Why are Paths still being supported?

[Beast]

The reason paths are still semi-supported is we do still have players use them, including people who just want to check the game out quick before really deciding if they want to make their own character. These days we mostly focus on just having them for free to play classes as a general guideline, but we did want to fix issues with being able to take paths when we can.

Is there a chance to give us a tool to work with to make our oun path as custom to avoid time sinking while leveling?
That would be a REAL QoL improvement!

 

[Elves United]

I don't think it would take that much to make them half way decent:

Primary stat and con gets most of the points. ( No putting points into strength for a wizard caster )
Make sure the feats are appropriate.
Make sure the skills that matter get all the points.

 

[Treefolk]

There was chatter years ago about the devs collabing with the community to revise and update the paths to something better / more modern / functional, but if memory serves, it got punted (and then died of neglect) because "we don't want to have to update them again after these big upcoming changes so we'll push path updates to after those changes" (which was fair, U19 was when Enhancement Trees launched which was a *huge* change).

 

[Urklore]

It's like spell components for Eladrin Chaosmancer

 

[AlimonyJFMSU]

If you're gonna scrap them, then it would be wise to also make sure that the stats and feats and whatnot that you see in character creation are clearly explained.

 

[droid327]

I don't think it would take that much to make them half way decent:

Primary stat and con gets most of the points. ( No putting points into strength for a wizard caster )
Make sure the feats are appropriate.
Make sure the skills that matter get all the points.

The sticking point is usually prereqs. Builds fall apart if, e.g., you have 2 fewer INT than expected and, because of your skill point priority, wont have 4 Balance by the time it wants to take ISWF.

 

[Bladedge]

I use paths to make quick disposable alts or bank alts.

 

[lilgeek]

I used one ONCE. Even a new player see the flaws in them real quick.
Have they ever been updated?

Con is not a dump stat*

Sure con is a dump stat. My first character dumped con. The guild healers cheered when I TR'd that toon.

(I learned and now strength is my dump stat.)

 

[Phaedra]

I mean knowledge about dnd system rules.
I brought some players here since 2010 and they of course heard about dnd system before or played BG 1-2 which had very simple character building when compared, but they completely had no idea how system works and it was overwhelming at start.
My best friend always use ready builds in games like this.
Now, BG 3 is popular and some people may look for similar games which may lead them here.
If you believe that all BG 3 players made their own build instead of ready to play one, then I must tell you that gaming people in my "bubble" are not familiar with dnd enough, but they wanted to play and you may try to guess if they really created custom character at their first run.
You are only looking from your perspective and rely on sample of gamers from your "bubble".

Even if you come in only knowing 5e, I'm pretty sure your guesses are going to be at least as good as the existing paths.

If they aren't going to be maintained, they should probably be removed. They're worse than a newb-trap. If you guess and get it wrong, at least you'll learn something. If you just hit auto, you won't even known you did something wrong to learn from it.

 

[Praun]

They should just be retired completely if they're not going to be updated, which of course they aren't

They're very outdated, arguably were never very optimized, and are a noob trap. They detract from the new player experience. The universal suggestion to new players is "don't use paths".

Giving them fixes in this latest patch not only seems like a questionable use of dev time, but also sends a harmful message that paths are still a supported feature and should be considered reliable for new players - which they shouldn't

It's almost like those who built those paths never actually played the game; it just looked good on paper to them.

 

[droid327]

It's almost like those who built those paths never actually played the game; it just looked good on paper to them.

Most of them were designed before there even was a finished game to play. AFAIK they date back to launch. They were already ancient by the time the modern enhancement system was created, which pretty much defines what your build is today.

 

[Fhrek]

Is there a chance to give us a tool to work with to make our oun path as custom to avoid time sinking while leveling?
That would be a REAL QoL improvement!

Would be pretty neat the ability to build a personal path and check if everything is okay when clicking the trainer when leveling. Would help a lot on those racials lifes we just repeat the build x3 and than just change the race for more x3.

 

[Frieling Slyhand]

Fix them. Almost any vet could plan a better path.

 

[ShoeMaker]

Personally... I'd love to see a way to load a custom path from an XML file that we could pre-build with a decent character planner. However, I don't see SSG spending any time or resources to make that a reality. If it was to happen, it'd have to be a developer who wanted to do it on their own time and then get it approved to be added to the game - same thing we've been told about getting any kind of API back like there was in the days of old.

 

[daft]

Uploading XMLs could be a huge security risk too, I don't see them actually considering something like that.

 

[ShoeMaker]

Uploading XMLs could be a huge security risk too, I don't see them actually considering something like that.

It'd be no different than C:\Users\Me\Documents\Dungeons and Dragons Online\ui\layouts they already use XML for (disguised as a .layout).

 

[Beast]

It'd be no different than C:\Users\Me\Documents\Dungeons and Dragons Online\ui\layouts they already use XML for (disguised as a .layout).

I'm not a coder of any sort so I didn't commented, but now that someone competent did, I will say, it would be awesome, and it will never happen from SSG, maybe some external coder...
thank you for that.

 

[Zillee]

My first character years ago used a Path up to level 10, at which point I started to ignore the path and do my own thing, changed a feat, and reincarnated at 20. It was fine and it helped me into the game. I didn't have much knowledge about D&D so the idea of initially creating my character from scratch was daunting. Could they be better? Probably, but they helped me ease into the game.

Loading a custom path into the game would be very nice.

 

[AbyssalMage]

They could always let the community update the paths (through voting or player council) and let an intern update them

 

[Shear-buckler]

They could always let the community update the paths (through voting or player council) and let an intern update them

Let the community create 10 or so build templates that can be selected at character creation. For simplicity make 32 pt build standard for all characters automatically and for free.