Please Reconsider the Meteor Swarm Cooldown Nerf

[SirValentine]

Guy asks for a more fluid playstyle and all he gets is attacks from people.

OP claims it's not about DPS nerf, but about spell rotation, and makes silly claims about standing around twiddling thumbs for 2 seconds, and refuses to consider simply adding another spell to their rotation, with the even more nonsensical statement that casting a non-Fire spell somehow nerfs themselves. If there's a loss of brain mass, I don't think it's the "community".

(Though I don't think the OP is actually that dumb, either. I suspect they actually simply wanted their higher DPS back, didn't want to admit that, and used the spell rotation nonsense as an excuse. And now don't want to admit that their original excuse is bogus and come clean about their actual motivation.)

[Jerevth]

You boil down the game - its quets - down to something in which only xp matters.

But there are other kinds of players, too.

I'll still go the psychological route and say : To some people, it [also] matters whether they cantribute or not.

For a one-shotter, the emotional impace of "having power", of "feeling powerful" is much bigger than for someone who can't cantribute, for example, because he is a melee within a group of fire sorcs, to use an extreme example.

If I have the feeling that "I am useful", so to say, then I'm more willing to play within a group than when I would feel like the provervial fifth wheel on a car / cart.

So, in my opinion, giving others the constant emotional impact / impression of "you are not useful - you are sooo weak !" drives imho people rather into solo play, where they can have their very own experience of usefulness all by themselves.

The German language has the word of "Selbstwirksamkeit".
dict.leo.org translates this as "self-efficacy".

If I don't have the experience of self-efficacy, then I'm going to quit.

Not only do I understand this, I've felt it; if I can't contribute I feel like dead weight, to be dragged along. It's why I played mostly solo for so long. (I started running with LFMs in the last few months.)
However, if I see a high bar being set, I would choose to either figure out how to improve my current build or figure out where my game-skills are lacking.
I will not demand that others be pulled downward because my sense of contribution is flagging.
I agree the top-end damage for casters can be... intimidating?
I've had to take a breath and laugh at myself when I was getting frustrated because I couldn't close the distance to a mob before it was dead.
But at no point do I think a gear-set spell power source and a spell point cost increase and a cooldown extension are all justified at the same time.
Good developers make small adjustments, get new metrics and then adjust again. Tweaks.

Not directed at you, but in general...
If you wanted melees to be more capable- an argument I've actually been in support of- then you don't laugh when your competition is dragged down; now everyone is less effective. Melees should have been given a couple options that would give them an advantage- a burst of speed to close the distance, or a feat like Sentinel with an autoattack if the mob turns toward another character. But if your current build is not the top dog, the failure is in the coding of the class design (Developer side), a failure of the build (your side), or a failure of the player (not enough coffee, rough day at work, etc).

Rise to the challenge and improve what you have. Don't take satisfaction in SSG hamstringing another class because you can't keep up.

-Demand they fix the gaps in melee combat mechanics- closure rate, opponent lockdown, and the in-quest metrics that track other forms of contribution besides "kills".
-Aggro is still a mess. An intimidation skilled toon should be able to match or beat a high DPS squishy's ability to develop aggro.
-Where are the automatic attacks if a mob turns its attention away from the melee character crowding it/them?

Improve your position, don't laud the nerf of another's combat system and then feel satisfaction that "All things are equal, now."

[Oxarhamar]

Not only do I understand this, I've felt it; if I can't contribute I feel like dead weight, to be dragged along. It's why I played mostly solo for so long. (I started running with LFMs in the last few months.)
However, if I see a high bar being set, I would choose to either figure out how to improve my current build or figure out where my game-skills are lacking.
I will not demand that others be pulled downward because my sense of contribution is flagging.
I agree the top-end damage for casters can be... intimidating?
I've had to take a breath and laugh at myself when I was getting frustrated because I couldn't close the distance to a mob before it was dead.
But at no point do I think a gear-set spell power source and a spell point increase and a cooldown extension are all justified at the same time.
Good developers make small adjustments, get new metrics and then adjust again. Tweaks.

Not directed at you, but in general...
If you wanted melees to be more capable- an argument I've actually been in support of- then you don't laugh when your competition is dragged down; now everyone is less effective. Melees should have been given a couple options that would give them an advantage- a burst of speed to close the distance, or a feat like Sentinel with an autoattack if the mob turns toward another character. But if your current build is not the top dog, the failure is in the coding of the class design (Developer side), a failure of the build (your side), or a failure of the player (not enough coffee, rough day at work, etc).

Rise to the challenge and improve what you have. Don't take satisfaction in SSG hamstringing another class because you can't keep up.

-Demand they fix the gaps in melee combat mechanics- closure rate, opponent lockdown, and the in-quest metrics that track other forms of contribution besides "kills".
-Aggro is still a mess. An intimidation skilled toon should be able to match or beat a high DPS squishy's ability to develop aggro.
-Where are the automatic attacks if a mob turns its attention away from the melee character crowding it/them?

Improve your position, don't laud the nerf of another's combat system and then feel satisfaction that "All things are equal, now."

remember that the way aggro works now has been partly due to nerfing others combat.

One example was that ranged use to be able to pick off at range without alerting near by monsters so now ranged aggro works like a huge AOE hate around corners and into different rooms.


I agree intimidating characters should be able to hold agro.

[Marshal_Lannes]

Their everything hangs in the balance of who gets the most kills.

Funny, that seems to be the most prevalent complaint coming from Alchemist/Fire Sorcs. Our absurdly unbalanced kill count margins have been reduced, what do we do now!

Overall this was an excellent balancing pass. Even the topic of this thread indirectly supports the nerfs. The OP is asking what they can do now. Imagine all the possibilities that have opened up. Could scroll heal someone, could use a L2 spell you've forgotten you know, could use a sonic spell to hit some breakables. A whole new tactical world of non-DPS opportunities has been revealed.

[Jerevth]

Funny, that seems to be the most prevalent complaint coming from Alchemist/Fire Sorcs. Our absurdly unbalanced kill count margins have been reduced, what do we do now!

Overall this was an excellent balancing pass. Even the topic of this thread indirectly supports the nerfs. The OP is asking what they can do now. Imagine all the possibilities that have opened up. Could scroll heal someone, could use a L2 spell you've forgotten you know, could use a sonic spell to hit some breakables. A whole new tactical world of non-DPS opportunities has been revealed.

Having played alchemist pre-nerf and finding it "meh" and not having even played Sorceror yet, if this is an accusation it falls flat.
I play melee, primarily and I prefer it to ranged. For Wizard, I played EK/PM with fighter thrown in, focusing on buffs and melee first, and I did enjoy the aoe spells but I didn't rely on them. Not because it would be effective, but because it would be fun.

But I try to be impartial and apply a degree of level thinking when looking at the "balancing changes" and I think, from a rational perspective, they went too far.
From a rational perspective, the forumites, who are crowing about the casters being unhappy about the nerfs, are coming across as petty and vindictive. You didn't "Win" DDO. It's another nail in the coffin; People are leaving because what they enjoyed is no longer fun. As more people leave, the game grows more stagnant and will shut down.

Instead of tearing others down, you should focus on building up your own position/character.
But I can't make you see that until you're willing to look.

[Anuulified]

Dear SSG

Fire sorcs have already had 2 nerfs again recently, the belt and the Max Level, please reconsider the cooldown nerf. It's not so much the DPS loss, it's the fact that it's completely messed with the spell rotation. If you want to spam DPS, you could go Meteor Swarm, Delayed Blast Fireball, Fireball, maybe Scorch depending on how fast you can spam keys, then back to Meteor Swarm, etc. Now there's still a good 2 seconds on MS and there are no other viable fire spells to put into the rotation without SLAs which will cost you 9 APs. Pretty please reconsider, it's painful having to twiddle your thumbs in between spell rotations. I accept having to do that on my wizzy's neg spells but this really shouldn't be a thing on a DPS caster

Why should they? 1 shotting everything for 14k has the same effect as 1 shotting for 18k. If you are worried about reaper boss end fights that hasn't changed much either with any of these nerfs. Its not like sorcs are all of a sudden running out of mana or dps.

[Tilomere]

It's not so much the DPS loss, it's the fact that it's completely messed with the spell rotation.

I understand what you are saying. It changed game play, not just dps. Believe it or not, when I asked for feedback on sorcs and alcs, not a single person brought up keeping their rotation the same as a concern.

It isn't that it isn't important, it just shows the communities' opinions aren't congruent enough to put forth if let alone how something should be nerfed, or how the resulting game play should be. The all valid points of view coming from so many different reasonings and backgrounds simply don't line up. Stack on top of that the large amount of fallacious arguments, and it is a mess.

I wanted to get to this stage, of talking about gameplay after nerfs, but I realize that was naïve of me.

[Marshal_Lannes]

It's another nail in the coffin; People are leaving because what they enjoyed is no longer fun. As more people leave, the game grows more stagnant and will shut down.

Source?

As for nails in the coffin, people have been bemoaning that for a decade, and yet look, DDO is still here. I was away nearly 3 years and here it remains, in most ways back and better than ever. The game will be just fine.

[Lafshmaf]

Source?

As for nails in the coffin, people have been bemoaning that for a decade, and yet look, DDO is still here. I was away nearly 3 years and here it remains, in most ways back and better than ever. The game will be just fine.

ah, those were better times, here and on Orien, though at least there people can and do avoid you.

[slarden]

Funny, that seems to be the most prevalent complaint coming from Alchemist/Fire Sorcs. Our absurdly unbalanced kill count margins have been reduced, what do we do now!

Overall this was an excellent balancing pass. Even the topic of this thread indirectly supports the nerfs. The OP is asking what they can do now. Imagine all the possibilities that have opened up. Could scroll heal someone, could use a L2 spell you've forgotten you know, could use a sonic spell to hit some breakables. A whole new tactical world of non-DPS opportunities has been revealed.

Unfortunately too many people comment on balance issues they perceive in R1 heroics and those groups tend to be terribly unbalanced with a mix of people that should be running R5 or higher and others that aren't properly built or geared for elite. When you get several people in a quest that are over-powered for the difficulty - kill count is going to be based mostly on who wants it the most - fastest person to the enemies.

R1 heroic quests suffer from character power balance issues that are so significant it really distorts any attempt to evaluate class balance based on heroic data.

[janave]

Unfortunately too many people comment on balance issues they perceive in R1 heroics and those groups tend to be terribly unbalanced with a mix of people that should be running R5 or higher and others that aren't properly built or geared for elite. When you get several people in a quest that are over-powered for the difficulty - kill count is going to be based mostly on who wants it the most - fastest person to the enemies.

R1 heroic quests suffer from character power balance issues that are so significant it really distorts any attempt to evaluate class balance based on heroic data.

True;



Additionally worth noting that under geared/developed nukers fall off first as reaper difficulty increases, the cost to land a kill can go up really fast, because the multiple layers reducing the effect of spells. Mob saves are all over the place and are much harder to feel out than, eg: monster DR, that is also shared inside many quests, once you learn the DR traits of a creature, can usually reuse that knowledge, learning/remembering the saves in a specific quest on a specific reaper diff takes more out of a player.

The investment and progression needed for an effective epic nuker built is excessively more than most other ranged/shooter/thrower builds for example.

Maybe EG7 can hire some designers for them, with skills like: compare two integers.

[Jerevth]

Source?

Thanks for the laugh.

[Marshal_Lannes]

ah, those were better times, here and on Orien, though at least there people can and do avoid you.

As said in The Princess Bride, I don't think that word (or character as it may be) means (or is) what (who) you think it means. I have played almost exclusively one character the last 3 months and you have no clue who that is so this is merely a sad attempt to discredit me through a disingenuous statement.

Unfortunately too many people comment on balance issues they perceive in R1 heroics and those groups tend to be terribly unbalanced with a mix of people that should be running R5 or higher and others that aren't properly built or geared for elite. When you get several people in a quest that are over-powered for the difficulty - kill count is going to be based mostly on who wants it the most - fastest person to the enemies.

R1 heroic quests suffer from character power balance issues that are so significant it really distorts any attempt to evaluate class balance based on heroic data.

Quite a bit to unpack here in game theory anyway. First, I don't know if people "should" be running anything. There is an effort/reward mechanic in play that determines difficulty level. This is usually based primarily on equipment. In heroics for me, R1 is basically normal and R4 is elite because I have been running them a lot and have an optimized gear set. In epics, R1 is hard and R4 is elite + difficult because I don't have an optimized gear set. But even this has a wide range of variance. Going through the ES chain on R4 wasn't all that difficult but doing something like Finding Dorris on R4 was brutal. I can't speak for everyone, but why do I go from R1 to R4? You aren't picking up that much more in the way of rewards. Well, for me it seems R4 right now is where the quest pushes back enough that it requires more party interaction and cooperation and this leads to more fun.

Many people have said, and games are based on this utility, that people find enjoyment when they are contributing. And once you get up to R4 (and beyond I would imagine) you are correct, the kill counts tend to level off. You'll tend to see four characters grouped around each other than two on the low end. In R1 you'll have two characters who dominate kill count. You're also correct that speed plays a role and people move as fast as they feel safe. So for example, I have no qualms about rushing into a R1 mob and blowing them all up with Holy Retribution but I am much more cautious in higher R4 because I know some will make the save.

After R4 the game changes rather dramatically in playstyle for all types. Absolutely you see it with casters but also melee. You're no longer able to cavort around the battlefield and multiple champions are lethal. So what does this all mean? Well, you talk about game balance. Where in this wide range of play do we target balance? And of course, I'm only talking reaper here and have completely omitted all N/H/E. I believe most players would accept that R1 is now the 'default" difficulty for most questing. Even in the Legendary raids, I've run people want to do R1 because they get access to their reaper trees. So if R1 is the default, the game balance should be targeted toward that. Are you suggesting the game should be balanced for play at R7+?

Thanks for the laugh.

So, no source. Gotcha.

[Amoneth]

OP claims it's not about DPS nerf, but about spell rotation, and makes silly claims about standing around twiddling thumbs for 2 seconds, and refuses to consider simply adding another spell to their rotation, with the even more nonsensical statement that casting a non-Fire spell somehow nerfs themselves. If there's a loss of brain mass, I don't think it's the "community".

(Though I don't think the OP is actually that dumb, either. I suspect they actually simply wanted their higher DPS back, didn't want to admit that, and used the spell rotation nonsense as an excuse. And now don't want to admit that their original excuse is bogus and come clean about their actual motivation.)

I don't know how else to explain things to you, I genuinely don't know if you're mentally challenged or just trolling me now. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, assume it's the latter and make you the first person I've ever squelched on a forum in my entire life, so congrats for that I guess.

[slarden]

I believe most players would accept that R1 is now the 'default" difficulty for most questing. Even in the Legendary raids, I've run people want to do R1 because they get access to their reaper trees. So if R1 is the default, the game balance should be targeted toward that. Are you suggesting the game should be balanced for play at R7+?
.

There is leveling and there is end game. The reason people run R1 is speed to get to 30 - they don't want to optimize gear at each level and they don't need to on R1.

So R1 may be the default for leveling, but once you get to level 30 you will see many R6+ groups for rxp and lower difficulties are typically for fast gear farming.

My argument is that balancing around R1 heroics doesn't make much sense since people are mostly just trying to rush through it ASAP and groups are absolutely crushing that content because most people are over-powered for R1.

On the other hand at level 30 people are trying to push skulls and optimize as much as they can so it's much easier to identify real gaps in class balance and more impactful to address those gaps. Nerfing sorc and alchemist didn't really change R1 heroic zerg runs but did have an impact at level 30 (although it seems blown out of proportion to me). I doubt any groups running R10 with an alchemist and sorc have to drop down difficulty. They might notice a small impact. I was a bit shocked how well my alchemist is doing after the nerf with a slight respec. I still don't care much for the alchemist playstyle but it is growing on me now that i am doing more than just pressing a few buttons.

[Amoneth]

I understand what you are saying. It changed game play, not just dps. Believe it or not, when I asked for feedback on sorcs and alcs, not a single person brought up keeping their rotation the same as a concern.

Where did you ask for this feedback? This is not a sarcastic response, I would genuinely like to know so I can give this kind of feedback in the future.

[slarden]

I don't know how else to explain things to you, I genuinely don't know if you're mentally challenged or just trolling me now. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, assume it's the latter and make you the first person I've ever squelched on a forum in my entire life, so congrats for that I guess.

Unfortunately tone can be difficult to read - I don't think he is trying to be disrespectful at all. I have the same question. Why do you believe adding another spell to the rotation isn't an effective solution vs. not casting? I assume you are running 4 piece LGS and 1 piece LGS debuffer so slotting another spellpower is difficult, but even with potency some damage is better than no damage.

I am not trying to be disrespectful at all - I genuinely want to understand your viewpoint more.

Believe it or not, when I asked for feedback on sorcs and alcs, not a single person brought up keeping their rotation the same as a concern.

Why would they? You are a not a dev and your example seemed unbalanced and not a fair representation.

I would like to see the devs put things on a watch list for a month before they put it out on Lamannia when it's pretty close to final at that point.

For example if the devs put an official topic "Watch List - Meteor Swarm" and listed potential changes the community could respond and meaningful discussion could begin. I don't think responding to a post by a player such as yourself is the right way to provide feedback to the devs and there should be no assumptions that comments in that thread are representative community opinions.

A good example for a few years there was much discussion on guild renown and decay and if you read those threads you would get the idea there was this equally divided opinion on it. When Maj Mal actually posted it in the official topic forum and asked for feedback it became clear there wasn't a divided opinion after all and that many players had opinions and they mostly flowed in one singular direction.

Devs - More dev posts asking for direct feedback please and less reliance on posts by players asking for nerfs please.

[Amoneth]

You can weave Fire Bolt in as much as you like. That was created to be the equivalent of an auto attack for martial builds.

The problem with slotting a single target spell into an AoE rotation is that it's pointless, I would kill say 1/5 mobs quicker but would still be casting the AoE spells to kill the other 4 so it's a total waste of SPs to cast that fire bolt in between, unless we're talking boss damage which would go on for a while, but this is more about packs of mobs for me.

As I think I've said before, I would rather they further nerfed the damage of the spell (though I really don't think that's necessary on top of the other two nerfs that affected fire sorcs) than the cooldown.

[Jerevth]

So, no source. Gotcha.

I suspect you think simply demanding a citation or a source is the perfect argument.

Source: Me, seeing people leave the guild because of the continuous, poorly managed changes to the game over the past 4 years.

The Forum- people stating they are leaving or dropping SUBs/ purchases in game because of dissatisfaction.

This isn't Wikipedia, nor a scientific journal. But you can do your own peer review.

Might I suggest the following...

https://www.google.com/
https://www.playeraudit.com/
https://www.ddo.com/en/forums/forum.php

[Amoneth]

Unfortunately tone can be difficult to read - I don't think he is trying to be disrespectful at all. I have the same question. Why do you believe adding another spell to the rotation isn't an effective solution vs. not casting? I assume you are running 4 piece LGS and 1 piece LGS debuffer so slotting another spellpower is difficult, but even with potency some damage is better than no damage.

I am not trying to be disrespectful at all - I genuinely want to understand your viewpoint more.

Slotting another spellpower is indeed difficult. In order to not get reflex saves all over the place when I do Sharn, I've had to push my evocation DCs to ridiculous levels so a lot of my gear is tailored to that. It's absolutely not necessary for low reaper but I'm pushing my reaper points so I do R8+ and don't want to be a burden when I do it. I thought I had responded with something similar in the thread, apologies if I didn't.

Of course, slotting any spell is better than nothing at all but I still have hope that a dev will read this post and consider that they are forcing people to do that or take expensive SLAs instead of the enhancements they actually want to take.

I've never tried any other kind of sorc if I'm honest, I just love burning mobs, especially because my mains are clerics and fire DPS is a breath of fresh, albiet hot, air. How do people find the spell rotations for lightning / cold / acid? I honestly don't think I would get the same satisfaction out of any other element but I guess I will have to adjust if my pleas remain unheard.