The Balance Change post

[Darsith]

I did want to let folks know that Severlin joined me on the livestream today to take Q&A on this for about a half hour. You can find the archive on Twitch or YouTube.

Can barely hear Sev in the archived footage, any chance we can get a transcript of the conversation with him?

[CeltEireson]

I disagree. Given that even on the forums more than half the posts about the IC/Keen changes show an incorrect understanding of A) how IC/keen works today and B) how it will work in these new changes, if you go with an open vote by the entire player base, you will have a bunch of people voting on changes who have no clue what the changes even mean. Or, even worse, are voting on them with an erroneous understanding.

"I will vote for the holy sword change because it will make my 15/5 pally/rogue do even more DPS!"

Plus I'd say a golden rule of games development is that its not always a good idea to give players what they want. Might not be the case here - but its always a good idea to listen to your players and if you disagree with what they're saying carefully explain why.

I don't think the changes are as doom laden as some seem to think - such as the TWF changes, if the loss of 6 MP is make or break for a character build there's something wrong. Besides its not even a loss of 6% damage per hit, as you will already have a substantial amount of MP from epic levels, items and destinies so its only 6% of your base damage not 6% of your overall damage especially if you are running in LD.

[hp1055cm]

Holy Sword (Paladin)
Blood Strength (Barbarian Ravager)
Critical Rage (Barbarian Ravager)

Don't know, don't care, don't play either class.

Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Improved Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Greater Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.

Don't understand this one. I do play tempest Ranger and/or Rogue and think adding Melee Power to these feats was a positive change.
Removing melee power is a mistake. Tempest Rangers are not OP - they need their TWF bonuses. Find another way to punish so called "exploiters" without hurting those that play according to "the rules" (whatever those rules are).

Doubleshot
Repeating Crossbows and Doubleshot
Manyshot
Ten Thousand Stars
Mechanical Reloader (Rogue Mechanic)

Don't know, don't care, don't play ranged based toons.

Pulverizer (Legendary Dreadnought)
Improved Critical
Keen

Whatever. I'm not a meta-gamer and don't know how this affects anything.

Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.

Now THIS is just plain incomprehensible. The whole reason for adding MRR in the first place was to give people a reason to use heavy armor again - REMEMBER when everybody was running around in robes and maybe light armor? What - now too many people use Heavy armor??? Seriously? It's really not that hard to fix this - enforce the penalties already on heavy armor - spell failure and skill checks. Like giving casting classes an enhancement to bypass spell failure was EVER a good idea you should have seen the problem coming a mile away. Take MRR away from Light Armor - that actually might be a good change. But Heavy armor NEEDS it to be relevant. Another way to fix it would be to increase the ASF penalties in heavy armor, take away the enhancements that bypass ASF, and increase the time to equip the armor to 45 seconds. It's really not that hard. You should be buffing heavy armor, not diminishing it.
Again, you don't "fix" things by breaking it for those that are doing it right.
On a side note - does any class use medium armor? Why not?

Tactical Training
Tactical Combatant
Tactical Mastery
Tactical Supremacy
Heavy Armor Training
Heavy Armor Combatant
Heavy Armor Master
Heavy Armor Champion

Yeah, okay I guess, except why so many feats/enhancements? Are they auto-granted? Do other "fighter classes" get similar bonuses?

Eldritch Blast and other enhancements (Warlock)
The spellpower scaling for Eldritch Blast and several enhancements has been reduced.

[TD]Eldritch Burst (Enlightened Spirit)[/TD]
[TD]120%[/TD]
[TD]100%[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Spirit Blast (Enlightened Spirit)[/TD]
[TD]120%[/TD]
[TD]100%[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

Why? Didn't they already get nerfed like 3 months ago?
Thank goodness I am just about to finish my Warklock lives and get them done before you guys ruined it.

I will be following up this post with some details on our thoughts on balance and design.

This whole concept of "Balance" is ridiculous. I'd rather have uniqueness in the different classes with each one excelling at some attributes. Like should a Warforged Wizard be able to "sneak" as good as a rogue? Is that what "balance" is? I'd rather have the rogue be 5X as good as the wizard at sneaking and have the wizard 5X as good at spellcasting.
I mean, so what if someone wears heavy armor that they aren't proficient at? If they endure the penalties for that - which appeantly aren't significant for some spellcasters - then so what. Or enforce the existing penalties - ASF in particular.

[Mryal]

Since those are balancing changes...why not talk of actual,rebalancing of all, not just of characters that deal mainly physical damage (except warlock).

Where is the caster love? All you have really done with this was gimp casting classes even more with the removal of MRR on armors, while leaving people that take 3-4 paladin lvls for the silly stances unchanged, and that is where the high defense for little investment is.
Doing physical damage is currently way better than doing elemental, spell damage, since it actualy costs sp wich costs pots and at the same time does less damage and you have to bother with elemental resistances while physical melee and ranged classes do not.What if your main damage is Fire, with the new content, what do you think will happen? I'll tell you what happens, youre F***ed.

How about also rebalancing content, why is there elemental immunities on all of the new content, why is the new raid full of red nameds that cannot be CCed?
I think players want to be able to play classes that do suport or crowd control roles and these changes do not allow any of that.These changes do not change the fact that going full melee/ranged power whatever for the whole content is the best way to go.

I think players want to have bringing a caster or even a cleric in your raid be meaningfull and not "just a DPS drop" like it is now.

Personaly, i want to be able to actualy use my druid pet effectively, and not have it be a sp drain bot for me everytime it dies.I want my 3rd tree, i want meaningfull summons and not have to be strapped to using fire and ice forms.

[PsychoBlonde]

I tentatively approve of the changes. They seem fairly functional on first blush. I actually kind of like the Improved Crit changes. I would very strongly suggest changing Earth Stance and Overwhelming Critical to not be restricted to a 19-20 effect as part of this. You may get fewer crits, but ALL the crits you get will be Real Crits. This would also make your damage over time a lot more predictable.

Some thoughts, though:

Consider making the first feat of each set available to non-fighters, kind of like how Weapon Focus is available to non-fighters.

I STRONGLY encourage making a dodge set that looks like this and is available to Fighters and Monks as part of the pass for those two classes:

Dodge +3% Dodge and Dodge Cap when wearing light armor, +5% when wearing no armor

Improved Dodge +4% Dodge and Dodge Cap when wearing light armor, +6% when wearing no armor

Greater Dodge +5% Dodge and Dodge Cap when wearing light armor, +7% when wearing no armor

Supreme Dodge +6% Dodge and Dodge Cap when wearing light armor, +8% when wearing no armor

For a max of +18%/26% for light/no armor.

I would also additionally make the suggestion that you KEEP +MRR for MEDIUM armor only. This will make the function of the armor types quite distinct. Light grants evasion and no MRR. Heavy grants big AC and big PRR. Medium has medium AC and medium PRR but also grants MRR. That's an interesting tradeoff.

Power Attack does not scale well into higher levels and should probably be changed to grant melee power instead of a flat numerical bonus.

Combat Expertise is still an unspeakably lousy feat and needs to be revisited, along with Improved Trip, Improved Feint, and Whirlwind. Adding more good feats for Fighters just makes these even more laughably useless. My suggestion would be to make Combat Expertise an activated effect instead of a modal ability that increases your AC and PRR by a substantial amount (like 50%) for a short time (10 seconds?) and also fires off an AOE Intimidate. Improved Trip and Improved Feint just need to have the requirement for Combat Expertise removed. I would suggest on Whirlwind, instead of making it a one-time AOE cleave, have it increase your doublestrike and melee power by, say, 30% for 10 seconds. Those changes alone would do some interesting stuff to Fighters, because you'd have lots of useful and interesting feat options going on. Do I go max PRR? Max tactics? Dodge? Whirlwind?

I also strongly suggest doing something to nudge casters back in the direction of robes. My initial suggestion would be to take the Mental Toughness, Spell Penetration, and Spell Focus (and epic destiny spellpower) feats and make them all doubly effective if you're wearing no armor. Maybe also extend this to enhancements. This would be a significant tradeoff of defense for offensive capability, a tradeoff that really doesn't exist at the moment.

I would also suggest making more stat choices available on some of the caster-focused epic destinies, as well as basing DC's for almost all abilities off the highest of Int, Wis, or Cha.

Might even like to see an epic ability where targets of Enchantment or Transmutation spells have to make two successful saving throws to throw off the effect. Or maybe they become dazed for 6 seconds (no save) after clearing the primary effect.

I would also suggest having the monk stances have more effect if you're actually invested in monk levels. So, say, for Fire stance you get an additional +2 melee power/monk level. Ocean stance you'd get +1 dodge/tactics/saves per 4 monk levels. Earth Stance should grant an additional +2 PRR/monk level. Air stance should get additional doublestrike/doubleshot chance/monk level. I'd also suggest taking the crit multiplier off earth stance. Monks badly need an enhancement overhaul as well, of course.

[Sirea]

Whelp, at least this has helped me prioritize my TRs. I guess any monkcher, wolf, or tree builds can wait, as well as fighter. Gotta pick up the pace on the others, I suppose.

[dunklezhan]

I don't think it's right that paladins can't get access to some kind of MRR on their heavy armour. They are holy warriors of their god, their high saves are indicative that they are intended to fight vs magic well, I think therefore even non S&B pallies should have the opportunity to get some MRR. It doesn't have to be as much as fighters can now get from those feats (especially since pallies couldnt' afford the feats anyway) but perhaps some vanguard enhancements could apply to armour without requiring a shield or even a particular stance?

Surely that would improve build options for multiclasses - otherwise we have a situation where 'DPS tanks' are going to feel obliged to take specifically fighter levels if they really want to be effective at the top end.

[Alcedes]

I am most concerned about these things:

• Armored characters were well behind Evasion builds.
• Shields didn't offer enough benefits to offset the loss of DPS.

I am not sure if I understand you correctly or not. Are you implying that these things have been fixed? Because I believe the majority of the community would disagree.
Armored characters are still WAY behind. Granted, Armor works fine up until Epic Hard. But in Epic Elite, it is still WAY better to have Evasion, High Dodge, and Displacement. Even being heavily armored and using Displacement clickies does not yield equal results. Is it better than it was? Certainly. But Evasion builds are still ahead noticeably.

And shields STILL do not offer enough benefit to offset the DPS loss in the majority of content. What good does it to be to take 20% less damage at the cost of 50% of my DPS? In the long run, you are taking more damage because you are taking 3-4 times longer to kill.

• Temporary hit point abilities were considered "terrible".

"Were"? Still are. Unless you are a warlock of course. What good is 30 Temp HP when I am being hit for 350 damage on my tank? And no, my tank is no slouch either. 190 AC, 250 PRR, 165 MRR, and 2800 HP fully buffed. Thank goodness for the massive HP pool too. I frequently find myself being blasted on for 300-500 damage from TRASH mobs. If it were not for my Displacement clickies, surviving some content would be nearly impossible.

• Basic armor offers too much mitigation for its cost. While we are happy that armored characters are relevant again, we want to cut back on it a bit.

That might be true in some content. But in most Epic Elites, "Basic Armor" offers nothing. I have a 76% defense chance "At Level". Sounds great. Except i never fight anything "at level" in an epic elite. Everything these days is level 65+. This renders my "Defense Chance" to like nothing and now im solely reliant on my PRR. Which even with 75% damage reduction from PRR im still being hammered for 350 damage by trash mobs. It is WAY better to simply not be hit than it is to try to soak the damage.

Classes like Bard and Paladin have good spells, and strong class abilities. They can expect, if they build entirely towards melee, to deal out good melee DPS.

Have you looked over the paladin spells lately? They are awful. Many are useful for heroic leveling. But into Epics, most are completely obsoleted by gear. Other than Cure Critical (if you have the right build), Zeal, and Holy Sword very few serve any real purpose and none do anything noteworthy for DPS.

[Lonnbeimnech]

This whole concept of "Balance" is ridiculous. I'd rather have uniqueness in the different classes with each one excelling at some attributes. Like should a Warforged Wizard be able to "sneak" as good as a rogue? Is that what "balance" is? I'd rather have the rogue be 5X as good as the wizard at sneaking and have the wizard 5X as good at spellcasting.

That's basically it, but also that you would actually want to build for it. So your rogue can sneak 5x better, now what? will that make him able to complete content about as well as a wizard, but in a different way? or is it just that he is 5x better at something that is useless, and therefor no one has any reason to make a rogue.

[Cordovan]

Just a reminder that profanity is not allowed, nor are personal attacks against others or the DDO team. We understand that this is a passionate issue, but please keep your posts in line with the community guidelines.

[dunklezhan]

I'm sure someone has mentioned this. But on the stream re holy sword and silver flame - could you not make a new spell, holy bow? Added to your spell book with the relevant deity feat, and then give it different, more balanced bonuses for bow use that wouldnt' have to be the same as the melee version?

[Drwaz99]

This is all I will say on this since it seems like "willing to listen to feedback" isn't very encouraging:

I spent days and weeks farming for endgame gear out of Deathwyrm. The nerf to Holy sword and IMP CRIT combined with everything else is going to make my choice of weapon not ideal anymore. I'm not going to regrind Deathwyrm. If there is not trade in available when this goes live so I can pick up a new weapons (as suggested and only allow people to do it once), count me, a player since 2007, out.

I feel as you're listening to a very small selected group here in the forums and I'm NOT at all happy with the direction. Hope you make the right decision.

[Xario]

Please, while changing TWF animation can you look also on whirlwind feat, which is bugged for years and is working properly only while unarmed?

[the_one_dwarfforged]

Re: fighter tactics
I'm not sure I understand this. These feats will be available to fighters only? and supply up to +20 bonus to tactical feats? Is the game keeping the d20 window? So either mob saves are balanced against fighters with these feats making them the only capable class of landing them or mob saves are balanced for all classes and fighters investing in these feats have no-fail-even-on-epic elite stuns and trips?

this is why fighters should only have a moderate dc advantage, but have a much greater variety and amount of abilities to use.

ive said it a thousand times in a thousand places, but +dc is still the result. however i am willing to take it for two reasons:

1) given the motherf*cking INSANE saves on ee reavers and such in new amrath, these +dc things are kind of necessary (not sure they will be cost effective enough in the amount that one would have to take them to actually land stun reliably though).

2) theres still hope that new abilities are added with the kensei pass.

[Cordovan]

I did want to say in regard to those who feel we are overly weighing forum-only feedback on this issue that we are, and will continue to be, getting feedback from many sources, including those outside of the forums. While this forum thread is one of the largest and most vocal places we are getting feedback, it is by no means the only place we are listening.

[CThruTheEgo]

I did want to say in regard to those who feel we are overly weighing forum-only feedback on this issue that we are, and will continue to be, getting feedback from many sources, including those outside of the forums. While this forum thread is one of the largest and most vocal places we are getting feedback, it is by no means the only place we are listening.

Can we get some feedback from you all? Only a couple real comments from devs in this thread today. More back and forth would be great. I'd really appreciate a response to this post in particular. Some clarification is needed on that.

[Alcedes]

Sev,

Honestly, I think you guys are going about all of this all wrong. The issue is not that Armor/PRR/MRR work to well. If anything, they dont really work well enough. The problem is you are bottom-loading it. People who are investing massively into PRR/MRR are still getting hit PLENTY hard and dont have the DPS to end a fight quickly so ultimately are taking more damage over the course of the battle.

The first 100 points of PRR/MRR are by far the easiest to achieve. You can stack that up with very little cost. And that first 100 points awards 50% damage reduction!! Already, with just 100 points gained, you have earned 2/3 of the potential PRR/MRR bonus. The next 100 (we are at 200 total now!) points, takes QUITE an investment. And it nets you a whopping 15-16% bonus. So the EASY and almost zero cost first 100 points, grants me a 50% reduction, while the next 100 points which actually cost me DPS and utility grant me less than 1/3 of original bonus. And then, there is the points BEYOND 200. At this point you have spent a lot. you have sacrificed TONS. and you have basically invested everything for the next 50 points. And for this, you raise your bonus by a staggering 3-5%.

Why? Why are we trying to balance a system that is fundamentally flawed at the very core of its design? Shouldnt all of this be reversed?

The first 100 points grants the least as it is the easiest to achieve. The next 100 points pays out a heft bonus. But shouldnt the investment BEYOND 200 be where it starts to pay off the most?

[Vargouille]

Trying to catch up only about a days worth of posts with some thoughts...

Honest question, with zero sarcasm: It is really hard to code the spell so it only affect the favored weapon of the paladin's deity?

1. Yes. In retrospect the tech used for favored weapons is fairly brittle and hard to extend and use for other things. For some time it's something I'd like to rework with time, but it just hasn't made it to the top of priorities. It would be quite time consuming to do and somewhat error-prone since it would largely require redoing the entire "favored weapon" system and all feats / enhancements that relate to them.
2. Making Holy Sword only affect your deity's favored weapons (per se) is not definitely an improvement (or definitely welcome by players).

We still discussing changes of course and explore options.

Could you clarify assassin knife spec and daggers with IC Pierce? Krelar reinforced my suspicion that it will be 16-20/3 instead of 15-20/3, making Kukris the assassin weapon of choice. . .despite all the named assassin daggers that have been added.

That suspicion is correct with the current proposal.

There are some things we're discussing and considering with things like Knife Specialization and Swashbuckling (which are similar kinds of things).

Has anyone noticed that the devs have apparently stopped bothering to post on this thread?

Nope. Though posting around 8am our time may make you feel like we haven't posted much in the twelve hours prior to that - that would be true!

Please don't remove all the MRR from heavy (and I guess medium) armor. Make it 1/2 the PRR or something. Don't tie PRR to BAB, it's a percentage reduction. I need it just as much at level 5 when I'm being clobbered by extra damage dealing Champions as I do at level 28.

We've had some discussions along these lines, and in the abstract mathematical sense I've argued from your position in some cases - PRR absolutely is percentage based and theoretically could be created in a way that doesn't require increasing with leveling.

However, the most common current feedback (but certainly not the only feedback!) we get is that epic is too easy in some cases, and heroic is far too easy in most cases.

Will you tune down EE level 30 quests that are overperforming? I'm looking at Necro IV and ToEE archers/cultists/end fight...

Some of those changes are already in progress.

[Clemeit]

Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
Fixed a bug where players were getting Physical Resist Rating for armor with which they were not proficient.

(Note: The Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating offered by shields remain unchanged.)

As a result of dialing back armor, some fighter only feats that will boost their effectiveness with armor and add to tactical DCs will also be included.

Wait, what? The whole point of this was to create balance between evasion characters and armored characters when it comes to epic casters and traps. Why is this getting revoked so soon?

[slarden]

However, the most common current feedback (but certainly not the only feedback!) we get is that epic is too easy in some cases, and heroic is far too easy in most cases.

I wish you could collect better in-game data.

epics except the high level EEs are too easy because ED power is front-loaded and most people on the ETR train have their ED filled. Epic doesn't scale well in general.

When I ran through EE orchard recently one of the most vocal complainers about the game being too easy on Sarlona died 4 times within a few minutes and rage quit. I think part of the problem is alot of people take the path of least resistance on ETR and barely run the difficult content. Of course the game is too easy for them.

I think EE should scale from 3-6 instead of 1-4 people and that would probably add enough difficulty the high level EEs. Making enemies simply hit much harder is not the right answer.