A few thoughts after reading...

[Davelfus]

It's so intuitive I won't even explain it.

YOU! **** i was going to make a mockup like that xD this is rly what i would like for the enhancement pass

[Lithic]

These abilities are intended to work with ranged attacks on Lamannia right now.

Strike With No Thought: When you have a melee weapon equipped in your main hand that is part of your Focus, you gain 1% Doublestrike. Ranged weapons instead have a 1% chance to fire an extra projectile. Each additional Innate Ability you acquire from this tree increases this bonus by 1%.

Alacrity: You gain +10% melee doublestrike with melee weapons and +10% chance to fire an extra projectile with ranged and thrown weapons. (Repeating Crossbows have a reduced chance to produce extra shots.)

Any chance there's a fix in so that doublestrike affects 2wf as much as single weaponers? As of right now (unless it's been changed), 2WF gains about half as much benefit as a 2HF and Sword & Board from doublestrike bonuses. This is in addition to the 10% dps nerf that 2WF suffered when we went from 1 offhand attack per main hand attack to only 0.8 offhand attacks to each main hand attack with all 3 feats.

[bhgiant]

26 bugs last night..BAH. My seven year old when he comes to work reports more than that in a day
Bring the wall.
I
Triple
Dog
Dare
You.

Fine.

[Arnhelm]

...Take a few days, and remember when you build a character you are not filling out 20 levels all at the same time.

Just getting started reading these threads. I am stunned to see you say the above.

When I build a character, I build 20 levels at a time. I plan my character in advance, rather than risking the possibility of making bad choices on-the-fly. Most of the people I play with do the same, either with their own builds or with builds provided by people like me. Some of us enjoy character planning as much as playing, as can be seen here http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=414491.

...Also, I find build planning potentially easier this way, and I think for some non-hardcore players this is visually easier to understand how to get to a planned goal. Far easier actually. I hate the old system.

Wow... Just... WoW.

[Kakashi67]

Just getting started reading these threads. I am stunned to see you say the above.

When I build a character, I build 20 levels at a time. I plan my character in advance, rather than risking the possibility of making bad choices on-the-fly. Most of the people I play with do the same, either with their own builds or with builds provided by people like me. Some of us enjoy character planning as much as playing, as can be seen here http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=414491.

I took it to mean how long it takes to put all 20 levels of points into the new UI vs. the old way, as he was responding to a quoted reply.

[Ganolyn]

Take a few days, and remember when you build a character you are not filling out 20 levels all at the same time. Also, I find build planning potentially easier this way, and I think for some non-hardcore players this is visually easier to understand how to get to a planned goal. Far easier actually. I hate the old system.

You don't hate the system, you hate the interface. Most all of us do, but why can we figure out a way to retain the system (which is good) and improve the interface and you guys can't?

[SirValentine]

...feels restrictive because of a design decision is a bug.

26 bugs last night..BAH. My seven year old when he comes to work reports more than that in a day
Bring the wall.
I
Triple
Dog
Dare
You.

OK, I just opened a nice batch of Cleric-related design decision "bugs" for you:

1. Exorcist of the Silver Flame enhancements missing

2. Warpriest enhancements missing

3. Spell Penetration enhancements missing

4. Smiting enhancements missing

5. Divine Light enhancement missing

6. Divine Might enhancement missing

7. Energy of the Zealot enhancement missing

8. Sanctuary spell point cost is wrong

9. Pacifism huge penalty wrong for the tiny bonus it gives

10. Postive Energy Aura AP cost has doubled

11. Bliss is extremely expensive and basically useless

12. Can't choose both Divine Healing and Divine Vitality

[Produktion_Malphunktion]

You don't hate the system, you hate the interface. Most all of us do, but why can we figure out a way to retain the system (which is good) and improve the interface and you guys can't?

Right this. I don't hate the system I hate the UI. Fighting the UI to get what I want is just...annoying. It is the first thing I mentioned when I started working on this game.
I won't speak on why it is not a 1:1 correlation to the old system...which would have made QA very happy for multiple reasons, I'll toss that one to the devs to answer.

[Produktion_Malphunktion]

OK, I just opened a nice batch of Cleric-related design decision "bugs" for you:

1. Exorcist of the Silver Flame enhancements missing

2. Warpriest enhancements missing

3. Spell Penetration enhancements missing

4. Smiting enhancements missing

5. Divine Light enhancement missing

6. Divine Might enhancement missing

7. Energy of the Zealot enhancement missing

8. Sanctuary spell point cost is wrong

9. Pacifism huge penalty wrong for the tiny bonus it gives

10. Postive Energy Aura AP cost has doubled

11. Bliss is extremely expensive and basically useless

12. Can't choose both Divine Healing and Divine Vitality

Awesome thanks. It is always a happy monday when Gazebo is crying by lunchtime. (He doesn't really cry, it is more a rant...a very south Boston rant, which I sadistically enjoy every time.)

[Momsboys]

Right this. I don't hate the system I hate the UI. Fighting the UI to get what I want is just...annoying. It is the first thing I mentioned when I started working on this game.
I won't speak on why it is not a 1:1 correlation to the old system...which would have made QA very happy for multiple reasons, I'll toss that one to the devs to answer.

I miss the old Enchantments, Hated the old system, but if i had to choose between now and then, I choose then.

[SteeleTrueheart]

Suggestion:



It's so intuitive I won't even explain it.

No thanks, having to look at different race class sections 1 at a time and scrolling would be annoying. As annoying as the current system.

I would like to see something visually more like SWTOR. However in DDO it would be

4 panels just like now, 1 race and 3 class. each panel has smaller icons and is a whole class. ie paladin or cleric with each panel able to be hidden, but open by default if you have the class. That way each class would be a single tree. That single tree could be higher tiers and wider if the icons are smaller. And lets face it we do not need large icons as it is the hover over text that matters and then you have to pull the icons from your enhancement page of your character sheet, not from the trainer UI.

The height of a class panel would be debatable, how many levels should you have in a class to get the highest tier of their abilities?

[hit_fido]

No thanks, having to look at different race class sections 1 at a time and scrolling would be annoying. As annoying as the current system.

Yeah I would not be a fan of the sideways scroller either. It is probably wasted breath to ask for a wholesale UI change at this point.

But working within the existing UI I think two changes would help:

1) get rid of AP/Tier gating. Use the limited UI space you have to present a matrix of enhancement choices like you do now but rely only on Character Level and Prerequisite Feats or Enhancements to gate the more powerful selections. This would mean that *it doesn't matter where the enhancement is located in the UI* as long as I meet any other requirements. That means the limited space they have for enhancements opens up and there's less AP being wasted on things people don't want for their build just to get to the things they do want, because so and so enhancement is on tier 3 or 5. Character Level, Enhancement and Feat prerequisites are a perfectly good way to gate power while keeping the build process across multiple trees flexible and fun the way it is on Live.

2) Turn the bottom row into autogrants. They *look* like they should be autogrants anyway. That frees up additional AP for build variety and flavor. It feels like a fair exchange too. We're limited to three class trees. In exchange for that limit, at least autogrant us the core PRE enhancements once we meet the Class level based requirements.

[Phoenix-daBard]

I would like to see something visually more like SWTOR. However in DDO it would be

TOR's mystery meat UI is what made me uninstall it. At least with the current system you can see in plain text what you are picking instead of hovering over the icons and hope tooltips haven't bugged out yet again.

[Shmuel]

Right this. I don't hate the system I hate the UI. Fighting the UI to get what I want is just...annoying. It is the first thing I mentioned when I started working on this game.
I won't speak on why it is not a 1:1 correlation to the old system...which would have made QA very happy for multiple reasons, I'll toss that one to the devs to answer.

So can we get a dev to answer/explain this then?

[smatt]

OK, I just opened a nice batch of Cleric-related design decision "bugs" for you:

1. Exorcist of the Silver Flame enhancements missing

2. Warpriest enhancements missing

3. Spell Penetration enhancements missing

4. Smiting enhancements missing

5. Divine Light enhancement missing

6. Divine Might enhancement missing

7. Energy of the Zealot enhancement missing

8. Sanctuary spell point cost is wrong

9. Pacifism huge penalty wrong for the tiny bonus it gives

10. Postive Energy Aura AP cost has doubled

11. Bliss is extremely expensive and basically useless

12. Can't choose both Divine Healing and Divine Vitality

OK nice.... So....

What I would like to see is an explanation from a Dev on this, mostly on the missing stuff...

#1 Is this intended to be this way?
#2 Is it simply unfinished?
#3 Is it really that hard to have a list of what's currently live, and to use that list to emulate what's live, of course making SOME adjustments according to the outline of the "New DDO"?
#4 Odds of actually getting a straight answer, without "Vast and mysterious"?
#5 What is the intention of the enhancement changes?
A: To keep the current player base, while garnering a large amount of new players?
B: To keep the current player base, while managing to keep the slow trickle of new players, which largely keeps the total player base where it is?
C: To annoy a good number of the current players, becasue not onyl do they have to respec their characters, but they will have to completely rethink and rebuild them by PAYING for it out of their own pockets, causing them to go into a fit of "I quit" nerd rage of epic proportions, while not increasing the stream of new players?

At some point you would think that the exalted leaders of DDO (IE: Producers on up) would understand it's an old game, that isn't going to suddenly turn into a far more popular game than it is currently, and that they should be doing everything they can to retain the current players while also fostering the drive to at least keep a status quo as far as the stream of new players. Ham-fisted attempts to change the game in ways that they believe is going to suddenly cause lightning to strike is well.... Ham-fisted.... Ain't going to happen..... Sorry....

[Theolin]

Few things

1 Clerics and the spell power for things other than healing & light which are in the healing tree

The defense tree is 1 spell power per point (BB damage is what comes to mind-but in defense????) ... now this nice but the tree really needs some help I do not even know where to begin with it
After taking the stuff needed for Rad2 your not left with much

2 Arti spell power

Battle engineer - like the tree but the spell power only if rune arm is charged - really - oh and it does not work if you charge over the tier it says
The other tree - which give 1 spell power per point nice but like the cleric defense tree .... just bad

Looking at these together I would like a way to increase force damage from something that does not bite even if it is a choice in a tree where you choose a "line" to increase more than the others ... just something ... unless of course the idea was to nerf Blade Barrier into oblivion.

TLDR:
In general by the time you take the enhancements you really need (defining ones of the class) the naked force spell power is about 1/2 of what the old system gave for about twice the cost.

[Flavilandile]

Right this. I don't hate the system I hate the UI. Fighting the UI to get what I want is just...annoying. It is the first thing I mentioned when I started working on this game.
I won't speak on why it is not a 1:1 correlation to the old system...which would have made QA very happy for multiple reasons, I'll toss that one to the devs to answer.

You know that if you look at it closely the old system is tree based too ?

Well ok it's a reverse tree, you have a root ( take Radiant Servant 2 ) that spawns a tree of requirements, you could have done it that way, it's dead easy, that's how Civilization has been doing the Technology tree for Ages )
And Done that way, no need to redo anything. it's just an UI change. Things that were presented in a clunky UI gets presented in a tree fashion, and you can even add something like : Select Radiant Servant II, you get a pop up that ask you if you wish to go there... and then spend the points in the tree to reach that. ( up to the number of points you have... and retain the choice you made so that when an AP is earned, it's automatically spent in the relevant tree )

[Jastron]

I have been on Lamannia to evaluate the changes on five of my characters. Lamannia having the test dojo is appreciated and the developers were patient and polite in the Thursday night event, thank you.

However, the currently proposed changed game system, which, to be fair, will probably be slightly more favorable to the players when finished that it is currently on Lam, but still when it launches:

A. Will likely require many builds both multiclass and single class, to make the effort to LR to get their character back or not even fully back to where it is today
B. Some builds may need an LR +5 or even more than one, or a TR to get to that point, plus a good bit of research and planning
C. Some players, since this is an older game, especially if they have a lot of characters, may just say the heck with it, it's too much work just to try to figure out how to get back where I was, I'm leaving

I would think that at this stage of DDO's life, Turbine should be considering what to do to increase player retention and reduce turnover. I don't believe that the proposed changes will increase player retention, I see the opposite effect.

Other than an increase in purchase of LR+5 and TR hearts of wood on the DDO store, I can't imagine changes of this magnitude, in the negative way that many of them are, will increase the bottom line of DDO's income over the next year. Will new prospective players really look that deep into the enhancement system before choosing to play? Perhaps the bean counters and suits should look into the anticipated ROI for this change.

Why are the developers seeking so many changes? I agree with MajorMal that the new interface is an improvement, and I would support that being updated. However, why bother changing the enhancements, prereqs, skills, etc? Especially if not to give us more choice and freedom, but in many cases, less?

I have already had one member of my guild cancel his VIP subscription. I think it is much too early to make a decision like that, but it underscores the feelings some have about these proposed changes, and if it went live like this I am certain others would leave as well.

Therefore, it's probably too late now, but sunk costs are irrelevant, so I would simply put the shiny new interface on the existing system, or at least make the system as close as possible to live, and be alert for anything that appears to be a nerf. Because currently, folks could point of literally dozens of things that they feel have been 'nerfed' in this build on Lamannia.

Thank you for taking the time to read my opinions.

[dlsidhe]

Unless they add a ton more enhancements, I'm not sure how much they can tone down the AP costs. Making the class core into autogrants would free up 8AP per tree. Also, as we only get 4AP per level, the gate (if any) from tree tier to tree tier should be 4AP, not 5AP. 5AP, with everything being 2AP in cost, means at level 1 you have to be halfway through level 2 to unlock the second tier.

Or, to use Tempest:

First core, free.
4AP for level 1 - 2 in the main tempest line, 2 for in something else
4AP for level 2 - 2 for second core ability, unlock tier 2, 2 AP in the main tempest line.
4AP for level 3 - 2 AP for an optional, unlock tier 3, 2AP for tier 3/core 3 depending

If the core was autogranted, with 4AP as the gate per tier, and 6AP granting the core.

First core, free.
4AP for level 1 - 2 in the main tempest line, 2 in something else, tier 2 unlocked
4AP for level 2 - 2 in the main tempest line, second core is autogranted, 2AP in another tier 2 ability, tier 3 unlocked
4AP for level 3 - 2 in the main tempest line, 2 in an optional, tier 4 unlocked, third core is granted

That assumes spending all your points in the PrE line, of course. If not, it would spread the power out a little more, so you'd end up getting into serious PrE power around level 6, when they normally kick in currently.

That's working within the current design; if they made the trees function on total points spent, and the core autogrants based on points spent in the tree, that would also create more freedom. And if they added more enhancements per tree, that would allow costs to be lowered.

Or, as a listicle.

• Tree tiers per 4AP spent by the character, anywhere.
• Class "core" enhancements are autogranted per 6 AP spent in the tree.
• Class capstone unlocks for purchase at 40 points spent in a tree, with no level gate, to prevent more than one capstone per toon, but to encourage multiclassing.

So, as an example, you have a toon that is going to be a stalwart defender, but you only need one bottom-tier enhancement for your build. So, you pick that up, and then pick up something from kensei that works thematically, or from your racial PrE. Now you have tier 2SD unlocked, spend two points there, get your second tier of autogrant core.

[Davelfus]

You know that if you look at it closely the old system is tree based too ?

Well ok it's a reverse tree, you have a root ( take Radiant Servant 2 ) that spawns a tree of requirements, you could have done it that way, it's dead easy, that's how Civilization has been doing the Technology tree for Ages )
And Done that way, no need to redo anything. it's just an UI change. Things that were presented in a clunky UI gets presented in a tree fashion, and you can even add something like : Select Radiant Servant II, you get a pop up that ask you if you wish to go there... and then spend the points in the tree to reach that. ( up to the number of points you have... and retain the choice you made so that when an AP is earned, it's automatically spent in the relevant tree )

Truth on this, but don't have my hopes high on they changing the "prestige based" part of the system to be one tree per class.


they should have started the alfa when they had the first class with the working prestiges ready :\
now with the enhancements for all classes aparently done, just see a few numbers tweaks being possible...