You know the game is not balanced properly when...

[Grailhawk]

The whole mentality of I want to be amazingly good at everything I feel comes from the necessity to farm the game. I even find people who are soloers by necessity (interruptions to the gameplay) are more amenable to the idea of soloing being crafty (as opposed to steamroll).

Little bit more, you can play DDO in the trinity model and it is effective a Paladin or Fighter Sentinel Tank, plus a healer, with 4 full ****** DPS will be an effective party they may even be more effective then 6 self sufficient toons, however no one really wants to play that way.

[BigErkyKid]

Little bit more, you can play DDO in the trinity model and it is effective a Paladin or Fighter Sentinel Tank, plus a healer, with 4 full ****** DPS will be an effective party they may even be more effective then 6 self sufficient toons, however no one really wants to play that way.

You think so? I'd take two DPS paladins over a dos paladin and tank any day.

The lack of fun options for cooperation is a mistake in design, not in the concept of cooperation.

For me, there is always people who just want to do their own thing. But the brand DnD is based on the idea of working together. That's what I expect to find when I come to a MMO with a DnD license.

[Grailhawk]

Some people actually like the game better right now. I do not and in this thread it has become apparent that I am not alone.

But in game for years people have preferred the BYOH mentality. Its just easier to get in a group full of Self Sufficient toons run your quest and be done, no one wants to wait for X role or have to re-spec so the party can succeed.

[BigErkyKid]

But in game for years people have preferred the BYOH mentality. Its just easier to get in a group full of Self Sufficient toons run your quest and be done, no one wants to wait for X role or have to re-spec so the party can succeed.

See my post above.

[Andoris]

Rogues got the short end of the stick because paladins and bards stick was made short, due to the nerfs demanded of the new versions of them, thus taking away a good chunk of the overhead to make rogues better.

The better choice is to have a small amount of patience during the revamps, revamp ALL first, them compare the new versions of ALL to eachother, then have ONE round of nerfs.

Instead what we got is nerfing after each revamp, which in turn removes most of the overhead to make future revamps much better.

In order for us to have patience to "wait and see" it would be fair to ask the Devs to give us a high level road map of where we are going. When we should expect the individual classes/trees to be revamped, which classes need a boost (and where) and which classes might see a decrease in effectiveness ( and where).

Give me confidence that there is a plan that we are working towards and I will be more patient. The devs haven't really delivered in communicating the vision and plan.

In the absence of that, it is fair that the players are seeing a huge power jump with 3 classes (which I agree needed some love, just not as much as they got); and then they look at the proposed Rogue changes and go "***" and cry foul.

[Andoris]

Thats still comparing revamped classes to not revamped classes to determine balance. This is an invalid comparison which disallows progress.

Not allowing the first and second revamps to upset that balance clings to the belief that every class should only be as powerful as they are currently, never improving.

The better choice is to have a small amount of patience during the revamps, revamp ALL first, them compare the new versions of ALL to each other, then have ONE round of nerfs. At such point the game has a new valid comparison for balance as all classes are post revamp.

I agree in principle to your suggestion, but as others have mentioned.. we are over 3 years away from them getting through "all the classes". In addition, there has been no indication that they intend to re-vamp "all the classes".

If your process is to work, the time between the first revamp and the last needs to be considerably shorter (maybe a year at most).

[Grailhawk]

You think so? I'd take two DPS paladins over a dos paladin and tank any day.

The lack of fun options for cooperation is a mistake in design, not in the concept of cooperation.

For me, there is always people who just want to do their own thing. But the brand DnD is based on the idea of working together. That's what I expect to find when I come to a MMO with a DnD license.

Taking Barbarians out of this for just a minute as they are breaking this far more then Paladins. 4 full ****** DPS who never stop to heal should have about the same DPS as 6 self-sufficient toons who have to stop and heal.

Note that 6 self-sufficient toons, will be a an easier paradigm to get right in a PUG because they need less coordinate. This is why you prefer the DPS Paladins its easier to understand them and work with them, because you aren't relying on them to fill a role and there isn't going to be some kind of disconnect.

Barbarians may be messing this up because they heal without stopping there DPS this is dangers.

[Tinco]

In the absence of that, it is fair that the players are seeing a huge power jump with 3 classes (which I agree needed some love, just not as much as they got); and then they look at the proposed Rogue changes and go "***" and cry foul.

That's at least somewhat explainable with the grass-is-greener-syndrome.

Mostly-rogue Acrobats are not bad at all at the moment, they never were since the enhancement pass. They got good crit profiles (17-20/x3 base with the two endgame staves), massive amounts of sustainable doublestrike and with defensive roll one of the best 'invisible defenses' in the game. Cramping too much additional power into an already decent tree will result in another level of op-ness, because acrobats are already very multiclass friendly so they can pick the better parts of some fotm-classes anyway.

Assassins with their unique playstyle have an established fan base and while they are not facemelting like a pally or barb, they are effective soloers with extremely high trap dc's (fascinate level dc). Their pass should be mostly themed around making them more accessible for group play, and that's what I'm seeing.

The state of rogues was never as bad as some people make it out to be, the problem I see is that Rogue has got two very specialized trees and players that prefer the 'dirty fighter' archetype are not satisfied with the trees in general. So they project that archetype into the existing trees without respecting the power that comes with the narrow playstyles supported by the trees. If anything, the rogue lacks a whole tree - and not massive power within the existing ones.

(can't comment on mechanic as no preview is available)

[Andoris]

It wouldn't be unprecedented if new content completely invalidated a play style.

Looking at the spell resistance formula here: http://ddowiki.com/page/Spell_Resistance

Will spell penetration #s be high enough to break through EE devil and fiendish spell resistances when eVale comes out? Without new gear and feats I am doubting it will be possible to achieve a no-fail spell penetration or even close to it.

These are the kind of problems that specialist builds face.

There is a huge investment to get close to a max spell penetration number and then a new level cap and new enemies can make it unachievable. Of course this is speculation since the new content isn't out yet and we don't know what new gear and level 29-30 feats might exist. However, we can predict the CR value of EE devils and fiendish creatures and see how that computes to SR in the wiki.

With that said, I am glad the easy-button builds were introduced to the game. It's useful to provide an entry bridge to harder content for newer players and those wishing to move from lower difficulties to EE. It also works nicely for less-accomplished alts to try out different builds.

For my build in particular, Spell Pen is its Achilles heel. However, it is not something that can be easily addressed as Spell Resistance is tied directly to CR.

Turbine made the design decision to increase difficulty by massively inflating CR to the point where it is no longer feasible to build for it. Even if they only used CR+5 for Devil SR that would put spell resistance in the 80's; for comparison a max Spell Pen build currently caps out at 66 and that requires significant sacrifice (Alchemical Tier 3, 2 twists, many ED and AP points, Thunderforged Tier 2, 3 feats, and running in magister) which will see your DCs drop so far that after you break spell pen (of which you are still 20 points short of) you won't be able to land the spell anyways.. so whats the point.

At this point anything Turbine adds Spell Resistance to at end-game might as well have complete immunity -- as the result and the method to deal with it will be the same.

[BigErkyKid]

Note that 6 self-sufficient toons, will be a an easier paradigm to get right in a PUG because they need less coordinate. This is why you prefer the DPS Paladins its easier to understand them and work with them, because you aren't relying on them to fill a role and there isn't going to be some kind of disconnect.

Exactly. No coordination. It is not needed to beatt content. For me, this is not good. I do not speak for everyone, but as you can see in this thread, this bothers more people.

[Grailhawk]

Exactly. No coordination. It is not needed to beatt content. For me, this is not good. I do not speak for everyone, but as you can see in this thread, this bothers more people.

Sure but that's a minority, like I said more people in game actually prefer the BYOH game. Because its quicker to find a group and run content there's no waiting. Doing thing like they used to be done leads to time waiting to start a quest which is really a waist of time and who comes into a game to waist time doing nothing?

[Andoris]

I'm not sure what they can do to make the rogues competitive in a game where we have 1500 HP, 150 PRR, 5000 DPS barbarians that self-heal better than any other melee class.

Reducing the power of Pally/Bard/Barb would be a good start.

[etotheipi]

I understand why Andoris has respecced his Pale Master to give it melee ability. Casters have been proxy-nerfed into the ground (by making BRDs, PALs, and BRBs way, way too powerful), and actually nerfed into the ground (through the Champion system). MAX DC casters can't kill trash noticeably faster than MAX DPS melees now, and they are stymied by Champions (best to just skip them when possible, of course). There's a fair bit of Undead in the game too, and DC casters don't really have good methods of dealing with those either.

Overall, your PALs, BRDs, and BRBs are just better against trash, and, of course, infinitely better against everything else. In addition, they have thousands of HP and damage mitigation through the roof. The mere runspeed that BRBs and BRDs get makes them faster trash killers than a MAX DC instakiller... And their DPS isn't limited by anything (you know, like SP). Casters have been HOSED. And they aren't even desirable as Hold Bots. The melees will have cleared the trash before the Mass Hold spell goes off or the caster catches up.

Now let's think about the investment involved in getting a MAX DC caster. It's huge. And yet, a first life BRB, PAL or BRD utterly dominates it. The melees finally whined enough to get their complete easy button, I guess. It wasn't good enough to be needed for non-trash. Now they just ROFLSTOMP everything. And ROGs want in on this too. We might as well just give everyone the old Everything is Nothing and make it work on any mob in a dungeon, since that's what this playerbase is begging for and the DEVs are feeding them. Skill, strategy, teamwork, tactics, planning... None of it is part of this game anymore. Just roll up one of the new easy-button classes, head off solo or in a group (doesn't matter), swing mindlessly, and watch the quest auto-complete. Yay, I guess?

[BigErkyKid]

Sure but that's a minority, like I said more people in game actually prefer the BYOH game. Because its quicker to find a group and run content there's no waiting. Doing thing like they used to be done leads to time waiting to start a quest which is really a waist of time and who comes into a game to waist time doing nothing?

I already offered you a solution via the possibility of having two respecs for a build.

Some people simply don't want it and no amount of arguing will change their mind.

I am not here to convince them, rather, to make it obvious to the devs that a not very vocal fraction of the community actually dislikes the washed out OP classes that come out their class upgrades.

[Qhualor]

Sure but that's a minority... today

players either adapted or moved on in life. interesting how the game got easier and player population actually went down. im not saying this is the one and only reason, just a major contributor.

[Qhualor]

Taking Barbarians out of this for just a minute as they are breaking this far more then Paladins. 4 full ****** DPS who never stop to heal should have about the same DPS as 6 self-sufficient toons who have to stop and heal.

Note that 6 self-sufficient toons, will be a an easier paradigm to get right in a PUG because they need less coordinate. This is why you prefer the DPS Paladins its easier to understand them and work with them, because you aren't relying on them to fill a role and there isn't going to be some kind of disconnect.

Barbarians may be messing this up because they heal without stopping there DPS this is dangers.

you mean the barbarians that use Consecrated Ground and don't stop to heal?

[Ancient]

But in game for years people have preferred the BYOH mentality.

My preference for being able to play BYOH toons is not past tense. It is still my preference and part of why if BigErky/Chai had their way with game design... I'd move on to a different game.

[Oxarhamar]

You think so? I'd take two DPS paladins over a dos paladin and tank any day.

The lack of fun options for cooperation is a mistake in design, not in the concept of cooperation.

For me, there is always people who just want to do their own thing. But the brand DnD is based on the idea of working together. That's what I expect to find when I come to a MMO with a DnD license.

Here's part of your problem.

There are options for cooperation but, you choose not that even if the cooperation would lead to a faster completion something you typically choose to scale success on.

You say you want team play but, you choose not to use it.

[Grailhawk]

I am not here to convince them, rather, to make it obvious to the devs that a not very vocal fraction of the community actually dislikes the washed out OP classes that come out their class upgrades.

I don't think you have stated this clearly then because you have it all jumbled up with party roles.

Do you want DDO to become a trinity game where a tank, healer, and 4 DPS are required to complete each quest?

[Grailhawk]

players either adapted or moved on in life. interesting how the game got easier and player population actually went down. im not saying this is the one and only reason, just a major contributor.

No one ever liked waiting for X role no one.

The game did get easier but not because all toons are self-sufficient.

you mean the barbarians that use Consecrated Ground and don't stop to heal?

No, the well build barbs who don't need anything but whats in there trees (Blood Strength, or Accelerated Metabolism).