For a fair number of melee toons in this game, player skill = turn on auto attack. The next level up is hold down left mouse button. There are certainly players who exceed that, but they are the minority.

The upside is that as a melee player you can play at this lower skill level and still get accepted into groups.

If we actually want to make melee and casters truly equal in this game, I'm fine with that. Step #1 is making melee scale with player skill level the way casters do.

Oops! What do we do with the percentage of the player base who now have neither the player skill to play a melee or a caster? I like having these players in the game, and they certainly are helpful to Turbine in achieving its revenue goals.

I suppose we could just make melee equal to casters, without actually requiring melee to have the same skill as casters. At that point, DDO has now become a children's game. I'm a little too old to be playing a children's game, as is the majority of the DDO player base.

Understanding the underlying mechanics makes it fairly simple to understand that melee and casters, while not equal, are indeed balanced.

[dkyle]

Congrats on playing a high player skill, high impact toon.

Hardly. My FvS is easy as pie to play. There's a serious amount of finesse needed on primary melee characters to even approach the level a melee FvS gets almost automatically.

Balance and equality are most definitely not the same thing. I wouldn't make the case that the classes are equal. Quite frankly, if they were I would consider it a major issue.

Absolutely. We don't need equality. We need balance, and we don't have it.

Understanding the underlying mechanics makes it fairly simple to understand that melee and casters, while not equal, are indeed balanced.

So basically, we have balance because newbs can play Fighters and Barbs and not be terrible, but experienced players should all switch to casters? That sounds like an awful way to design a game. In a game like that, Fighters and Barbs quickly get a reputation as a noob class, new players learn about it, and don't want to saddled with a lame duck at high level. So ultimately, Fighters and Barbs go away.

A good design would allow each class to smoothly transition from newbie-accessible, to fully competitive among the most experienced/skilled players. We don't need variety among power curves of skill and progression. We need variety of capabilities, and strengths and weaknesses.

[GermanicusMaximus]

Hardly. My FvS is easy as pie to play. There's a serious amount of finesse needed on primary melee characters to even approach the level a melee FvS gets almost automatically.

Sorry, what finess is that? Learning to spam "Hjeal me!" in multiple languages while you have auto attack turned on?

I have played melee characters, and when I play my cleric I am watching the entire quest unfold and seeing who does what. Monks require some finess to play well, other straight DPS melee do not. I have never played a proper tank, so I am unqualified to comment on what is required for that type of toon.

I have seen more than a couple 12 year olds play perfectly acceptable melee toons, but I have yet to find a 12 year old who can play an acceptable caster toon. I'm sure there must be one out there somewhere...

I understand that you like to spend your time plotting out variations in melee builds, but the reality is that this is a real time video game with an active combat system. Plotting out various melee builds with insignificant differences in DPS is a great hobby for the forums or maybe Pen & Paper, but is inconsequential to the actual play of this game.

None of this is a problem, until people start to complain that the game is unbalanced because melee feel underpowered compared to casters and start to lobby for changes that make them more powerful than their player skill merits.

Absolutely. We don't need equality. We need balance, and we don't have it.

If anything, the game is unbalanced because casters are under powered. Most melees are built as one trick ponies. Its hard to make a case for why a one trick pony should be powerful.

So basically, we have balance because newbs can play Fighters and Barbs and not be terrible, but experienced players should all switch to casters? That sounds like an awful way to design a game. In a game like that, Fighters and Barbs quickly get a reputation as a noob class, new players learn about it, and don't want to saddled with a lame duck at high level. So ultimately, Fighters and Barbs go away.

I design software for a living. One of the core principles of doing that is to create systems which can serve the needs of different classes of users. Most melee in this game require a relatively small amount of player twitch skills. They are ideal for various groups of people who tend to play MMOs

1) People with physical disabilities
2) Preteens
3) Older people

For what its worth, I am significantly older than the average player of this game. If DDO hangs around long enough, I will eventually fall into category (3).

There are also people who play melees simply for the convenience

1) Parents tending to their children
2) People who like to watch TV/movies and play DDO at the same time
3) People dual boxing auto attack melees. Yeah, this happens a lot. Maybe not by you, but start watching for raids that just happen to have an even number of people from the same guild in a raid. If pressed, a lot of these people will admit to dual boxing.

A good design would allow each class to smoothly transition from newbie-accessible, to fully competitive among the most experienced/skilled players. We don't need variety among power curves of skill and progression. We need variety of capabilities, and strengths and weaknesses.

This could be a viable option that I might support, but it means that melee that move up the power curve get the easy buttons taken away. No auto attack. Full player involement akin to what a monk does today.

No one trick pony builds. At the very minimum, they should have to give up some melee potential to pick up required self healing. These toons should be expected to have a degree of self sufficiency -- no expectation to be nannied.

Arcanes and divines today are powerful because they can offensive cast, group heal and/or self heal, and some can also melee. They made build tradeoffs and demonstrate player skill to reach that status. An across the board buff to melees that fail to require the same commitments is not a balanced addition to the game.