Asheras wrote on Jul 20
th, 2015 at 12:57pm:
That said, the content is such that a lot of different builds will work, even if they aren't FoTM/optimal. You can play a fighter or a monk at cap and be successful. You don't HAVE to be a Pally or a Barb right now. Although they are much more powerful. Same with ranged. You don't have to be a star chucker. You can actually play a cleric or an FvS instead of a druid. You can play a sorc or wiz instead of a warlock. You can be several different types of casters and not just a shiradi spammer. In a lot of ways, because of power creep, build options are even more varied than they have been. Even serious gimp/flavor builds can solo EH content and contribute in EE groups. Any decent build can really enjoy EE content and most classes can be capable of soloing it on several builds (Barb, Pally, Bard, Druid, Warlock, FvS, Cleric, Arti, Wizard, Sorc, Monk, Rogue for example are all viable. Not sure about Fighter and Ranger, although I haven't tried)
Sure we always
can play a fighter or monk or whatnot at cap and do decently if we're good enough players... but human nature generally would cause us to think, "why bother?" I
can play a fighter build, but it just seems pointless when a comparable paladin build can do everything my build does and more.
Ideally, every build or class has its downsides, upsides, and tradeoffs when compared to other classes. Back when I first started playing, for instance, paladins used to be quite a bit less powerful than fighters, and also had a harder time getting equal amounts of AC, but in return, they had healing, higher saves, and a party-wide aura. Problem now is that paladins are stronger than fighters, have no problems getting the same amount of AC or more, more saves, and have great healing and said party-wide aura.
There's no tradeoff, and there's no difference in playstyle either--the only "difference" in playstyle is that paladin is simply better.
Strakeln wrote on Jul 19
th, 2015 at 7:50pm:
- Lag. Good god. DDO has always has terrible lag issues, and they not only refuse to fix it, they continue to make it worse. I've not played a game before or since that had such ridiculous lag issues.
- Slow content release? Heh... were you here in the time before F2P? We went, what, 18 months? Two years? without a drop of content... just a bunch of patronizing "SOOOON" and "Vast and Mysterious" bullshit from the Turbine forum team.
- Class balance - rather, lack thereof - has always been a thing in DDO, and that's okay by me. Classes shouldn't be balanced, IMO - when they are, classes tend to all feel the same. But the "flavor of the month" build issue has always been around. At one time, it was tempered by the equipment requirements of such builds... it sounds like that factor has been degraded or eliminated now?
- Voice chat - agreed that it's only in DDO where people seem to abuse the hell out of the voice chat. I ran into so many who thought voice chat meant we wanted to hear them yap through a whole fucking quest. However, it did create some interesting moments for me. Over the years, I ran into a few role players that really did it well. One was a swashbuckling caveman, the other a robot. Both had me in stitches.
I joined only after it became F2P... 2 years without any content sounds awful. May as well have been called vaporware at that point...
Voice chat isn't really a problem innately, but the way it's implemented brings out the worst in a lot of people. I don't mind doing a Skype conversation or etc with a group of friends or people I know, and I'm willing to sacrifice listening to music or whatever else I'm doing in order to do that for my friends. But I don't feel very compelled to do the same for some random strangers online. Could just be me, but I'd rather multitask, especially while running an easy quest. Some people start acting disappointed or annoyed when they see that my ears are turned off, and in response, I just ask them how hard it is to type. Like I said in my original post, how hard is it to type a simple quest name? Or a countdown for a lever pull in Shadow Lord, among other things? IMO voice chat, while I can see its appeal, really isn't
necessary for running any content. Furthermore, it can actually be more inefficient in communication--voice chat breaks up sometimes; sometimes your microphone is turned too low and people can't hear you, resulting in confusion; people lag; people might go afk and miss something you say; some people are deaf; some people don't have speakers; some people like to listen to music/podcasts/etc like I do; some people simply have voice chat turned off for any of these rational reasons.
You don't have any of these complications with typing.I used to have it turned on at all times, and yeah it had its moments sometimes, but I started to notice that the vast majority of people who used voice chat liked to just "yap through a whole fucking quest" like you said. And I also realized that
I don't need voice chat to run any quest. Most quests really don't require much in the way of communication, and even then, text is preferable for a lot of cases, such as in ADQ1: I'd rather someone typed out the riddle so I can see it there for the next 15 minutes, than someone say it and force me to memorize it. Or in VoN5, if someone uses voice chat to say "I've got voice and ring," it's easy to forget who said it, whereas with text, you know who's typing what. I've gotten through any quest that I want to do, and any time I'm leading (which is often), I never have a problem communicating with typing. I've never thought "oh, hey I really wish I were using voice chat right now!"
It's just a big problem with at least 40% of the groups I find now (always has been), and is yet another issue I have with what remains of the community. Sorry for the long post, but the prevalence of people who overly rely on and abuse voice chat annoys me.
Bigjunk wrote on Jul 20
th, 2015 at 1:54pm:
Talking to the friends I've made in this game is the most fun part about it. The game's just not what it used to be nor will it ever get any better.
But every other MMO is shittier. If we found something less shitty we'd probably migrate.
True, and admittedly I haven't found an MMO that I really like more than DDO; I still think it's among the better ones I've played... but even then I'm not enjoying it. I'm not sure that "there's worse shit out there" is a good argument in favor of the game. If the game still isn't that great on an objective level (which I don't think it is), then it's not worth playing, even if it's the best on a relative level.
Maybe I'm just disillusioned with MMOs in general. From a development standpoint, I can see how difficult it would be to create a game which remains fun for years, while still spicing it up from time to time. I think if we all played Ocarina of Time or Link to the Past persistently for several years, we'd get bored of it too. But the reason console gaming works is because we weren't expected to play these games persistently. We pick em up, finish em, and let em go. Perhaps part of DDO's problem is its inherent nature as an MMO.