A few thoughts after reading...

[hit_fido]

Your missing the forst for the trees. The actual numbers on the tier gates are irrelevant; the underlying mechanic is the key. The underlying mechanic you propose is fundamentally more restrictive (and forces way more wasted AP) than the underlying mechanic on live

Removing AP gating releases a restriction. Relying on enhancement pre-requisites to gate other enhancements is in place on Live right now so that's just incorrect.

OR you allow high power enhancements to be taken at low levels, which is unworkably unbalancing. Consider 0/10/30/50/70 as the AP gates, or any other variation you please.

This is the fundamental mechanic in action. Higher power enhancements should not be available until higher levels. Your proposal does nothing to ensure this. Explain in detail how you propose to force the higher power enhancements to later levels.

I'm fine taking specific scenarios and looking at them case by case because that may prove enlightening and may be good fodder for Turbine. Favored Damage I can be taken on live right now at ranger level 1. Favored Damage II at ranger level 5, and III at ranger level 9. So your system is actually more restrictive than Live, and in my opinion more restrictive than necessary in this case. It is not overpowering on Live that a ranger level 5 can take +2 Damage against favored enemies; if we did nothing more than dump AP gating, then a ranger level 4 could take +3 damage against favored enemies - hardly a significant difference. So, this is not a scenario where we need to worry about overbalancing power at lower levels, but it is a scenario where your proposal deviates from Live in the direction of more restriction. Note that it doesn't matter if you decouple the enhancements; your proposal still limits any favored damage increases to character level 8, and my proposal still limits it to ranger level 4.

My position is still that eliminating AP gating is a net good regardless of whether we tweak enhancement chains or not. Now what I'd like to see is an actual scenario based on removing AP gating and changing nothing else in what we've seen so far that is demonstrably game balance breaking because of the lack of AP gating or more restrictive because of the lack of AP gating. I haven't yet, but do not claim it's impossible - it seems to me that is the demonstration that is needed to refute my position that removing AP gating altogether is an absolute net gain.

[EllisDee37]

Removing AP gating releases a restriction. Relying on enhancement pre-requisites to gate other enhancements is in place on Live right now so that's just incorrect.

This is a complete misunderstanding of how it works on live. Enhancement prereqs do virtually nothing to balance power on live. Nothing. That's all done by progression.

Balancing multiclass power vs pure class power is a different thing altogether. That's balanced on live by class level prereqs.

[~Dark_Sable]

So, I've been playing around with the enhancements on Lama and the oh-so-wonderful character planner.

(I've been trying really hard to keep myself from asking that the character planner get updated with things that aren't even on live yet. :P)

Here are my thoughts so far:

1) Yes, within a class it's pretty restrictive. There aren't as many (desirable) options as we're used to, or so it feels like.

2) As soon as you step out of a pure level 20 build, you gain... a lot of power. You have the freedom to mix and match trees and abilities as you like to build a good build. After staying up (almost) all night, I believe I may have created a build that beats a pure 20 rogue on live, without the downside of death-by-glance. I personally feel that the "restrictions" are almost spot on; you can still get a lot of power if you aim for it, but it's not dumped in your lap instantly like I was originally afraid of.

3) There aren't enough incentives for staying pure. Period. Because of this, the new powergamer split is going to be 18/2 for casters (but not the way we normally see; my favored soul, for example, will be taking 2 paladin.) and 16/2/2 for melees.

4) There are a couple of things that can help mitigate these things. First, take the 0th tier of each tree, and make it be autogranted, like it logically should be. Yes, this will give the character more AP to play with, but it also means that a character that stays pure, or has at least a very deep multiclass, will see more benefit from it, as they'll have the autogrants from all trees of their class that they're still using. (Though they should keep the "x number of points invested" clause.) The second remedy to this would be to make the capstones better. Yes, they're good, but not good enough compared to the early levels of some trees. Possibly take the 12-level grant and move it to 16, with some buffs?

5) This is off topic, but the monk mastery now requiring three feats that can't be monk feats... that's not fun for monks; they already didn't have all that much leeway in feats, and now have to fit three new ones in? Please at the very very least make them selectable as martial arts feats. Even better than that would be to have them work like dragonmarks; you take the adept feat to start with, and it either levels up with you or is leveled up through AP somehow.

[Shinjiteru]

I hope this is the right place for this kind of feedback.

You tried to limit enhancement access by only allowing one tier 5 in one tree and lowering the AP needed to make it easier to achieve that because you have to spend points in one tree to get there.

But I think it's still not restrictive enough for multiclass builds. Your capstones are still too week for the new enhancement system. Some are very nice and desirable. But if you want you can splash only one fighter to take tier 5 enhancements in one fighter tree, if you think that suits your playstyle. And I think it is strange that for example 19 bard/1 fighter split or something similar has access to tier 5 of the splashed class.

The best example I can give is again the warchanter bard, if you don't care about the spellsinger tree you can get much more with 19bard/1fighter than the warchanter capstone is giving you. +2 con from defender, +2 str from kensai (or +4str) and several other fighting enhancements on the way. Yeah this means you have to dump AP in two trees to get there but I think the tier 4 enhancements should require at least 2 level in that class and tier 5 six levels. This was only an example to show how much you can gain by splashing only one level, think most warchanters would be better off getting 18bard/1barb/1fighter for access to con in a barb tree.
Restricting it to only one tier 5 in one tree is strange if you are able to take it with only one level in that class because I'd say if you think they are too strong to be able to have access to multiple tier 5 enhancements in different trees shouldn't there also be some kind of level restriction? And I guess some warchanter bards would prefer a tier 5 enhancement from barb or fighter, beeing able to get there with only one splashed level feels odd for me.

Maybe this is a desired effect by your changes to the enhancement system, but I'd say if that's really working as intended than you should think about making capstones a bit stronger. Staying pure should never gimp your build compared to 1-2 splashed levels.

At the moment if you don't want to take core abilities in two class trees you get much more for splashing 1-2 levels compared to the capstones. And I would like to see a bit more gain for staying pure compared to splashing other classes.

[Kik96]

Plain and simple as far as I can see, if your intention is to break an enhancement system that currently works with one that is more difficult to use then you are succeeding. Under the new enhancement tree system you are succeeding by forcing me to take enhancements that I don't want to take. I've also noticed that I don't see some of the enhancements I have on my characters on the live servers such as faith: basic tenents and faith: advanced belief are even available.
I forsee needing more action points under the new system to get my characters back to where they are under the current enhancement system, should this new system ever make it to live servers. More likely I will many characters with unspent action points because of ridiculous core requirements needed to access the trees. I don't like spending action points on enhancements I don't want and under this new system I can see myself not buying any racial enhancements because of this absurd requirement in the just the core enhancements themselves.

I created a Bladeforged Iconic paladin on test server and discovered that I had to access 2 different class trees for the paladin just to get the same enhancements as on the live servers. And even then I couldn't get the same results or even locate some of the enhancements that I have on the live servers. So like I said in the beginning, you've managed to brak something that was working fine.

[EllisDee37]

And I think it is strange that for example 19 bard/1 fighter split or something similar has access to tier 5 of the splashed class.

You need 5 levels of a class to access that class's tier 5s.

[Nightmanis]

You need 5 levels of a class to access that class's tier 5s.

This logic right here is the only thing I do not like in the new enhancements. 5 levels in a class, and you have access to everything but the core abilities.

WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA???

I wouldn't mind this so much at least if there was more than just 5 tiers (let's shoot for 15+!!!) but currently this just seems like a major defect in the total design. Being able to go with a 12 Fighter/6 Monk/2 Probably Arti for UMD and have EVERY enhancement except like 4 core abilities is the worst possible idea. That's not creating more freedom for characters, it's pigeonholing them into now NO ONE needs more than a few levels besides gimping themselves.

[Hajutze]

Obvious things missing (IMHO)
- Monk WIS to damage and to hit for the Henshin
- The Henshin spell-like abilities are WAY too slow and the last ability can be used max 5 times per rest and deals FIRE damage ... at least make the extra 1-20 (while you're not moving) force damage
- Bard CHA to damage and to hit for ... who cares - just add it
- The sneak enhancements are too costy for the Deepwood stalker - 12 AP to sneak 50% faster ... REALLY ?!
- There is a lack of an enhancement which prevents you from breaking sneak if you use ranged attacks (haven't you played Skyrim or any game with sneaking mechanics lately ...)

Generally - **** is waaay to costy right now. Cut ALMOST EVERYTHING to 1 AP per rank and leave only the top stuff (TOP rank 4-5 .. heck only 5) with 2 AP per enhancement. For example - right now
- If you want to access the last attack on the Thief-Acrobat tree (on 3) you need to waste 21 AP. Or the Cleave-like one - 15 AP. It's just way too much for a DEX based cleave + trip which might not even trip trash mobs after lv20.
- 50% sneak speed on ranger ? Sure - 13 AP
- I think I saw some stuff on the kensei tree that was 2 AP, but 1 AP on the monk/rogue w/e trees.

[ChaosEmperorDragon]

I'd like to hear from a designer if a great multi-class character is meant to be stronger than a great pure-class character. What are your intentions, here? I can't comment on how well you are designing enhancements if I don't know your goal. I'll refrain from further comment until I hear a response on this.

[Shinjiteru]

You need 5 levels of a class to access that class's tier 5s.

OK sorry, I didn't look closely enough it seems. Was just checking enhancement trees with my 18bard/2fighter and nearly none of the fighter tree enhancements had a red window so I thought I could take them all. Didn't look very closely at them because I wanted to see what I can get if I try to stay pure bard.

So ok, main problem of my last post solved. ^^;

[EllisDee37]

Actually, on further inspection, did they change tier 5s to require 12 levels in that class?

[Hajutze]

Actually, on further inspection, did they change tier 5s to require 12 levels in that class?

nope.

[Rusty_Can]

Actually, on further inspection, did they change tier 5s to require 12 levels in that class?

Tier 5 stuff requires Character Level 12 and Class Level 5.

[EllisDee37]

Tier 5 stuff requires Character Level 12 and Class Level 5.

Ah, okay, thanks much. I knew I saw "level 12" in some context.

[Seikojin]

I think multiclassing is better--- if you can find four trees that you are happy with. There is no need to keep yourself on 6,12, or 18 levels splits now to get certain prestige classes. You don't have to get to 20 to obtain a capstone. I dislike certain changes, but overall am pretty impressed at the flexibility offered here. I don't know why anyone would even go pure class anymore! (except maybe for caster levels, DCs and spell slots).

edit: agree that costs across the board are too high.

I see potential for the new system to be awesome and epic. My old suggestion to make core abilities only have spent in tree and level requirements would go a long way in helping free up the ap to truly MC in the new system in the level you can in the old. I also said the racial should count towards all class trees. My suggestion thread on ap costs cut a lot down. Perhaps too much, but we never will know unless they make some changes for us to test. Currently, the system is the same cost as it was last round. So adding a few trees to put points in does nothing but make us thin our builds out more. Missing the tier 3-5 abilities that make a particular build shine.

[Schadrach]

I'd like to hear from a designer if a great multi-class character is meant to be stronger than a great pure-class character. What are your intentions, here? I can't comment on how well you are designing enhancements if I don't know your goal. I'll refrain from further comment until I hear a response on this.

That's what I'd like to know too.

Currently on live that's certainly the case, in no small part because of how PrEs work and how powerful many of them are in the first rank.

The first pass of the new enhancement system it seemed like they were trying make MC setups have to choose by limiting them to three class trees, meaning they can only have access to all of the enhancements for a given class if they didn't take many/any from other classes.

This pass, the 6 class tree limit gets you access to all the trees for 2 or 3 classes, which removes that restriction entirely.

Ultimately, the problem is that what you gain and what you lose for multiclassing vs a pure class need to be of roughly equal value. That means that there needs to be some benefit of going deep into a class that someone multiclassing doesn't get.

There's a part of me that thinks that maybe tier V from multiple trees for a single class should be available to people who have enough levels in that class, where enough is either pure single classed or close to it. That would be an example of the type of benefit I mentioned above.

Also, the Battle Engineer spell power mechanic is silly -- it rewards you for charging but not firing your rune arm. It seems like Battle Engineer in particular should be encouraging heavy rune arm use.

[Seikojin]

The thread I made a while back:
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ons?highlight=

In it I talk about cutting ap costs down and removing the AP cost for most if not all core abilities.

I understand the restriction goals of having only 1 capstone and not being able to take many tier 5 abilities from many trees. I just felt the AP investment was too extreme and the abilities were lacking in some respects, to be an equal or better system than what is currently live.