Let's Talk: Enhancements!

[Nyvn]

Mostly this looks promising.

A few places where it looks a bit lack luster. Generalist Tri-Class and Generalist Sorcerers.
They'll have more options to choose from. But once they start choosing they'll be on a smaller path.

[sweez]

Why not?

1) More lore on the net. (Currently melee Drow is pretty gimped)
2) More ideas/content to develop for the game.
3) More people playing the game.
4) ???
5) Profit!

So basically we want to misguide people into playing DDO even though it has nothing to do with Forgotten Realms just so DDO can get more money? Let's not give Turbine ideas, lol.

[Deathdefy]

Please make sure that the enhancement UI stays intuitive for the flock of newbies who join when I and others tell our friends that DDO is awesome now.

PS. Scimitar bonuses for Tempests ahahahaha!

[Ukenburger]

[Aelonwy]

Thats a really rather vague statement... it could mean multiclass builds have more to choose from but those choices lock out others (as the previous dev comments in the thread imply). Currently you are only limited in general class enhancements by the number of levels you have spent in that class while that restriction may be taken away in the new UI its added a whole new restriction of previous general class enhancments suddenly being arbitrarily tied to particular PrEs. This doesn't sit well with me.

[Meetch1972]

I've been thinking for a long time that it would be nice if we were able to set enhancements by starting with selecting the highest enhancement we want in the tree and having the prerequisites auto-fill followed by making the player select enough information to satisfy any prerequisites. If I pick Acrobat 2 then it should either auto-select everything I need (if it can) or fill in what it can and indicate what I'm missing while not changing anything.

It would also be nice if we don't have to drop everything before starting over - just do a functional replacement of the current enhancement line with a new enhancement line - only offering a commit button when all prerequisites are satisfied, whether all the APs are used or not. I don't expect the rules of a respec to change whether the change is minor or major.

Me likey the idea, just please tread lightly on our fingers. Do I detect that this may be part of doing code changes to support extension of the max level beyond 20 ?

[MrFestive]

You could combat it by just making them spend X APs to enable the 4th tree.

Personally, what I'd like to see is 3 standard trees with a reincarnation tree that has a separate action point pool (1 per TR).

That's an interesting idea -- what if a TR granted access to an additional tree that you selected from one of your past lives? You are still limited to 80 APs, but you have more options then. A bit more interesting than just another feat...

[oradafu]

Eladrin has pointed out that they may gain other DPS abilities - faster staff speeds for acrobats and intelligence to damage for Mechanic no doubt - pure class builds would be able to get the sneak attack damage also, but it wouldn't require 41 points to get all the sneak damage you could still be an acrobat the guys with hard choices are multi-class builds. While you may think well any multi-class would want sneak damage the barbarian acrobat rogue would probably be happier with faster swing speed while gaining more base damage from barbarian enhancements.

This is all true, but one of my fears with this new system is that too many goodies get dumped into one prestige and leftovers are dumped into others. That's sort of how the Rogue is now with Assassin getting the love and Mechanic and Acrobat just sort of exist and when they get attention it's only half-hearted. For example, the game currently has two/three quarterstaves that are Dex only and the devs don't want to give Acrobats the option to use Dex as the to-hit stat with all staves. So the Epic Nat Gann and the Breeze are the only useful staves for Dex based Acrobat build while 99.99% of all the other staves are useful for Str based build while unable to take optimal advantage to the only named staff that can become a Devil DR breaker. If that's happening now without the clutter of everything being redesigned (remember the Breeze was just upgraded in the last update and it didn't get the STR to-hit added like the Epic Midnight Greetings a few updates ago), then I am seriously worried when the Devs' attention is on hundreds of different pieces of this new puzzle they're working on.

[Calebro]

I do not envy you guys the job you have with casters if this all comes to pass. I can clearly envision what melee trees will look like for a split of types of abilities/AP, but for the life of me I can't seem to envision splitting casters up in a similar manner without it becoming a nightmare.

[Rhysem]

We're thinking of changing the "You can only reset your enhancements once every three days" rule to an increasing plat cost to reset enhancements if you reset them too frequently within a three day period.

If you want to do that fine but can you hold off for applying it for a couple weeks to a month post changes say? So people can respec wildly as they figure this new stuff out?

[Coldin]

Personally, I would put a lot of the "generic" class enhancements as the low hanging fruit of the trees. Basically those would be your tier 1 and tier 2 enhancements. Action Boosts, skill bonuses, spell enhancements, those would all be achievable without investing deep into a tree.

[Synthetic]

This is all true, but one of my fears with this new system is that too many goodies get dumped into one prestige and leftovers are dumped into others. That's sort of how the Rogue is now with Assassin getting the love and Mechanic and Acrobat just sort of exist and when they get attention it's only half-hearted. For example, the game currently has two/three quarterstaves that are Dex only and the devs don't want to give Acrobats the option to use Dex as the to-hit stat with all staves. So the Epic Nat Gann and the Breeze are the only useful staves for Dex based Acrobat build while 99.99% of all the other staves are useful for Str based build while unable to take optimal advantage to the only named staff that can become a Devil DR breaker. If that's happening now without the clutter of everything being redesigned (remember the Breeze was just upgraded in the last update and it didn't get the STR to-hit added like the Epic Midnight Greetings a few updates ago), then I am seriously worried when the Devs' attention is on hundreds of different pieces of this new puzzle they're working on.

Assassin is the only PRE with three tiers so it's not really getting the love IMO it's just the only one that's finished. If haste boost is an acrobat enhancement you'll have just as many people putting points into acrobat as assassin.

I have an acrobat and I think suggesting it as an enhancement to allow dex or str on all QS for acrobats would be appropriate - or build it into the PRE bonuses if that's a concern for you.

[Vormaerin]

Personally, I would put a lot of the "generic" class enhancements as the low hanging fruit of the trees. Basically those would be your tier 1 and tier 2 enhancements. Action Boosts, skill bonuses, spell enhancements, those would all be achievable without investing deep into a tree.

That's certainly what I would expect.

The only issue is that a multiclass character might not be able to take everything he wants because it might be spread across too many trees. I'm not sure that's a real problem, though. Decisions are an important part of balance and creativity, too. If the class feats and abilities aren't enough to justify a splash without the enhancements, it might not be worthwhile in the future.

On the other hand, you are going to be able to build different types of multiclass characters than you can now. It doesn't seem like flexibility is being lost. Just the parameters of the options are being changed.

[Synthetic]

Found the relevant post.

[dTarkanan]

My main concern with as I understand the layout is it makes races taking their favoured classes actually less effective than one outside the iconic role for it- if I play a halfling rogue, it seems like I have less options for prestige work than if I play a halfling kensai, or whatever.

I'd at least like to see all the prestige classes completed before we start writing assignments in stone for the races, so we can see more variety.

I definitely also think that warforged are better suited as Kensai- while some of them were 'front-line phalanx type fighters', you can see in the published fiction and adventures a vast variety of roles performed- what truly distinguishes warforged is that each individual is created and trained with a singular purpose and fighting style. This to me matches much more closely in spirit with a Kensai who specializes in one type of weaponto the near exclusion of all others- who better to 'become one with the blade' then a warforged that can literally have the blade be a part of them? It also means that the two races aren't stepping on the toes of each other as much. They already both have +2 con, and a bunch of shared enhancement lines such as tactics, hp bonuses, and such.

[Meetch1972]

If you want to do that fine but can you hold off for applying it for a couple weeks to a month post changes say? So people can respec wildly as they figure this new stuff out?

An easy way to handle this might be handing over a bunch of tokens usable at a trainer that expire two weeks to a month after the character logs in.

[Havok.cry]

This is true. Multiclass characters will have many more options to select from.

That is not what you have described. Multiclass characters will not have more options. They will have the choice to replace their options with other options. They will infact always have the same number of options as anyone else. They will NOT have more options.

I repeat again, PLEASE do not do this. Place the general enhancements that boost a classes basic abilities outside of the PRE trees.

[Rhysem]

An easy way to handle this might be handing over a bunch of tokens usable at a trainer that expire two weeks to a month after the character logs in.

Well, the real right way to handle it would be to drop everyone a lesser (+1?) reincarnate item, so people can do a full respec. Feat swap tokens are nice, but with feat chains, it'd be nice to have a full honest respec. Otherwise you might need more tokens than granted if you want/need to move some feats down to have room higher up to take the higher end feats from whatever got evaporated.

Historically, you can bet Turbine wouldn't have done it (pallies intimidate to class skill anyone?) but maybe they would now. It'd be the right thing to do. Any other game would do it.

[Rog]

I think this will be good for most players except the old barbs that kept crit rage.
only 1 player comes to mind kyber one and only bowbarbian and the best BOWBARIAN ON THE SERVER. he has invested years into the build and is really proud he has the only bowbarbian left on the server I would hate to see his build go by the way side with this going live. is there any way to save his build before it gets oto nerfed and the rest that kept crit rage.
For me i am sure this will be great mybe i little overpowered but overpowered monks are a good thing
mojomuscle

[Aashrym]

Quoting Einstein doesn't make me one! You're assuming that there will be enough AP's to do these things over several PrE's/Classes. There are other enhancements that one might want to choose besides damage boosters. I have at least one versatilist that I can see suffering from this set up. I'll wait and see, it all might be a red herring, but just on princible I don't like restricting a class feat this way. General feats available to all, sure no problem.

It sounds like there will be. With 41 AP to hit a capstone on one tree that leaves 39 AP to hit another tier III PrE and not quite get the capstone. If we have that many AP left over from capping one tree I don't see any issues hitting enhancements from another tree.

So, for example, someone who wants to get the acrobat capstone should have plenty of AP to spend in the assassin tree. This doesn't mean we have enhancements locked out of one tree when we have so many AP to spend on another.

I'm up for waiting to see what the choices are before I get too carried away with the pigeon-hole talk.