Standing Stone Games - Your game is dying because you are killing it!

[Dread131313]

I have been back a few weeks. Ive looked over several build threads. Almost every fun or cool or unique build ive come across was posted 3-4 years ago. I read 5-6 pages of replies and when I get to the last page I almost ALWAYS see "This build is no longer viable, as it has been nerfed...". This is very disconcerting. Look, I understand nerfs have to happen from time to time. I understand some builds being too OP is a problem. But it would seem you guys have the bar raised very very high as to what "acceptable builds and player power" is, and you seem to have a rather 'heavy hand' when it comes to nerfs.

When you nerf every fun build that comes along, players are going to get sick of it and quit. Many telltale signs of this are already in the posts i've outlined. For the players that stick around, if they find any other builds that are fun that they are playing - they wont share them with the community, for fear of it getting nerfed. This is very very very bad. If you want players to stick around, you need to undo the nerfs you performed in the last 6-12 months - or else your game will keep declining until you guys have to close shop.

Ive been playing MMO's for 20 years now, and ive seen it time and time again. Every time, overzealous devs and content managers nerf nerf nerf until finally players get sick and tired of it and start leaving in droves. Then about 6 months later, the game studio goes bankrupt and closes shop. Asherons call did it, The Chronicles of Spellborn did it, Firefall did it, and many many others. I love DDO, and one of the things that makes me want to play it is the 'fun factor'. I am sure I, like many players here play this game because we get something out of it.

Time well spent is in the eye of the beholder - as it were, and we as the players want to feel like if we are having fun here on your game that it is time well spent. What is not fun and what goes against that is you guys nerfing everything in sight. This is not a threat - its a warning. If you keep up with this business model, it will be the undoing of this game. Hopefully this thread doesnt get deleted and it can make you guys think about the direction you are going. Please know that I am not here to start a flame war, or an argument - I am only here because I see where the game is going and I want to save it. My wife and I are considering not playing any more/paying for any more services because whats the point if we are just going to be constantly let down with every nerf and then the game shuts down in 6 months to a year? We cant even have fun because we cant find any fun builds because they are all nerfed!!!!

Thanks for hearing me out.

[Selvera]

I can assure you that not every "fun" build has been nerfed. They certainly have nerfed the most popular exploit builds as well as one of the top-tier dps builds (a few times) and a widely used overperforming heroic pastlife class (a few times); and one good ability in a bad enhancement tree (not sure why they nerfed that so hard).

But what has happened is essentially that there's been enough nerfs of various things widely known to overperform; that a lot of builders have become secretive about many of their builds; which leads to less new builds popping up in these forums; which then leads on to less potentially fun builds to read over in the forums.

I do think a larger problem is how difficult the devs have made grouping in this game preventing it from thriving. And the total lack of interest they seem to have for gaining new players.

[vms4ever]

My suggestion is that you stop reading about DDO builds and spend some time playing DDO. Some of my favorite builds were "broken". Bottom line is that a nerfed build can still be entertaining and effective.

I enjoyed my sword and board paladin even if I timed my solo boss fights using a calendar. (Which was a good thing when tanking the shadow dragon.). Yes, warlocks have been nerfed repeatedly but they are still the DDO easy button. I would say that the only nerfed that has made a character unplayable was the stealth aggro "Nerf".

[Maldorin]

Thanks for hearing me out.

DDO already died...

It currently exists in undead form. Operating in this unnatural and sinister form it seems to be feeding off the negative energy of critical forum posts but it seems now to be immune to critical hits.. posters try to effect it but it just becomes even more dead.

And it has spawned minions that attack all who dare oppose its dark direction. "Whiners" these followers eerily intone. "DDO is alive!" they chant...

And yet the grave lies empty... muddy footprints leading off toward gloomy shadows of the next expansion...

DOOM!

[Maldorin]

Seriously though..

I returned recently after a long break. All my builds needed rerolling. A few trs later and some store bought hearts of wood... and the help of my friends getting me caught up... My current melee build is very strong.

Until the next round of Nerf/buff/Nerf then rinse and repeat...

Catch up on the wiki, experiment a little do some test driving. There's still, in my opinion, some really fun builds possible.

[Proton]

After reading this I feel like sharing my own approach. I got 44 toons on my main server, which include my Main <3. Life is a long thing hopefully, according to the books I can possibly live another 80 years! But I intend to go far far beyond that, point aside, supposing I last half that long...

That is still 40 years of game time!

As long as I can play, solo if it must be, I will. As long as the servers are up, I will log in from time to time to play.

The alts all will get capped to 30, then farm favor for the guild I have and to get the +5 tomes. When one of them has gotten the tome, I will begin with another. I won't TR any of them until I am done TRing my main. They would get at most 2 TRs, no more, but at least 1 to get the brackets on the side of their names so I can pretend they are UBER builds and its more difficult for others to tell :P that and so they can get another +5 tome or 2.

My main will get all PLs. Long road!


If a build is weak, nerfed, no good, I will hit lower difficulty content and pretend it is badass and invincible! When they reach level 30, its not my job to make them playable I won't exhaust myself trying to make them all perfect (only my Main gets that) but accept them how they are and lower difficulties for the lesser ones.

The benefits of this are: I get to check out any updates to a class instantly, no need to spend 3 weeks building it up. I got lots of storage mules! When events like Mabar come out, I got lots of toons that can farm for full exp while gathering candy to the bank. If I feel like playing an Assassin, I got one ready. If it can't even handle Epic Elite, I'll keep doing Epic Normal with it and pretending it's a great build.

My alts will join lfms when they can, they need the help. They will solo easy stuff alone otherwise. They can also drift off in solo land, feeling too puny to even be seen, or perhaps I am too mentally lazy at that time to go for a challenge. Sleepy play gets one killed easy, having mental clarity and alertness allows me to take on higher challenges. Sometimes I am tired, distracted, or overwhelmed with life and just want casual ease to get my mind off.


My Main is similar to the alts, but doesn't need the help and can solo almost anything. Never hits less then elite, but usually its reaper. If I have to solo because no one plays the game anymore but a few, I will. It it DnD, comes closer to it then anything else online.

As to builds, yes, I stopped talking about them after so many nerfs. I got mix builds in other servers, but they are for testing mostly and some fun with that. While I still know a lot of OP builds, I haven't used them that much while TRing my main, and messed up a few lives slopping it through, though now I am doing a Rage Mage and get the feeling it will end up more powerful and capable then a good warlock build near the later stages. I got one life after that for complete, then its on to the next phase of PL development. Cleric comes last.

While it does seem that the developers aren't concerned with getting new players, and even seem to test the older ones with some of their choices, they do seem the sort that will keep the game going. They seem to have a vision of their own, which is very difficult to influence, but does get influenced by these forums. So while the player base may dwindle the game will be around for a long time still. I don't care if the population is low, I'll still buy stuff with confidence that the game will be here for ME, personally, and for the few who love it and enjoy playing it.

Then again it could change. There are a few things that if they add to the game, would greatly increase populations, but these are daring programs to add, and with so many bugs popping up I can understand their hesitation. If things don't change, I'll eventually change them myself as I have plans to make a game based off of DnD and Dangerous Journeys combined, online, MMO, that will have all the ingredients to cause gamers to go crazy playing it. It won't see nerfs, updates (it won't need them hehehehe ), or much care other thing then fixes... if there is an update it will be seemless and unannounced (I'd just slip in more files to the generators, no one would even know game got updated hahahaha). Anyways, while this perfect dream game does not yet exist, DDO is the closest thing I found so far and its based on DnD, so I will be playing this one onward.

Even after I make that perfect game I will keep playing this one. Then there will be 3 mmos for me. DDO, the game I make, and some game where I get to fly and kill things (considering dragon knight 2 for this, but not sure Aion?? not a lot of good looking choices... just.. I gotta fly from time to time, its driving me nuts that I can't fly in DnD DDO land, except that god awful version with the jolly green giant ). I'd like to find for that alternative a game that mixes magic and technology and lets me fly - seems there would be something like that by now. That is why I haven't found the second game yet. The third one is easy, it doesn't exist yet, I will make it later.

If all goes well I will get rich and I will keep playing the game, and if it ever looks like its going offline, I will offer to buy it and rescue it so it stays online, and set up a contract that makes sure it stays online for 1000 years because I like big ridiculous numbers like that!

SSG might be killing the game, but I think they are sincerely trying to make it better and just might succeed. They are certainly still developing it and that is a very good sign. Life is always full of risks, but if you can find a way to have fun with what you got, I think it doesn't matter too much if you spend a few dollars here and there, if you have fun its worth it.

[Tols]

[...] and then the game shuts down in 6 months to a year?

Posts like this one make me wonder if there has ever been a time when nobody claimed that DDO would shut down within the next six to twelve months.

Most likely the game will go down at some point, and lots of people will say "I knew it!" or "I predicted it!". But considering the many many posts spelling doom over the years, I'd say they were just lucky with their timing. Or unlucky, because they'd be the ones to actually lose the game.

I currently play a slightly altered version of EllisDee37's Necro Cleric for new players. I'm level 25 at the moment, and I do enjoy my time playing him.

Tols.

[droid327]

Uh they havent nerfed much at all...its exactly the opposite, certain builds got buffed to OPness, and then they created new content balanced around that OPness. Power creep. Not nerfing at all. Usually the nerfs have only come to builds that are so OP that they're still OP even in the new content that's designed to be OP-resistant

[C-Dog]

... Ive looked over several build threads... I read 5-6 pages of replies and when I get to the last page I almost ALWAYS see "This build is no longer viable, as it has been nerfed..."...

Don't believe everything you read.

Or, first, ask "Who is posting that opinion?". Often, it's someone who was using an exploit (e.g. Arcane Acher), or was enjoying a new feature that hadn't been balanced properly (e.g. warlocks), or just someone who sets the bar for "viable" at high-reaper. LOTS of "obsolete" builds are still very solid and perfectly fun to play, lots of class features that have been "nerfed" are still more than ample to do the job - they just aren't the FotM any more, for one reason or another.

[janave]

Seriously though..

I returned recently after a long break. All my builds needed rerolling. A few trs later and some store bought hearts of wood... and the help of my friends getting me caught up... My current melee build is very strong.

Until the next round of Nerf/buff/Nerf then rinse and repeat...

Catch up on the wiki, experiment a little do some test driving. There's still, in my opinion, some really fun builds possible.

Unless someone selected a yet to be updated class, the relative power of characters after a TR into an updated class is very similar than it was some years ago.

Improvements:
- Classes are stronger
- Armor and shields are stronger
- Gear is vastly stronger, including random gear. (old epic stats from ~13-14)
- Free fate points and scion feat on the top end
(-) Reaper enhancements to offset some of the handicap

Handicaps:
- Monster champions
- No dual boost for martials except in reaper
(-) If wanting best exp per run, reapers + self healing debuffs

SUM >>> Running on elite bravery is definitely a lot easier with an updated class in the newish gear.

What i personally noticed is that new and sometimes returning players ignore (maybe less familiar) with the new defensive options they have and still run in some 6 year old "cool in the day" clickie or something that is now super behind on stats.

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

As someone who has helped literally thousands of players build bards, fighters, paladins, wizards and practically everything else except monks...

Just because a build thread's final comments state the build is not viable any longer doesnt necessarily mean its not viable, it means the thread is not UPDATED! He/She may very well still be playing that character, or is onto something else. Maybe they've moved on...

Or just maybe... they may be planning to update their build in the very near future. There are a LOT of amazing things you can do with builds that back in the day were DEAD WEIGHT. You can more easily build in game what you've dreamed of in your head. Hint: Expect Mississippi Queen (posted Jan 2009), my bard build to be updated soon. I've been working on other builds but I still play and still LOVE playing my bard. Still my favorite build to play in my stable and she still commands a battlefield, heals great, fascinates and inspires, and can still get a HELL of a discount on the finest clothing and gear in the land!!!

[Zites]

All things consider they haven't nerfed near enough,Monk needs to be nerfed again and soon!
Warlock is still OP SE and TS should have been nerfed, ES was the weakest of the bunch!
Dc casting is stupidly over power and so is Assin,Temp, dps!

[cpw_acc]

Serious amount of whiners on these forums.

Does nobody actually play the game for fun? Isn't that what games are supposed to be about?

People seems to play like DDO is some kind of life-or-death competition where their super-duper-OP build HAS to out-kill every other player.

Then when the game is changed to try and balance out other builds and play-styles, and their super-duper-OP build is suddenly on a level with others, they immediately come on here spluttering and screaming in incoherent rage.

"Whah whah, it takes me 3 seconds longer to kill a boss! I'm not the bestest anymore! Whah whah whah!"

This is a game.
Play for fun.
Or go outside and get some fresh air.

[AbyssalMage]

Uh they havent nerfed much at all...

its exactly the opposite, certain builds got buffed to OPness, and then they created new content balanced around that OPness. Power creep. Not nerfing at all.

Usually the nerfs have only come to builds that are so OP that they're still OP even in the new content that's designed to be OP-resistant

I literally am flabbergasted that you posted this. I even broke it up into pieces trying to comprehend what you were trying to convey to the original poster or to the community.

A) Nerfing occurs when you directly change something for the worse or purposefully ignore it. Developers have done both, repeatedly. Nerfing is not fixing a bug.
B) Making content to match inflated stats is nerfing. If the developers give you something to accomplish an objective and then literally create a more difficult objective, have you actually received a beneficial object? If you receive a pellet gun to hunt rabbits, an improvement over the sling shot you were using, but new content requires you to hunt deer, that pellet gun is quickly going to find itself in the landfill. Just like what you see in DDO, older content is relegated to the "landfill (i.e. simply used for favor) steadily decreasing revenue because players will be less inclined to "catch up" with older content that has no or reduced value.
C) So called Over Performing builds, when they do exist, happen from lack of oversight. Until the developers inform the community what is considered "Over Performing" with a provided Rubric, that term will continue to have "Moving goal posts" by the developers. This is why so many posts the original poster commented about say, "This build no longer functions." The "goal posts" literally were moved in most cases. Bard, the first class to get a pass has already been nerfed so badly from inattention and game changes to accommodate power creep that it has been a topic of conversation on these very forums multiple times.

[Revolted]

So you think the meta of this game, or any other, continues the same after 3-4 years? The builds weren't nerfed or destroyed (most of them anyways), they just stopped being meta. Whatever, you sound like someone who can't make his/her own builds and you just enjoy to copycat what other users found fun to play with. I've 3 toons. My main is always changing build, I like to try and create different things. One of my alts is a 2wf fighter since 2010. Now, that build ain't meta since, well, ever, but I have lots of fun playing it and I can positively contribute in any party at any difficulty of this game.

Now, instead of losing 10 minutes writting a doom thread, go back to the game and play it, knowing this, FOTM builds change every month.

[TitusOvid]

Don't base your assumptions on old build posts from the forum. There are other places builds are posted. For every "nerfed" build there are created 3 others.

[TedSandyman]

I would say that the only nerfed that has made a character unplayable was the stealth aggro "Nerf".

And yet I am still having a blast playing my assassin thief. They killed solo, but in a group they are as fun as ever. You get spotted when there is a reaper. But there isn't a reaper in every room. And even solo, though not a great as before, isn't as bad as its made out to be. With bluff and bluff attacks, I do alright on ELITE and R1 in most dungeons. Which is good enough for me. Takes a while to get through the night revels solo though.

[TedSandyman]

I literally am flabbergasted that you posted this. I even broke it up into pieces trying to comprehend what you were trying to convey to the original poster or to the community.

A) Nerfing occurs when you directly change something for the worse or purposefully ignore it. Developers have done both, repeatedly. Nerfing is not fixing a bug.
B) Making content to match inflated stats is nerfing. If the developers give you something to accomplish an objective and then literally create a more difficult objective, have you actually received a beneficial object? If you receive a pellet gun to hunt rabbits, an improvement over the sling shot you were using, but new content requires you to hunt deer, that pellet gun is quickly going to find itself in the landfill. Just like what you see in DDO, older content is relegated to the "landfill (i.e. simply used for favor) steadily decreasing revenue because players will be less inclined to "catch up" with older content that has no or reduced value.
C) So called Over Performing builds, when they do exist, happen from lack of oversight. Until the developers inform the community what is considered "Over Performing" with a provided Rubric, that term will continue to have "Moving goal posts" by the developers. This is why so many posts the original poster commented about say, "This build no longer functions." The "goal posts" literally were moved in most cases. Bard, the first class to get a pass has already been nerfed so badly from inattention and game changes to accommodate power creep that it has been a topic of conversation on these very forums multiple times.

I am flabbergasted by the suggestion that inattention is nerfing.

Wikipedia says (the all knowing wikipedia) A nerf is a change to a game that reduces the desirability or effectiveness of a particular game element. The term is also used as a verb for the act of making such a change."

A nerf is a change that makes something weaker. Not changing something does not make it weaker. The game may move on. The same ability might not be as useful. But that is not nerfing.

Just because a new, more powerful video card comes out, it doesn't "nerf" all of the older card. That isn't what nerf means. Just because a new IPhone comes out, it doesn't nerf all of the older phones. Nerf isn't making something obsolescent.

[crackas]

I am flabbergasted by the suggestion that inattention is nerfing.

Wikipedia says (the all knowing wikipedia) A nerf is a change to a game that reduces the desirability or effectiveness of a particular game element. The term is also used as a verb for the act of making such a change."

A nerf is a change that makes something weaker. Not changing something does not make it weaker. The game may move on. The same ability might not be as useful. But that is not nerfing.

Just because a new, more powerful video card comes out, it doesn't "nerf" all of the older card. That isn't what nerf means. Just because a new IPhone comes out, it doesn't nerf all of the older phones. Nerf isn't making something obsolescent.

The new iPhone comes out, the developers create more complex and CPU needy applications(tougher mobs) and therefore your old iPhone is no longer as viable. Everyone knows this. Why don’t you?

[LurkingVeteran]

Just looking at the level of powercreep in DDO, the problem is definitely not too much nerfing. Lately they've probably only gone too far with one nerf (Henshin stick builds).

Quite the contrary, they've been afraid to nerf certain things, which holds other builds back.

Some examples:

• Monk TTS and shuriken expertize is OP, which means when you balance the game around these, non-monk throwers (and bow users, poor ranger AAs) who lack these will always be weak. Non-fury EDs also pale because of how these synergize.
• LD has been obviously OP for melee for years, the gap has only been slowly closing.
• Fast attack builds are outperforming slow ones at cap for quite a while now, and this is going to be hard to balance due to the Ethereal legendary feat
• How many melee sentient weapons are not running Prowess these days? Enough said.
• When we discussed making evo-casters viable end-game, some were surprisingly against this because insta-kill spells are just so good right now, and some builds can do both. I wouldn't be surprised if this is why caster DPS has been neglected so far. Energy burst has also been on the OP side for years, a nearly per-encounter encounter-wipe ability is pretty dangerous design. Hold + Eburst was pretty much 50% of epic caster DPS.

Ergo, they need to respond quicker to imbalances and make more frequent adjustments instead of waiting until they can redesign an entire tree from scratch. At that point everybody has been forced into running the imbalanced build, and it will be harder to change.

However, what is really putting off new/returning players is all the broken/underpowered abilities, the difficulty of finding a group on off-hours, and seeing 600hp wizards at L5 while a first-life tank has a fraction of that. Even more important is probably the technical glitches such as lag, the store often (still) crashing when trying to re-activate your account, or the infinite redirect loop this forum just put me in when I logged in for a reply (it's also not obvious that the reply button is intentionally missing for the first week). The community and devs are very passionate, but the system is very unfriendly to new/returning players.