The Balance Change post

[redoubt]

~ The changes to Improved Critical do mess up the balance for Assassins between kukri and daggers, and for Swashbucklers who can take enhancements to normalize weapon types. We are going to implement additional changes so that characters who have the Improved Critical feat will gain extra threat range for under performing weapons to maintain the weapon balance you have live using these builds.

Please do.

~ Since Manyshot and Ten Thousand Stars have a reduced rate of fire, fishing for Mortal Fear and similar procs will be slightly less effective. We understand this and designed with this in mind.

Slightly less is an understatement. The rate of fire is being cut roughly in half during 10k and manyshot. That is a lot more than slightly.

~ With the bug in certain Fury of the Wild enhancements, Manyshot and Ten Thousand Stars can be used to get back uses of Adrenaline. With the new reduced rate of fire of Manyshot and Ten Thousand Stars, utilizing this bug will be slightly less effective. We understand and have designed around this. We want to either legitimize this build by changing the wording on Fury Eternal so it officially supports ranged attacks or fix the bug, and we are looking forward to feedback on this from Lamannia.

I used to be against fury shot. Then I played one to check it out. The burst is a lot of fun and really helps the team out against bosses and other specific situations. The rest of the time is pretty bad DPS. I realize that you are trying to normalize the DPS, but I don't think you are doing nearly enough to not lose DPS and you are removing the only real burst build out there.

~ It's not that we mind two weapon fighting Paladins doing decent DPS, or two weapon barbarians doing decent DPS, but these builds should not be outperforming builds based on other styles by 40% or higher.

Fine, but the TWF change hits ALL TWF (fighter, rogues, rangers etc) that are not the problem.

~ We will be watching Vanguard Paladin builds to make sure they are still fun and competitive after the changes.

I believe you. Sadly, I am worried that deadlines placed on you from above will prevent any real resources from flowing back into this for several updates.

~ We think there has been a lot of good discussion in particular on MRR, armor, and whether these changes will put us back into a state where everyone feel compelled to take Evasion. We have read suggestions that some smaller amount of MRR might be added back to armors and we've been looking at that option. I just wanted to point out the reductions do not put us back to pre Armor Up balance. The PRR formula is more generous, and the PRR offered by armor is still higher. Heavy armor mitigates a lot more damage than before Armor Up. In addition, there are many sources of MRR, including gear, that simply did not exist before, including enhancements that only work with medium or heavy armors. Armored characters are still in much better shape than in the past, which is why we'd like to see this on Lamannia.

You are hitting certain builds with multiple nerfs at once. How will you know which one is causing what affect? If it is too much, how do you know what to undo?

~ We have been reading with interest the concerns with named weapons that have increased threat ranges built in and how they interact with Improved Critical. This interaction is part of the design, as these threat ranges provided too much benefit previously. The fact that some of these weapons with lower level requirements were better than end game weapons highlights the problem fairly well.

If not to take advantage of the special qualities of named weapons, i'll just craft. So why have them.

You mention low level weapons: Is the silver longbow going from 19-20 to 17-20 going to break something? If I am comparing a silver longbow with a 18-20 crit to something I can craft, the crafted item will do more damage all day long. Push the silver long bow to 17-20 and I may use it situationally.

For high level weapons, what about the Foresters Brushhook. The whole reason to use this was for a really wide crit profile.

The damage on these weapons without crits is bad. It is the crit profiles that make them worth using.

~ Manyshot and Ten Thousand Stars still provide a massive burst of damage; we really don't think these builds will lose their burst feel when these abilities provide an additional 200-300% damage increase depending on gearing.

First you say "slightly" when rate of fire is cut in HALF, then you use "massive" when you talk about what is maybe a 50% increase. Many of us have been trying to point out that 10k/manyshot builds did not run doubleshot before. Now these builds will invest in it heavily and likely run very high doubleshot. Your buff from 10k and manyshot will not even guarantee a 3rd arrow, so the increase in dps is going from 300% to somewhere between 25 and 50%. I don't know how many other ways I can explain this.

[Thar]

These are the same and very wise Devs that added the armor up as they saw mostly pajama builds running around prior to it. Not to impugn on anyones idea of how good or bad their perspective is, but this reversal of what was puts that whole idea in perspective.

Personally I wish Turbine would finish some of their pressing projects and then balance or even better, balance something before they release it. Particularly on pay 2 win classes. Otherwise the wisdom will be in question for sure.

agreed, spend the time to get it right the first time. LISTEN to people when they say it's op or broken (ie I was yelling left and right that 2x shield mrr was too much). Twf was the same, we showed that it was not a style that was ahead in dps. devs reviewed and put 6mp in the feats. now suddenly it's out of balance? no... we proved it wasn't months ago.

Don't put it live and then months later tell people oh your build is op so now we're changing the rules in a negative way again. Broken things like warlock ok, but there don't nerf and nerf and nerf. fix it the first nerf. why are we on the 3rd? nerf for holy sword? be positive with changes to buff and bring people back to the game. nerf batting things to obivion drives people away.

[redoubt]

Our thoughts on Holy Sword:

Holy Sword was very strong when it first appeared. Over time, however, it's relative power has been blunted by additional class passes that offer alternate ways to gain those competence based critical bonuses. As such we've introduced alternate options to the ever present 14 Paladin version of builds. As we continue our class passes we feel that Holy Sword will remain a strong option, but not the only option.

This is why Holy Sword didn't see as much of a change as people might have been expecting. We really hit two weapon fighting builds as they were putting out a lot of DPS for the mitigation provided by Paladin.

Our thought behind removing a missile weapon version was feedback that many of the best missile weapon options were actually better in the 14 Paladin variant. This concerned us, and we addressed it early.

Upon reading feedback from players and re-examining our builds, we are making Holy Sword once again affect missile weapons. No, we don't want 14 Paladin missile weapon builds to be the best missile option. The removal of missile weapons from Holy Sword, however, has more ramifications that most of the other changes in this balance pass as it negates a design goal for a specific kind of build. The other changes have statistical changes, but the design intent for other builds is still intact and the builds play the same. This particular aspect of Holy Sword we feel goes beyond statistical change; removing the missile option actually messes up a design intent for a specific build.

(It also bugs us that the game has long bow as an option for the Paladin's special weapon and then we take away a strong DPS boost for Paladins that go that way.)

If 14 Paladin builds are still vastly more desirable than other ranged builds even though other builds have ways to pursue similar bonuses then we will find a way to address that.

Sev~

Then put it back on the shields.

[redoubt]

On two weapon fighting:

There has been a lot of two weapon fighting talk, specifically about the changes to the feats and to Holy Sword and I wanted to talk about our design intent.

First, we smoothed out the Two Weapon Fighting animation and we saw a small bump in DPS. Since those builds are strong we were concerned that it would just exaggerate the difference in styles. We needed to compensate ~6% due to the change.

That said, our live builds using two weapon fighting are testing really high. I'll be honest, it concerns us that there seems to be a large disconnect on what we are seeing in testing and the players perception on two weapon fighting. We are seeing two weapon fighting build posting numbers that are 30-40% higher than builds that use two handed weapons and single weapon fighting. These builds can still generate a lot of AoE through cleaves and cleave replacements. Although the AoE of two weapon fight would be behind two handed fighting, it isn't far enough behind to warrant such a large damage differential.

As an example, we don't want to remove a two weapon fighting option for Paladin, but we also don't think it should be doing 30-40% more damage than other styles either.

I wanted to bring this up because as we read the thread I don't think we've done a good enough job communicating why we are concerned about two weapon fighting builds. As we get ready for Lamannia we will be watching player feedback on their experiences with these changes and hopefully some DPS testing to see if the players are seeing more balance or if we need to look more closely into two weapon fighting.

Sev~

SOME. SOME TWF builds are overperforming. Not all.

Please find a way to fix the ones that are overperforming without hitting the rest.

Thank you.

[unbongwah]

So Fury Eternal working with ranged IS A BUG?

Does this invalidate a zillion raid speed records?

How come this s being brought up now after 3 years?

It's been brought up repeatedly for years - probably ever since EDs first came out. It's never been fixed. The more things change...

[Steve_Howe]

Upon reading feedback from players and re-examining our builds, we are making Holy Sword once again affect missile weapons. No, we don't want 14 Paladin missile weapon builds to be the best missile option. The removal of missile weapons from Holy Sword, however, has more ramifications that most of the other changes in this balance pass as it negates a design goal for a specific kind of build. The other changes have statistical changes, but the design intent for other builds is still intact and the builds play the same. This particular aspect of Holy Sword we feel goes beyond statistical change; removing the missile option actually messes up a design intent for a specific build.

Yay! The Silver Flame's paladins are happy their god will, once again, give them what every other paladin gets from theirs!

[Thar]

On two weapon fighting:

There has been a lot of two weapon fighting talk, specifically about the changes to the feats and to Holy Sword and I wanted to talk about our design intent.

First, we smoothed out the Two Weapon Fighting animation and we saw a small bump in DPS. Since those builds are strong we were concerned that it would just exaggerate the difference in styles. We needed to compensate ~6% due to the change.

That said, our live builds using two weapon fighting are testing really high. I'll be honest, it concerns us that there seems to be a large disconnect on what we are seeing in testing and the players perception on two weapon fighting. We are seeing two weapon fighting build posting numbers that are 30-40% higher than builds that use two handed weapons and single weapon fighting. These builds can still generate a lot of AoE through cleaves and cleave replacements. Although the AoE of two weapon fight would be behind two handed fighting, it isn't far enough behind to warrant such a large damage differential.

As an example, we don't want to remove a two weapon fighting option for Paladin, but we also don't think it should be doing 30-40% more damage than other styles either.

I wanted to bring this up because as we read the thread I don't think we've done a good enough job communicating why we are concerned about two weapon fighting builds. As we get ready for Lamannia we will be watching player feedback on their experiences with these changes and hopefully some DPS testing to see if the players are seeing more balance or if we need to look more closely into two weapon fighting.

Sev~

I'm not seeing 30-40% higher damage on hits. perhaps because i'm using short swords to gain light weapon benefits. I don't get cleave or greatcleave or supreme cleave so i'm only hitting one opponent often for more reason than i don't want agro of more since prr isn't high enough to survive after the stupid earth stance agro bump. 2 maybe 3 with DOD when a tank can get agro however rarely 4 with the hit box the way it is. AOE is huge at endgame when the mobs trigger in packs of 6+. So test khopeshes in blitz, but it's not all of us use that as we are ETR or xp'ing in another destiny.

[Severlin]

SOME. SOME TWF builds are overperforming. Not all.

Please find a way to fix the ones that are overperforming without hitting the rest.

Thank you.

The change to TWF feats compensates for the DPS increase from the animation change.

The only two weapon fighting build we changed is Paladin.

Sev~

[the_one_dwarfforged]

I'm replying to you in lieu of the 3 other people who said the same thing.


Creating more feats for everyone only allows linear power growth got non-fighters until they have used up all of their feats, which occurs LONG before fighters have run out of feats. Once that cap is reached, fighters start getting a bigger and bigger advantage from their number of feats. If there are 12-15 totally solid melee feats, everyone but a fighter is going to have to make choices and sacrifices, where fighters will get to just take every one of them, if they want. Which is in keeping with the flavor described, wherein fighters are really good at melee, man-at-arms combat. Same can be done with archery, especially since everything that currently wields a bow is pressed for feats already. More meaningful feats means more options for everyone, more things they can't take that fighters can.

The best part is this avoids needless exclusionary feats that are far more in keeping with the way a Paladin is made, and the fact that if they are fighter only feats their balance will take a back seat, whereas the devs will stay on top of a widely-used feat list.

This is really not complicated, if a good feat list that is larger than the number of feats available to non-fighter classes is presented, the advantage in the feat game is with fighters. In the current game where a Tempest can get every worthwhile melee feat, and an AA can get every bow feat than has major impact, fighters can't compete because they don't have the enhancements of the specialist trees, but they also don't have any feats to pick up that slack, since they don't have important feats available to them that the other classes don't also have. The way to give fighters the edge isn't in fighter-only feats, that creates a situation where you have undesirable feats that get taken a lot because they are all there is to take. Instead, let them be able to afford A and B feats for whatever fighting style, where the other classes in that fighting style have to take A or B.

Think this way, if A and B feats both gave approximately equal value, the fighter gets both and the other class gets A, then the fighter is ahead by whatever value B has. He's got as much power advantage over the other class as he would have if he took B and they got nothing.

this may be (or not, idfk) the reality in whatever version of pnp.

unfortunately it is so far from the reality of ddo that its not even funny. if fighters and feats in this game were closer to your theoretical ideal, i might agree with you that things should work that way, and fighters might not have ever sucked.

[maddong]

Why not just nerf mortal fear or make barbarian capstone only affect main hand? Why nerf the whole twf style that has the worst cleaves?

Swf wolf?

Tree form 4 hit cleaves while shield blocking?

[Vargouille]

Bottom line, you have it backwards. The buff is to the builds that don't use manyshot, the builds that already use manyshot are taking a nerf.

Yes, we understand that builds without Doubleshot will now want to get some. This is also with the knowledge that by removing the Doubleshot penalty that will happen anyway (to varying degrees for each character, but most will want moderate or high amounts).

We, and players, are pretty strongly agreed that we want this to remove the Doubleshot penalty. Therefore, it is right to balance under the assumption that players are going to get it. Yes, we realize that can be frustrating for builds that don't care about the penalty currently, but it's essential and necessary to plan around those builds gaining Doubleshot after this change. Otherwise we basically have to leave the penalty in place.

To maintain a high level of on-hit effects will require getting more Doubleshot. This may be more of a nerf to players who usually melee and switch to Manyshot only 1/6 or less of the time, since they also didn't care about the Doubleshot debuff. Straight up damage during Manyshot isn't drastically changed (but it is changed).

These are some of the costs we considered when deciding to remove the Doubleshot penalty, which players have strongly lobbied for, for some time now. We do it with the knowledge that there are costs for doing so and it's not just developers paying some of those costs. That doesn't mean we shouldn't make the change, nor that we should try to go through this level of detail for every single change (which isn't even thorough, really), because almost inevitably it just makes more players upset and missing a single beat or thought makes us look worse. (I've even been advised that my responding to this thread so much should help cement my position as most hated dev and I should shut up more. ;] May be true - I've often been told I talk too much. No Worries about me actually shutting up... I'm not very good at it.)

Nearly every balance change is like this, including buffs. (As recently as the Tempest/DWS pass, players threatened us "because Rangers were getting buffed too much", so it definitely goes both ways.)

[Violentbeginning]

The change to TWF feats compensates for the DPS increase from the animation change.

The only two weapon fighting build we changed is Paladin.

Sev~

Question. Does the new animation change increase unarmed animations/dps?

[Severlin]

Slightly less is an understatement. The rate of fire is being cut roughly in half during 10k and manyshot.

I am not sure how you are getting this unless you are completely avoiding doubleshot.

Sev~

[Severlin]

Question. Does the new animation change increase unarmed animations/dps?

No. We will be compensating monks when we have a chance to go through the handwrap tech.

Sev~

[Violentbeginning]

No. We will be compensating monks when we have a chance to go through the handwrap tech.

Sev~

Ok, thanks for the response. Its disappointing to hear however, especially considering that from what we've heard, that is not even on the horizon yet.

[Steve_Howe]

Ok, thanks for the response. Its disappointing to hear however, especially considering that from what we've heard, that is not even on the horizon yet.

Yeah, I feel the same way.

[Severlin]

Ok, thanks for the response. Its disappointing to hear however, especially considering that from what we've heard, that is not even on the horizon yet.

Any time we've tried to do a partial update to shore up a particular tree or class to give them some relief until their full pass we've had negative player feedback on those efforts.

Sev~

[Violentbeginning]

Any time we've tried to do a partial update to shore up a particular tree or class to give them some relief until their full pass we've had negative player feedback on those efforts.

Sev~

Ya, I understand, just am disappointed.

[Steve_Howe]

Any time we've tried to do a partial update to shore up a particular tree or class to give them some relief until their full pass we've had negative player feedback on those efforts.

Sev~

I understand your feelings and concerns about this fact. Still, Monk is my favorite class and it's a real bummer not playing him in the toughest content DDO has to offer.

Please make sure that when it is time to work on the Monk, that you make it as competitive as the Swashbuckler, the Paladin, the Barb, the Ranger, and all the other classes that have gotten or will get their passes before the Monk does.

Thanks.

[maddong]

+20 hearts?