Let's Talk: Enhancements!

[Phemt81]

Are you thinking to improve only the enhancements' UI?

I mean, are there gonna be variations about their impact on gameplay?

Surely a good thing anyway.

[Flavilandile]

Some of you might dismiss this as ‘fixing something that isn’t broken’ and that’s fine – it’s totally subjective – but, hey, I’m giving you a heads up just the same.

Well with the explanations below it doesn't sound as fixing something that is not broken, that's preparing something not broken but that wasn't implemented the right way for a major update.

That's when things are done out of the blue and without any explanation that we go all nerdrage about fixing things not broken.

We hate the Enhancement UI. It’s been 4 years and I still cringe every time I see it, let alone use it. It does a poor job of letting players plan out character goals and you need the patience of a saint to use it. I could go on and on, but I won’t (feel free to use this thread to vent your frustrations with it if you share our opinion).

I hate that particular UI too, it's always a pain to find the enhancement you want to take and it's even more painful to find the enhancements pre-requisites ( as by default you don't see the enhancements that you cannot take ). So when you want say Radiant Servant II ( pre-requisite RS I, and a bunch of other things, including a minimim level ) every level, once you have RSI ( with it's own mess of pre-requisites ) you spend a lot of time
moving up and down the list, after activating the 'show all', to select the right stuff... and you have to rinse repeat everytime.

We’re re-doing it – replacing it with a tree-based design that should make character planning and advancement much better and also have the added benefit of making it easier for us to implement new enhancements (PrE’s anyone?).

Might be better... Especially if there's a feature that remember where we want to go.

For example if I want to go to RS II, the tree remember that from one talk to the trainer to the next one, and
suggest me the right enhancements.
Or even better ( in my opinion, though I see that it can have some drawbacks ) once I select a target enhancement to reach and validate the selection, everytime I talk to the trainer to level, the relevant enhancements in between will be automatically selected according to the points I can spend until I reach my targeted enhancement.
( think Civilization Technology tree where you can select the Technology you want and the game will automatically select the relevant intermediate technology to research )

It will also be the foundation for some future work.

It does mean that when this goes live, all of you will have your enhancements reset and you will have to re-spend your action points. Some enhancements will remain the same, but many will be new. The changed enhancements will also help balance out many classes (think augmentation here, not nerfs). I appreciate that forced change can be very stressful and realize that this will be major inconvenience for those who don’t enjoy having to make a ton of decisions – especially when there are ‘new’ enhancements to digest, but have no doubt it will be worth it in the end.

*shrug*

Already happened once... long long ago... when the enhancement system was changed from what it was originally to what it is now. just make sure the trainers are ready to work overtime.

[Farayon]

Creating skill trees sounds a lot like adding more prereq's and forcing everyone into the same set of enhancements which is dull.

I hope that we'll see more choices, more variety, more differences, more options, more room for oddities and personal preferences.

Races and classes should play very differently and this is an opportunity to improve on that aspect. Balancing the whole thing is where the dev's nightmare comes true.

[bhgiant]

implement new enhancements (PrE’s anyone?).
‘new’ enhancements to digest, but have no doubt it will be worth it in the end.

this is all I really care about

[sirgog]

I never played wow or any other MMO - how'd the tree limit choice (real question, not being snarky)?

In WOW's pre-Catacylsm system, you had 7 tiers of talents, each in one of 3 categories per class. Example: Beacon of Light was a tier 7 Holy talent for Paladins, Holy being the healing 'tree'.

As a tier 7 talent, to take Beacon you had to have spent 50 points in the Holy tree. (You had a total of 71 points)

Basically this prevented you from taking the best healing and defensive talents on one character - you had to make a choice between, say, Beacon of Light (which was basically mandatory for healers) and Ardent Defender (effectively mandatory for tanks).

What this would translate to in DDO - Imagine if taking 'Favored Soul Life Magic 4' had so many healing-oriented prerequisites that it basically locked out taking 'Favored Soul Damage Boost 3' and vice versa.

Monks almost get this at the moment - it is almost impossible to take Void 4 and also take Ninja Spy 2 or Shintao 2. But in WoW it was standard.

I don't think MF is talking about copying that system, more using a UI that is closer to the WoW talent UI than the mess we have now.

[Havok.cry]

If this makes pale master summons useful I will love you. When I play a necromancer its cause I want undead minions. Id like to do that without crippling myself and them still being next to useless.

Edit: Id also like to add my voice to those worried that these trees would lock characters into paths. One of the biggest draws this game has for me is its versatility. Locking me in like that would be the gamekiller for me. Please please do not do that. I am hoping that by tree you are talking about making the ui simpler to understand by making it more visually accesible that the current lists are. I am hoping your not talking about a WoW like talent tree.

[QuantumFX]

MadFloyd - OK, a U.I. redesign for enhancements. My main concern is “Is it an actual improvement or just changing stuff for the sake of changing stuff?” I can't help you answer that without pics, or maybe a Lamannia build.

[fco-karatekid]

In WOW's pre-Catacylsm system, you had 7 tiers of talents, each in one of 3 categories per class. Example: Beacon of Light was a tier 7 Holy talent for Paladins, Holy being the healing 'tree'.

As a tier 7 talent, to take Beacon you had to have spent 50 points in the Holy tree. (You had a total of 71 points)

Basically this prevented you from taking the best healing and defensive talents on one character - you had to make a choice between, say, Beacon of Light (which was basically mandatory for healers) and Ardent Defender (effectively mandatory for tanks).

What this would translate to in DDO - Imagine if taking 'Favored Soul Life Magic 4' had so many healing-oriented prerequisites that it basically locked out taking 'Favored Soul Damage Boost 3' and vice versa.

Monks almost get this at the moment - it is almost impossible to take Void 4 and also take Ninja Spy 2 or Shintao 2. But in WoW it was standard.

I don't think MF is talking about copying that system, more using a UI that is closer to the WoW talent UI than the mess we have now.

ok, i dig now, and yah - as I was reading, I was thinking "like monks". indeed, that would suck!

+1 if it lets me, thanks!

[morticianjohn]

Sounds good. I was lvl 9 on my cleric before I figured out how to get radiant servant when I was fairly new. It will be nice if it helps new players could understand things more. I will enjoy it also if I don't have to scroll through all the skill enhancements every time.

[red_cardinal]

Some enhancements may perish in the name progress. We're definitely not far enough along to get into that kind of specifics yet. Now is a good time to be giving us general input, though.

yes, but first... GUI.





Some of my suggestions. Nothing special.

My first task on my first programmer job was to do an support multiselected drag&drop operation on a tree control... Wee, how fun!

[Infant]

Probably has been said already:

-- Unique icon for every enhancements (at least for every active one)

-- Prerequisites: Consider redesigning prerequisites for PrE to be at least somewhat useful: Inspire Bravery is needed for WCI but is, in fact, useless. Even if you made Balance.

-- Some PrE are extremely AP-strapped. I think Paladins are part of this. But Spellsingers for sure: it would be kind of nice if Spellsingers could max the healing line (without crits), the scroll healing, their song duration and value (still behind Warchanters!) and pick up spell penetration enhancements. Then they would be able to heal, scroll-heal and CC without being excellent at any of these tasks (except scroll-healing). It would be nice to balance-out PrE or classes for power in this way.

-- Redesigning AP-values for divine spells (like U9 for arcanes) for more flexibility.

Infant

[Deathdefy]

I'm not sold on the need for a new enhancement UI.

I am sold on you taking a look at Enhancements, including a UI change and making it easier to change and add to Enhancements in the future.

Packaging! Put the good stuff first.

[karl_k0ch]

From my personal experience, I see three things where a revamp would help to balance the classes/races.

• Halfling Cunning/Guile vs. Half-Elf Rogue Dilly. I know it's not the same, but the bonuses are similar. Yet the requirements for the Halfling are much steeper.
• Paladins. The APs on a pally are generally horribly tight, and this does not help the paladins being no match for other DPS classes, such as Barb, Fighter, Monk, or even Ranger. Paladins as DPS need a boost, and relaxed AP costs can help there.
• Drow. Drow are generally nice already, but their bonuses pale in comparison to other races. The racial Dex doesn't help for most builds at all. My suggestion would be a mechanic similar to the human adaptability, but only with Dex, Cha and Int. This way, Drow would get an edge over humans, putting them a potential +2 ahead of humans.

[Kathul]

I have never heard a single complaint about enhancements, UI or no. Make a new topic or fix Pre's first , C'Mon man

[magnefique]

As a relatively new player I think this is fantastic. The draw for me to come to DDO with all the choices out there are two-fold:

1. Character customization - best in any MMO I have played.
2. Excellent dungeon running experience.

In the thread on difficulty ( and i was likely off topic ) I went into detail regarding my issues with the enhancement UI and the key is we need to see:

1. all possibilities based on level/char
2. Stat changes etc BEFORE we commit
3. see 1+2 all on the screen at once, that scrolling list is a bit nuts

So glad you are changing this and can't wait to see it !

[wax_on_wax_off]

I've got a bad feeling about this.

Are we going to see some interesting multiclass builds being nerfed?
Are we going to see balancing for PvP?
Are we going to see a reduction in the versatility that builds are capable of?
Are we going to see a reduction in active combat?

The big thing that worries me is that I suspect that all of the changes that I wouldn't want the average punter might actually pay money for. However, revenue now does not equal a quality game. What are the priorities? Make money now? Quality game?

Oh, and what's the time frame for this?

[MnaSidhe]

I think it would be a great improvement, if some PrE choices were not mutually exclusive, because of what is essentially the same enhancement.

For Example:

Hunter of the Dead vs Radiant Servant (for me actually one of the more logical PrE combinations).

HotD requires Paladin Improved Turning
RS requires Cleric Improved Turning...

so one could never be both...

Simple problems like that could be avoided with just having one "Improved Turning" enhancement line... then I would not have had to turn my HotD into DoS... :/

[Tid12]

I think a look at this new UI would be REALLY appreciated Madfloyd. That way, we can give you more feedbacks and that would turn into a real "Let's talk" thread.

Still, I appreciate the efforts to start these threads.

[donfilibuster]

Warning, long text made at 4:00 am. but hopefully comprehensive.
Short version: ditch 'trees' that don't allow multiple selection.

We hate the Enhancement UI. It’s been 4 years and I still cringe every time I see it, let alone use it. It does a poor job of letting players plan out character goals and you need the patience of a saint to use it. I could go on and on, but I won’t (feel free to use this thread to vent your frustrations with it if you share our opinion).

We’re re-doing it – replacing it with a tree-based design that should make character planning and advancement much better and also have the added benefit of making it easier for us to implement new enhancements (PrE’s anyone?).

Kudos for working on the enhancement UI, it definitely needs a brush up, but please clarify if it is just a UI thing or involves mechanics.
Some guildies were talking about this and share the worry about the 'tree' concept, reading this thread makes apparent it is a common concern for us players.

The word itself of 'tree' evokes the 'pathing' issue, where you can choose one branch but not the other.
Organizing the display in leaves might work with flexible prerrequisites if the purpose is to show the player the chain of enhancements that belong to a relation.

It could be semantics but for example, engineering often uses the tree structure for the pathing while designers may be thinking of the expand/collapse of branches.
The latter is more like the idea of trimming the choices but is still a tree and thus not particularily good for complex relations.
I'd suggest ditching it both calling it a tree and making it a tree. Maybe some other thing can be used, like tabs.
Tabs are good to trim down a selection while still allowing options to appear whenever available, conditioned to the relation and not neccessarily to the path.

With tabs i don't mean horizontal tabs like browser tabs but more like vertical tabs, those that expand to the side like a dynamic menu.
You can do multiple selection, not limited to the last children, and definitively able to have multiple parents.

Gonna get back to display options before the end of this post, but want to make sure the UI vs. paths thing is noted.
The 'path' problem seems clear to players of other games, i have not played WoW but the civ tech tree comes to mind.
I'm sure many players choose DDO for the builds and customization, being able to fine tune or try different things.

Build making is a MMO thing, and customization is a big point on 3e D&D.
On 4e they choose paths but for other purposes, such as to make a typical setting on the growing sea of d20 alternatives.
That's fine by itself, just not particularily extendable. Paths also limit your available choices.
(and DDO is already simplified, fairly weighted to MMO roles rather than versatile classes like in PnP)

Character making, on the other hand, has a lot to do with describing the things your hero can do.
The prerrequisites are there to make sense, e.g. if you are stealthy you may be good at hide and move silent.
The rogue vs. thief illustrate that you could be a lot of things, acrobat, assasin, treasure hunter, etc.
A pure rogue would have most of the abilities but a splash would just have a background on them.
Likewise in 3e the class levels won't make the toon, taking a paladin level doesn't make you a paladin unless you want to.
Classes would be building blocks and you'd be the one saying if the hero would be a crusader warrior or a knightly cleric.

To this end the enhancement system work wonders, specially for prestige options.
This is often misunderstood or criticized by PnP players but it doesn't differ in the roots.
The DMG encourages the DM to only choose the prestige classes that fit the setting.
In this light the enchancements are a good way to let us do the builds instead of having to choose from a preset list.
The devs that are like the DM let us do the customization, which are then balanced with the point cost.

With the enhancements we can pick abilities for a role, like in a MMO, or drop the top costly ones to get multiple smaller ones.
You still need to watch the trade offs, but otherwise you pick the building blocks.
The requisites are also relationed, if you can twf (being ambidexterous) it makes sense you have high dex.
But there could be multiple ways to qualify, the easiest of which is a class level, e.g. if you are a ranger.
(a not-so-easiest to get twf, in PnP, is if you have two heads )

With so many options to choose from, which can be confusing to a new player, the paths are indeed one way to trim things down, but need not be the only one.
Obviously the plain list has its problems, and the level and points requisites makes it extra complex.
e.g. when you need to take out a lesser enhancement and you have to start over because you no longer had the action points required for the rest of your choices.
That's lost time that the new player could have spent in finding what works with what and the related options.

Instead, the new display should help you pick the enhancements you want.
An idea would be to be able to pick from the unavailables and list them together with the requisites so you can easily pick them together.
They'd be grayed out rather than removed, so you can activate and deactivate each enhancement until you make them fit (paying the point cost).
This can be as simple or detailed as the devs want to code it, on the simplest form it can be as it is but letting you pick things in advance, on the most detailed form you could sort or group the display by multiple criteria.

e.g. In the current UI, you have one long list to the left and the selections on the right, which works fine if you are taking the enhancements as you level.
But if you reset them you have to begin tinkering and moving enhancements back and forth until you fit em all.
The left panel has no filters nor grouping, you have to scroll up and down a very long list of things you don't know until you read em each.
This left panel can use some group labels such as to get all skills together, etc.
It can also use a table view to list level, cost, requisites, etc. without having to check each one by one.
The right panel is useless as it is, it just lists what you have picked.
This right panel would be more useful if you can pick all the things you want from the long list and only then begin turning them on until you spend the points you have.
No longer you'll have to redo the picking and scrolling multiple times, just get what you want and begin spending points.

There's definitely no easy way to get this on a single box, which i suspect is where the 'tree' comes into.
Let's not be lazy with the UI, if it takes a multiple selection with two or three boxes or panels, so be it.
Same if it'd take tabs, accordion, checkboxes, toggles, drag and drop or whatever. After all it is about usability.
Coding shouldn't be an issue, this is done all the time in websites, etc. that use complex hierarchies.

As an example it comes to mind the menu selection of the dvd of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
It is nothing out of this world yet whoever designed it clearly had to tinker something that was remotely up to the task depicting the guide.
And they did it with colored tabs, so it gave an impression it had tons of options like the guide would have.

I myself would not panic, the dev on this is a flying head with tentacles, which is more than two hands at work :P
The worry is just to not break things as we'd be quick to hint and duly noted by the OP.

If the problem is the UI because it's hard to use, yeah that need fixing, if enhancements need be redone to pave the way for the PrEs, that's good too.
But if it it involves simplyfiing toon building just because it is too bulky to new players, then no thanks, let us keep perusing the long list manually, we need more options in this game not to take them away.

[Trippy]

I know UI is the first step atm, but I would really like a review of how feats and enhancements that overlap interact, because I think a solution would effect the UI. Right now very few enhancements interact with feats and those that do are mostly pre-requisists rather then synergetic interactions.

For example Improved Turning Enhancement and Improve Turning Feat. Feats "cost" more so should either be better, have extra effects or have some reason to get both. In this case though, there is no difference between the two in effect and no paticular reason to get both. Neither of Feat nor Enhancement work with other Turning related Feats or Enhancements either. A whole pile of possible synergy just going to waste.

Possibilites could be making the feat make the enhancement line cost slightly less AP, The turning based enhancements use the cleric's(or paladin's) effective level as part of their math, or the feat just tack on one more effective tier to each turning related enhancement, kinda like the paladin's DoS PRE does with paladin Auras.

With only the PRE's and Toughness enhancements interacting with feats the kinda kludgy way they are handled in the UI works, but I would really like to see more interaction between feats and enhancements and a UI that supported it cleanly.