Lamannia Update: EARLY Enhancements Preview

[Tid12]

Let's talk in 2 weeks when Bards are ready.

We've got them covered.

Tell us you have got Arcanes covered too

[EllisDee37]

I don't play clerics...never even rolled one up nor have I multi'ed into one before. However, I am making a cleric tonight to test out the new enhancements and see if they are buggy and how I feel the jell together. I will also be making a multi-classed cleric/ftr, cleric/ranger/ and an arti/ranger...to try and feel out the entire enhancment line so far (I have already done ranger, ranger/ftr, arti and pure ftr).

This strikes me as a terrible idea. I'd much rather have the cleric feedback be from people who actually play clerics.

[Vargouille]

Our intent is to support both pure class characters and multiclass characters. Both should be viable. We would like there to be strong incentives for each, and not have the system clearly favor one over the other.

If you have concerns about either pure class or multiclass being obviously better than the other, voicing those concerns here is great, as well as in the surveys (linked in my signature).

[voodoogroves]

Our intent is to support both pure class characters and multiclass characters. Both should be viable. We would like there to be strong incentives for each, and not have the system clearly favor one over the other.

If you have concerns about either pure class or multiclass being obviously better than the other, voicing those concerns here is great, as well as in the surveys (linked in my signature).

I did a survey for each of the races; but there's on a single general class survey.

Is there any way to remove the PRE trees and just have a single class tree? Period? It might get busy, but then you'd have
- 1 race tree
- 1 epic tree
- up to 3 class trees (one for each class you have, or one unlocked / swapped by your race)

[rest]

The biggest problem with your argument is they aren't releasing these so you can see how your favorite character is going to be in the future. I don't play clerics...never even rolled one up nor have I multi'ed into one before. However, I am making a cleric tonight to test out the new enhancements and see if they are buggy and how I feel the jell together. I will also be making a multi-classed cleric/ftr, cleric/ranger/ and an arti/ranger...to try and feel out the entire enhancment line so far (I have already done ranger, ranger/ftr, arti and pure ftr).

I am trying to help them build something that has a great blueprint, but needs a lot of fine tuning. Instead of complaining that your favorite thing in the world isn't available yet (it will be in two weeks) maybe try providing something constructive in the form of bug reports so that they can get an idea of what we, the player base, want.

And remember, if you are worried about multiclassing builds that have classes being released in different weeks, they have already said there will be a "free-for-all" test period with all lines open to try out multi-classing on a grander scale.

You're obviously a much better person than me. I don't care in the slightest how the barbarian line looks. I'll never roll one. So that tree can rot for all I care. What I do care about are the classes I enjoy playing. Fighter, wizard, sorc, cleric, fvs, bard, rogue and monk. To a lesser extent, rangers and artis and POSSIBLY paladin (mostly for splashes). Barbs and druids could be removed tomorrow and I'd never ever ever notice. Why should I waste my time rolling up a barb that I have no intention of playing? To give feedback for a class I'll never play? Why? What if they listened to what I, someone who has no intention of playing a class, said instead of someone who plays their whole DDO career as that class? They play it. They know it. They love it. Let them give better feedback than I could ever offer.

So I have to wait how long before I can sink my teeth into the trees to all be open? 3 weeks? A month? Longer? I want to see the big picture. At this point it looks like multiclassing is dead in the water. Until I can see how everything interacts together, I'll continue to hold that opinion.

[Archetype]

NO place for our current, fun, builds to land:



All the pigeon-holes are taken!

[Yazston_the_Invoker]

Not sure if this has already been brought up, since there is a ton of stuff to read out there on the enhancements now, but is there any reason why the enhancements can't be restricted by Points Spent in Tree OR class level, whichever is greater? For instance, if you had a 16/2/2 Bard/Ftr/Rogue warchanter, instead of having to spend more points than you have available to get decent enhancements across the board, simply have the class levels count as an alternative to "PSiT", so for Rogue or Ftr enhancements, you would still need to spend some, since you haven't relly "delved" into those classes, making it similar to Cross-Class skills. Whereas, for Bard, you have 16 levels, so you should be able to unlock everything but the "capstone" enhancements, without having to spend X points in that particular tree, making it easier for you to take higher tier Bard enhancements without too heavy of an investment.

Methinks something like this would still keep some restrictions, but ease up on things a bit for those who have a decent amount of class levels. Either that, or have class levels count as 2ap per towards "PSiT", so that 16 levels of Bard would be like having spent 32 points in the tree already.

I also agree that Racial trees should not have a "PSiT" requirement, but simply a character level requirement instead.

[rest]

Dev said it was because they want to focus in on a few trees at a time. They will open all of the classes once this phase is over.

I will likely have lost any interest in giving my feedback by then. Someone noted that this is what a dev said last night during Q&A:

+Varg made several things were made very clear in the "Q&A".* There was a LOT of noise in the Q&A, but Vargouille's contribution represents about 9.055% of the lines of text.* If you separate out only what he said, there's some meaningful information.

- Vargouille considers what we see in the Preview regarding class enhancement costs and the consequences of these costs to be a balanced and well thought out product.

- The enhancement point cost are intentionally high and the tree power is intentionally backloaded.

- There is an intentional effort to make Pure Class Builds attractive.

- The change to Core Enhancements (Innate Abilities) is intentional - They are intended to NOT be free.

- They are aware that the new costs will render existing multiclass builds obsolete.


The preview shows a direction that radically devalues multiclassing in general and splash builds in particular.

Custom character creation felt like a core competency - this change does not enhance it.

I didn't get in on the /devchat channel. Didn't even know it was there TBH. So this is taken second hand from someone else. What I take from that is that they already feel the way it is is good already. Which coincides with the way we've been asked to "test" before: "this is what we're doing whether you like it or not. No amount of feedback or suggestions will alter the way we're doing this. We're in charge, and you take what we give you." And that sucks. So maybe I'm better off not offering feedback, if I think that all my suggestions will fall upon deaf ears.

Ugh when did DDO turn me into such a cynic?

[Aashrym]

Let's talk in 2 weeks when Bards are ready.

We've got them covered.

I'm really hoping you do. My concern is that if I play a bard I'm going to be spending all my AP just to fall short still.

The solutions I would expect to see is to simply add magical training as a free feat to bards at 2nd level and the heal skill as a class skill if it's going to impact positive spell power. The alternative would be to add it as an enhancement purchase from the spell singer tree in the 2nd tier.

What I would really be concerned about is spending a lot of AP for similar effects because that puts bards at a high cost to hit something that should be at or near their starting point.

I'm also hoping y'all wow me with bards. I do like some of what I've seen so far, such as less focus on the toughness feat. When we can see all the classes at the same time I expect it will be easier to judge relative changes.

[Aashrym]

Our intent is to support both pure class characters and multiclass characters. Both should be viable. We would like there to be strong incentives for each, and not have the system clearly favor one over the other.

If you have concerns about either pure class or multiclass being obviously better than the other, voicing those concerns here is great, as well as in the surveys (linked in my signature).

I think the lack of high level requirements in the trees goes a long way to helping support multiclassing. It's hard to get a big picture on it right now, however, because we don't have access to all of the enhancements for all of the classes yet.

[FZTopaz]

You're obviously a much better person than me. I don't care in the slightest how the barbarian line looks. I'll never roll one. So that tree can rot for all I care. What I do care about are the classes I enjoy playing. Fighter, wizard, sorc, cleric, fvs, bard, rogue and monk. To a lesser extent, rangers and artis and POSSIBLY paladin (mostly for splashes). Barbs and druids could be removed tomorrow and I'd never ever ever notice. Why should I waste my time rolling up a barb that I have no intention of playing? To give feedback for a class I'll never play? Why? What if they listened to what I, someone who has no intention of playing a class, said instead of someone who plays their whole DDO career as that class? They play it. They know it. They love it. Let them give better feedback than I could ever offer.

So I have to wait how long before I can sink my teeth into the trees to all be open? 3 weeks? A month? Longer? I want to see the big picture. At this point it looks like multiclassing is dead in the water. Until I can see how everything interacts together, I'll continue to hold that opinion.

I would hope that they would get feedback from both groups. Those who play that class almost exclusively and those that have never played that class. I can give great feedback on the druid, wizard, ranger and monk trees, even the barb tree...but some of the others? Not as much. I have a basic understanding of clerics and the three roles they can play....healing, defense, offense....and I can be viewed as a new player coming in. You think that they don't want to know what this will be like for a person stepping fresh out of The Grotto? That they want to make sure it is as intuitive as possibly can be?

I am SURE they do. My feedback, having never played a cleric, is just as valuable as someone who is going to be incredibly biased and get upset because things are changing.

And no, I see no evidence that supporst your claim that multiclassing is dead in teh water. If it were to roll live with what we currently have? Yeah, it's going to be tough at first, but multi class would still be viable. My ranger/fighter cross is certainly still viable in the new enhancements, if not more so than before. She has more HP, more attacks that do more things, higher dodge, higher doublestrike chance, and at the cost of a few small things that I realized I can live without.

[Renegade66]

Why why why why do we have the enhancement trees doled out to us piecemeal?

Provding an early look and gaining feedback allows opportunity to use that feedback to adjust trees that are still being developed.

Also, if they waited to present the enhancement trees in their entirety, then people would be saying "Why why why do we have to wait for all enhancements before reviewing the ones that are already complete?" (aka the old "You just can't win, can you" effect).

[EllisDee37]

I have a basic understanding of clerics and the three roles they can play....healing, defense, offense....

Those aren't the three roles clerics play. First, "healing" and "defense" are the same role. The other two roles are dc/offensive caster (evoker/necro) and melee (battlecleric).

[Systern]

The more I think about this, the more I think the whole system is flawed.

If you try and think about this graphically, make a chart or spreadsheet with all of a classes' abilities and enhancements. The current progression gives you all features along one axis as you progress along the other.

The new system divides those features along the opposite axis as well. You're not just climbing vertically reaching as far as the character extends along the horizontal, the horizontal is limited as well. Total area of covered features is thus limited.

A level 6 Artificer is comprised of the crossbow, the rune arm, the Artificer Knowledge granted feats, and the Buffs/spell casting.

The tree design forces you to min/max on one of those aspects and forsake the others.


People don't splash 2 rogue for just evasion. It's evasion, skill points, UMD access, the sneak attack die, trap skills, everything that the class brings to the table.

The Tree system means that you can only advance one aspect of all those class features, leaving so much behind.


You guys have put a year's worth of work into this, so I doubt you want to just scrap the whole process... You are dividing a classes abilities along an additional axis, however.

[FZTopaz]

Those aren't the three roles clerics play. First, "healing" and "defense" are the same role. The other two roles are dc/offensive caster (evoker/necro) and melee (battlecleric).

healing =\= defense. Defense is a proactive action, meaning things like buffing, crowd control, etc. Doing things to help DEFEND the party. Healing is reactive action, meaning you do something AFTER the action has taken place. Those two roles can be combined, but are not interchangable.

And a DC/Offensive caster and a battle cleric would still both fall under "offense" as you are fighting in one way or another.

Please note, those are the three BASIC roles..and they can be mixed up together or with other classes (a defense druid, a healing ranger, an evoker FVS).

[EllisDee37]

healing =\= defense. Defense is a proactive action, meaning things like buffing, crowd control, etc. Doing things to help DEFEND the party. Healing is reactive action, meaning you do something AFTER the action has taken place. Those two roles can be combined, but are not interchangable.

And a DC/Offensive caster and a battle cleric would still both fall under "offense" as you are fighting in one way or another.

Please note, those are the three BASIC roles..and they can be mixed up together or with other classes (a defense druid, a healing ranger, an evoker FVS).

And this is a nice example of why I'd rather people who don't play clerics don't fill out the cleric survey.

You really think "healing and defense" are distinct enough to warrant two separate trees, yet "dc casting" and "melee" are both offense so equivalent? That's impressively off base.

[FZTopaz]

And this is a nice example of why I'd rather people who don't play clerics don't fill out the cleric survey.

You really think "healing and defense" are distinct enough to warrant two separate trees, yet "dc casting" and "melee" are both offense so equivalent? That's impressively off base.

No, not at all. I never said that at all. I said those are three roles...never said I agreed with the pre's. I feel that healing and defense can be in the same tree, that there should be one for offensive casting and one for battle clerics. That doesn't change the fact that healing, defense and offense are the three BASIC roles that are available.

[Qezuzu]

We are currently running into some issues with the Pando installer. I am sorry about the inconvenience this causes, and we are investigating the issue.

The problem is you are using Pando.

Yeah, this.

Do you know how PMB works? It uses a peer-to-peer network that allows the downloading of files without a centralized server. You know what other software can do that? Your average torrent client.

Torrent download option please. Star Trek Online has this option, I know. I would seed for you.

[SirValentine]

...Bards...

They already have the worst DC's and spell pen.

That's simply not true.

Spellsingers DCs are competitive with divine DCs.

And Spellsinger Spell Penetration is way ahead of divines.

Yes, the only-6-levels-of-spells and no-magical-training Specialist class is better at offensive casting than a full-9-spell-levels Spellcaster class like Cleric.

[SirValentine]

Let's talk in 2 weeks when Bards are ready.

We've got them covered.

Looking forward to when you get around to doing the core D&D class, Cleric, instead of that other class, from the Miniatures Handbook, Healer. I hope you have that covered, too.