U82 Preview 1

[Frieling Slyhand]

What do you play?

Everything. What do you play?

 

[rabidfox]

Is heroic caster play a problem? Casters can level faster than any build. The issue was more raids.

Both. The advice some people give new casters is to use a melee weapon for several levels before switching to casting, as early casting isn't great (and eternal wands don't keep up with modern mob stats). Nothing says "fun" like having to play as a non-caster until 4 or sometimes a higher level to do decent damage. So cantips will be really nice for letting people play as a caster from character creation.

There were also weird leveling curves in heroics, were you might be feeling good, then a spell hits MCL and stops scaling, but you don't get a good replacement spell for a few levels; those dry patches where you stopped scaling but mobs kept getting stronger sucked. Spells being made MCL20 should remove that.

Casters also have the issue of meh damage vs raid bosses. They upped single target damage with master of feats, but I don't see it as being where it needs to be relative to martial DPS for casters to get DPS spots in raids. There's more work needed from SSG still. There's some setups that are alright like Trickster; but many others have a big damage gap. I haven't seen much numberwise for various caster with u82 lam, most caster players I know are fairly burned out when it comes to trying to squeeze DPS out of their characters on the high end. I personally only tested some setups this last lam before my energy was drained away.

 

[Buddha5440]

Imagine a new hardcore (like) season where you dont have the gear to just deal with it is that going to be fun? Theres a reason the holy club exists because DR was once upon a time too punishing. Thankfully the devs in the past toned it down to more reasonable levels.

There is also no real in game way to tell why your damage was nerfed other than a combat log that scrolls by too fast to read in real time. 25% damage reduction on unbreakable DR is frankly just silly. Its just going to restrict build choice in a not fun way imo.

The cost of re-speccing has gotten way too high and now we need to again have a golf bag of DR breakers at end game which will need to be re-slot for every new build. No wonder people do TRs on the same build over and over its too expensive otherwise.

The hypocritical thing is in this patch changes were made because players were being excluded from raid groups - this change will bring back the link your DR breaker back to the game and people will get exluded from raid groups - 25% - 50% damage reduction is too much to ignore.

Everyone starts HC with nothing. Re-speccing costs almost nothing, if you can only use a sword, you SHOULD have an issue with skeletons and other things that are resistant/immune to slashing damage. You made a choice to specialize in one damage type...deal with the downside of that.

 

[Rusty_helmet]

First, I'm not chasing meta, so having a build work or not is not really a consideration since builds working or not working is exclusively about top of meta.

Second, my considerations here are primarily about depth and strategy, with optimization being a secondary concern for those other people who will absolutely break the mechanics no matter what the devs do. Thus, I favor a design that is good and solid like Pokemon, that can be enjoyed at the casual level, the moderate level, and the hardcore freaks of optimization level. And that requires never ever allowing choices to boil down to hit chance and damage, but rather by making it necessary for players to need to adapt to different kinds of enemies, just like in pokemon how opponents can send out a variety of different types that might counter your own.

This is a major aspect of 3.5's design, that has been slipping away in DDO.

The problem is not whether a build of mine works or not. The problem is four-fold,
1) the loss of depth,
2) the loss of utility
3) the reduction of combat to spamming the highest damage tool my build has,
4) difficulty that comes mainly from extending fights rather than strategy, number of enemies, action economy, and other elements that require intelligent play rather than optimized character sheet.

For example, I play a lot of spellswords. At epic levels my second and third level slots are basically useless, loss of utility, because 50-100 damage is pointless when I can use a different spell to deal 1,000 cheap enough to still spam it and skip many rest shrines.

Now, if I had to have several different spells targeting different defenses, and correctly assess an enemy to determine what the best spell to use is, then that would be better.

An additional improvement is being faced with obstacles and needing to creatively figure out how to deal with it rather than having a default option.

If I find myself in an encounter without the right spell or ability, being forced to think through my options and puzzle out a solution is ideal gameplay, whether that encounter is monsters, hostile or otherwise (cause in real DnD not all monster encounters are supposed to be fights to the death), or something else. And yes, that does in fact mean that I absolutely support being able to find myself in a situation in which I lack the perfect solution.

Now, several of the proposed changes affect these factors for all players of all skill levels.

DR for example, in 3.5 flat DR mattered in more than just requiring damage type. DR 5 would be basically impossible to damage by any normal person with small weapons like daggers, because the damage potential was too low to actually cause damage at all. Midrange weapons dealing a D6 or D8 would cause damage sometimes, but rarely, and not very much, but high damage weapons that proper martial characters would use would still cause about half their damage. This mattered because characters that were half-martial, casters, non-combatants, or other support would suddenly find that they could no longer supplement the martial's damage output, instead needing to find other ways to help out, such as with the aid another action so the fighter could trade additional hit chance for more damage, or casting a precious spell, or throwing oil, etc. It changed the optimal actions. The fighter meanwhile would have done the smart thing and carried multiple weapons so they could use the right weapon for the enemy.

This is part of why clerics could use bludgeoning weapons, because they were supposed to be the dps role against undead skeletons which are supposed to be absolutely freaking terrifying for a low level party because everyone except the cleric would be at such a disadvantage.

Now DDO changed the role of casters, and that is one thing that I like both the original 3.x role for casters as well as DDO's.

None of that is of any importance. Really, you are just speaking drivel to be mad. Give examples of how your depth, utility, combat spamming, and difficulty? are impacted.
You are speaking in theoretical terms and quite honestly, you cannot even begin to know how any of these changes would effect that theory (nor is this game worth the time to delve into that kind of theory). Depth - these changes add way more depth because more character classes will be viable in any content, not just "end game" content. Utility - I don't see how this isn't getting better as well. DR changes means you will have weapon swap more and now have items around simply for the utility. Combat spamming is unaffected outside of crossbow builds. Intelligent play is again greatly related back to DR changes. Knowing what breaks what DR is helpful there.

So no, you are just being mad mad and.

 

[Draknowin]

Everyone starts HC with nothing. Re-speccing costs almost nothing, if you can only use a sword, you SHOULD have an issue with skeletons and other things that are resistant/immune to slashing damage. You made a choice to specialize in one damage type...deal with the downside of that.

You realize this game *wants you* to specialize, right? Sentient Weapons (big grind to feed and equip), limited feats (unless you're a fighter), even some enhancement trees (Acrobat comes to mind, and Kensai) force you into a single weapon/type. This DR change would be fine if specializing wasn't practically enforced by the game design, but it *is*.

 

[Frieling Slyhand]

Both. The advice some people give new casters is to use a melee weapon for several levels before switching to casting, as early casting isn't great (and eternal wands don't keep up with modern mob stats). Nothing says "fun" like having to play as a non-caster until 4 or sometimes a higher level to do decent damage. So cantips will be really nice for letting people play as a caster from character creation.

There were also weird leveling curves in heroics, were you might be feeling good, then a spell hits MCL and stops scaling, but you don't get a good replacement spell for a few levels; those dry patches where you stopped scaling but mobs kept getting stronger sucked. Spells being made MCL20 should remove that.

Casters also have the issue of meh damage vs raid bosses. They upped single target damage with master of feats, but I don't see it as being where it needs to be relative to martial DPS for casters to get DPS spots in raids. There's more work needed from SSG still. There's some setups that are alright like Trickster; but many others have a big damage gap. I haven't seen much numberwise for various caster with u82 lam, most caster players I know are fairly burned out when it comes to trying to squeeze DPS out of their characters on the high end. I personally only tested some setups this last lam before my energy was drained away.

I find heroic caster to be easy street.

 

[Solarpower]

So cantips will be really nice for letting people play as a caster from character creation.

They won't.

What needs to be done :
1) Give every caster borderlands' caster stick (or it's analogue) right after the creation so the new caster won't start with mere 7 spellpower
2) Give all of the casters AOE spells/SLAs at level 1
DONE.

Your single target cantrips with cut scale from spellpower are useless. With the big nerf to Maximize on top of that.
Only a person who never ever played the game (aka SSG's devs teem) could think those are good changes/additions.

 

[Buddha5440]

You realize this game *wants you* to specialize, right? Sentient Weapons (big grind to feed and equip), limited feats (unless you're a fighter), even some enhancement trees (Acrobat comes to mind, and Kensai) force you into a single weapon/type. This DR change would be fine if specializing wasn't practically enforced by the game design, but it *is*.

No, I don't "realize" that. I'm a casual DDO'er and I still have three sentient weapons with 8+ slots.

When one of those is hit with something that resists the base damage, I swap to a crafted weapon that ignores that DR. It's a pretty simple solution actually, sorry you can't grasp it. This game "force(es)" you to do nothing. You "force" yourself to do things.

If you want a weapon/spell/etc. that is Uber against everything, it doesn't exist, you need to adapt or bring people with you who can fill the gaps you have.

 

[Buddha5440]

You realize this game *wants you* to specialize, right? Sentient Weapons (big grind to feed and equip), limited feats (unless you're a fighter), even some enhancement trees (Acrobat comes to mind, and Kensai) force you into a single weapon/type. This DR change would be fine if specializing wasn't practically enforced by the game design, but it *is*.

BtW, I am running a Pally/Arti/D. Lord split (PL run) that works just fine without a specialized sentient weapon.

Just because you can't do it doesn't mean others can't.

 

[mikarddo]

Imagine a new hardcore (like) season where you dont have the gear to just deal with it is that going to be fun? Theres a reason the holy club exists because DR was once upon a time too punishing. Thankfully the devs in the past toned it down to more reasonable levels.

Imagine complaining that the so called hardcore mode was made even a little hard.

 

[The Narc2]

Imagine complaining that the so called hardcore mode was made even a little hard.

I Concur again!

 

[Buddha5440]

None of that is of any importance. Really, you are just speaking drivel to be mad. Give examples of how your depth, utility, combat spamming, and difficulty? are impacted.
You are speaking in theoretical terms and quite honestly, you cannot even begin to know how any of these changes would effect that theory (nor is this game worth the time to delve into that kind of theory). Depth - these changes add way more depth because more character classes will be viable in any content, not just "end game" content. Utility - I don't see how this isn't getting better as well. DR changes means you will have weapon swap more and now have items around simply for the utility. Combat spamming is unaffected outside of crossbow builds. Intelligent play is again greatly related back to DR changes. Knowing what breaks what DR is helpful there.

So no, you are just being mad mad and.

and... IT'S JUST A FREAKIN GAME!!!

 

[Jack Jarvis Esquire]

Meh. As per, generally too much hyperbole from personal agenda driven butt hurt IMO. The Devs will as ever very likely ignore that "feedback". And well they should.

I don't think we should get to cherry pick what elements of this rebalancing should/not apply. Is what it is folks. Good and bad. Just get on with it.

And FWIW I don't agree any of it is game breaking.

 

[Igognito]

My 2 cents:
1. The DR change will make the game significantly harder for new players. I would consider normal, hard, elite, reaper to have some form of scaling for DR. Also take in account prr.
2. Removing completely fusable, and the inq. Ability might be too much. I would handle it as 1/per dungeon ability (minutes cool down ability) something like their heroic epic moment. I would place it as a tier 5 ability. Let's be frank it is cool too become a machine gun.
3. These changes are going to alter the game significantly, I would not present them all together.

Cheers

 

[Bjond]

You realize this game *wants you* to specialize, right? Sentient Weapons (big grind to feed and equip), limited feats (unless you're a fighter), even some enhancement trees (Acrobat comes to mind, and Kensai) force you into a single weapon/type.

Acrobat is hard-locked to Qstaff -- they loose dex to-hit/dam on a non-staff, profile, 10 mp, 45 double, and ae trip. Kensei has some that are limited to one of BPS and some that include a full mix (druid & monk weapons). It's a little more flexible if your desired weapon is also a druid or monk weapon.

One that I had not thought of earlier is Warpriest/soul. They get a selection at creation, but then are stuck with one single weapon forever just like Acrobat unless they take T3 Divine Crusader, in which case they get two.

When one of those is hit with something that resists the base damage, I swap to a crafted weapon that ignores that DR. It's a pretty simple solution

It's not a solution. You're gimping your damage even worse than the DR when you swap away to different type in the current live system. Even a swash/kensei with extra i.crit feats and extra jewels self-gimps by 17% due to profile reduction when swapping from slash to pierce or blunt.

If you're playing Acrobat, swapping to a non-Qstaff is likely around 60~70% reduction. Did SSG put that tree in game intending people to never play it because the math for Acrobat says "never touch anything but Qstaff".

FWIW I don't agree any of it is game breaking.

As in some can't play or become crazy OP? No, it's not that bad. As in some won't want to play? Yes, that will happen. I expect U82 will drive a meaningful fraction out of game and some aspects will be more harmful to the devs than the players.

New material DR will drive metalline demand sky high. I expect non-metalline weapons to very quickly achieve "junk" status. If SSG is frustrated with people not wanting TOD weapons, they just made that even worse.

Doublestrike uncap puts monk so far ahead that U82 should be called an unbalancing pass -- mine gains ~20% after a little regearing. VKF fairs similarly, but has potential DR/BPS swap issues holding it back.

Will we loose or gain casters? 'Dunno. Master-of is gain here / gimp there due to zero feat space. I doubt mine will rebuild, but some of it's gear is being destroyed without any compensetory gain. It will loose DPS. It's weird caster -- more than half tank. If more traditional casters don't see a pretty solid gain after reworking, I could see loosing more of them.

Huge DR will drive people out, too. They'll look at the multi-jewel issue for swapping, punt it, go back to suffering, then just stop logging in. Sentient Jewels scare people, even with the data out there on how to level them with low effort.

The ranged shakeup looks so big that every ranged will want to rebuild. Into what is a big question, but my impression is that a full rebuild will more or less maintain the status quo on ranged DPS. I expect much forum salt during the process, but zero loss of any ranged players -- maybe even gain as ranged breaks more of BPS than melee (some melee will jump to ranged).

 

[mikarddo]

Acrobat is hard-locked to Qstaff -- they loose dex to-hit/dam on a non-staff, profile, 10 mp, 45 double, and ae trip. Kensei has some that are limited to one of BPS and some that include a full mix (druid & monk weapons). It's a little more flexible if your desired weapon is also a druid or monk weapon.

One that I had not thought of earlier is Warpriest/soul. They get a selection at creation, but then are stuck with one single weapon forever just like Acrobat unless they take T3 Divine Crusader, in which case they get two.


It's not a solution. You're gimping your damage even worse than the DR when you swap away to different type in the current live system. Even a swash/kensei with extra i.crit feats and extra jewels self-gimps by 17% due to profile reduction when swapping from slash to pierce or blunt.

If you're playing Acrobat, swapping to a non-Qstaff is likely around 60~70% reduction. Did SSG put that tree in game intending people to never play it because the math for Acrobat says "never touch anything but Qstaff".


As in some can't play or become crazy OP? No, it's not that bad. As in some won't want to play? Yes, that will happen. I expect U82 will drive a meaningful fraction out of game and some aspects will be more harmful to the devs than the players.

New material DR will drive metalline demand sky high. I expect non-metalline weapons to very quickly achieve "junk" status. If SSG is frustrated with people not wanting TOD weapons, they just made that even worse.

Doublestrike uncap puts monk so far ahead that U82 should be called an unbalancing pass -- mine gains ~20% after a little regearing. VKF fairs similarly, but has potential DR/BPS swap issues holding it back.

Will we loose or gain casters? 'Dunno. Master-of is gain here / gimp there due to zero feat space. I doubt mine will rebuild, but some of it's gear is being destroyed without any compensetory gain. It will loose DPS. It's weird caster -- more than half tank. If more traditional casters don't see a pretty solid gain after reworking, I could see loosing more of them.

Huge DR will drive people out, too. They'll look at the multi-jewel issue for swapping, punt it, go back to suffering, then just stop logging in. Sentient Jewels scare people, even with the data out there on how to level them with low effort.

The ranged shakeup looks so big that every ranged will want to rebuild. Into what is a big question, but my impression is that a full rebuild will more or less maintain the status quo on ranged DPS. I expect much forum salt during the process, but zero loss of any ranged players -- maybe even gain as ranged breaks more of BPS than melee (some melee will jump to ranged).

I see it differently.

Melee vs Ranged. Unless the bow buffs are too good ranged lost with significant but not crippling nerfs while melee won with buffs to THF and DStrike, the latter probably being too good for some builds. I see ranged going to melee. not the other way around. I think that is good because ranged was way more abundant than melee so I applaud such a shift.

Casters got the long overdue balance in R10 - but lost crit chance, had more feat tax added and lost AoE damage which all harm the very core of playing a caster. I really prefer playing casters but I see no reason to rebuild a caster with the nerfs being handed out despite the R10 balance. I had expected buffs not nerfs and still see casters significantly behind both melee and ranged - so I will likely stay with a tank, a healer, a melee and and ranged despite preferring caster - casting single target spells and cantrips in raids plays no differently from a ranged only with less dps so whats the point? I think this is bad because casters are almost extinct at cap - less than 5% seem to be casters where it should be much higher if there was any sort of balance.

I don't think the dr changes will matter as much as you believe - but I guess we will see. I simply do not think there are enough mobs with dr for it to change anything significantly so in most cases it will feel relatively minor. There will, however, very likely be some quests or packs that some builds will avoid - exactly like I avoided certain quests when I was leveling as a an sorc or how my Visage tank is much stronger in some places than others. So while new to martial dps it is not new to ddo at all that certain builds are worse off in some places. My Vistani melee builds certainly will see that happen but I do not consider that different from what other classes and builds experience - more like a balance so martial builds do not excel everywhere.

 

[Onkei]

So DDO continues to move forward PnP D&D v5 and to move away from PnP D&D v3.5, while it is well acknowledge that v5 has questionable balancing... And with D&D being in trouble within Hasbro, what is the next step in the mind of SSG?

Is it not the time to hope for a Pathfinder MMO (or insert any other good paper D&D successor) ?

 

[Ebondevil]

I'm starting to think the DR changes are to make people want to play the Duergar Iconic Mindcleaver for Mind Weapons: Empower with Mind, to make weapons Force, which I assume will bypass Bludgeon/Pierce/Slashing damage, Dev's are just mad players don't like it.

On another subject, when are we getting the Caster Balance pass that was promised?

 

[Bjond]

I'm starting to think the DR changes are to make people want to play the Duergar Iconic Mindcleaver for Mind Weapons: Empower with Mind, to make weapons Force, which I assume will bypass Bludgeon/Pierce/Slashing damage, Dev's are just mad players don't like it.

I have not tried Mindcleaver, but the exact same ability in Feydark Illusionist does not alter DR bypass. What it does is still pretty cool and critical for some builds: make your weapons immune to item decay AND make metal shields wearable by druids.

I suspect some form of "make a problem, sell a solution" IF the decision was driven by intellect, but there's no evidence of that other than the problem itself. It could as easily be a 100% pure emotional decision of a dev that adores DR and wants a return to the golf-bag era. There's a serious lack of evidence for an unemotional decision: no reasons, no reasoning, no solutions.

Hopefully, we'll see *some* kind of solution offered in a subsequent preview; eg. broader i.crit feats such as i.crit:melee or various items similar to the epic purifying quiver that works for all physical damage (augments, quivers, weapon treatments, whatever). The kind of solution will go a very long way toward answering "why".

 

[Tarrith]

They moved Haste Boost in the BE tree to tier 2 so it is actually easier to get now not removed it.

I was talking about Endless Fusilade & NHB. It's obvious that Haste Boost will still benefit from Action Boost. Nobody was talking about Haste Boost, but thank you for bringing it up.