DDO - Cleric creation

[Lt.Dan]

The Dungeons & Dragons Online site has an update on character creation using a Cleric as an example.

www.ddo.com

It's an interesting read.

I'm kind of torn on this; exciting (I followed 3e D&D for about a year before it was published) and disappointing all at once.  The excitement is mainly new shiny excitement so I can jade that away.  The disappointment is in the choices for character creation. There seems to be a screamingly obvious path for character advancement (seriously, which caster won't take +30 mana).

[Daydreamer]

Unless the initial mana pool is stupidly huge thats going to get nerfed early, I'd imagine.

[Xanthippe]

One of the things that I didn't like about D&D the few times I played it was that instead of being immersed in a world, I was immersed in numbers.  Numbers connected to things like To-Hit, Defense, etc.  I wonder how far DDO will get away from that - or whether it will at all.  I mean, for some people, that was probably a plus (for me it was a minus).

This journal entry makes it sound like getting to level 2 took quite a long time.  Which isn't bad in itself, depending of course upon how weak level 1 is and how many levels there are and how much fun it is to be level 1.

[stray]

I know what you're saying Xan (and it pains me to say so), but I'm not sure what I can and can not say really  . It is still "Alpha" though. I could say the same thing for any Alpha probably.

[edit] What "is" there though, I do like. For the most part.

[edit] I'm in trouble for saying any of this, aren't I? 

[Samwise]

I imagine it's best for those who may or may not be in the alpha to avoid threads like this one entirely.  The temptation to violate by confirming or denying certain assumptions is just too strong.

[Margalis]

From what I have played of the alpha* the character creation is awesome.

*(Of course, I haevn't actually played the alpha at all)

[waylander]

The thing that's turning me off to this game is the forced grouping, and no indication whatsoever that grouping will be any different than the piece of trash that is guild wars. 

I like the D&D concept and I'm sort of still following it, but right now I just feel like it sounds like an MMO pay version of guild wars. By forcing me to interact with the community and expecting the players to provide the extra gaming experience, you have to make sure I want to deal with that community.  Log into GW and all you see is "LFG, LEVEL XXX LFG!!" or after you spend an hour forming your group some idiot drops out of the instance and wastes all your time because you can't do it without that person.

[Signe]

From what I know of D&D, it's slow to level your characters, anyway.  You meet with a group of nerds geeks friends at a predetermined time and go for a nice dungeon crawl.  If DDO turns out to be like that, I wouldn't mind at all.  I was hoping that GW would be that sort of game but it didn't turn out that way for me.  My brother in law still enjoys playing D&D every Thursday night with the same group of friends and, up until a few years ago when we moved, Righ went along with him. (though he's not so much in to it, he played Traveller in his youth) 

I'm hoping that there will be enough variety in quest that you'll be able to choose them based on how much time and how many friends/guildmates turn up that night.  I know they want to keep as close to the D&D rules as possible and I'm hoping that feeling extends to the friendly feel of the game, too.  (although Righ told me that many a D&D session has ended in blows... though they all still turn up for the next game).

The concept sounds good to me, setting up friendly games (TS would be handy), I don't mind number crunching as long as they don't end up too quantum but those  's are just nasty.

[kaid]

Its hard to say without seeing the entire list of feats and powers if there is a very set path. One thing to note is mana or spell points in DDO I believe do not regen at all unless you are at "camp sites" or rest areas. There are from what I hear there are limited places to  rest in dungeons so as a caster you still have to be careful about blowing your load. Unfortunatly I can see this issue making it even more likely to pressure casters into grabbing any and every + spell point feat/power they can.

I did not get to play a caster at gencon but I did mess around with a warrior and that was indeed pretty fun. It probably would have been more fun had I any clue for the first 15 minutes how to activate the feats heheh once I found that out it was very amusing. Charging into a room and using great cleave to pounce at a pack of monsters is amusing.

[Merusk]

The site's broken for me.     I'll have to check this out later.

So long as you're able to solve the quest instances in some way other than fighting they have a chance.  Otherwise, yes, I suspect we'll have a pay-to-play Guildwars, but (from what Dan says) a very defined progression for your character to be 'optimal'.  And we all know how that goes.

[Alkiera]

That was pretty interesting.  I'm kinda curious about these 'action point' things...  seems to be almost a second set of feats, with a different name.

As to the spell points, they said the 30 points was enough to cast 3 1st level spells.  From what I recall, a first level cleric gets 2 first level spells normally, DDO grants something like 10 times that due to difference in PnP and Online CRPG.  So a DDO lvl 1 cleric has 20 1st level spells, or 200 spell points.  By halfway thru or so he has the +30 from the action point, and +some more from that feat he took at creation.

I'm curious if they changed the 'encounters per level' formula from the default, as well.  the DMG says the xp/level is based on facing 13.33 even-level encounters...  Given the length of time it takes to do that in PnP, that seems fine...  especially as finding encounters even to you as you get higher in level becomes harder.

Alkiera

[tazelbain]

You lost me at "mana pool"

[Alkiera]

You lost me at "mana pool"

DDO is using the spell point system defined in one of the accessory books(Unearthed Arcana).  It works rather like the Psionics system, which gives casters a lot more flexibility than the terrible default system.  I actually like the system in Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Evolved better, but the Unearthed Arcana(different, completely unrelated book, tho obnoxiously similar name) is not bad.

Spell prep, i.e. the default Wizard/Cleric/Druid system, just blows.

Alkiera

[Nija]

Someone dig up that DEV DIARY thing where they played a dungeon for the first time out of god mode, just a few months ago, and BOY HOWDY, MAGIC SURE SUCKED WHEN IT STUCK TO TRUE 3.5 RULES. WE BETTER PUT IN FUCKING MANA CAUSE THIS DOESN'T WORK.

Turbine these days is a bunch of jokers who have no idea why people liked AC1. They can't know why people liked it, because they're working on some of the dumbest shit ever right now. Aside from, you know, AC2. Drumming lizards for the loss.

[Alkiera]

Someone dig up that DEV DIARY thing where they played a dungeon for the first time out of god mode, just a few months ago, and BOY HOWDY, MAGIC SURE SUCKED WHEN IT STUCK TO TRUE 3.5 RULES. WE BETTER PUT IN FUCKING MANA CAUSE THIS DOESN'T WORK.

I'm a bit confused here.  Are you deriding them for not realizing this sooner, or for coming to that decision in the first place?  You can see from my post above that I agree with them, that the 'true 3.5 rules' as you put them, don't work well for magic.  The spell preperation system blows at all levels of play.  It can be made workable in PnP, but it's not a good/fun system.

Turbine these days is a bunch of jokers who have no idea why people liked AC1. They can't know why people liked it, because they're working on some of the dumbest shit ever right now. Aside from, you know, AC2. Drumming lizards for the loss.

Are they actually still working on AC2?  I thought it was closing...

Alkiera

[tazelbain]

Spell prep, i.e. the default Wizard/Cleric/Druid system, just blows.

Sure, but just another mana pool system just contributes the 'meh' feeling I have about DDO.
 

[CmdrSlack]

One of the things that I didn't like about D&D the few times I played it was that instead of being immersed in a world, I was immersed in numbers.  Numbers connected to things like To-Hit, Defense, etc.  I wonder how far DDO will get away from that - or whether it will at all.  I mean, for some people, that was probably a plus (for me it was a minus).

This journal entry makes it sound like getting to level 2 took quite a long time.  Which isn't bad in itself, depending of course upon how weak level 1 is and how many levels there are and how much fun it is to be level 1.

I fooled with DDO at GenCon, the only real sign of the number factor was a little d20 spinning on the bottom of the screen whenever I swung at a monster.  The combat is so fast paced and twitchy that I didn't have time to really pay attention to it.  From what I understand of forced grouping, there will be SOME content that you can solo, but the intent is that players group to complete quests and stuff.  IMO, this is fine because it really fits with the whole D&D concept.  I don't think I ever played as a soloer in that game, unless there was a part of a dungeon where only one person could go for plot purposes. 

I am really hoping I can get into the beta for this, playing the demo at GenCon was neat, but it was mostly a quest system and combat demo.

[Nija]

I'm a bit confused here.  Are you deriding them for not realizing this sooner, or for coming to that decision in the first place?  You can see from my post above that I agree with them, that the 'true 3.5 rules' as you put them, don't work well for magic.  The spell preperation system blows at all levels of play.  It can be made workable in PnP, but it's not a good/fun system.

Are they actually still working on AC2?  I thought it was closing...

I don't think they are still working on AC2, I probably goofed up grammar but what I meant to say is that AC2 should have never existed in it's past, present, and future states.

I'm ridiculing for not realizing the magic situation sooner. The article I read was something about a group of devs going into an instanced (not necessarily instanced) dungeon where it's not possible to 'rest', I guess under their previous system. They didn't realize how many spells/day caster classes get, and the party was only able to go about 10% of the way into the encounter before the casters were worthless.

Question now for you, did NWN and it's expansions use the same ruleset that D&DO is going to use? I did play on some NWN player run shards for awhile, and the resting/casting stuff there always seemed to work out fine. One was particularly fun - Bastion's of War. It was like NWN PVP CTF, basically. What's keeping Turbine from doing it like this? Why jump ship to a freaking Mana pool?

[HaemishM]

In NWN, you can fiddle with the rest times, or just rest after every fight. In MMOG's you can't, because of all the other people around you. Though this could be gotten around in instances, I imagine they played and saw how few spells they could cast each fight and figured no one would play that. Because in vanilla D&D, casters really don't spend most of their time casting spells.

Also, 

[Nija]

In a 42 player NWN PVP world with a tiny map you could find the time to rest and get spells back is what I'm getting at.

I've done just that, a lot.

[Calandryll]

I'm ridiculing for not realizing the magic situation sooner. The article I read was something about a group of devs going into an instanced (not necessarily instanced) dungeon where it's not possible to 'rest', I guess under their previous system. They didn't realize how many spells/day caster classes get, and the party was only able to go about 10% of the way into the encounter before the casters were worthless.

http://www.ddo.com/index.php?page_id=84

That's the article in question. It was posted almost eight months ago and the actual playtesting and decision were made well before that. The team tried a few ideas to keep the spell memorization in DDO since it is part of the core rules. Once we realized it didn't really play well even with those adjustments, we went with an optional system from the PnP game. I don't understand what's wrong with trying something out, seeing if it works, and then making changes to make it better, but that's just me I guess. :)

[WayAbvPar]

You are supposed to have all the answers at all times!

[Pococurante]

You are supposed to have all the answers at all times!

And make all design changes a year after launch.  Sheesh!

[Nija]

More like "The Anatomy of Not Understanding Your License."

I look forward to camping the Ringwraith spawn to ding level 40 in your next game.

[Arthur_Parker]

No offence to Calandryll.

I think DDO is going to be terrible, but as someone who has already made the decision not to buy it, I'm quite looking forward to it.

I want in the Beta just so I can take screenshots predicting doom.

Level Cap already?  Oh no, don't worry we will add more content soon, honest!  Just wait 2 years.  The only thing on the horizon I see being anywhere near as bad is LOTRO.

No offence intended.

[Alkiera]

I'm ridiculing for not realizing the magic situation sooner. The article I read was something about a group of devs going into an instanced (not necessarily instanced) dungeon where it's not possible to 'rest', I guess under their previous system. They didn't realize how many spells/day caster classes get, and the party was only able to go about 10% of the way into the encounter before the casters were worthless.

Yeah, I remember the article you're talking about.  I agree that it was kinda interesting that they hadn't realized how much they were casting compared to the daily limits.  One wonders how they got that far thru level design with that little knowledge of the d20 system.

Question now for you, did NWN and it's expansions use the same ruleset that D&DO is going to use? I did play on some NWN player run shards for awhile, and the resting/casting stuff there always seemed to work out fine. One was particularly fun - Bastion's of War. It was like NWN PVP CTF, basically. What's keeping Turbine from doing it like this? Why jump ship to a freaking Mana pool?

It's similar, in that NWN is a modified d20 3.0, whereas DDO is a modified d20 3.5; however, NWN's rest system is kinda weird.  It's not exactly what d20 specifies, which is "8 hours of uninterrupted sleep".  Instead,(in single player) they pause the entire world for 30 seconds, and you're good to go again... the only check made is that there are no monsters 'nearby' before letting you rest.  Meaning if you clear an area of a dungeon, you can rest there and regain spells.  Or just run back to the entrance.  And a LOT of the persistant NWN shards alter these rules in the scripting to make resting easier, because the spells/day systems just suck that bad.

In DDO, from what I've read, they sought to limit this tactic by only allowing 'resting'/camping in certain specific areas of their mission instances(and in town, I'd presume).  They apparently had built these great hour long dungeons...  not realizing that the space between the 'camp' sites was WAY more than the ~3-4 encounters per day expected by the d20 system.  So they figured, 'hey, lets just increase the spells per day!', and then realized it was a serious PITA to organize a spell list of hundreds of individually memorized spells.  So they went to 'spell point' system, i.e. mana, where spells of a given level all cost the same mana.  Then you can prepare a certain number of spells based on your level, and cast them until you run out of spell points, at which point you have to 'rest'.

Why they had all the dungeons built BEFORE realizing the d20 system only expected 3-4 encounters PER DAY... I have no idea.  Someone didn't read the DMG well, I guess.  How you can write a D&D computer game without absorbing the DMG(Dungeon Master's Guide), PHB(Player's HandBook), etc, I don't know.

Alkiera

[Hoax]

Yeah I really dont like to crap in threads that are graced by one of the nice red name folks but DDO just has nothing going for it in my mind and will NOT compete with WoW in any meaningful way.  Along with Warhammer Online and LOTR it will be the MMO version of a movie-based console game.  I am excited about Conan only because I know nothing of the IP and therefore will not be disgusted when they ruin it.

[Venkman]

Just as an aside, it not competing with WoW is not a factor in my opinion. Fact is, nothing was going to compete with EQ a few years back, and a lot's happened since... including a crapload of people who were proven embarassingly wrong about their beliefs of just how many people want to play an MMOG.

Based on what I've read, DDO has as much in common to WoW as SWG does. Different games, different players.

[Calandryll]

Based on what I've read, DDO has as much in common to WoW as SWG does. Different games, different players.

That's very true. Not that a lot WoW players won't like DDO, they certainly will. But DDO plays very differently from WoW. And very differently from SWG too for that matter.

Oh and, I'm not going to get offended by people expressing their opinions here. I may not agree, but I don't get upset about it. It's all good. :)

[stray]

[edit]

Deleted 

I'll just say Cal, that I like "what's there". What I don't like is "what isn't there".  :-D

I have complaints, but I'll provide feedback on the ddo boards, if anything (my name there is Arythan btw).

[Samwise]

I was at one time skeptical about the spell point system, and voiced many of the same objections as people in this thread have already.

 

[waylander]

I was at one time skeptical about the spell point system, and voiced many of the same objections as people in this thread have already.

 

I don't mind the spellpoint system because its a legit system that is covered in unearthed arcana, and for an MMORPG it makes sense.

My big worry is all the instanced content.  DDO mirrors guild wars in a lot of aspects, and lots of posts over on the turbine forums have cropped up asking how they would handle some of the bad things that are being discovered from the GW experience. Namely that creating groups is long and boring, people dropping out during the mission and without them they group can't complete it and wastes their time, etc.

Now if DDO creates an incentive to group (such as xp bonuses for a full group and better % chance to find loot), then I'd see people wanting to group and stay in the group.

I love D&D, but I really hope that Turbine is getting some feedback about the things that people hate about GW grouping.

[Calandryll]

We just posted an Alpha Journal for the Sorcerer.

www.ddo.com

Keep in mind these journals do not represent the only way to build and play a character. They are simply one Alpha player's experience to give you an idea of the possibilities and how the character plays.

[kaid]

I got a chance to play DDO at gen con and it seemed a lot more promising than I expected. It does have some things that are similar to guildwars and coh for instancing but that is not a bad thing at all as long as its handled right. I am a long time D&D geek so I will give it a whirl when it comes out.

I will also say this I beta'ed AC2 and I saw more fun and game in my 1 hour at gencon than during the entire ac2 beta.


Kaid

[Signe]

Bah!  I had more fun chasing dust bunnies under my bed than in AC2!

It was sort of purdy at the time though.