by Karen Hertzberg on Jun 25, 2006
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Community Viewpoint: Bard Spell-Swapping, Part 2
We have just retraced the conversations that led Graal to post
the revised plan to implement spell-swapping: bards will be able to
swap one spell every 3 real-life days, and doing so will cost a fee
based on the level of the spell and the level of the character. We'll
next examine how this plan has been received by the DDO community.
The early feedback was very positive, but then D&D purists stepped
forward to object on the grounds that PnP is just as fluid as any MMOG.
Some people objected that the swapping should never cost money because
much swapping is likely to be due to changes Turbine makes to balance
spells. Others vied for a free swap of spells following any patch that
changed the way a spell works.
Let's take a look at some of the positive feedback and major arguments.
Donnie: Beautiful. I think the
changes you have made are perfect compared to the first discussion on
this.
Wershlak: It sounds like a good
compromise. Three days is long enough that Bards...can't switch spells
before entering each quest. I am curious how much it will cost for a
level 10 to swap a level 1 spell?
Craythegray: I believe that
every nerf of a spell...that class should get FREE 1time SWAP.
Notch: Nice to see our
feedback has some effect, Good Work Turbine!
eilar: YES! You got it i didnt
think it was going to be possible for a mmo company to do thing right
thanks for proving me wrong!
TFPAQ: thank you Turbine and
Dev. team for giving the players an opportunity to provide feedback,
and obviously taking the feedback and working with it.
Jamz: From the perspective of
a 8/1 Pally/Sorc, i think it's great! I sure wasn't going to take
levels in Sorc again just to switch spells...
Wulf Ratbane [quoting Jamz]:
Bingo. That is why it is not
a good solution.
Gror Stoneshard: If I was a DM
that would have to account for all of those products and changes
style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">for thousands of
players then I would first go crazy, and second come up with a
system that would be more flexible...Flexibility when you have a bunch
of buddies meeting once a week is easy to do. Flexibility in the MMO
environment where fixed parameters are necessary for thousands of
people can be interesting. I agree with you that I would like closer
adherence to the core ruleset, but I think this is a decent compromise.
We'll see how it works in practice.
Pugsley: Increased Cost: This
seems too high in my opinion. I preferred the static cost system -
spell level, not character level. Why should it cost a high level
Sorcerer more to relearn a low level spell? It also seems to get
astronomical very quickly. Bad move [in my opinion].
ShiningOne: While most of the
people who came here to play a D&D style game flee for the hills,
I'm sure that many non-D&D enthusiasts will start sniffing around
this game. Of course, they will not be the people this game was made to
appeal to. No, they will be the random MMO players who don't know a
thing about D&D, don't care about D&D, and are too lazy to
adapt to a new playing system. They want all the spells and abilities
and goodies without any of the limitations that make the D&D world
so realistically enjoyable. So they will whine and cry until Turbine
breaks down and adds new patches to appease them; patches that
effectively strip every shred of D&D from DDO.
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style="border: 2px solid ; width: 267px; height: 200px;" align="left">And
make no mistake; these new players will not be the loyal, hard-won fans
of D&D. They will be the MMO players who leap-frog from MMO to MMO
every few months, leaving a trail of inactive accounts and hodge-podge
characters in their wake. You know who you are.
Solymnar [in response to
ShiningOne]:
The logic that random "MMORGP junkies" will start randomly flocking to
and playing DDO because Sorcerers and Bards can swap spells just
doesn't work. Over all I agree with the change, I've played D&D
much longer than I've played MMO's, same would go for my friends who
play.
I was initially for a 0gold required pure cooldown system. But 2
comments have been made that changed my mind.
1) A comment was made that a sorcerer will spend the money on potions
or wands instead of swapping out a spell because it is cheaper. This
makes perfect sense and will essentially eliminate a sorcerer swapping
spells for a dungeon because it cost them less to just grab a few
potions etc. like they would have done without the change.
2) A comment was made that a casual player may only hit a few dungeons
every 3 days, so they would be the most likely to swap spells for a
dungeon set...but casual players also have the least amount of money
and can't really afford to do that. For the hardcore players that hit
many many dungeons in a 3 day span they can't afford to mess up their
spell build because they play in too much of a variety of scenarios in
a given 3 day span. So both ends are fairly well covered.