I have to say I agree with most of what hypervoeian said. The powers give immunity frame cause some problems, but to solve thsee problem we need to look at globe picture.
I still remember that some people suggested to increase up time of bonding stones with an good intention: put all companions to equa ground. Look at what happened? Yes, there are more choices now. But still most people aiming min-max use fire archon. More importantly, what happened? More power creep from bondings, more exploits people can make use of.
We need no change or well thoughted changes. No those half thoughted changes, which make things even worse.
For those of you who don't know, dungeon design rules changed greatly with module 6. Not necessarily in a bad way, as this was a quite popular request before this module, but it didn't come with the complete overhaul of some powers that was required to smooth the experience. I'm obviously talking about damage immunities. ans complete damage immunity.
The problem with your post is that you take one concept, damage immunity, and attempt to remove said ability from certain classes' encounters/dailies without looking at the overall class to attempt to achieve balance.
This requires quite an in-depth look at the class to see where improvements can be made, but also how that class compares to everything else.
To me, this seems like a plea for challange from an end-game player. The truth is, for end-game players of any class (IL 3.5+, more so 4k+) there is little challenge to be had. Furthermore, end-game players usually have a larger social pool of players to call upon to get the ideal class composition in order to breeze through content i.e. zerg channels, guildmates etc.
While there is nothing inherently wrong with this, the mechanics you have described are life-savers for lower geared players. Increasing challenge by modifying a skill from a class will impair the ability of lower geared players, PUGs etc what-have-you, from completing content.
Therefore this, which is essentially still a nerf thread with some examples, does not justify your initial premise of modifying damage immunities from classes, as it does not look at overall balance, and does only look at the mechanics of the game from an end-game player.
to solve thsee problem we need to look at globe picture. ... We need no change or well thoughted changes. No those half thoughted changes, which make things even worse.
There are dungeons like Valindra and Malabog where most of my guildies don't even realize that there are special mechanics in the final fights because all they ever did was burning everything.
Try doing a pick-up group with lower geared players using the same skills. I think this is more of a problem of the end-game player.
diogene0's requests will only harm the enjoyment that lower geared players will have in dungeons. This game needs new players to survive, we should not make their experience even worse.
As diogene0 says there is no need to build more defensively anymore. I have both Lathander's and Orcus' sets for my HR. The first offers more defense the second more damage. I tried them both in FBI and guess what? Everything can one or two-shot me anyway so the choice is a no brainer.
This is confusing to me - if everything can one or two shot you already, then removing damage immunities will make it certain that they will one or two shot you?
There was in the original game a lot of the 4e D&D idea of complex combat which is now completely lost.
The original game of a D&D experience is actually still there levels 1-60 - ask any new player. However, you are no longer a new player, perhaps that is what is lost?
I agree. These levels of damage and control immunity indeed make this content trivial. ... ...
Which is where we stand today...I can't imagine that any slice of the Neverwinter audience is really having that much fun in Mod 10.
Unfortunately, it is really only trivial at the end-game stage. The call for nerfs should not be so narrow-focused in only looking at the desires of the end-game player. A change to a class and ability should focus on the whole experience, from a newer player to the end-stage player.
Power creep is inevitable, but making the experience that much worse for the newer, lesser-geared players, will only harm the game more, with the possibility of losing even more players, or not attracting them to the game in the first place.
Since the DC is my main character, I've been able to make a video to illustrate how broken that power is in endgame content. Just watch it if you want to see how often my character or anyone else dodges telegraphs in that video, but if you want the short answer, it's never:
For purposes of 'balance' you would need to include your stats, items and mounts.
Which of the following do you have and use? (associated costs with attaining these) - Snail (11mil AD for legacy purple, 35mil for orange on AH or praying to lock box RNGesus) - Legendary/Mythic Sigil (Millions of refinement points and costly reagents) - Legendary AP cloak (Refining as above) - Legendary burning weapon set (Grinding 100 heroics then refining)
I do not think it is the powers themselves which is the problem here.
For those of you who don't know, dungeon design rules changed greatly with module 6. Not necessarily in a bad way, as this was a quite popular request before this module, but it didn't come with the complete overhaul of some powers that was required to smooth the experience. I'm obviously talking about damage immunities. ans complete damage immunity.
The problem with your post is that you take one concept, damage immunity, and attempt to remove said ability from certain classes' encounters/dailies without looking at the overall class to attempt to achieve balance.
This requires quite an in-depth look at the class to see where improvements can be made, but also how that class compares to everything else.
To me, this seems like a plea for challange from an end-game player. The truth is, for end-game players of any class (IL 3.5+, more so 4k+) there is little challenge to be had. Furthermore, end-game players usually have a larger social pool of players to call upon to get the ideal class composition in order to breeze through content i.e. zerg channels, guildmates etc.
While there is nothing inherently wrong with this, the mechanics you have described are life-savers for lower geared players. Increasing challenge by modifying a skill from a class will impair the ability of lower geared players, PUGs etc what-have-you, from completing content.
Therefore this, which is essentially still a nerf thread with some examples, does not justify your initial premise of modifying damage immunities from classes, as it does not look at overall balance, and does only look at the mechanics of the game from an end-game player.
I did take into account overall class balance, and the beauty of terrible pug players is that they don't use what's good/best. I enjoy pugging with my low ilevel chars for laughs when I'm bored, and I can assure you that anointed army, fox's cunning and steel defence + fighter's recovery changes wouldn't affect them in the slightest. If the cleric isn't using flame strike and your tank crescendo, this is not a real pug. This changes are irrelevant, players with little gear don't benefit from such spells because they don't use them. And yet most of the content can be completed with such terrible players using what the HAMSTER spells, which tells a lot about the "challenge" left in this game.
Since the DC is my main character, I've been able to make a video to illustrate how broken that power is in endgame content. Just watch it if you want to see how often my character or anyone else dodges telegraphs in that video, but if you want the short answer, it's never:
For purposes of 'balance' you would need to include your stats, items and mounts.
Which of the following do you have and use? (associated costs with attaining these) - Snail (11mil AD for legacy purple, 35mil for orange on AH or praying to lock box RNGesus) - Legendary/Mythic Sigil (Millions of refinement points and costly reagents) - Legendary AP cloak (Refining as above) - Legendary burning weapon set (Grinding 100 heroics then refining)
I do not think it is the powers themselves which is the problem here.
I don't use a snail, I use the wheel because why not, and never click on it during dungeons, and I'm using the drowned set. Try again.
BTW all of this can be determined watching my video for a couple of minutes, which is why giving the details seemed superfluous to me. You sadly don't know what you're talking about and this makes your agenda obvious: since you can't read a buff bar, you don't know what you're doing, so you need it very, very easy. That's fine, but stop blaming "end-game players" for your own shortcomings, thank you.
I enjoy pugging with my low ilevel chars for laughs when I'm bored, and I can assure you that anointed army, fox's cunning and steel defence + fighter's recovery changes wouldn't affect them in the slightest. If the cleric isn't using flame strike and your tank crescendo, this is not a real pug. This changes are irrelevant, players with little gear don't benefit from such spells because they don't use them. And yet most of the content can be completed with such terrible players using what the HAMSTER spells, which tells a lot about the "challenge" left in this game.
This is a gross generalisation in assuming that PUGs should act in a HAMSTER way. This, of course, is not necessarily the case.
You are asking for 'challenge' from an end-game perspective, it is even included in the title of this thread. This should not determine a nerf of powers - these powers cannot necessarily be spammed by players who do not min-max or have maximum AP gain items. It is, sadly, quite an elitist perspective, and will reduce the ability of lesser-geared players to complete content in a, shall we say, timely manner.
PUGs or newer, lesser-geared players, should not be removed from the decision making process of power (encounter/daily) viability. They are needed for this game to continue.
Since the DC is my main character, I've been able to make a video to illustrate how broken that power is in endgame content. Just watch it if you want to see how often my character or anyone else dodges telegraphs in that video, but if you want the short answer, it's never:
For purposes of 'balance' you would need to include your stats, items and mounts.
Which of the following do you have and use? (associated costs with attaining these) - Snail (11mil AD for legacy purple, 35mil for orange on AH or praying to lock box RNGesus) - Legendary/Mythic Sigil (Millions of refinement points and costly reagents) - Legendary AP cloak (Refining as above) - Legendary burning weapon set (Grinding 100 heroics then refining)
I do not think it is the powers themselves which is the problem here.
I don't use a snail, I use the wheel because why not, and never click on it during dungeons, and I'm using the drowned set. Try again.
BTW all of this can be determined watching my video for a couple of minutes, which is why giving the details seemed superfluous to me. You sadly don't know what you're talking about and this makes your agenda obvious: since you can't read a buff bar, you don't know what you're doing, so you need it very, very easy. That's fine, but stop blaming "end-game players" for your own shortcomings, thank you.
I never actually said you used them - it was a question. Do not insult me needlessly if you wanted a discussion.
And um, it was true I did not want to spend 11 minutes watching your clip. However, I did scroll quickly through to see a display of what stats you had - and I couldn't find it :P
The question is then, how are you able to spam AA so quickly? What other AP gain methods are these? And should these be looked into as well? If you don't use the snail or a burning weapon (which does proc randomly to be sure) maybe it is because AP gain is still quite good. I know that they nerfed gift of haste, which was expected, but spamming AA cannot exist without quick AP gain.
**edit I found your stats page 0:41** so your recovery is not too high. Still, not sure how your AP recovers that quickly. Interesting use of powers however, not my usual load-up.
I enjoy pugging with my low ilevel chars for laughs when I'm bored, and I can assure you that anointed army, fox's cunning and steel defence + fighter's recovery changes wouldn't affect them in the slightest. If the cleric isn't using flame strike and your tank crescendo, this is not a real pug. This changes are irrelevant, players with little gear don't benefit from such spells because they don't use them. And yet most of the content can be completed with such terrible players using what the HAMSTER spells, which tells a lot about the "challenge" left in this game.
This is a gross generalisation in assuming that PUGs should act in a HAMSTER way. This, of course, is not necessarily the case.
You are asking for 'challenge' from an end-game perspective, it is even included in the title of this thread. This should not determine a nerf of powers - these powers cannot necessarily be spammed by players who do not min-max or have maximum AP gain items. It is, sadly, quite an elitist perspective, and will reduce the ability of lesser-geared players to complete content in a, shall we say, timely manner.
PUGs or newer, lesser-geared players, should not be removed from the decision making process of power (encounter/daily) viability. They are needed for this game to continue.
Other powers are perfectly fine and can be used as a baseline to determine how strong other powers should be. DCs for instance have hallowed ground. This is a perfectly balanced daily and it's perfectly viable even when you play with awful players who can't read a buff bar.
If you absolutely need the immunities I have listed then there's a big problem in what you're doing that goes well beyond ilevel and party composition.
Other powers are perfectly fine and can be used as a baseline to determine how strong other powers should be. DCs for instance have hallowed ground. This is a perfectly balanced daily and it's perfectly viable even when you play with awful players who can't read a buff bar.
I agree with you, I do like Hallowed Ground as well. And yes, so I can't read the buff bar, my oversight
Okay, so I watched the clip - your party burns down the bosses fairly quickly - you did not need to spam AA much.
I can see it's a high-end party with good DPS - how did you come to the conclusion from this that AA is overpowered? That is not the only contributing factor.
You had a good tank that took all the aggro, everyone knew their class and were skillful.
There are dungeons like Valindra and Malabog where most of my guildies don't even realize that there are special mechanics in the final fights because all they ever did was burning everything.
Try doing a pick-up group with lower geared players using the same skills. I think this is more of a problem of the end-game player.
diogene0's requests will only harm the enjoyment that lower geared players will have in dungeons. This game needs new players to survive, we should not make their experience even worse.
As diogene0 says there is no need to build more defensively anymore. I have both Lathander's and Orcus' sets for my HR. The first offers more defense the second more damage. I tried them both in FBI and guess what? Everything can one or two-shot me anyway so the choice is a no brainer.
This is confusing to me - if everything can one or two shot you already, then removing damage immunities will make it certain that they will one or two shot you?
There was in the original game a lot of the 4e D&D idea of complex combat which is now completely lost.
The original game of a D&D experience is actually still there levels 1-60 - ask any new player. However, you are no longer a new player, perhaps that is what is lost?
The real problem is that everybody will be past that point after three months of play.
Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
What, like the original release of the game when the only thing that mattered was AOE?
Nope. Take the original Frozen Heart. The typical final battle was: - The GF was aggroing and tanking the mobs. Weird, eh? Now the GF never tanks the mobs in a boss fight. - The DC was keeping the GF up and keeping an eye on the rest of the battle. - 1 DPS was taking care of the deadly archers which were not 1-shot machines like those in eCC in mod 6 but would wear the GF down fast if not dealt with. - the other two DPS were tanking and burning the boss.
Quite a strange set-up. You'll never see something similar right now. DPS classes cannot tank bosses in most cases. I tanked the Manticore from half-life to zero on my HR only because I used Fox on a fast rotation and one of the best DCs in the game (Michela) was using AA all time to keep me up but that's just because AA is what it is.
That's not the typical fight that I remember, maybe in Beta/Mod1 before people developed a strong meta. My CW could handle all the mobs in the final fight, not just kiting them but wearing them down. Pretty much any class could kite them. The old dungeons were just AOE all the time and the forums will filled with requests/complaints about them. Acting like they were a better time is ludicrous. They were different, bad in their own way. The current state of dungeons goes to far. Before we had no need of tanks, healers or strikers, now we need tanks and have uses for the other roles.
"We have always been at war with Dread Vault" ~ Little Brother
Sorry, that min 2k IL dungeons are to easy for 4k players. Your solution is to nerf the player, sounds about right.^^
This is no endgame oriented MMO. I raided for years with a premade and fixed time slots in another MMO, thats not what I want anymore. Sure BIS or near BIS players with optimal build burn everything. AP gain and AA need a tone down, but if mobs hit for 800k+ unmitigated, you need immunity.
Environmental hazards is another solution to problematic design around immunities and power creep. My favorite dungeon was and is Lair of Lostmauth. Especially the left door path and the final boss fight, and the twin scorpions are still challenging enough. When I was first learning the dungeon and lower levelled, I remember how challenging it was to time powers while trying to dodge fireballs and falling rocks. VT's boss fight, CN's green orbs, and Demogorgon are other examples of this. I feel this idea could be further implemented and further developed to be resistant to immunities and power creep.
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gabrieldourdenMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,212Arc User
What, like the original release of the game when the only thing that mattered was AOE?
Nope. Take the original Frozen Heart. The typical final battle was: - The GF was aggroing and tanking the mobs. Weird, eh? Now the GF never tanks the mobs in a boss fight. - The DC was keeping the GF up and keeping an eye on the rest of the battle. - 1 DPS was taking care of the deadly archers which were not 1-shot machines like those in eCC in mod 6 but would wear the GF down fast if not dealt with. - the other two DPS were tanking and burning the boss.
Quite a strange set-up. You'll never see something similar right now. DPS classes cannot tank bosses in most cases. I tanked the Manticore from half-life to zero on my HR only because I used Fox on a fast rotation and one of the best DCs in the game (Michela) was using AA all time to keep me up but that's just because AA is what it is.
That's not the typical fight that I remember, maybe in Beta/Mod1 before people developed a strong meta. My CW could handle all the mobs in the final fight, not just kiting them but wearing them down. Pretty much any class could kite them. The old dungeons were just AOE all the time and the forums will filled with requests/complaints about them. Acting like they were a better time is ludicrous. They were different, bad in their own way. The current state of dungeons goes to far. Before we had no need of tanks, healers or strikers, now we need tanks and have uses for the other roles.
I'm talking early mod 1. I guess you came in when things already started to go south...
Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
Environmental hazards is another solution to problematic design around immunities and power creep. My favorite dungeon was and is Lair of Lostmauth. Especially the left door path and the final boss fight, and the twin scorpions are still challenging enough. When I was first learning the dungeon and lower levelled, I remember how challenging it was to time powers while trying to dodge fireballs and falling rocks. VT's boss fight, CN's green orbs, and Demogorgon are other examples of this. I feel this idea could be further implemented and further developed to be resistant to immunities and power creep.
Enviromental hazards is another good example of mechanics that may be ignored using immunities such as fox's cunning or anointed army.
I'm talking early mod 1. I guess you came in when things already started to go south...
I started in open Beta. And if you're talking Early Mod 1 then your example fails harder because the meta then was either 4 CW and 1 DC or just 5 CW for fastest clear times. You could have been doing FH the way you suggest but it most certainly wasn't the only or even typical way.
"We have always been at war with Dread Vault" ~ Little Brother
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gabrieldourdenMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,212Arc User
edited November 2016
Ehm, this is not a game for CWs only. Other classes exist too.... Saying "the meta was" doesn't mean much. A large part of the players just play the class they like, not "the meta". If you play a GWF you want to play your GWF even if the meta is 5CW. Your comment only showcases the fact that in earlier mods CWs were outrageously overpowered... Most of the normal runs (meaning with different classes) I have seen at FH were exactly as I described.
Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
It seems to me that the design of CN or FBI is the result of the horrifyingly huge power gap they have grown.
If a 2k or 3.1k or BIS tank/dps/etc. need to be up to the same task...the task kind of -cannot- be too specific and cheesy things seem to be needed so that groups/toons of wildly different power levels can run the same content...a huge sack of hitpoints in the middle dressed up with some "mechanics" (red squares, gooey balls of death, Drufis snow breeze etc.etc.) around it seems like an easy solution. It gives players at the top end something to labor on for some minutes while still being doable for toons at the lower end. They are just being punished for their shabby equipment by having to do the gymnastics on the sack of hitpoints 10-20 times longer before it inflates. If you want to design more sophisticated encounters you have to take out/reign in a ton of cheesy things, of course but you also have to have a very good idea about the power potential of groups entering the dungeon (see "challenge rating" in d&d ^^) Even the 3.1k IL requirement for FBI isn´t even remotely enough information to work with? A 3.1kIL toon with some shabby augment is an entirely different monster than a 3.8k IL toon with r12 bondings. Otherwise anything can be either mindlessly stomped and pulverized by top-geared groups happily bulldozering any finesse that might have been worked into encounters (see old dungeons) or is completely impossible for groups at the lower end no matter how well they coordinate and strategize.
I do think they could design more varied and better dungeons if they (apart from taking out things that cheese everything) had a better idea what kind of toon will enter the dungeon.
So it might be a good idea to significantly ease progression and then design endgame dungeons that actually work with everything a near-BIS to BIS group can bring to the table and design the encounters in a way that it will test the limits of such a group, requiring every bit of gear as well as thoughtful coordination in order to succeed as opposed to all of that being necessary for speed only/mostly.
But that is just as likely to happen as me getting hit by an asteroid right now...-.- By trying to make a profit off selling power while making it ever harder to get (thus taking the fun out of developing your toon, too) they have grown a power gap that apparently undermines their ability to design very good content - for PVP and PVE, too. Which is a bummer because those are the things the game is made to excel at. I can only speak for myself but I would certainly have more fun and spend more money (it´s basically 10€ for VIP) if I could develop/optimize/change my toon at a more reasonable pace and without being frustrated by inflating price tags and miserly rewards while looking forward to a good selection of endgame content where I can test my efforts. But well, it is what it is...
As others have pointed out, immunity is required when bosses can 1-shot every few seconds, be it from one skill or a combination. I'd love to go back to the point where healers had time to heal and tanks needed to tank due to de/buffs, enemy damage output and player dps showing a semblance of balance and thought.
Unfortunately for it to happen in any kind of sensible way they'd need to do it all at once.
I remember the first time I went into Frozen Heart and being amazed at how the GF was leading the group of adds around. I was brought in by my guild as a noob DC with the purpose of keeping the GF alive and it was quite daunting! It struck me as complicated, exciting and intelligent, you really had to understand the mechanics so I was glad I had just one job.
Please Do Not Feed The Trolls
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
What is being asked for in this post is a reset, another level cap increase. A complete rework of powers and stats. Look at Mod 6 and what happened. I do not see how it can be done now.
This !!! There are soo many stuff to look at = Feats + boons + insignias + enchants + Encounters powers Buffs + Ring buffs + Armor Buffs +companions Buffs + Mount Buffs+ mount powers.... That i don't believe they would be ablle to drop the power creep and balance the full game to an apropriate level, this is like asking for a "Neverinter 2"
BTW i'm talking about all the coments in the topic not only about the "starter talk", and i'm not against the changes proposed here, i agree with most of them, (even with a "Neverwinter 2" game ) but i lost my hope in a power creep change...
to be 100% honest i think i would be much more happy if they announce that mod 11 would not be released and we would get a "new game" in a year or a bit more... but then the money would stop and ...
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gabrieldourdenMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,212Arc User
edited November 2016
Yesterday I started to see another chapter of this....
I was at Svardborg (epic) and some parties are starting to burn the boss.
I was told to forget the runes and just use the following setup: tank in front of the boss, everybody else right behind. This way no need to address hypotermia as everybody is close, permafrost is easy to deal with as everybody is there and just changes target for a second from boss to ice, 3 DCs spamming their powers immunize everybody from the runes' attack and we just burn the boss down. Times were ranging from 6 to 7 mins depending on party setup... Fun enough on two runs I was the paingiver. Considering that my HR is definitely not in the top league of damage dealers it's easy to understand that most of the dps was generated by buffs and debuffs. These two runs were slightly slower (about 1 min) than those where we had two GFWs dealing three times each my damage but from a practical point felt the same.
We're pretty much back to mod5. Positioning doesn't matter. You just stand there and deliver your rotation (I was the only one moving, but only back and forth to get the distance for Longstrider).
When the queue group leader tells you to ignore basic challenge mechanics something is seriously wrong.
Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
Nope. Take the original Frozen Heart. The typical final battle was: - The GF was aggroing and tanking the mobs. Weird, eh? Now the GF never tanks the mobs in a boss fight. - The DC was keeping the GF up and keeping an eye on the rest of the battle. - 1 DPS was taking care of the deadly archers which were not 1-shot machines like those in eCC in mod 6 but would wear the GF down fast if not dealt with. - the other two DPS were tanking and burning the boss.
I remember my tank marking stuff and running in circles. I don't call that tanking. And "fighting" the SP end boss ... the GF would do the same if the CW did not have enough regen and/or pushing power to get rid of the adds in due time. Most encounters and dailies had no 5-target cap.
I want to point out that it takes less CPU power in a MMO to have a dungeon with 40 giants than with 300 or more small adds. Mad Dragon comes to mind. You might remember that we regularly see patch notes mentioning "encounter xx: proc rate now 4x 1s, changed from 0.5s for 8 times - damage is the same". Every proc of every skill uses CPU time. Every add targeting a player, every player/skill targeting another object uses CPU time. By changing dungeons/skills Cryptic introduces a more server-CPU friendly game. Selling us this with "less floating numbers". This might be true and welcome, nevertheless it is not only done to improve the player's experience.
Imaginary Friends are the best friends you can have!
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gabrieldourdenMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,212Arc User
edited November 2016
Interesting point. But then I guess they should improve what mobs can do. At the moment they just hit for a crapton of damage and that's it. Give them more creative powers. Say spellcasters can choke a character like a wizard/warlock can do and do random targeting when they activate that power, some mobs can go stealth and use invisible attacks like a rogue, .... reduce their damage and give players a chance to heal. Anything that can make the fight more interesting.
And they could also reduce the computing power by reducing the number of things that automatically procs, while refocusing to more active powers. I've never seen lag due to the number of mobs unless stuff like careful attack, icy terrain, astral seal, burning guidance,.... was active.
Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
Yesterday I started to see another chapter of this....
I was at Svardborg (epic) and some parties are starting to burn the boss.
I was told to forget the runes and just use the following setup: tank in front of the boss, everybody else right behind. This way no need to address hypotermia as everybody is close, permafrost is easy to deal with as everybody is there and just changes target for a second from boss to ice, 3 DCs spamming their powers immunize everybody from the runes' attack and we just burn the boss down. Times were ranging from 6 to 7 mins depending on party setup... Fun enough on two runs I was the paingiver. Considering that my HR is definitely not in the top league of damage dealers it's easy to understand that most of the dps was generated by buffs and debuffs. These two runs were slightly slower (about 1 min) than those where we had two GFWs dealing three times each my damage but from a practical point felt the same.
We're pretty much back to mod5. Positioning doesn't matter. You just stand there and deliver your rotation (I was the only one moving, but only back and forth to get the distance for Longstrider).
When the queue group leader tells you to ignore basic challenge mechanics something is seriously wrong.
I can do that alone on my DC. No need for someone else. When you take a second DC it's to make sure all pets are buffed so that bondings give some crazy extra power, as some pets (looking at you fire archon) are stupid ranged pets that get out of the buff area.
We're indeed back to module 5. Every fight is a boring faceroll. Mechanics have to be ignored, because groups demand it and because immunity spells allow it.
@diogene0 as summary of your ideas, you're saying that an end-game experienced player can take benefit of a number of powers that trivialize the game and the end-game content in particular, even without important investments. AA is one of the evidences of this because many DCs can cast it at high frequency. I see this from the opposite perspective: given that I can cast AA every 5 seconds, please implement a content where my ability is challenged. Instead of downgrading the abilities of the toons towards an anonymous flatness, upgrade the quality of the contents. From this point of view, I think that SVA goes in the right direction. Forget for a moment that AA is bugged currently and, due to this, the consequence is the following:
Yesterday I started to see another chapter of this.... I was at Svardborg (epic) and some parties are starting to burn the boss. I was told to forget the runes and just use the following setup.
He was told to forget the runes and maybe he doesn't know why he can forget them at the moment. The mechanic of SVA is interesting and well done: when the AA bug is fixed, forgetting the runes will be impossibile, perma sitting on a iced area will be impossibile, AA will expire in milliseconds due to the high intensity of the everfrost damage under certain conditions, recharging AA is currently more difficult as the DCs are the primary targets of the ice spikes from Storvald, the "move-away" mechanic spreads the team around and finally the mechanic cannot be ignored. In few words, the "trivialization process" is on both ends (toon vs content) and it often shows up as a chicken-egg problem. Imo SVA is the proof that a good mechanic can make your game experience challenging regardless how strong you are. Even today, with AA bugged, I see many 4k groups failing mSVA because they ignore all the mechanics. Unfortunately AA is bugged since the release of SoMI so there's no evidence of what I'm saying, but I'm sure that all experienced DCs, you included, are aware of what it's going to happen in mSVA when the AA bug is fixed. AA will be an important feature to complete the dungeon successfully, but not to the point to trivialize the game content. All the contents should be designed to reach such level of balance.
Post edited by rapo973 on
Oltreverso guild leader Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF
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I still remember that some people suggested to increase up time of bonding stones with an good intention: put all companions to equa ground. Look at what happened? Yes, there are more choices now. But still most people aiming min-max use fire archon. More importantly, what happened? More power creep from bondings, more exploits people can make use of.
We need no change or well thoughted changes. No those half thoughted changes, which make things even worse.
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This requires quite an in-depth look at the class to see where improvements can be made, but also how that class compares to everything else.
To me, this seems like a plea for challange from an end-game player. The truth is, for end-game players of any class (IL 3.5+, more so 4k+) there is little challenge to be had. Furthermore, end-game players usually have a larger social pool of players to call upon to get the ideal class composition in order to breeze through content i.e. zerg channels, guildmates etc.
While there is nothing inherently wrong with this, the mechanics you have described are life-savers for lower geared players. Increasing challenge by modifying a skill from a class will impair the ability of lower geared players, PUGs etc what-have-you, from completing content.
Therefore this, which is essentially still a nerf thread with some examples, does not justify your initial premise of modifying damage immunities from classes, as it does not look at overall balance, and does only look at the mechanics of the game from an end-game player.
Agreed. Agreed.
diogene0's requests will only harm the enjoyment that lower geared players will have in dungeons. This game needs new players to survive, we should not make their experience even worse. This is confusing to me - if everything can one or two shot you already, then removing damage immunities will make it certain that they will one or two shot you? The original game of a D&D experience is actually still there levels 1-60 - ask any new player. However, you are no longer a new player, perhaps that is what is lost?
Power creep is inevitable, but making the experience that much worse for the newer, lesser-geared players, will only harm the game more, with the possibility of losing even more players, or not attracting them to the game in the first place.
Which of the following do you have and use? (associated costs with attaining these)
- Snail (11mil AD for legacy purple, 35mil for orange on AH or praying to lock box RNGesus)
- Legendary/Mythic Sigil (Millions of refinement points and costly reagents)
- Legendary AP cloak (Refining as above)
- Legendary burning weapon set (Grinding 100 heroics then refining)
I do not think it is the powers themselves which is the problem here.
BTW all of this can be determined watching my video for a couple of minutes, which is why giving the details seemed superfluous to me. You sadly don't know what you're talking about and this makes your agenda obvious: since you can't read a buff bar, you don't know what you're doing, so you need it very, very easy. That's fine, but stop blaming "end-game players" for your own shortcomings, thank you.
You are asking for 'challenge' from an end-game perspective, it is even included in the title of this thread. This should not determine a nerf of powers - these powers cannot necessarily be spammed by players who do not min-max or have maximum AP gain items. It is, sadly, quite an elitist perspective, and will reduce the ability of lesser-geared players to complete content in a, shall we say, timely manner.
PUGs or newer, lesser-geared players, should not be removed from the decision making process of power (encounter/daily) viability. They are needed for this game to continue.
And um, it was true I did not want to spend 11 minutes watching your clip. However, I did scroll quickly through to see a display of what stats you had - and I couldn't find it :P
The question is then, how are you able to spam AA so quickly? What other AP gain methods are these? And should these be looked into as well? If you don't use the snail or a burning weapon (which does proc randomly to be sure) maybe it is because AP gain is still quite good. I know that they nerfed gift of haste, which was expected, but spamming AA cannot exist without quick AP gain.
**edit I found your stats page 0:41** so your recovery is not too high. Still, not sure how your AP recovers that quickly. Interesting use of powers however, not my usual load-up.
If you absolutely need the immunities I have listed then there's a big problem in what you're doing that goes well beyond ilevel and party composition.
Okay, so I watched the clip - your party burns down the bosses fairly quickly - you did not need to spam AA much.
I can see it's a high-end party with good DPS - how did you come to the conclusion from this that AA is overpowered? That is not the only contributing factor.
You had a good tank that took all the aggro, everyone knew their class and were skillful.
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
This is no endgame oriented MMO. I raided for years with a premade and fixed time slots in another MMO, thats not what I want anymore. Sure BIS or near BIS players with optimal build burn everything. AP gain and AA need a tone down, but if mobs hit for 800k+ unmitigated, you need immunity.
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
Most of the normal runs (meaning with different classes) I have seen at FH were exactly as I described.
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
If a 2k or 3.1k or BIS tank/dps/etc. need to be up to the same task...the task kind of -cannot- be too specific and cheesy things seem to be needed so that groups/toons of wildly different power levels can run the same content...a huge sack of hitpoints in the middle dressed up with some "mechanics" (red squares, gooey balls of death, Drufis snow breeze etc.etc.) around it seems like an easy solution. It gives players at the top end something to labor on for some minutes while still being doable for toons at the lower end. They are just being punished for their shabby equipment by having to do the gymnastics on the sack of hitpoints 10-20 times longer before it inflates.
If you want to design more sophisticated encounters you have to take out/reign in a ton of cheesy things, of course but you also have to have a very good idea about the power potential of groups entering the dungeon (see "challenge rating" in d&d ^^) Even the 3.1k IL requirement for FBI isn´t even remotely enough information to work with? A 3.1kIL toon with some shabby augment is an entirely different monster than a 3.8k IL toon with r12 bondings.
Otherwise anything can be either mindlessly stomped and pulverized by top-geared groups happily bulldozering any finesse that might have been worked into encounters (see old dungeons) or is completely impossible for groups at the lower end no matter how well they coordinate and strategize.
I do think they could design more varied and better dungeons if they (apart from taking out things that cheese everything) had a better idea what kind of toon will enter the dungeon.
So it might be a good idea to significantly ease progression and then design endgame dungeons that actually work with everything a near-BIS to BIS group can bring to the table and design the encounters in a way that it will test the limits of such a group, requiring every bit of gear as well as thoughtful coordination in order to succeed as opposed to all of that being necessary for speed only/mostly.
But that is just as likely to happen as me getting hit by an asteroid right now...-.-
By trying to make a profit off selling power while making it ever harder to get (thus taking the fun out of developing your toon, too) they have grown a power gap that apparently undermines their ability to design very good content - for PVP and PVE, too. Which is a bummer because those are the things the game is made to excel at.
I can only speak for myself but I would certainly have more fun and spend more money (it´s basically 10€ for VIP) if I could develop/optimize/change my toon at a more reasonable pace and without being frustrated by inflating price tags and miserly rewards while looking forward to a good selection of endgame content where I can test my efforts.
But well, it is what it is...
Unfortunately for it to happen in any kind of sensible way they'd need to do it all at once.
I remember the first time I went into Frozen Heart and being amazed at how the GF was leading the group of adds around. I was brought in by my guild as a noob DC with the purpose of keeping the GF alive and it was quite daunting! It struck me as complicated, exciting and intelligent, you really had to understand the mechanics so I was glad I had just one job.
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There are soo many stuff to look at =
Feats + boons + insignias + enchants + Encounters powers Buffs + Ring buffs + Armor Buffs +companions Buffs + Mount Buffs+ mount powers....
That i don't believe they would be ablle to drop the power creep and balance the full game to an apropriate level, this is like asking for a "Neverinter 2"
BTW i'm talking about all the coments in the topic not only about the "starter talk", and i'm not against the changes proposed here, i agree with most of them, (even with a "Neverwinter 2" game ) but i lost my hope in a power creep change...
to be 100% honest i think i would be much more happy if they announce that mod 11 would not be released and we would get a "new game" in a year or a bit more... but then the money would stop and ...
I was at Svardborg (epic) and some parties are starting to burn the boss.
I was told to forget the runes and just use the following setup: tank in front of the boss, everybody else right behind. This way no need to address hypotermia as everybody is close, permafrost is easy to deal with as everybody is there and just changes target for a second from boss to ice, 3 DCs spamming their powers immunize everybody from the runes' attack and we just burn the boss down.
Times were ranging from 6 to 7 mins depending on party setup...
Fun enough on two runs I was the paingiver. Considering that my HR is definitely not in the top league of damage dealers it's easy to understand that most of the dps was generated by buffs and debuffs. These two runs were slightly slower (about 1 min) than those where we had two GFWs dealing three times each my damage but from a practical point felt the same.
We're pretty much back to mod5. Positioning doesn't matter. You just stand there and deliver your rotation (I was the only one moving, but only back and forth to get the distance for Longstrider).
When the queue group leader tells you to ignore basic challenge mechanics something is seriously wrong.
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
And "fighting" the SP end boss ... the GF would do the same if the CW did not have enough regen and/or pushing power to get rid of the adds in due time.
Most encounters and dailies had no 5-target cap.
I want to point out that it takes less CPU power in a MMO to have a dungeon with 40 giants than with 300 or more small adds. Mad Dragon comes to mind.
You might remember that we regularly see patch notes mentioning "encounter xx: proc rate now 4x 1s, changed from 0.5s for 8 times - damage is the same".
Every proc of every skill uses CPU time. Every add targeting a player, every player/skill targeting another object uses CPU time.
By changing dungeons/skills Cryptic introduces a more server-CPU friendly game. Selling us this with "less floating numbers". This might be true and welcome, nevertheless it is not only done to improve the player's experience.
And they could also reduce the computing power by reducing the number of things that automatically procs, while refocusing to more active powers. I've never seen lag due to the number of mobs unless stuff like careful attack, icy terrain, astral seal, burning guidance,.... was active.
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
We're indeed back to module 5. Every fight is a boring faceroll. Mechanics have to be ignored, because groups demand it and because immunity spells allow it.
I see this from the opposite perspective: given that I can cast AA every 5 seconds, please implement a content where my ability is challenged. Instead of downgrading the abilities of the toons towards an anonymous flatness, upgrade the quality of the contents. From this point of view, I think that SVA goes in the right direction.
Forget for a moment that AA is bugged currently and, due to this, the consequence is the following: He was told to forget the runes and maybe he doesn't know why he can forget them at the moment.
The mechanic of SVA is interesting and well done: when the AA bug is fixed, forgetting the runes will be impossibile, perma sitting on a iced area will be impossibile, AA will expire in milliseconds due to the high intensity of the everfrost damage under certain conditions, recharging AA is currently more difficult as the DCs are the primary targets of the ice spikes from Storvald, the "move-away" mechanic spreads the team around and finally the mechanic cannot be ignored.
In few words, the "trivialization process" is on both ends (toon vs content) and it often shows up as a chicken-egg problem.
Imo SVA is the proof that a good mechanic can make your game experience challenging regardless how strong you are. Even today, with AA bugged, I see many 4k groups failing mSVA because they ignore all the mechanics.
Unfortunately AA is bugged since the release of SoMI so there's no evidence of what I'm saying, but I'm sure that all experienced DCs, you included, are aware of what it's going to happen in mSVA when the AA bug is fixed.
AA will be an important feature to complete the dungeon successfully, but not to the point to trivialize the game content. All the contents should be designed to reach such level of balance.
Oltreverso guild leader
Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF