Why play a melee character at all?

[Chai]

This is hilarious.

Second if they didn't nerf some broken stuff the game would be for sure in a worst state than it is right now.

Please explain specifically how more people would be playing melee due to these nerfs, in the context of what is happening or what has happened in DDO.

My position: Melee was the thing that was nerfed last meta. Thats why the game is far worse with nerfs than without, in the context of this conversation. Had those nerfs not occurred, melee would be more viable than it is now.

Hilarious indeed.

[cryalotmaster]

Please explain specifically how more people would be playing melee due to these nerfs, in the context of what is happening or what has happened in DDO.

My position: Melee was the thing that was nerfed last meta. Thats why the game is far worse with nerfs than without, in the context of this conversation. Had those nerfs not occurred, melee would be more viable than it is now.

Hilarious indeed.

Simple, casters ALWAYS were the meta and more people still used to be melee builds.

For a really few months melees were op with armor up but not even close to casters and ranged builds.

[Chai]

Simple, casters ALWAYS were the meta and more people still used to be melee builds.

Casters had their check and balances. Endgame raids for example. Counterbalance through content rather than sameness balance through spreadsheets.

For a really few months melees were op with armor up but not even close to casters and ranged builds.

Yet people demanded it to be nerfed, filibustered it for months, got it to stick, and now melee are less viable than they would have been sans nerfs. Thats the issue when people in the community who have the loudest forum presence are more worried about what someone else does to succeed, than figuring out how they can succeed.

Some in the community believe the resolution after the last 800 rounds of cherry picked nerfs didnt work, is to demand an 801st round of cherry picked nerf. Sooner or later once everything is nerfed one or two at a time, balance will occur? Right?

Hows that working out, heh.

[cryalotmaster]

Casters had their check and balances. Endgame raids for example. Counterbalance through content rather than sameness balance through spreadsheets.

And melees have to be in close range, stop making up excuses.

Yet people demanded it to be nerfed, filibustered it for months, got it to stick, and now melee are less viable than they would have been sans nerfs. Thats the issue when people in the community who have the loudest forum presence are more worried about what someone else does to succeed, than figuring out how they can succeed.

Some in the community believe the resolution after the last 800 rounds of cherry picked nerfs didnt work, is to demand an 801st round of cherry picked nerf. Sooner or later once everything is nerfed one or two at a time, balance will occur? Right?

Hows that working out, heh.

The problem is that SSG don't know their own game and don't care to balance it, just shift power back and forth making people spend money to redo their toons.

[nokowi]

In the context of this conversation, it means even if your claim were to eventually happen, its not realistic to expect people to wait multiple decades for it to occur, and since we can clearly see it has never occurred over 11 years already, the time frame in which it would occur is already far into the realm of unreasonable.



This is incorrect as an absolute. There was quite a bit that was nerfed and adjusted in that era due to people complaining about lack of balance. I will provide two such examples. During the timeframe you are speaking of, people complained up a storm that you NEEDED a wizard or NEEDED a stunner and if you didnt have those, there was no reason to play anything else. Helpless+autocrit was the grouping META in epics at that time. Furthermore there was also much complaining about the "cheese" tactic of perching and crit fishing with firewalls to farm scrolls solo on a caster. This was the era when firewalls would either never crit or always crit.

The relevant nerfs and adjustments that stemmed from this era include but are not limited to:
-firewalls getting a save when the mob moves through it on the first tick
-extend no longer working on firewalls
-firewalls critting per tick rather than only doing one check per cast
-firewalls not stacking (used to stack damage, even when cast right on top of eachother)
-helpless no longer means autocrit, but nerfed to 1.5x DPS (nerf for melee, buff for casters)
-Stunning on weapons given a save making it irrelevant (used to be no save when it procced X% of the time)
-scrolls now appear in inventory rather than dropping on floor

Your own suggestions to limit/challenge jump casting or otherwise challenge ranged players would also be considered nerfs. This means you can't generalize that all nerfs are bad or pointless, because your specific suggestions counter this very idea.

Each change needs to be addressed specifically, as either good or bad for the game

Most of the above examples did not decrease the quality of the game. Mass Hold was still useful after these changes. Firewall was still a very useful spell. Other changes have certain affected spell use to the level they are rarely used (cheaper alternatives), but those were actually player buffs and not nerfs.


Over generalizations that nerfs are always bad --> therefore nothing should be nerfed --> therefore buffing the other 95% makes more sense is pure comedy.

Continually buffing 95% of builds is orders of magnitude more difficult than adjusting the 5% of builds that are well tested and proven to be OP in-game, specifically because there are always going to be lots of bad combinations of abilities. Cheaper spell alternatives show us how buffing can also invalidate the relative usefulness of abilities.

They literally just tried to buff all builds with the class passes, and it has a worse history for balance than simply adjusting a few things. After so many rounds of Warlock nerfs you would be hard pressed to try and argue the original implementation was not OP (regardless of how you feel with the current implementation), and it should be obvious via direct example to anyone what continually buffing things will do to balance.


The SENSIBLE argument is that some combination of nerfs and buffs can try to reduce the gap between what works and doesn't work, while creating more playable options.

The SENSIBLE design is one having unique abilities that contribute without being solo-solutions to produce the highest ability of individuals to contribute to a group with varying power levels.

Defending single-solutions (such as charm) because they need their day in the sun is pure comedy, at least from anyone concerned about balance. Buffing to the same level implies that more single solutions will be needed, so everyone is always having their day in the sun, and we are back to a game with no challenge or cooperation because everyone needs that solo-solution. The idea that we need ALL OF people piking with firewalls, mass hold auto crit, negative statting mobs, and every other tactic that easily defeated content throughout DDO history for a better game (buff not nerf, right) is pure comedy.

Nerfs need to be targeted and require thought and discussion, not overly simplistic and incorrect generalizations.

[Chai]

And melees have to be in close range, stop making up excuses.

Thats not an excuse, thats a fact. If melee didnt have to be in close range, it wouldnt be melee.

The problem is that SSG don't know their own game and don't care to balance it, just shift power back and forth making people spend money to redo their toons.

I think they do know their game, and I think you understand this, by counterpointing your own point in the same post. In order to entice people to spend money redoing their characters, the META has to shift periodically. No balance really needs to occur however, or results from these META shifts. This brings up another fact about games that actually strive for balance. Respec-ing your character is free, and can be done regularly. Theres no artificial limitations in place for this, other than "cant be in combat".

[Clerize]

I don't know what incorrect by degree means. Something is either correct or incorrect.

Regarding your question, I think it has happened before and even for a period lasting several years. When the level cap was 20 and before epic ward was adjusted, the best working group was a balanced group with a healer, caster, and some melees. While that may not happen again, I think it can be done if the developers are willing.

How is this any different than high skull reaper? Our (guild's) best (read easiest to complete) runs have consisted of melee (tank), some form of DPS (ranged and/or melee), healers, and CC casters. The current guild tank can usually survive a hit from the tempest spine boss on at least R5.

Now don't read this as a glowing endorsement of reaper, as I think its implementation is flawed. What I am saying is that a place for a balanced party does exist, simply the majority of players never see it because the way reaper has been implemented doing high skull is simply for bragging rights. A concept which seems to have never really been grasped by devs, players want rewards based on time spent and/or risk. Higher skulls is exponentially harder (longer) to do. Rewards don't ramp up exponentially. Again not saying that they should have rewards at all, but simply in a system that does have rewards, distribution of those rewards should reflect effort.

I've never really seen balance in this game from about 2013 till now. Changes meant to boost one play style/class have been over done and then nerfed into near garbage. Recall when armor up first came out? Pretty much everyone was running HA . Casters were running around with tower shields, etc. Evasion toon players felt left behind and started complaining, which then resulted in a series of nerfs. We now have armor types affecting caps on MRR that is still based on the original system when armor had MRR. Even though MRR does not come from armor anymore??!?!? The forums were filled with ragers about how can metal armor protect from electrical/heat damage? Where's the equivalent logic, how can armor affect MRR when MRR does not come from armor?

[Forzah]

Your own suggestions to limit/challenge jump casting or otherwise challenge ranged players would also be considered nerfs. This means you can't generalize that all nerfs are bad or pointless, because your specific suggestions counter this very idea.

Each change needs to be addressed specifically, as either good or bad for the game

Most of the above examples did not decrease the quality of the game. Mass Hold was still useful after these changes. Firewall was still a very useful spell. Other changes have certain affected spell use to the level they are rarely used (cheaper alternatives), but those were actually player buffs and not nerfs.


Over generalizations that nerfs are always bad --> therefore nothing should be nerfed --> therefore buffing the other 95% makes more sense is pure comedy.

Continually buffing 95% of builds is orders of magnitude more difficult than adjusting the 5% of builds that are well tested and proven to be OP in-game, specifically because there are always going to be lots of bad combinations of abilities. Cheaper spell alternatives show us how buffing can also invalidate the relative usefulness of abilities.

They literally just tried to buff all builds with the class passes, and it has a worse history for balance than simply adjusting a few things. After so many rounds of Warlock nerfs you would be hard pressed to try and argue the original implementation was not OP (regardless of how you feel with the current implementation), and it should be obvious via direct example to anyone what continually buffing things will do to balance.


The SENSIBLE argument is that some combination of nerfs and buffs can try to reduce the gap between what works and doesn't work, while creating more playable options.

The SENSIBLE design is one having unique abilities that contribute without being solo-solutions to produce the highest ability of individuals to contribute to a group with varying power levels.

Defending single-solutions (such as charm) because they need their day in the sun is pure comedy, at least from anyone concerned about balance. Buffing to the same level implies that more single solutions will be needed, so everyone is always having their day in the sun, and we are back to a game with no challenge or cooperation because everyone needs that solo-solution. The idea that we need ALL OF people piking with firewalls, mass hold auto crit, negative statting mobs, and every other tactic that easily defeated content throughout DDO history for a better game (buff not nerf, right) is pure comedy.

Nerfs need to be targeted and require thought and discussion, not overly simplistic and incorrect generalizations.

Thanks for the support (in a non-insulting way ). Coherent post and better than I could've written.

[cryalotmaster]

Thats not an excuse, thats a fact. If melee didnt have to be in close range, it wouldnt be melee.

Water is wet. you are really smart doh. Next excuse pls.

I think they do know their game, and I think you understand this, by counterpointing your own point in the same post. In order to entice people to spend money redoing their characters, the META has to shift periodically. No balance really needs to occur however, or results from these META shifts. This brings up another fact about games that actually strive for balance. Respec-ing your character is free, and can be done regularly. Theres no artificial limitations in place for this, other than "cant be in combat".

They don't know it because lots of cheese builds are based in bugs/exploits.

They do some clearly p2w stuff like borelocks. But even that were so stupidly op that even after 20 nerfs the class is still dumb op.

And destroying the game selling junk is pretty much stupid, keeping a good game would keep more people playing and paying.

[McFlay]

Theres always a META, in any game. In games that are balanced the META changes on a situation by situation basis, and is not the META for the entire game.

META is when one thing is hands down better than others. Its balance if different classes/team compositions are better in different situations. Now you are just grasping at straws.

DDO has nerfed many times over, something in the top 5%. Much of it at the demand of the players. There are many MANY examples of this.

Almost exclusively small nerfs which had barely any impact. Then the next update something new was introduced which was even more powerful.

Forzah pretty much summed it up there, I don't really have much to add. If you are too blind to see there has been a ridiculous amount of buffing in relation to nerfing in this game I don't think any amount of truth will make you change your mind.

The issue is it doesnt cause anyone to gravitate to playing anything else that is still in the top 5% and not yet nerfed. Shifting the META slightly has never resulted in balance, no matter how much or how often it is repeated this will happen in DDO Forum Land.

And again you can't get past the idea of META. META = broken. I play Tera as well...it has 15 classes. You will find people playing them all and they are all good in all different game modes. There is no "top 5%" because every class has strengths and weaknesses. Different classes compliment each other...its not broken like in DDO where you'll find all ranged groups because melee are a liability or all borelock groups or whatever the flavor of the month is.

Cherry picking and then nerfing doesnt make people stay that would have left, so the nerf in that situation causes a net loss.

Buffing doesnt cause a net loss in and of itself. Buffing also makes more money because people pay to tome out and PL out the new buffed class. While not the best class balance tactic, buffing sure is a great revenue generation tactic.

You are clueless. Look at warlocks for example. People have been complaining about "warlock OP" since day 1 they were released. You don't think anyone left over that? Meanwhile when they toned down warlock damage in heroics because people were easy farming full warlock heroic reaper groups...you don't think anyone breathed a sigh of relief they were toning down the stupidity?

Sure you had some people complain their easy button got toned down, but in the long run is it a very fun or challenging game if we don't nerf anything and the answer to an easy button is just to make more easy buttons?

Which will result in the same thing Ive outlined always occurs, still occurring. Take away their charms, and they will find another flavor of "cheese" to gravitate to, which will be the next thing forumites are complaining about. This is why cherry picking and nerfing never fixes the issue.

Why do you keep flapping your gums about "cherry picking nerfing" when I already said flat out the game is in the state its in because of an extended period of time where we had too much buffing not enough nerfing. Of course a couple nerfs now aren't going to magically broken mechanics that have been built on for years because rather than fix an issue with a nerf when it was a small issue they buffed a whole bunch of other things around it.

The numbers are in. Multiplicitively more instances of people complaining about how others play in this game, than the PVP game with the most complaining about how others play in it. Thats right folks, more DDO players are worried about how YOU play than top E-Sports PVP league game's players are. The example game has 17x as many players, and is a PVP oriented game. Yet far less people in THAT game, care about what tactics YOU used...

Right...because like I said...a balanced game doesn't have a META. If I log into Tera and want to play my slayer and swing a big sword around, my lancer and poke things while I hide behind my heavy armor and shield, my sorcerer and fling giant burny things and frozen things at people, my mystic and heal and buff people, or my archer and provide ranged dps/cc support, all of them are effective. If I log in to DDO and log on my melee and run up to a mob and we both hit each other 3 times I'm dead while the mob is almost full still, or I could log into my ranged and just kite kite kite and kill that same mob without getting hit.

Nobody cares about what tactics you use in a game like Tera because the game mechanics aren't broken. People care in DDO because you end up with entire build archetypes that are second rate. To tie it back to the topic of the thread, its not that people actually care what you are doing, its that people are wondering why their melee has to get up in melee range where they die ridiculously fast if they get hit in hard content while ranged toons pretty much get the same defensive options plus just avoid 90%+ of the incoming damage just by virtue of being ranged and being able to kite.

You take any of those MOBA/e-sport/pvp games or whatever where people don't complain about balance nearly as much and they all have something in common...when they do release something new or buff something a little too much to the point where its what you'd consider "META" and everyone starts using it, its promptly nerfed. And guess what...they don't lose people over nerfs like you seem to think happens because viable diversity makes for a far more entertaining game than easy buttons.

[Chai]

Your own suggestions to limit/challenge jump casting or otherwise challenge ranged players would also be considered nerfs. This means you can't generalize that all nerfs are bad or pointless, because your specific suggestions counter this very idea.

Each change needs to be addressed specifically, as either good or bad for the game

Most of the above examples did not decrease the quality of the game. Mass Hold was still useful after these changes. Firewall was still a very useful spell. Other changes have certain affected spell use to the level they are rarely used (cheaper alternatives), but those were actually player buffs and not nerfs.


Over generalizations that nerfs are always bad --> therefore nothing should be nerfed --> therefore buffing the other 95% makes more sense is pure comedy.

Continually buffing 95% of builds is orders of magnitude more difficult than adjusting the 5% of builds that are well tested and proven to be OP in-game, specifically because there are always going to be lots of bad combinations of abilities. Cheaper spell alternatives show us how buffing can also invalidate the relative usefulness of abilities.

They literally just tried to buff all builds with the class passes, and it has a worse history for balance than simply adjusting a few things. After so many rounds of Warlock nerfs you would be hard pressed to try and argue the original implementation was not OP (regardless of how you feel with the current implementation), and it should be obvious via direct example to anyone what continually buffing things will do to balance.


The SENSIBLE argument is that some combination of nerfs and buffs can try to reduce the gap between what works and doesn't work, while creating more playable options.

The SENSIBLE design is one having unique abilities that contribute without being solo-solutions to produce the highest ability of individuals to contribute to a group with varying power levels.

Defending single-solutions (such as charm) because they need their day in the sun is pure comedy, at least from anyone concerned about balance. Buffing to the same level implies that more single solutions will be needed, so everyone is always having their day in the sun, and we are back to a game with no challenge or cooperation because everyone needs that solo-solution. The idea that we need ALL OF people piking with firewalls, mass hold auto crit, negative statting mobs, and every other tactic that easily defeated content throughout DDO history for a better game (buff not nerf, right) is pure comedy.

Nerfs need to be targeted and require thought and discussion, not overly simplistic and incorrect generalizations.

I gave specific examples. Please address them.

After addressing the specific examples, please explain how melee, especially assassins (your specific bugbear) are better off due to the nerfs, changes, and meta shifts in DDO all brought on by the community calling the play style "cheesy" and therefore wanting it done away with.

I have no issue explaining to you how this is not the case. If melee wasnt nerfed, and the aggro changes didnt occur, those archetypes would be more viable in todays game. None of them would be OP. The nerfs demanded were not brought on by folks who care about balance, they were brought on by folks who are overly concerned with how you succeed, and spent too much time demanding the way you succeed be removed from DDO and not enough time developing their own way to succeed.

So your reply post should be as follows.

paragraph 1. addressing my specific examples.
paragraph 2. explain how nerfs of melee (direct) and assassins (proxy) are better in the current META
paragraph 3. refute my premise that the nerfs of melee and proxy nerf of assassins has made the game worse, not better.

Edit: The claim that most of my examples did not decrease the quality of the game is laughable. Ask most people who played then and now what their favorite era was. Most if not all will say then. Very few if any will say now. Nerfs, and the constant need to shift the meta to entice people to pay money to un-park and/or build characters has killed this game. Deny it.

Defending the impact of nerfing specifically in the context of DDO is even more hilarious coming from someone who admittedly quit playing due to a proxy nerf ruining their own preferred play style. ~14 months ago?

[McFlay]

Continually buffing 95% of builds is orders of magnitude more difficult than adjusting the 5% of builds that are well tested and proven to be OP in-game, specifically because there are always going to be lots of bad combinations of abilities. Cheaper spell alternatives show us how buffing can also invalidate the relative usefulness of abilities.

Exactly. Just look at ranged vs melee as an example. Ranged mitigate a lot of damage just by virtue of being ranged/kiting. It made them very survivable. The dev solution rather than make adjustments to ranged mechanics was to just keep upping mob damage so when ranged got caught they died faster. Now we end up where melees very often are not even fun to play because you get wrecked so hard by inflated mob damage...meanwhile ranged still mitigate loads of damage because they just don't get hit.

Where could we be had they just done something to fix ranged directly, which obviously would be considered a nerf by many. They wouldn't have had to inflate mob damage so much just to kill ranged/kiter toons, and as a result melee would be more playable.

Making a nerf here would have done far more to balance the game than the path they went down...instead avoiding a nerf just makes things worse.

They literally just tried to buff all builds with the class passes, and it has a worse history for balance than simply adjusting a few things. After so many rounds of Warlock nerfs you would be hard pressed to try and argue the original implementation was not OP (regardless of how you feel with the current implementation), and it should be obvious via direct example to anyone what continually buffing things will do to balance.

Right...but Chai wants to close his eyes and say LA LA LA LA LA and act like nobody quit the game over the last year over the stupidity of what is/was warlocks. We should have just released warlocks, said whoops that was a little overkill, then immediately started another round of class passes to balance things out again, because nerfs make people quit and buffs make money or something stupid like that...

[Chai]

Water is wet. you are really smart doh. Next excuse pls.

Facts are not excuses.

They don't know it because lots of cheese builds are based in bugs/exploits.

They do some clearly p2w stuff like borelocks. But even that were so stupidly op that even after 20 nerfs the class is still dumb op.

And destroying the game selling junk is pretty much stupid, keeping a good game would keep more people playing and paying.

They know exactly what they are doing. You explained it yourself.

[Chai]

Right...but Chai wants to close his eyes and say LA LA LA LA LA and act like nobody quit the game over the last year over the stupidity of what is/was warlocks. We should have just released warlocks, said whoops that was a little overkill, then immediately started another round of class passes to balance things out again, because nerfs make people quit and buffs make money or something stupid like that...

I'll just put this one, right here.

The "blame warlocks" train is never late.

Thread: Is there a reason to play melee?
Reasonable people: Nerfs made melee less viable.
Nerf Advocates: Warlocks!

Did nerfing warlocks three times now make more people play melee? How's that working out?

[cryalotmaster]

Facts are not excuses.

Your made up facts are excuses.

They know exactly what they are doing. You explained it yourself.

Just because they accomplished something with incompetence doesnt mean they have a plan.

[McFlay]

I have no issue explaining to you how this is not the case. If melee wasnt nerfed, and the aggro changes didnt occur, those archetypes would be more viable in todays game. None of them would be OP. The nerfs demanded were not brought on by folks who care about balance, they were brought on by folks who are overly concerned with how you succeed, and spent too much time demanding the way you succeed be removed from DDO and not enough time developing their own way to succeed.

Melee's weren't specifically nerfed in reaper. Self healing was. Other than that all reaper penalties apply to all classes.

The problem with reaper is that they wouldn't nerf where its needed...mainly, ranged.

Ranged toons avoid so much damage by kiting that the devs ridiculously inflated mob damage so ranged toons died when they got caught. Problem is that same ridiculous damage applies to melees who can't kite if they want to do damage.

Had the devs done the right thing and nerfed ranged mechanics...they wouldn't have had to inflate mob damage so much. Nerfing ranged via making them less effective while moving as well as making adjustments to AI, making new mobs, or giving existing mobs new skills to deal with ranged toons instead of just ramping up mob damage would have moved us towards more ranged/melee balance. Instead they tried to avoid a nerf(to ranged) with a buff(to mobs) and things just got even worse as far as game balance goes.

[McFlay]

I'll just put this one, right here.

The "blame warlocks" train is never late.

Thread: Is there a reason to play melee?
Reasonable people: Nerfs made melee less viable.
Nerf Advocates: Warlocks!

Its not about warlocks...warlocks are just one example of people leaving the game because of major balance issues.

Melee vs ranged...you know the topic of this thread...is making people leave. You don't think melee fans that see how bad balance in this game is aren't leaving? When your choice comes down to play a 3 hit KO melee or kite kite kite...people that want to play melees are just going to go play something else.

But hey let's pull a Chai...LA LA LA LA LA people don't leave the game over ridiculously bad class balance LA LA LA LA.

[Renvar]

So your reply post should be as follows.

paragraph 1. addressing my specific examples.
paragraph 2. explain how nerfs of melee (direct) and assassins (proxy) are better in the current META
paragraph 3. refute my premise that the nerfs of melee and proxy nerf of assassins has made the game worse, not better.

How can you tell Chai is losing an argument? Because he starts telling people how to post.

"You can only respond if.." is another one you threw out recently.

He sure wants to be the emperor. Unfortunately, this wanna-be-emperor has no clothes. "SSG nerfs stuff and I don't like it!" Couched as "I have the grand solution to all that ails DDO!"

/yawn

[KingNite]

If you don't understand why balancing is important in any game I don't think I'll be able to convince you.

I understand that balance is very important for some, that doesn't prevent me from understanding that having fun/being entertained is more important for most peps. If they thought balance that important we woudn't have have half the peps paying to run warlocks. I understand that after countless batchs of player demanded nerfs the balance didn't improve a single bit, those same m**** are still crying for more nerfs and the playerbase diminished while they probably kept doing the same amout of cash if not more. Nerfing things on player demand always end bad for all parts except the show runners who I can assure you are very happy to hand them in order to sell more power later to those who got hit with it.

[cryalotmaster]

Next sock is going to be excusemaster.

Is it taken? Chai?