Rubbinns wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 3:19am:


That's solid.  Where would you rate it compared to a Tempest Ranger?  On par, better, or worse?

TheFifthSock wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 4:09am:


Granted because of the oracle not being used these reports are from others observing the who list. Not many guildless lowbie players on along with the long term vets. I can only imagine how any new player coming to the game would play for a weekend and immediately dump the shit.

The rest of the reports from the remaining player base holding down the fort are just a little more reliable than what little we get from the dev team. Discerning individuals can see who is being genuine and others can see who is being an all out minimizing flaming fanboi.

Since the dev's for the last year have made Cordo-stain & their twitch stream PC circle jerk team do the PR for them, getting straight answers based in facts backed with evidence in real numbers and hard statistics has been replaced with  "We appreciate the frustration", "Lag is on the players side check your ports", "Yay we reset the server for the 3rd time this week, lag be gone!" and the ever popular "Soon™" So the players that are genuine now must resort to eyballing things but it's not hard to see how the scales are being tipped.

Asheras wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 10:13am:

worse.

what they did to rangers was backwards. They out dps the top 3 melee classes of barbs, pallies, and obv fighters.

The only "benefits" they gave fighters was +3 million tactics dc, and 18 prr/mrr through feats(prr is garbage in this meta, everyone should be on dodge and incorp chance).

Cetus would be sad. The upside is 3 stun attacks(insane dcs) and random stun proc off shield bashes just from holding down attack. 

Bigjunk wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 11:21am:


actually didnt try the the red kobolds in the dojo basement. I'll whip up a tempest and compare times later today. Will be generic build (meaning no tomes, past lives, dojo gear, no twists, pots, scrolls).

That at looks cool so far. May haps have to do another fighter life

Rubbinns wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 1:04pm:


When I saw they were gonna start taking pot shots at the fighter pass, it was on the coat tails of the garbage balancing pass last Autumn. I felt even then that fighter was gonna be made into an EZ button in an attempt to attract less than proficient players and give the long time less than proficient players something else to power through, or at least give the illusion of it up to a point.

So this is just another shit update that is being ramrodded roughshod down players throats and expected to like it like Asheras takes the Cordo-cock except unlike Asheras we do not justify, make excuses or want more of the same old unpolished half assed garbage the devs have been shoveling out since ToEE a year ago.

Novalis wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 1:37pm:


You are a broken record.  Really.  The balance pass still?  After 7 months?  Old news man.  Move on. 

Guess what, guys.  Novalis thinks the new update is shit.  Despite not having logged into Lama and run the quests or tested the fighter build options.  But, no need to make an informed decision.  He has already decided in advance doesn't like something about DDO.  Couldn't have seen that one coming.  In other breaking news, water is wet. 

BTW, the new update is really weak.  But you don't even know why, Doomboi.  You just like any excuse to bring up your months old unresolved issues and psychosis.   

What a nutjob. 

On the population numbers going down, there is indirect evidence all over the place.  For instance, my guild has 18 active accounts and 54 inactive more than 6 months.  Thats telling.

raybob wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 2:31pm:



There is no doubt population is declining.  Whether from the Oracle, yourddo, who list, auction house posting, guild memberships, channel counts, LFMS's.  The game has been losing players since a peak in 2012. 

Asheras wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 2:41pm:


If you ignore problems for a long time, cover it up with patches, say it's not a problem and make others feel bad for pointing them out, you're just preparing for an inevitable bigger and possibly insurmountable set of much larger issues. You can have an impact on the game, if you're willing to drink the Cordo-cock Kool-aid, try to be one of THOSE members of the PC, and not rock the boat while being a part of the naysayer relief team. Rarely have I seen anything beneficial come out of logical requests. But if you want to make something benefit certain members of the PC and the fanbois, it's pretty much a given. In the last year they've been getting concessions. No one can deny this.

I'm not an addict because once again this is personal but yes, I take great pride in the community I've become a part of. There are people sending me messages in the hopes I'll come back and that DDO will actually be playable again. I understand that DDO 2016 is nowhere near what it was when level cap was 20. But I wouldn't change the direction they've taken the game. It was going in an expansive direction and any game made must be progressive even when they fucked up in 2012 with the rollout of MOTU and the CITW debacle that drove away 75% of the existing playerbase. But DDO was strong enough to weather even through that.


Asheras wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 2:41pm:


Many people have said they wanted to have a nostalgia setting for DDO but this is as likely as DDO 2. Many aspects of DDO in the past 3 years has been sampled if not blatantly ripped off from other games. But what the real players care about is that this game is the closest to a real Dungeons and Dragons MMO. There is no other game that has come close to the complexity of the potential builds and once upon a time it celebrated this diversity. It didn't matter how many curve balls were thrown over the last 2 years, we rolled with them. We adapted and some of us were foolish enough to think we has a voice, that we were a part of a community. In the last year we have seen quite the contrary and it's been shown to us with a wall of silence and indifference.

I don't think I would go to a rollback of DDO 2012 if I could. DDO 2016 could be great. I wish we had a dev team that actually had the capacity of the creativity shown in quests like Haunted Halls, or ADQ 1. I can get over the bullshit balancing pass. I can only hope there would be improvements and an overhaul of LGS like they did during my 2 year hiatus with heroic greensteel. I can even overlook the horribly insulting and passive aggressive 10 year anniversary event but GODDAMMIT, give me a game that at least works.
 

Asheras wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 2:41pm:


I am a DDO fanboi/doomboi. I've been playing pen and paper since the mid 80's playing AD&D. But when I say fanboi, I'm not talking about someone that spends 8 hours polishing a chair with their ass immersed in DDO, because, yes that has been me. I'm talking about these fledgling suck ups hanging off the balls of self imposed figureheads that are directly responsible for the sabotaging and misconduct that had degraded a groundbreaking MMO that has united people from all over the world and want to be a part of the circle that are attempting to hijack something from people marring the face of DDO just to make it something they can call their own.

This is my perceived reality. What good are the facts when the moment you have a contentious view the Cordovan strawman army comes in and twists perceptions? What we are seeing this upcoming month is the DDO swan song. Anyone who cannot or refuse to see the game is not only going down but is being deliberately sabotaged is in a serious state of denial or is being bribed and has ulterior motives. There is no way a great game with so many amazing people & accomplishments like DDO could go out this way without people in a position of power deliberately making things happen to this effect while still trying to cash in. The reality is if something fundamental does not change, I highly doubt we will see a version of DDO extending beyond 2016.

Bigjunk wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 11:21am:

Just did the dps test with a ranger and fighter.

using no tomes, fresh nub generic builds.

Dojo gear no legendary greensteel. all tests start with full blitz stacks. all str based builds with KtA. Both equipped with epic litany.

fighter time : 93 seconds.


66 str. 38 int. (boosted with surge and KtA)

TF kopesh 1st degrees, dragon edge, burning emptiness mainhand.

Epic Bleeding Edge offhand.

43% doublestrike using 8% doublestrike item and 7% insightful doublestrike necklace. 

110 melee power without blitz. notable because in order to achieve this number, I had to take 13 weapon focus/specialization feats.


Ranger Tempest time : 83 seconds

46 str. 24 int.

98 melee power. only took 3 weapon focus feats.



For the fighter to be comparable I needed 13 focus feats(u wot m8). Has double the doublestrike percent. Higher str. Higher int. And still behind.... By a good margin.

I think they need to increase the melee power in the specialization and greater focus feats to +4 each.

Rubbinns wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 4:30pm:

Thanks for this, interesting stuff and appreciated.

But what does a 12 Bard 6 Fighter 2 Rogue swashbuckling handaxes look like now?  That is the real question.....

Rubbinns wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 4:30pm:


Interesting.  I suggested that they change the +1 to hit/+1 damage in the focus weapon line to add maybe 2-4 MP per level.  The response I got was that MP scales too much and they bumped it to +1 to hit/+2 damage per tier and added the 5th tier with +3+3.  I'm wondering if that tree is another possible place to get that boost.  hard to say if doing it with AP or feats makes more sense.  Although, the ability to take more feats to get the MP might be a good thing or a bad thing.  Can't say for sure which. 

Wonder what the impact a crit profile change would have.  Rangers can bypass fort more easily that fighters.  That gives them a crit advantage against fortified mobs even with the same crit profile.  Rangers can get 35%(10% passive).  A fighter gets 15% (all of it from shattering strike).  Not including the use of imp. sunder.

Did you post this on the MoBo?  Turbine has already indicated they don't like where the DPS is.