Talk:Request for interview with DDO reps

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This thread and opportunity was officially closed (and protected at 12PM PST). Thank you for all of your questions! ShoeMaker (Contributions • Message)

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Request for an interview

Just a moment ago I sent the following request for an interview to:

• Cordovan
• Eladrin
• KookieKobold
• MadFloyd
• Tolero

Good day ladies and gents. I am, as some of may already know, ShoeMaker from DDOwiki. I am in the process of compiling a list of questions for Turbine-DDO staff members that I was wondering if any of you (or your colleagues) might be interested in or willing to answer. I currently have no questions about future releases or plans, mostly about current operations and procedures. I decided to come up with this list because I am bored with people asking me (A fan site rep) why a DM couldn't do this or that. I was thinking that if I could do an interview, perhaps I can get some of these questions answered and post a FAQ of sorts on the wiki I can simply refer people to. The wiki has an IRC channel that would work, we could do a forum post, or any other method that would be convenient for you. There could be an open Q&A or just a closed interview. I am willing to agree to a non-disclosure about some stuff, if needed. Thank you for your time and consideration.

If anyone has any questions they would like to add to my list, this is the place, and now is the time to do so!

ShoeMaker (Contributions • Message) 10:09, November 20, 2012 (EST)

Tolero replied on 11-20-2012 with: Hi there! I can definitely take a look through some compiled questions here or via email. Let me know which format works better for you. Can't promise that I'll have answers for all the questions, but I can try to go through as many as possible

Would anyone like to give me some more ideas for questions to ask? I will organize my current questions that reside in my head and post them here tonight. Look forward to seeing more ideas.

ShoeMaker (Contributions • Message) 14:46, November 20, 2012 (EST)

Questions

Let's try some question:

• What is the difference between a DM and a Senior DM? Some forum folks says if your DM can't spawn mobs or solve stuck puzzles, you can ask for a senior DM that have those tools. How much of this is true?
• Why epic warded mobs reduce the duration of any charm/dominate effect to mere seconds? Before, we had the limitation on instakills, but since they are allowed now, why can't my bard throw mass suggestion around without the spell expiring in 3 seconds?
• Why are the Vigor line of Druid spells not compatible with Extend Spell? This would make them much more useful.

Might add more later. → Nibelung (Contributions • Message) 17:50, November 20, 2012 (EST)

Why was the German word of "Schenker" used for the rare encounter scorpion in Ataraxia's Haven ? Why did so many English words like "Giant" and "Dragon" or names like "Free Agents", "Harpers" or "Capshaw The Crier" remain untranslated ? This is a bit confusing, especially considering that a few Marketplace Collectors' names were indeed translated, like "Xovun Chalk", who became "Xovun Kreidner" in German DDO (which is imho a good translation, by the way).→ Alrik (Contributions • Message) 07:49, November 21, 2012 (EST)

I have some questions:

• When U17 ships will it include the new enhancement system?

I'd be satisfied with a simple yes/no answer.

• Why is Turbine so reluctant to do hotfixes? Why do they choose to wait for months to fix bugs that are SO easy to fix instead of fixing them here and now? Things like seals and shards only dropping on epic normal in Lords of Dust, the tier 3 for Stay Good from Shirady ED, the +1[W] bonus from the Combat Archery feat.
• Do they have any plans to add epic augment slots to U14+ gear to allow for more flexibility? If not for weapons (maybe they don't want them to break DR) then at least for the other items?
• Why don't we have '3d6 dmg on hit' enchantments for acid and cold dmg like we have for electric/light/fire/force/sonic dmg (electrifying/auroral/conflagrating/cosmic/wailing)?.

→ by Mjoll (Contributions • Message) 08:59, November 21, 2012 (EST)

So far I've got:

• Currently Nimbus of Light does not increase the counter for Endless Ardor in Exalted Angel but it should since it is light damage. Un-meta'd this spell would be an excellent way for clerics to cheaply increase the counter, bringing them more up to par with favored souls (who have the archon and light SLA). This is not in the known issues list, so s this WAI? If not, will it be fixed?
• In the examine window, Arcane Oozes have no race listed, only type. Why, and what race are they? Arcane Ooze race?

→ Susalona (Contributions • Message) 09:36, November 21, 2012 (EST)

just a few from ppl grouped with me tonight.

• Is there any plan to update Cannith Crafting to make it useful for level 20-25 range characters?
• Why cant we search for items with Guild Slots in AH? or, are you guys aware of its importance?
• Producer Ferdinando once stated basically Update 3-13 epic items were the fail (though {{need citation}} on this one lol). is it general consensus among the dev team? is that why we saw such a big change on end game character itemization in U14/Menace and no update on previous epic items?
• there's a rumor that U14 originally had 2 raids planned and the another one was planned to have green dragon. it makes sense since green dragon was featured on the game splash screen. is it true / whats the state of that particular raid / or is that what ended up with Don't Drink the Water?

• when reward item/ crafting ingredient etc is newly added, it seems Unbound/BtC/BtA thingy is randomly decided each update. is there any logic / general standard in this regard? this is causing major gripe among the player base since we cant freely switch to our cleric/whatever class needed to do Epic LoB or Eveningstar Challenges for example. (many ppl agreed on this, personally i'd like to get this question answered the most also...)
• how about less ingredients in general? delete some of these ingredients and make em replaced, to reduce the total number of types etc? some of our characters carry 4-5 ingredient bags and still things gets overflown. it is getting ridiculous.
• Greater Dragon Mark of Finding|/Treasure Finding. once we get this > effect, the chest starts glowing, then it stops glowing after a while. is the +X loot effect only active while its glowing?
• U16 changed the way built-in chat system works for us Japanese players. basically our Input Method Editor gets in the way everytime so we must turn it down. do Turbine have 2-bytes character code (such as JP/Korean/Chinese... these languages pretty much all use this) specialist hired? any plan to adopt these languages other than German? do you have Japanese translation .dat file etc Sakura internet (distributor of Japanese version DDO) once had?

→ yoko5000 (Contributions • Message) 09:59, November 21, 2012 (EST)

This is kind of a loaded question, but...

• When it comes to class/PrE/ED/item/quest/etc balance, do you have a particular philosophy or mindset that everyone follows, or is it different depending on the area? For example, with class balance it seems like you (the developers) take an approach of "there will always be one or two classes more powerful than others, but let's work to rotate that so that it's not always the same classes feeling left out", but with weapon design for two-handers it's more of "There's a clear *best* weapon, but there will always be other options with unique niches". I guess my question is, what kind of thought process do you use when it comes to balancing the game, and are there any areas you feel you did particularly well in?→ fefnir (Contributions • Message) 14:1, November 21, 2012 (EST)

(Question came from IRC)

1st question: is there a plan for an epic destiny for Artificers?, if so, when will it be put into motion?
2nd question: how do the epic destinies effect artificer caster levels? I noticed epic levels increase the total level for dogs and other pets?
3rd: a while ago, the release notes said something about finding out by ourselves "new crafting recipes" well I found out one but I'm not sure if it is intended or a bug.. I can craft 3 total powers on items .(not all powers and not all items) so far i was able to give a ring the following powers: mobility, +3 natural armor and 10% melee alacrity' (all the powers at once in one ring). Is this a bug or a known new thing you guys added? → Daurlem

 

• Cannith Crafting: I know it's been inquired, but what is the status of the revamped Cannith crafting system? I recall in previous dev tracker posts, they mentioned an updated system, but this feels like it was back-burnered around the expansion release.
• Airship/Teleportation: Is there any plans to include teleportation to House Cannith and Eveningstar?
• Favor: Are there any plans to introduce new quests/favor changes to Purple Dragon Nights? (375, seems a lot per character, perhaps make it per account?)

That's all I got for now...

"Tauro" (Contributions • Message) 21:15, November 21, 2012 (EST)

BTW (its not limited to future questions)

BTW. I just find funny how the PM sent to the devs specifically said that there will be no questions about future releases/plans, and most of the questions there are about future release/plans. Nibelung (Contributions • Message) 23:14, November 21, 2012 (EST)

Actually, if you re-read Shoemakers email, it says I CURRENTLY have no questions about future releases or plans. So... Keep the questions coming! Yawgmoth ( IRC • Message ) 03:02, November 22, 2012 (EST)

hehe, yea. will this be fixed will that be fixed? we gamers are such whiners lol. well, i know Tolero does Youtube community video too, but she picks up too many "fluff questions" for my taste. but otherwise it will be flooded with too crunchy things i guess. (i haven't checked DDOcast for a long time do they still hold dev meeting too?)

how about our version of fluffy (but still hard) question, such as;

• do you play PnP a lot? if so, Pathfinder and DnD 4E - which do you prefer? how much of high hope (or low hope) do you have for 5th Edition?

→ yoko5000 (Contributions • Message) 02:22, November 22, 2012 (EST)

ummmm...I've never tried to use this before so uh please bear with me and feel free to fix it if you wish

Just looking for some insight into the devs thought process of Ranged Combat I know its get alot of love lately and I very grateful but Ive noticed alot of the recent buffs to ranged involve keep you in one spot...which IMO defeats the very thing that IMO makes ranged combat special/fun which is out maneuvering your enemy...now PBS makes sense it keeps you close to the fight so you cant shoot enemies from miles away (although it also make sense that DWS specializes in making this longer) but stuff like archer focus make it so i may as well be using a melee weapon or play a game that doesn't have an active combat system (Sidenote: Arties are awesome and so are Manyshotting AAs, just don't forget about DWSs and Mechs :D)

Extra Bonus Query: Can ANYTHING be said about the new enhancement system anything at all...just give something to throw to my Static group (which is also the group I DM PnP for) so they stop gnawing on my arm :P

Failedlegend (Contribs • Message • Email)

Dev Questions on Game Balance

• Why do clerics get Imp. Emp Heal and FvS does not? Or, at least, let FvS have Imp. Max, as well as Imp. Emp since they're pushed toward evocation builds.

• Why not just let all caster classes have access to the metamagic, and spell power, improvement enhancements? This way, we have more personalization of our toons.

• Not a question, but a suggestion: describe spell damage for readability like you guys did for weapons. E.g. Cure Light Wounds 1d6 + 2 + CL (Max CL = 5), Fireball CL[1d6], Max CL = 10. Or maybe even CL(10)[1d6], but this would confuse more folks, probably.

• Can you please increase Healing Word (FvS, Sovereign Host, Capstone) to Cure Moderate Wounds? Clerics have free Positive Healing Bursts, for comparison, so at least we could have a single target spell which can heal for as much as 1 Burst does for the whole party.

• With so many Spell Level increases, will DDO ever allow more rays than 3 for ray spells? I know it reads Max 3 rays, but spells also read Max Caster Level 10, but we go above that limit. A ray spell with its Max Caster Level raised by 4 levels should have an additional ray.

• Will DDoor scrolls ever hit the shelves, again? I can't imagine that there are so many quests which are exploitable by this spell as to not sell them. Plus, with a bard/sorc/wiz the quests are equally exploitable. As such, not selling these scrolls does not prevent these exploitations. If, in fact, that's why these scrolls were removed in the first place.

• The idea for teleport to have a "Mark Teleport Location" option so we can select our own teleport spots rather than force the devs to create each appropriate location? With the Portable Hole being the only fixed location.

• Will the "fail on a 1" ever go away from scrolls-casting UMD checks? It's absurd that we have a 125%+ chance and still fail. It's not like the 5% has any real meaning, anyway. It's annoying and wastes only a few plat and time.
  • There is no "fail on a 1" for skills. What is there is a bug for the UMD % chance when you have one of those artificer feats that lower the DC for some specific items (like the -2 DC for scrolls they get at level 1). Open the skill tab and make the math yourself, and you'll see the % chance on the tooltip is usually wrong. Nibelung (Contributions • Message) 18:23, November 22, 2012 (EST)

• I love crafting, but it's annoying to change toons each time to craft stuff. Can DDO - and I really hate to say this - follow Diablo III and have the crafting hall become a "Master Craftsman" that we "earn" upper tier recipes as we "donate" magical equipment to the melting pot. This way, we could craft will any toon we are on. Artificer bonuses will effectively "persuade" the craftsman to allow higher recipes. These bonuses could still require the Arti toon to craft with the benefit. What I'm really going for is the ability to melt down my loot without having to go to the shared bank, swap toons, melt loot, swap toons, return to gaming. It's not fun, at all, and parties will not wait. It feels like an unintentional penalty to the crafting system.

• With the addition of epic levels and all the new gear/prefixes/suffixes; crafting is not a useful. Can we see a reduction of crafting costs, crafting XP, or an increase in mats from melting loot?

• Non-Mass Cure spells are incredibly underclassed. Only the heal spell gives a decent amount of reliable healing to be of any real use and the cure spells are merely there to fill the cooldown of heal. Can you please adjust the loaded dice for healing so to correspond to Arcane spells? 1d8 => 1d4+4 instead of the current 1d6+2. Ultimately, it's pathetic when I can throw a low-rolling cure spell which heals for less than a Potion/Oil of CSW. Alternatively, increasing the CL of the cure spells by 5 will also produce better numbers. Alternatively, remove the Healing Spell Power Nerf which is only slightly better than adding +5 MaxCL, but this affects all spells rather than other options. Loaded dice affect all cure spell, and CL+5 could easily be added only to the non-mass cure spells. Making them more useful and keeping the others unaffected. I would really love to see both the +MaxCL increase and the loaded dice adjustment - to increase our base healing amount for single target spells and to reduce the healing spread.

• With the ability to put the same spell on the hotbars with different metamagic effects, then can we have a hotkey assigned to metamagics? I have 2 rows for my healing spells: 1 with Emp. Heal & Max and the other with Emp. Heal, Max, & Quicken. When I need faster healing, I can use the second hotbar. This means I have no need to select the "Quicken Toggle" and wait the 2-3 seconds to activate. As such, it would be a lot easier to have metamagic effects assigned to hotkeys that I could hold while casting to add the effect needed.

• The SP cost for Cure Light & Critical Wounds do not follow the scaling presented: CLW = 6, CMW = 8, CSW = 12, CCW = 20. At 4 SP per tier, the spells are more worth their value while not affecting the game balance since metamagic effects are the only way to have decent healing, anyway. Alternatively, increase the loading on the dice (1d4+4 instead of 1d6+2) and put the costs a 5/Spell Level. This would also fall in line nicely with the scaling of the Mass versions of the spells.

• Since Renown decay will likely stick around for awhile, will we at least ever see Guild De-Leveling go away? This allows for the same effect of keeping guilds low based on their participation while preventing people from dismissing guildies who cannot play often. We are forced to choose Gameplay over friends/loyalty. Plus, this way, guilds could have "Level Up Runs" where everyone is asked to put in extra effort to level up the guild - encouraging gameplay. The current system punishes people who can't play as often and discourages guilds. I feel this was not the intent for guild decay/de-leveling. Inactive account could instead impose a Guild XP penalty. This will solve the problem of people keeping long-term inactive players in their guilds while not punishing the weekend warriors (read: folks with families). Further, it will discourage guilds from leveling up with a bunch of players and then dismissing everyone but the leader's best friends.

• Instead of giving random drops of Mabar turn-in items, why not just give all party members 1 Mote of Midnight? This prevents the problem of "bad rolls" and then allows the Drought of Midnight to simply increase the Mote-drops on your toon. This would also solve the problem with Support/LowDPS classes from not earning Motes because Nukers are kill-stealing. While this is not always on purpose, it would significantly balance the distribution. Further, this will significantly encourage group play rather than solo play in Delera's Graveyard as everyone earns a fair share *AND* it will *significantly* encourage players to buy Droughts of Midnight on their Support/LowDPS classes - and, let's face it, that increases Turbine's profit. Or, at least, remove the "On Kill" effect from the potion and you'll see a huge increase in their sales.

• When will the Stone of Change get the makeover the GS alters were given? It takes ages to crunch Fragments into useful components.

• Will Concentration ever see a revisit to make it possible to resist damage from Epic Level Mobs? Perhaps a revision like AC.

• Can we please get some more gear for healers? There are tons of class-awesome gear for everyone else but still nothing for healers. We need some gear with Devotion/Healing Lore/Imp. Heal Metamagic & some Radiance/Radiant Lore along with Laceration/Lacerating Lore. That new Heavy Mace is nice, but it's only for Epic levels. We need more leveling gear. Every other class/build has cool stuff along the way except healers. Case in point: Implement of the Deep Woods (Druid Staff) has Devotion, Combustion, Magnetism *and* Sup. Fire/Lightning Lore. Where's the Cle/FvS staff with Devotion/Radience/Impulse and Radiant/Laceration Lore? The House C ring is another example: where's the *non*-WF Cle/FvS with appropriate scaling of Heal (1/day CL 10), Archmagi, Devotion, Sup. Healing Lore, Regeneration (1/15 seconds), Healer's Bounty (but will stack with Healer's Bounty like this ring does for WF, even if it didn't, I'd be very happy), Empty Colorless/Green augment slots. Healers are seriously lacking in gear with multiple heal-only gear. Lastly, while I'm happy to have the new Forgotten Light weapon, I'd really rather have Greater Arcane Lore instead of Supreme Good - we're not swinging that thing for DPS, we're using it to heal and cast Divine Punishment (which has pretty weak damage considering it's our only really efficient SP combat spell - since Blade Barrier requires so much skill to make the best use of its damage (which also has rather low damage).

• Will Turbine consider allowing us to take other class levels instead of only epic levels? For example, 20 Cleric/2 Epic/3 Sorc.

• Instead of running around the ship looking for buffs, can Turbine instead consider having, say, a ship's mast where all buffs go into? Each ship will have the same number of buff limits as hook points on the mast instead of around the ship. Obviously, the current system was designed to slow down game play - hence the doors below deck and having to zone to go below deck - so the mast could simple apply the buffs one at a time or increase the "activation timer" for each buff on the mast. We all understand that it's a balance to slow down players so to keep us interested in the game for longer periods of time; this current system only supports the "Turbine against the Players" idea floating around the forums. Some things, bartender, guild chest, alters, etc., can remain separate from the mast, of course, though.

• Can we get some AoE, DoT spells for electricity/sonic? Air Savants have nothing for this combat tactic without going outside of their element (Ha!) At least allow Call Lightning. Electric Storm, Lightning Storm, Storm Cloud, Electric Field; any number of names come to mind. Air Savants are considered gimp by the other savants (including Fire Savants due to the high amount of pre-U14+ end game content) because they lack AoE, DoT spells.

• Is the +Mod from Bane weapons added into critical hit calculations?

Sindarin8 (Contributions • Message) 13:22, November 22, 2012 (EST)

• Is the Damage Mod (usually Str) rounded down (floor function) when multiplied by 1.5 for two-handed weapons?

-- Anonymous user (76.94.136.179)

Why can't we search in the auction house for items based on min/max level? I'm trying to gather gear for my next TR, and searching for things requires hovering over each items and seeing when I'll be able to use it.

Jaquine (Contribs • Message • Email)

You can, Jaquine, just select the "Level Range" on the AH. This will limit it to the selected level.

Sindarin8 (Contributions • Message) 13:19, November 22, 2012 (EST)

• One down, only 43 questions to go. --Jaquine (Contributions • Message) 14:13, November 22, 2012 (EST)

Some more questions

• Are there any plans to go back and simplify/fix re-flagging for DQ/SoS/Necro 1-3? What about cleaning up irregularities in touchy old chains like Threnal?

• Is Dragontouched Armor going to get fixed up to be useful once again?

• The Public LFM system was supposed to come along with an option to teleport directly to the quest. Is this coming along, or did it get completely scrapped?

-- JMeganSnow (Contribs • Message • Email)

• When and how DDO's server lag problem will be solved? (random events when each player inside instance is frozen for multiple seconds - up to minutes even, but mobs are not frozen since they can still do damage to players, causing painful party wipes) -- Drachenfels (Contributions • Message) 14:27, November 25, 2012 (EST)

• Temporary spellpower buffs have changed, but the cannith crafting recipes haven't changed along with them, which is strange since the potions where looked after and changed in cost and effect
• Can the ingame voicechat get a major increase in decibels so we don't have to almost turn down every other sound ingame to hear it clearly, or auto-dampen it to allow us to hear it and enjoy the game
• And for some basic needed features: don't forget to add Guild Augment slots as a searchable option in the Auction House or whatever it will be called in the new system when you merge it with epic augment slots
• Will the requirement to have a guildmember on the airship to invite someone on the airship be rolled back, since it was introduced as a cheap fix for guildchests being emptied by non-guildmembers and later properly fixed by the requirement of being in the same guild to access it→ Neouni (Contributions • Message) 16:10, November 24, 2012 (EST)

• Will clickies (Shield, Burning Hands, Grease) ever be added to Cannith Crafting? Possibly with recipes to increase uses and caster level.
• Will the new enhancement system introduce new feats alongside it? Maybe something like ricochet to add glancing blows to thrown weapons.
• In order to balance power between those with epic destinies and those without, there was a brief interest in making the auto-grants F2P, but spending points remained a paid feature. Is there still any interest for this feature?
• Warforged do not receive their proper PRR based on body composition feats, has this fix been put on the back-burner, possibly with a revamp to the Warforged body feats granted on class proficiency?
• Mithril armors provide PRR based on their new armor category (heavy->medium->light), is this intended, or an oversight?
• What are guys most excited for in DDO right now?

198.188.96.4 19:16, November 24, 2012 (EST)