Let's Talk: Enhancements!

[Aashrym]

I like this alot, its less clunky than the 'everything goes' and still more refined than a **** ton of tabs on each tree. This would also prevent 'super' stats, like a wizard picking up stacking +int in each tree. I think having enhancements in a tree effect total points in another tree would be too confusing. Simply lowering the requirements of PrE payouts would make the most sense. Especially if you're pretty much assumed to make investments into a general class tree.

Regardless, I'd like to see what the devs have cooked up in more detail. Its very very hard to say that something is broken or simply wont work w/o seeing the options presented.

Maybe. I prefer the points I spend to have the value in the specific tree instead of lower the cost in all trees.

At 5 points per PrE tree already for each of the first 6 PrE freebies and 5 AP per tier for unlocking higher level tiers it's pretty low already. Not lowering those costs or applying those points to the trees is a net loss in AP and was why I had my solution as close to the same per tree as I could think of.

I didn't want the end result we could spend in each tree to go down was my point on that suggestion.

If we're looking at 1 point per increase in each enhancement on the tree we can't very will make it less than one either.

[dkyle]

Nice slither around my quotes.

You mean like how I've asked you twice to clarify what you meant by "multis get a boost, but pures get more", and you can't give a straight answer? That statement exactly sums up what I think is likely to happen given the currently announced rules.

I believe I responded to the parts of your post I disagreed with. It was not my intention to dodge anything.

You clearly will state your hypotheticals as fact (with insanely incomplete data)

I think I've been quite clear which are analyses of the specific rules we have been told (and thus are very confident of), and what are merely they hypotheses I think are best supported by the available data.

yet will twist other's hypotheticals as "not understanding" or "incorrect" because you somehow know all the "rules" in this new UI.

Do you disagree that there is a difference between the claims 1 and 2 I illustrated? If so, please, tell my why you think so. I believe I have been abundantly clear that I am certain of claim 1, and not claim 2, yet you and others seem to continue to say that I am certain of claim 2. I do not understand why. To me, they are very different claims.

I have not claimed to know "all" the rules. Just the ones that have been announced.

[Failedlegend]

Nice slither around my quotes. I expected nothing less than more of the same.

You clearly will state your hypotheticals as fact (with insanely incomplete data), yet will twist other people's hypotheticals as "not understanding" or "incorrect" because you somehow know all the "rules" in this new UI.

Please continue to ignore my opinion and continue re-quoting yourself. I'll catch up with you when they release more data that we can actually debate/draw facts from .

OK leslie let me break down the last few pages for you

Person 1: Makes Logical well thought out claim about the downside of this 3 Tree limit and provides some alternatives

Person 2: Nope your wrong

Person 1: Assuming Person 2 misunderstood tries to go into more detail even showing some concrete examples using KNOWN FACTS and specifically avoiding using stuff he or she is unsure about

Person 2: Nope my opinion is superior to yours because it is mine...and yes despite the fact you used FACTS in your argument theyir opinions because of this unrelated thing.

Person 1: Again tries to slightly modify his or her original suggestion to attempt to alleviate some of person 2 ran- errr concerns

Person 2: Repeats previous staements

Person 1 (and other like minded individuals): Gives up trying to convince Person 2 who obviously either doesn't understand the proposal or is just trolling so begins to talk with people who DO agree with him mostly ignoring Person 2

Person 2: Annoyed being ignored starts spouting increasuingly irrantional FACTS and citing that "The DEVS" said so "earlier" or "In a PM"



TLR: If you want to actually debate properly just saying "No your wrong" isn't good enough you need to actually come up with your own ideas of how to solve the situation and frankly star making some actual bloody sense. My favorite so far is people trying to tell me Basic math is WRONG and is "considered opinion"...fun times

[Aashrym]

My favorite so far is people trying to tell me Basic math is WRONG and is "considered opinion"...fun times

My math says we just opened up 550+ triple multi-class options with capstones in the new system after removing the option to not be able to afford 20ish low level enhancements because 80 AP turned into 0 AP before we could buy them all anyway.

It's hard to apply yet because we still don't know what the actual enhancements are.

[BlackSteel]

Do you disagree that there is a difference between the claims 1 and 2 I illustrated? If so, please, tell my why you think so. I believe I have been abundantly clear that I am certain of claim 1, and not claim 2, yet you and others seem to continue to say that I am certain of claim 2. I do not understand why. To me, they are very different claims.

I have not claimed to know "all" the rules. Just the ones that have been announced.

check the previous page, I think I illustrated cases where both 1 n 2 are false. As of right now, for the classes where we do have all 3 PrE's, they do not play along very well.

Even if you could take multiple PrE's from the same class in todays game:

Ninja spy doesnt work with Shintao
Savants nerf each other
Melee focused feat/builds for warchanter versus caster focused feats/build for spellsinger
We already know stances are in the works to make kensei not work 100% with defender
Tempest prereq's dont play well with the additional ranged focus of AA or deepwood.
Assn/mechanic/acrobat are all vastly different builds.

Altho to be fair a mechanic or acrobat might like some assassin perks, but I dont see it going the other way around. And a savant would like complementing elements, just not opposing.

But my point is that as a general rule, in one class, all 3 of their PrE's have different builds and focuses. How does this translate into trees? It means that pure classes will have some wasted space. Multiclasses will not.

[waterboytkd]

I would vote for either a 3 Tree system in which your enhancement investment isn't limited by class level just character level, or a increase in the number of trees so long as your enhancement investment IS limited by class level and deeper enhancements are at least marginally better than lower level ones.

I like the first option, myself. My ONLY real problem with the second option is stacking. The devs have said that they want enhancements to stack as that is intuitive. Access to many trees, even if it's kept to the lower tiers, could still result in a crazy amount of stacking. I mean, we saw in an example that Rogues were going to get at least SIX stat boosts: Assassin Dex 1 and 2, which stacks with Thief Acrobat Dex 1 and 2, and then Mechanic got Int 1 and 2. If the current min class levels are used, a 12/6/2 class could get as many as 15 bonus points for stats, while a single class character is still at 6. And that might only cost you 15 AP for 15 points, while 6 points would cost 6 AP.

The only way this ends up being balanced is if the the top tiers of enhancements (whether it's tree tiers or enhancement tiers) outweighs a crazy amount of stacking, which seems like it would be very difficult to balance.

The way I see it, a 3 tree limit in which tree tiers and enhancement tiers are only locked by CHARACTER level and/or AP spent prereqs (except in specific cases where an enhancement is tied to a class ability) would be the easiest to ensure balance. The decision to multiclass would be: do I want more flexibility in trees or do I want access to the highest PrE bonus enhancements?

[BlackSteel]

TLR: If you want to actually debate properly just saying "No your wrong" isn't good enough you need to actually come up with your own ideas of how to solve the situation and frankly star making some actual bloody sense. My favorite so far is people trying to tell me Basic math is WRONG and is "considered opinion"...fun times

sorry, but when you try to add two apples to two oranges the only reasonable answer is that you're a fruit.

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

sorry, but when you try to add two apples to two oranges the only reasonable answer is that you're a fruit.

Rotflmao!

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

snip

If you called ANYTHING in this thread fact YOU ARE WRONG.

Here's your sign.

[dkyle]

If you called ANYTHING in this thread fact YOU ARE WRONG.

Again, we have been told very many facts by the devs in this thread about the system they are currently planning.

There are many facts we don't know, sure, but by the time we wait for them, the Devs might be so far into development that they can't really use our feedback.

They've said they want feedback now. So I'm giving them feedback now, based on the facts they've told us now.

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

You mean like how I've asked you twice to clarify what you meant by "multis get a boost, but pures get more", and you can't give a straight answer?

The reasoning behind my statement is that I believe that pures would need to gain more just to have a slight lead over multis in their focused specialty.

Multis will always have a potential advantage in diversity if the system is fair and if they built their toon properly. You'd still need to assume gear and player skill to come to realization.

Both pures and multis will gain a boost, but pures should be better than multis at what pures do best.

[waterboytkd]

check the previous page, I think I illustrated cases where both 1 n 2 are false. As of right now, for the classes where we do have all 3 PrE's, they do not play along very well.

Even if you could take multiple PrE's from the same class in todays game:

Ninja spy doesnt work with Shintao
Savants nerf each other
Melee focused feat/builds for warchanter versus caster focused feats/build for spellsinger
We already know stances are in the works to make kensei not work 100% with defender
Tempest prereq's dont play well with the additional ranged focus of AA or deepwood.
Assn/mechanic/acrobat are all vastly different builds.

Altho to be fair a mechanic or acrobat might like some assassin perks, but I dont see it going the other way around. And a savant would like complementing elements, just not opposing.

But my point is that as a general rule, in one class, all 3 of their PrE's have different builds and focuses. How does this translate into trees? It means that pure classes will have some wasted space. Multiclasses will not.

I think this is kind of interesting to consider. I was thinking about something like Fighter: if you didn't consider racial PrE trees, a likely combination would be Kensai/SD. Now, the devs mentioned perhaps implementing more stance-like stuff to deal with crazy stacking, and this combo might fall victim to that. So you could either be in dps-mode or tank-mode, effectively making the PURE fighter a versatile build.

Then, consider a multiclass using, well, using a hypothetical tree system that works for everyone. Due to access to whatever trees they want (whether it's a 3 tree limit with only Character level/AP spent prereqs, or unlimited tree access with class level prereqs), they could easily focus on being amazing at just one role (tanking, dps, whatever) OR they could focus on versatility. Now, stances might still make taking a bunch of dps-focused trees not that hot if you couldn't be in their stances at the same time, but most likely, they are going to have static enhancements that work all the time.

It could kind of turn what would seem like obvious convention on its head: go pure class if you want a versatile build that can switch between roles easily, or go multi-class if you want to be full-****** dps/tank/whatever.

Of course, what trees actually look like will make this true/false, but I thought it was an amusing thought.

[waterboytkd]

They've said they want feedback now. So I'm giving them feedback now, based on the facts they've told us now.

To be fair, I believe they asked for general feedback, so something like, "I fear the 3 tree limit could really screw multiclasses, for reason x, y, and z."

Instead, or really I should say In addition, we've given a lot of specific, prescriptive feedback like "This is how you should do this tree system to alleviate my fears of the 3 tree limit." Of course, we're all guilty of this point. How can we not be? We're creative and excitable people. :P

PS MadFloyd, how's that catching up coming?

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

How does this translate into trees? It means that pure classes will have some wasted space. Multiclasses will not.

+1 This is exactly why I stated pures will "pick up more" (there will have to be some sweet new jingles for pures in order to compete with the expanded options multis will gain, and I believe they'll be found in the new enhancements, PrEs and capstones the devs are dreaming up). But at the end of the day it should be a more balanced game, if they stick to their guns and do what they are proposing here.

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

We're creative and excitable people. :P

PS MadFloyd, how's that catching up coming?

Lol! Indeed!! Lots of great input from both sides.

PS Are we are assuming MadFloyd has any hair left? I'll pray for all the devs over the next few weeks

[Aashrym]

But my point is that as a general rule, in one class, all 3 of their PrE's have different builds and focuses. How does this translate into trees? It means that pure classes will have some wasted space. Multiclasses will not.

They'll have wasted space too. We have confirmation we can put multiple points into the enhancements. The bottom row is 4 or 5 enhancements and adding as many points to each of them as we can means we'll likely have long run out of AP before we hit that 3rd or 4th tier of enhancements let alone the 5th tier trying to fill them all.

There's doesn't appear to be nearly enough AP to fill half of those 4 trees regardless. We could be looking at 50+ just in the first row looking at the Elf Rogue mock up trying to hit them all.

I expect everyone to be in a main tree, secondary tree, and everything else just a bit anywhere else. There just appears to be far more than we can possibly acquire in the trees we have given the AP available.


EDIT: I want to point out I agree that multi-class being able select different trees provided better opportunity for the role they are looking for in their build design. Some PrE's do not complement each other within a class. I might have given a different impression inadvertantly in my reply.

[Drona]

I would like to end on a final point. I believe that multiclass characters SHOULD be slightly more powerful than pure, not by much of course but it should be there. The reason is simple - some one who has taken the time to make a build or think outside the box should be rewarded, especaily considering how many mistakes their likely to make along the way.

If a multi-class is more powerful than a pure in his chosen profession, the fundamental design is flawed.

As people have pointed out, there existed a time when this was the case, and was compensated with capstones.

[Aashrym]

Lol! Indeed!! Lots of great input from both sides.

PS Are we are assuming MadFloyd has any hair left? I'll pray for all the devs over the next few weeks

Pffft..... wait until he starts the "LET'S TALK: Class Balance" thread.

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

Pffft..... wait until he starts the "LET'S TALK: Class Balance" thread.

LOL! I forecast by mid-thread.. ohhh..... poor Madfloyd!!

[jkm]

@Jkm

You can't make the comparison of what is accessible now vs. in the new system because you plain and simple don't have that information. The information that we do have, there are at a minimum 41 points in each PrE tree (because of capstones), dev's want to move to 1-1-1-1 cost system, enhancements will not have more than 5 points available for each enhancement. That means that at a minimum there are 27 enhancement lines in the new system among which PrE's don't exist.

In the current system almost no classes have 20+ enhancements let alone 27+, the only things coming even remotely close are casters (with elemental lines), artis, monks, paladins. What that means is EVERYONE will have new enhancements which means new decisions and the enhancements you have now may or may not be the ideal option anymore. That is why making these assumptions about being limited or having less access or being somehow unfair to multiclasses are a bit premature, you need information to make that claim.

Just looking at a random character here -> Level 20 Monk, I have 43 Monk Enhancements (11 are skill). I have 1 feat enhancement (dragonmark). 5 Racial Enhancements. Please note that these are enhancement lines with each of htem having 4-5 within them.

Another random character here Level 20 rogue -> 52 enhancemnts (19 skill) same racial, no dragonmarks.

As you can see there are a ton of enhancements in the current system that are available. Most may suck, but they are there.