if they add higher lvl random gen items. They are capped at lvl 32 right now. previous it gave 6 & 3, your numbers would be more than twice as much DC. I'd assumed item stuck in lvl 32 :( . the opening posts says it will be +11 & +5 for lvl 34?
U80 Preview 2 - DC Boost Initiative
- Thread starter Tonquin
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Diaari
Well-known member
Happy to see that the GH augments are getting mothballed. It's time. To echo what others have said, make sure we're able to make up the difference elsewhere _and_ boost our DCs. I'm going to assume you're cooking up the gear for the new expansion right now. Make sure it's awesome for casters and fits the criteria that you've set for boosting DCs. And make sure it plays well with other key items regardless of the class - if I had to regear for evocation today on my DC caster/healer FvS, I would be stuck with the MD ring because the chill necklace conflicts with Breath of Vitality, for example. Having variety is good. If there's a crafting system, consider letting us craft multiple single-school DC effects onto the same item to address gear tetris issues.
So, you're increasing DC from feats, enhancements and epic destinies soon, right? Because these equipment DC changes don't help too much yet.
And concerning proc damage nerfs, maybe making spell dps so much dependent on item procs wasn't the best choice in the first place.
But you should be increasing the base damage of spells and epic destiny spells very soon. And by a lot, so caster dps can become on par to martial.
And concerning proc damage nerfs, maybe making spell dps so much dependent on item procs wasn't the best choice in the first place.
But you should be increasing the base damage of spells and epic destiny spells very soon. And by a lot, so caster dps can become on par to martial.
Lazuli
Well-known member
Those proc changes should be made when they're ready to release spell DPS changes in the same update, not before.
What they're doing is leaving casters in the lurch indefinitely (and if anyone thinks they'll do anything useful with spell DPS after this useless spell DC change, they're dreaming) after having made casters change all their gear, with considerable effort, time, and often money as well (jewelers, toolkits).
It's insulting, frankly, insulting.
Can someone explain the math behind this supposed 75% reduction in DoT damage that is being talked about?Yes lol. I came to Moonsea, in part, to play with my friend Raedier - uber caster. He found out about the caster dps nerf re: dots not scaling with metamagics anymore, and he just said goodbye and uninstalled DDO a few hours ago.
The dots have been a large part of caster dps for years. Now the dots from Soniar, Wither, Magma, alchemical acid, Slayer of the Living, etc will do 75% less damage for casters, so its a big caster nerf, and on the same day we find out that the GH augments are no longer stacking, which appears to minimize or nullify any DC boost we may have received from the DC Boost Initiative.
Nerfing caster DCs by 2 and DPS by 15%(?) or thereabouts is alot for one day lol. Have mercy on us poor casters SSG
I believe you all but want to understand the mechanic. DPS is already crazy low on casters, who at levels 30+ should be more powerful than full armies.
If the damage I get from dripping with magma, alchemical earth attunement and slayer of the living is going bye bye then my wizard, who has all the gear and tons of past lives, and who has barely hung on in capability at endgame, will be unsustainable. He has been my main toon for almost 20 years.
Im hoping SSG realizes what a ridiculous mistake this is and instead multiplies caster dps to about 5-10x what it currently is, which is the minimum i see aa needed.
Smokewolf
Frequently banned member.
@Tonquin
I have to ask two questions:
1) How do any of the proposed U80 DC & Meta Magic changes benefit Casters ?
2) What's SSG's thought process here, driving this change ?
My opinion:
Many players strongly believe that correcting coarse and making Casters viable again would lead to a resurgence in Caster play. As a direct result, the DDO Store would likely see increased sales as players invest in gearing and rebuilding those characters. Instead, with U80 SSG appears to be pursuing yet another round of engineered-inconvenience in an effort to drive store purchases. While that approach may generate a short-term spike in revenue, it's unlikely to be sustainable.
My prediction is that it will also contribute to lower-than-expected expansion sales. The reason is simple: SSG cannot alienate a large portion of its player base and then expect those same players to remain enthusiastic paying customers. Decisions that reduce player enjoyment in order to further monetize the game may produce immediate results, but they come at the cost of long-term player retention and trust.
I, for one, will not be purchasing the next expansion. Especially when doing so would reward SSG and its investors for pursuing development strategies that place short-term profits ahead of the best interests of their players.
-Smoke
I have to ask two questions:
1) How do any of the proposed U80 DC & Meta Magic changes benefit Casters ?
2) What's SSG's thought process here, driving this change ?
My opinion:
Many players strongly believe that correcting coarse and making Casters viable again would lead to a resurgence in Caster play. As a direct result, the DDO Store would likely see increased sales as players invest in gearing and rebuilding those characters. Instead, with U80 SSG appears to be pursuing yet another round of engineered-inconvenience in an effort to drive store purchases. While that approach may generate a short-term spike in revenue, it's unlikely to be sustainable.
My prediction is that it will also contribute to lower-than-expected expansion sales. The reason is simple: SSG cannot alienate a large portion of its player base and then expect those same players to remain enthusiastic paying customers. Decisions that reduce player enjoyment in order to further monetize the game may produce immediate results, but they come at the cost of long-term player retention and trust.
I, for one, will not be purchasing the next expansion. Especially when doing so would reward SSG and its investors for pursuing development strategies that place short-term profits ahead of the best interests of their players.
-Smoke
It's not stated anywhere but if you have active metamagic feats they apply to procs - Maximize +150, Empower +75 and intensify +75 = 300 spell power, increasing dmg by extra 300%, so from 1x dmg to 4x dmg. By removing this interaction you go 4x dmg > 1x dmg = 75% decrease in damage. To be fair I think it's a good change, it was a crutch (propably unintended one) that made casters semiviable in higher reaper and raids, but not when it's applied alone. They just took it away and gave nothing to compensate, and casters are already by far the worst dmg dealers in reaper. They should do spell pass at same time. And imbue pass while we are at it. My completionist EK scales down to 100-300 combined swing dmg in higher R, in R10 all i do is sit back, cast mass hold at enemy (and miss it about 30% of time) and let people carry me.
I agree, SSG is losing money because frustrated caster players quit or stop spending money. It's been way too long that casters are underpowered.
I can't be too complicated or expensive (dev time wise) to fix caster damage and DC, can it? Compared to what they could gain by caster player retention and increased caster player engangement. Players have given numerous ideas how to do it (include DC and caster/level max caster lvl in free epic feats, increase epic abilities and mantles etc.)
Phaedra
Well-known member
There are +16 stat lootgen items. The ML being locked to 32 doesn't stop them rolling higher ilevel.
Necrodancer
Ancient beyond measure
100% agree on everything. I've played EK in R10 and even with full INT investment and high spellpower, I found myself almost dealing damage in binary code with imbue (not literally but you get the gist)
I stopped posting after Tonquin last post in previous thread.
Clearly they are not actually interested in any feedback regardless of what they write but I want to give them the benefit on doubt one last time (hence why I boldened the quoted). Depending on how much "increment" we will see next update both in terms of DC and DPS I will decide on what to do.
Casters are in a desperate need of support since years and we get a slap in the face with this joke.
Tonquin
of Lightning Hammer fame!
Random Loot items and Essence Crafted items will both be increasing in potential minimum level with the upcoming level cap increase.
NewBuildTime
Member
Holy cow, the further update is to make the DCs of casters a net zero change, or go down??? This is wild... Who is on the balancing team here?
Does SSG have any combat gameplay testers and do they test all archetypes or only martial?
Tonquin mostly does bug fixes and itemization, I think.
Please SSG test DC viability and time to kill in the game not just theory-crafting. If you do that, you'll realize casters can't remain as is with only the little DC boosts presented here.
Balegdah
Well-known member
Smokewolf
Frequently banned member.
Item based changes are low hanging fruit and ignore the real changes that are needed.
Tonquin
of Lightning Hammer fame!
Hi all! There's been some great discussion here and I wanted to thank you all for your passionate feedback. I wanted to give a quick update on where we are with this initiative:
When we ran the numbers for Preview 1, we wanted players to see, at a minimum, some sort of increase to their spell DCs without any gear intervention. When we adjusted the channels for the level 16 and 24 spell school DC augments, the loss of those stacking bonuses ate into that increase, to the point where some characters actually didn't receive a bonus to spell DC at all. That was not what we wanted from this initiative!
To fix this, we're taking another crack at the numbers across the single-school and multi-school channels. As a single data point, we are aiming for, at level 34 (non-raid), a bonus of +8/4/2 to multi-school bonuses (which is up from +5/3/2), and a bonus of 12/6/3 to single-school (up from 6/3/1).
Our main goals for this initiative remain the same. We hope that the combination of increased spell DC bonuses and consolidated equipment channels make it so that a caster looking to boost their spell DCs can get higher DCs than what they had before while using less equipment and augment slots, something that will hopefully make gearing up a lot easier.
As always, thank you all again for your feedback!
When we ran the numbers for Preview 1, we wanted players to see, at a minimum, some sort of increase to their spell DCs without any gear intervention. When we adjusted the channels for the level 16 and 24 spell school DC augments, the loss of those stacking bonuses ate into that increase, to the point where some characters actually didn't receive a bonus to spell DC at all. That was not what we wanted from this initiative!
To fix this, we're taking another crack at the numbers across the single-school and multi-school channels. As a single data point, we are aiming for, at level 34 (non-raid), a bonus of +8/4/2 to multi-school bonuses (which is up from +5/3/2), and a bonus of 12/6/3 to single-school (up from 6/3/1).
Our main goals for this initiative remain the same. We hope that the combination of increased spell DC bonuses and consolidated equipment channels make it so that a caster looking to boost their spell DCs can get higher DCs than what they had before while using less equipment and augment slots, something that will hopefully make gearing up a lot easier.
As always, thank you all again for your feedback!
Tonquin
of Lightning Hammer fame!
I wish! Bumping up random loot is incredibly complicated
Thankfully its all set now and I don't have to go back into the spreadsheet mines for a while.Thank you for your engagement here and your consideration of feedback. I know it's not part of the DC changes per se, but would you all please comment about the terrible state of caster dps? It was already very low and is now getting nerfed even more.
We could have dcs of 3 million but if we cannot kill mobs that have immunity with actual damage the DCs wont matter.
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