DDO - Good 3.5 adaptation

[pasko77]

Hello, I just tried the free MMORPG D&D Online.
I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the few balancing tweaks adopted.
Disclaimers: being a CRPG, it is not subject to the normal abuses of the paper game. Moreover the classes are so few that balacing is easier.
Still, I think it is worth a look.

A couple of examples:
- Casters are all vancian sorcerers: a wizard or cleric can prepare 3 spells and cast those all day long (16 times per rest at level 1)
- wizards have only 3 class skills, everything else is cross class. It is a INT based class.
- no familiar, but a free metamagic talent.
- spells are heavily nerfed (Grease: you fall, save negates, nothing else).
- Rangers get both feat trees together (double wielding and shooting)
- between levels you have sublevels. Every sublevel can give you a little ability (racial or class, level depending)
- every PC has +20HP at first level, so it makes sense to start from there.

Bye, Pasko

[Chrono22]

I played it for several years. And yeah, things about the game have improved over time. No death exp penalties, hiding and moving silently somewhat work now...
But lots of things about level design/combats/play make it not fun. For example, the lack of magic item creation at low levels. Having all random gear is garbage. You either get something you don't want or spend too much on something you do want. And mechanically useful items always, always look like trash. My glowing pink docent is proof of that.
Mission-based experience is annoying. Unless you finish the quest, you don't get a reward- the hour you spent gathering a party, planning, and then TPKing are wasted. Consumables you spent, and armor repair costs mean that unless you consistently win, you will be short money. Mission-based exp also means there are big opportunities for a single griefer to ruin a quest for everyone.
Quest design is a mixed bag. The best are only OK. Most quest objectives are very linear and arbitrary. Level design is good mostly- but there are lots of problems with the interface that can lead to accidental death. Such as, cobwebs blocking targeting. Or, the same key you use to submit text in the party chat is the same key that boots you from the quest if you are unconscious.
Classism is also pretty bad- if you play a ranger or rogue, you almost never get invited to run missions. And the hide/move silently skills are arbitrarily limited in-quest. Certain (unmarked spots) impart hefty penalties on them. And the animations for ranged attacks aren't right.

So, yeah. I played it for a few years. I was good at it. But the cons outweigh the pros for me.

[pasko77]

I played it for several years. And yeah, things about the game have improved over time. No death exp penalties, hiding and moving silently somewhat work now...
But lots of things about level design/combats/play make it not fun. For example, the lack of magic item creation at low levels. Having all random gear is garbage. You either get something you don't want or spend too much on something you do want. And mechanically useful items always, always look like trash. My glowing pink docent is proof of that.
Mission-based experience is annoying. Unless you finish the quest, you don't get a reward- the hour you spent gathering a party, planning, and then TPKing are wasted. Consumables you spent, and armor repair costs mean that unless you consistently win, you will be short money. Mission-based exp also means there are big opportunities for a single griefer to ruin a quest for everyone.
Quest design is a mixed bag. The best are only OK. Most quest objectives are very linear and arbitrary. Level design is good mostly- but there are lots of problems with the interface that can lead to accidental death. Such as, cobwebs blocking targeting. Or, the same key you use to submit text in the party chat is the same key that boots you from the quest if you are unconscious.
Classism is also pretty bad- if you play a ranger or rogue, you almost never get invited to run missions. And the hide/move silently skills are arbitrarily limited in-quest. Certain (unmarked spots) impart hefty penalties on them. And the animations for ranged attacks aren't right.

So, yeah. I played it for a few years. I was good at it. But the cons outweigh the pros for me.

I see. I don't have experience with MMORPG so I don't have an opinion on this, and I'm currently just a 2nd level halfling ranger (what?) I just ended the first island.

The point of the thread was that the game introduces interesting mechanics for class balance, for a pen and paper version. So someone may want to check it for their own homebrew.

[BobVosh]

I see. I don't have experience with MMORPG so I don't have an opinion on this, and I'm currently just a 2nd level halfling ranger (what?) I just ended the first island.

The point of the thread was that the game introduces interesting mechanics for class balance, for a pen and paper version. So someone may want to check it for their own homebrew.

Its free...sort of. It is a lot of fun until level 5. At that level you won't find a free dungeon, just a lot of them locked until you pay for them.

1 thing I must give credit for, since beta even, is the traps are AWESOME. However I have heard in the raid dungeons you need to have dedicated disarmers, to the point where the rogue lacks combat ability. Moreover the end bosses are broken, as in don't properly work. Such as a dragon that wing buffets you out of the instance, and you are blocked from returning that raid. Other various horror stories as well.

Low level play is a ton of fun though. Although I'm still scared that the general response to oozes is to go fisticuffs on em. Unless you are the lucky few with muckbane.

[Kesnit]

- between levels you have sublevels. Every sublevel can give you a little ability (racial or class, level depending)

Those were one of the things I hated most when I played. (Granted, that was at launch, so they may have gotten better.) By level 4, I was losing at least 2 bonuses per level because what I had was better than what was offered. So rather than actually leveling, I had to get 4X the XP in order to actually improve my PC.

Chrono22 covered the rest of my complaints.

[cloneof]

I actually could hardly get into DDO. Just not the thing for me.

(And now I have given an in topic response, I must tell you Pasko99, that pasko is finnish, meaning "****!" as a command .)

[Sliver]

I played it at my friend's house, then went home in order to play it myself. Around the first cave (Tutorial.. Never understand why I actually always read those.. Always the same) I understood I just can't do it.. I didn't like to feel that using that fire blasty wand was my main move with the wizard, and I wanted magic to be stronger then rushing into combat, and I heard too much about bad players... MMO is just not for me I guess

Also, 3.5e doesn't have balance issues. It doesn't need balance. At least not that kind of balance (I read that monk was a great class in DDO.. I was insulted!)

[Temet Nosce]

I just started playing again (after taking a break for multiple years - was a beta/launch player) and honestly I don't like most of the changes. Further, most of the added content is pure raid stuff (I'm level 13 now and almost everything requires multiple people - not even due to difficulty much of the time but things like switches which need more than one person).

That said, the game itself is still probably the single most... solid MMO gameplay wise I've ever seen. Swimming, jumping, traps, etc are all very well integrated into gameplay and are well thought out.

Still, it's based on 3.5 very very loosely. Currently the two most powerful classes in the game are probably Fighter and Monk to give you some idea.

[Prime32]

A couple of examples:
- Casters are all vancian sorcerers: a wizard or cleric can prepare 3 spells and cast those all day long (16 times per rest at level 1)
- wizards have only 3 class skills, everything else is cross class. It is a INT based class.
- no familiar, but a free metamagic talent.
- spells are heavily nerfed (Grease: you fall, save negates, nothing else).
- Rangers get both feat trees together (double wielding and shooting)
- between levels you have sublevels. Every sublevel can give you a little ability (racial or class, level depending)
- every PC has +20HP at first level, so it makes sense to start from there.

- you can full attack while moving, but you take a penalty (which can be negated by Spring Attack).

[Kesnit]

One other issue that I had at launch - alignment (and class) had no effect. I started off with a Paladin. One of the early quests involved breaking in somewhere and stealing something. My character had no option to report the person to law enforcement or refuse the quest. Then when I did the quest, there was no hit to my Paladinhood.

[valadil]

One other issue that I had at launch - alignment (and class) had no effect. I started off with a Paladin. One of the early quests involved breaking in somewhere and stealing something. My character had no option to report the person to law enforcement or refuse the quest. Then when I did the quest, there was no hit to my Paladinhood.

I had that problem too. At that moment I gave up on ever attempting to role play in that game.

Anyway, DDO is the only MMO I've ever enjoyed. I played for a couple years a while ago. Played a bit since it went free, but I'm afraid of getting addicted again.

Regarding enhancements (those sub level bonuses), they started out good. A couple +1s to a skill or a 10% healing bonus or something. Then there was power creep. Many of the high level ones are more powerful than your feats. I liked that they used enhancements to replace PrCs, but I think they could have been planned better. ie, they were balanced when the level cap was 10 but nobody thought ahead to see how they'd be progressed to 20.

[shadow_archmagi]

I quit playing because ultimately it was only fun with friends and, as with any game, it is very hard to get everyone to all only play together and so sooner or later someone is sick for a week and falls behind and someone else has vacation and plays nonstop for the same week and then your party includes a level 1 and a level 5 and neither one of them wants to do the level 3 quests

[LibraryOgre]

It's been my go-to game for a while (ever since the free launch). I've been having a lot of fun with it, myself (though I will say calling these casters Vancian is one of the worst abuses of the term Vancian I've ever seen).

In some ways, I see the "class doesn't matter" as being the ultimate extension of 3.x's "Classes are collections of abilities, not archetypes." My Warforged is a Paladin because Paladin Healing is effective on Warforged. At 7th or 9th level (after FvS 4/Pal 4 or simply after FvS 3/Pal 3, where I am now), I'm going to go Ranger. Not because he's especially rangery... but because Paladin and FvS don't offer me much more, but ranger gives me +1/+1 BAB and 6 Skill Points, letting me fill in my weaknesses.

[Prime32]

Tip for you: if a character reaches lv20, you can choose to kill them off and reincarnate. This replaces them with a new lv1 character with (among other things) a higher point-buy and access to a "Past Life" feat which grants them unique benefits based on the old character's class. If you reincarnate a single character through every class in the game you qualify for an insanely powerful feat called "Completionist".

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[pasko77]

Just a thought.

Maybe there is a little misunderstanding about the reason for this topis.
My main praises weren't for the game itself, but for the tweaks on the rules.
Moreover I thought that someone, trying (vain effort) to bring balance to 3.5, can take inspiration from there.

Bye, Pasko (which, incidentally, is not finnish, it's the contraption of my name )