Fix Wall of Fire already, or at least the AI associated with it.

[Cordelia]

As a high lvl caster in DDO, there is one spell. Wall of Fire. Empowered, Maximized, Extended, or whichever combo of these suits your fancy, all content in the game can be completed using the tried and true "drag everything to the campfire" snorefest.

It eliminates parity between differently enhancement specc'd casters, due to an "acid specialist" being a rediculous choice, nm force and repair, and all the crowd control and instant death spells in the game cant amount to a fraction of the kills raked in with the Firewall-wielding-Fire-Specced Jump back-and-forth cookie-cutter clone. Feel free to disagree with me here, however I cannot be held responsible by anyone else's demonstrations of ignorance to the basic tennets of DDO and how it stand now as it pertains to casters.

What irks me about all this is that "Wall of Fire" as DnD intends is as a barrier between PCs and Mobs. In ANY PnP encounter worth the dice the DM is rolling, a DM might allow the odd courageous or foolish monster to attempt a crossing of a wall of fiery death perhaps once, perhaps not, thinking a ranged approach or a waiting out of the Inferno to be a more sound strategy. In DDO, time and again, mobs mindlessly waddle around in a critting inferno or triple digits, oblivious to their self-inflicted lunacy, vainly spamming their death throw commentary.

All the improvements to Mob AI amount to nothing in comparison to this glaring tidbit of Monster Idiocy and inability to deal with basic combat variables. Why it has lasted this long is beyond me.

Please DEVs...PLEASE teach these mobs to stop committing fiery suicide in every quest in DDO. It would increase combat variety, caster variety and player enjoyment across the board. I know AI is a tricky beast to code, but if you cant teach someone to pull their hand away when they touch a burning element, any other sort of education seems pointless right out of the gate.

[Prinstoni]

That is fine if the mobs were smart enought to not stand in firewals swinging wildly until they die, but I don't want the devs to make changes to firewall or cast blanket immunities on mobs.

Which the second, is the more likely outcome following the devs trend to toward fast fixes.

[jjflanigan]

It's probably a safe bet that Wall of Fire is at least one of the "area of effect spells" mentioned in the WDA for mod 6



Monsters now have a better understanding of the world around them know what to do around doors and some area of effect spells

[Kire]

As a high lvl caster in DDO, there is one spell. Wall of Fire. Empowered, Maximized, Extended, or whichever combo of these suits your fancy, all content in the game can be completed using the tried and true "drag everything to the campfire" snorefest.

It eliminates parity between differently enhancement specc'd casters, due to an "acid specialist" being a rediculous choice, nm force and repair, and all the crowd control and instant death spells in the game cant amount to a fraction of the kills raked in with the Firewall-wielding-Fire-Specced Jump back-and-forth cookie-cutter clone. Feel free to disagree with me here, however I cannot be held responsible by anyone else's demonstrations of ignorance to the basic tennets of DDO and how it stand now as it pertains to casters.

What irks me about all this is that "Wall of Fire" as DnD intends is as a barrier between PCs and Mobs. In ANY PnP encounter worth the dice the DM is rolling, a DM might allow the odd courageous or foolish monster to attempt a crossing of a wall of fiery death perhaps once, perhaps not, thinking a ranged approach or a waiting out of the Inferno to be a more sound strategy. In DDO, time and again, mobs mindlessly waddle around in a critting inferno or triple digits, oblivious to their self-inflicted lunacy, vainly spamming their death throw commentary.

All the improvements to Mob AI amount to nothing in comparison to this glaring tidbit of Monster Idiocy and inability to deal with basic combat variables. Why it has lasted this long is beyond me.

Please DEVs...PLEASE teach these mobs to stop committing fiery suicide in every quest in DDO. It would increase combat variety, caster variety and player enjoyment across the board. I know AI is a tricky beast to code, but if you cant teach someone to pull their hand away when they touch a burning element, any other sort of education seems pointless right out of the gate.

Psh i just started coding and it took me forever to figure out how to just get the mobs to attack back and move :eek: then again my bro helped me and he's been coding since he was 11 lol

~Kire

[Hendrik]

It's probably a safe bet that Wall of Fire is at least one of the "area of effect spells" mentioned in the WDA for mod 6

We can only hope JJ....

:)

And I agree with the OP.

[Gleep_Wurp]

go play pen and paper if you dont like the way ddo handles things.this is not pen and paper.a solution to your problem is dont cast firewall and dont run with those who do

[Cordelia]

LOL. Lovely suggestion. Thanks for that little gem. I'll get right on that. I'll run every quest without anything in my hands too, forcing the the rest of my party to do the same.

Well gee, Problem solved.

Thanks again,
Cord

[Kalanth]

I believe the Dev's mentioned that they would be working on the AI to recognize when something hurts. Saying that the enemy would try to avoid it a bit. Maybe this was directed at firewall. I agree that it does not play at all like PnP, but at this point in DDO's exsistance we all (should) realize that the game is far from the PnP version.

[Cordelia]

I believe the Dev's mentioned that they would be working on the AI to recognize when something hurts. Saying that the enemy would try to avoid it a bit. Maybe this was directed at firewall. I agree that it does not play at all like PnP, but at this point in DDO's exsistance we all (should) realize that the game is far from the PnP version.

In regards to current dev attention, I certainly hope you're right K. As for PnP, I'm not one of those purests, romantically harking on direct translations as the salvation to every problem with DDO. I'm pointing out an overpowered tactic that by adjusting, would open up many other offensive spells and builds as a viable caster options.

Again, here's hoping :)

[MysticTheurge]

I'm interested to see what they do with AI changes in Mod 6.

Personally, I have a hard time seeing how you can make any kind of "Don't stand in damaging AoE spells" AI work so long as there's no friendly fire. (As I've said many times on these boards.) But who knows, maybe it'll work.

[Hvymetal]

go play pen and paper if you dont like the way ddo handles things.this is not pen and paper.a solution to your problem is dont cast firewall and dont run with those who doHmmm I am wondering if this was perhaps someone that used to load cloudkill all the time? Just a guess.....

[Raithe]

I am in complete agreement with the OP. As others have said, we'll see what happens come Mod 6...

[GeneralDiomedes]

I think the monsters should be about as smart as your average player and behave as such.

Orc 1: Is that our wall of fire?
Orc 2: I don't know. Hey Boneboiler .. did you load wall of fire?
Orc 3: That's not my wall of fire.
Orc 1: Not our wall of fire?
Orc 2: Holy **** that's not our wall of fire!
Orc 1: Well, this PC is almost dead .. I'll just keep swinging away and hope someone heals me.

[Raithe]

I think the monsters should be about as smart as your average player and behave as such.

Orc 1: Is that our wall of fire?
Orc 2: I don't know. Hey Boneboiler .. did you load wall of fire?
Orc 3: That's not my wall of fire.
Orc 1: Not our wall of fire?
Orc 2: Not our wall of fire!
Orc 1: Well, this PC is almost dead .. I'll just keep swinging away and hope someone heals me.

Quoted for both truth and superb humor content. :D

[moorewr]

You win the Internet! :D


I think the monsters should be about as smart as your average player and behave as such.

Orc 1: Is that our wall of fire?
Orc 2: I don't know. Hey Boneboiler .. did you load wall of fire?
Orc 3: That's not my wall of fire.
Orc 1: Not our wall of fire?
Orc 2: Holy **** that's not our wall of fire!
Orc 1: Well, this PC is almost dead .. I'll just keep swinging away and hope someone heals me.

[MrWizard]

As a high lvl caster in DDO, there is one spell. Wall of Fire. Empowered, Maximized, Extended, or whichever combo of these suits your fancy, all content in the game can be completed using the tried and true "drag everything to the campfire" snorefest.

It eliminates parity between differently enhancement specc'd casters, due to an "acid specialist" being a rediculous choice, nm force and repair, and all the crowd control and instant death spells in the game cant amount to a fraction of the kills raked in with the Firewall-wielding-Fire-Specced Jump back-and-forth cookie-cutter clone. Feel free to disagree with me here, however I cannot be held responsible by anyone else's demonstrations of ignorance to the basic tennets of DDO and how it stand now as it pertains to casters.

What irks me about all this is that "Wall of Fire" as DnD intends is as a barrier between PCs and Mobs. In ANY PnP encounter worth the dice the DM is rolling, a DM might allow the odd courageous or foolish monster to attempt a crossing of a wall of fiery death perhaps once, perhaps not, thinking a ranged approach or a waiting out of the Inferno to be a more sound strategy. In DDO, time and again, mobs mindlessly waddle around in a critting inferno or triple digits, oblivious to their self-inflicted lunacy, vainly spamming their death throw commentary.

All the improvements to Mob AI amount to nothing in comparison to this glaring tidbit of Monster Idiocy and inability to deal with basic combat variables. Why it has lasted this long is beyond me.

Please DEVs...PLEASE teach these mobs to stop committing fiery suicide in every quest in DDO. It would increase combat variety, caster variety and player enjoyment across the board. I know AI is a tricky beast to code, but if you cant teach someone to pull their hand away when they touch a burning element, any other sort of education seems pointless right out of the gate.

from what i understand, next mod the mobs will address this issue. And so goes your fire nuker asting spell mana.
I think firewall is okay but not too into it...I like to just throw one or two control spells, get my lot, and skeedaddle..thats just me though.

[Shade]

Well the 2 best fix's imo are:

Fix the stacking - only allow 1 wall of fire active per monster, as this can lead to insane DPS if you get a boss type mob to stand still. Also fix the initial effect - if you cast it directly on a monster, both the "entering the wall of fire, and the "inside the wall of fire" dmg will hit them at the same time.. Only the main dmg should hit them.

And ofcourse AI update to get them to make at least some attempt to move out of the wall of fire. (cant be perfect as monsters still need to attack players who will always stand inside of it for safety)

[Vengenance]

I have a high level caster and I like to use Firewall, guilty as charged. As far a Cord's suggestions, I agree with them so long as the devs make the monster's AI better and not nerf firewall or give blanket immunities. If monsters hit the firewall and then backed off from it then that's a positive change, you'd have a good defensive barrier that you can use to attack mobs from.

[moorewr]

I thought about suggesting having multiple walls expand instead of stacking, but of course this is exploitable (like a free Expand feat and more).

Mobs with ranged weapons should run out and go to ranged weapons if they can't engage someone.

Mobs without should try to get as far out of the wall as they can while swinging, and flee out of the wall if they can't path to a player.

In Maze of Madness, once they see they can't get through the door to the player they are aggroed on they should flee out of the cloud. Alternatively they could switch aggro to the first player they can path to. At least then the mobs wouldn't ignore the puller standing next to them in the cloud.

PS: yes, I am a serious Wall of Fire addict. :)


Well the 2 best fix's imo are:

Fix the stacking - only allow 1 wall of fire active per monster, as this can lead to insane DPS if you get a boss type mob to stand still. Also fix the initial effect - if you cast it directly on a monster, both the "entering the wall of fire, and the "inside the wall of fire" dmg will hit them at the same time.. Only the main dmg should hit them.

And ofcourse AI update to get them to make at least some attempt to move out of the wall of fire. (cant be perfect as monsters still need to attack players who will always stand inside of it for safety)


see also: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=127458

[MysticTheurge]

Fix the stacking - only allow 1 wall of fire active per monster, as this can lead to insane DPS if you get a boss type mob to stand still. Also fix the initial effect - if you cast it directly on a monster, both the "entering the wall of fire, and the "inside the wall of fire" dmg will hit them at the same time.. Only the main dmg should hit them.

I haven't tested it, but I'm pretty sure you can get "crossing the wall" damage just by having things stand in it. To align the spell with the D&D rules, I've previously suggested that they change wall of fire to work like this:

|==--
|==--
|==--
|==--
|==--

The red barrier is a plane and only does damage if an enemy crosses it (just like Blade Barrier currently works). Crossing that plane deals 2d6 + 1/caster level damage. Standing in the orange part of the wall deals 2d4 damage per tic. Standing in the yellow part of the wall deals 1d4 damage per tic. The energy (and therefore the damage) only radiates from one side of the wall.

Combine this with improved AI, and only the worst damage from any number of different walls applies and you'd take some of the excessiveness out of the spell. It would still be useful, especially in the right situations, but it would be toned back a bit to be more reasonable.

[redoubt]

Too remove stacking, I think you would need to remove a lot of the insane resists the mobs have.

My main is a CC sorc. Due to the insane amount of "immune" message I was getting due to blanket immunities, I re-arranged some of my enhancements and took maximize spell and use firewall a lot now.

I looks to me like we are chasing each other around the nerf tree. People got mad that CC was too powerful so the blanket immunity nerf swept through. Now people are mad that firewall is a really good spell and are looking for the next nerf.

Is the goal to bring melee back to prominence? :D <-/sarcasim.

[Alkor]

Just wait til we get level 9 spells and and get mass instant kill spells. That will be the end of melees :D.

[redoubt]

Just wait til we get level 9 spells and and get mass instant kill spells. That will be the end of melees :D.

They'll just send in more mobs than you can hit with your mass kill spell. Battles would be more epic... lots of melee dudes holding the lines while the big guns blasts back and forth from the rear. If anyone breaks through the lines and the big guns become vulnerable.

[BigNastyMP]

Is it kosher to quote myself?

WoF is the least creative, most over-used and most over-powered spell in this game currently. Yes, I use it all the time. All sorcerers and wizards carry it and use it consistently. It damages every mob in the game except for shades, fire elementals, fire mephitis, a few raid bosses and a handful of other mobs. The spell WoF abuses the less intelligent AI of mobs who insist on standing in the range of the WoF despite taking lethal damage from it. Entire quests, especially the new content, consist of the party pulling everything to a central location where multiple WoFs cut down mobs efficiently and without a fight. It was a problem in black anvil mines, it is a problem in LotD.

Yes, please fix the AI. When this fix happens just sit back, relax and enjoy the histrionics of those inept casters pouting and complaining about the nerf.

[OrganGrinder]

And yet no one seems to complain about bards being able to entrance all the monsters in a quest and run through without swinging a weapon, I'm not complaining and will adjust my gameplay to what ever the devs decide to do, just an observation. feel free to flame

[Alkor]

And yet no one seems to complain about bards being able to entrance all the monsters in a quest and run through without swinging a weapon, I'm not complaining and will adjust my gameplay to what ever the devs decide to do, just an observation. feel free to flame

Yea they don't complain about bards because they aren't taking away melees kill counts.

[MysticTheurge]

And yet no one seems to complain about bards being able to entrance all the monsters in a quest and run through without swinging a weapon

Uh... I complain about that.

At the very least, fascinate should have a save. Most things wouldn't save against it, but it should have a save.

[Alkor]

Uh... I complain about that.

At the very least, fascinate should have a save. Most things wouldn't save against it, but it should have a save.

Yep at least 1 out of every 20 mobs would save.

[MysticTheurge]

Yep at least 1 out of every 20 mobs would save.

Statistically speaking. ;)

[OrganGrinder]

i stand corrected, almost no one complains.

[theblaz]

God forbid that a caster does anything other than buff the melee, haste and wait for things to get hacked to pieces.

I always keep Firewall up, but in my personal group, things usually die so quick it's a waste of SP to cast it except 1) on bosses; 2) on extremely large groups of monsters; 3) when I'm probably going to die anyway and want to help the group before I do.

I thought it was dumb when FW went through walls and doors, same with CK. I think the AI of the game makes it easy to abuse certain aspects. But you're asking for a very specific fix targeted at casters instead of overall fixing the AI.

That reeks of whining to me, and it really sounds like someone got their kill-count-ass handed to them by a fire-specced sorceror and is crabby about it.

May not be the case, but asking for a nerf (it IS a nerf; do you honestly expect them to take the time to make the game more "realistic" when it's much easier to just carve away useful aspects of the game?) in an isolated situation is silly. Regardless of how many casters keep FW up, it's ONE spell that you're targeting to be "fixed."

Seems petty to me. But like I said, I have a caster and use FW to great effect in my groups, not just to inflate my kill count.

[Tenlanni]

God forbid that a caster does anything other than buff the melee, haste and wait for things to get hacked to pieces.

I always keep Firewall up, but in my personal group, things usually die so quick it's a waste of SP to cast it except 1) on bosses; 2) on extremely large groups of monsters; 3) when I'm probably going to die anyway and want to help the group before I do.

I thought it was dumb when FW went through walls and doors, same with CK. I think the AI of the game makes it easy to abuse certain aspects. But you're asking for a very specific fix targeted at casters instead of overall fixing the AI.

That reeks of whining to me, and it really sounds like someone got their kill-count-ass handed to them by a fire-specced sorceror and is crabby about it.

May not be the case, but asking for a nerf (it IS a nerf; do you honestly expect them to take the time to make the game more "realistic" when it's much easier to just carve away useful aspects of the game?) in an isolated situation is silly. Regardless of how many casters keep FW up, it's ONE spell that you're targeting to be "fixed."

Seems petty to me. But like I said, I have a caster and use FW to great effect in my groups, not just to inflate my kill count.

When I use Fire wall, it seems the fighters and barbs swinging away get the inflated kill count =D I weaken, they finish em. /shrug Simple fact of the matter is, mobs HP and HD is so bloated beyond beleif, targeting of ray spells bugged, targeting of any kind of projectile spells bugged, casters need a cast and forget spell. You think FW would be so popular in any non-chokepoint area if fireball would actualy hit all the mobs in it's radius instead of just one, two, or none at all? Fix that issue, then we can talk about "fixing" fire wall

[GlassCannon]

Fire Wall and Acid Fog are the only damage spells that WORK PROPERLY.

Everything else has some kind of problem with it, so everyone says how overpowered said spells are.

Just because one car runs perfectly doesn't mean we need to send it to the junkyard too...

[SWardCo]

So what happens when I cast firewall's in the following configuration?


-------
|
|
|
-------


Lets see them mobs run outta that :)

[CSFurious]

have even more people stop playing the game & cancel their subscriptions

the existing 5 servers can be merged into one big one (not that big because there will not be that many players left)

blanket immunities aka shades in temple of vol, bad idea

smart ai, good idea

odds of this development time taking time or being able to make ai smart enough to stay out of firewall, 5&#37;

odds of this development team giving mobs blanket immunities or making them bascially immune to damage from fire aka fleshmaker's lab, 95%

[Cowdenicus]

You know, it is just getting to the point that I rarely run quests with meleers in party anymore.

Thats a good thing too. As a cleric I notice that smarter players tend to be casters and clerics and can generally help each other out.

(rogues and rangers are not to be included in that statement about melee characters as their versatility makes up for being limited to a weapon).

[MysticTheurge]

blanket immunities to fire aka fleshmaker's lab

If you're going ***** and moan at least get the facts right.

[CDevil]

It's probably a safe bet that Wall of Fire is at least one of the "area of effect spells" mentioned in the WDA for mod 6

If this is true, do you think they'll FINALLY reset the AOE spells (firewall, acid fog, solid fog, etc.) to a REASONABLE time limit? First they set the times to the point where you blink and they're gone. Then they tweak the AI so the damaging AOEs (acid fog being a prime example) are almost worthless. THEN they gimp the spells further by changing them so you can't use them through walls or doors anymore. (This made no sense to me. The effect is magical, so why WOULDN'T it go through walls or doors?) If you're going to make the mobs smarter, then make the spells last longer, or there's going to be almost no point in using them.

[barecm]

I can understand how people would want smarter monsters that don't stay in a firewall while being burned to death. However, it is a fine line between making monsters too smart and redering a spell (or line of spells) useless.

There are plenty of tactics used to make it less harmful for the party. A ranged combatant kites, bards use fascinate. clerics use blade barrier and so on. It is part of the game currently and changing the AI may wind up breaking more than it fixes. If monsters run away from damage too much, you can spend the entire game chasing monsters through a dungeon. How fun is that?

[Dane_McArdy]

So what happens when I cast firewall's in the following configuration?


-------
|
|
|
-------


Lets see them mobs run outta that :)

Well, they could run through it, taking some damage. They could fire through it. Or they could just wait till it goes away.

[MysticTheurge]

This made no sense to me. The effect is magical, so why WOULDN'T it go through walls or doors?

Cause that's the way magic works in D&D.

[CSFurious]

my firewall was doing about 4 to 8 hitpoints worth of damage to the flesh golems the other night on elite

that was unempowered (need to save my mana), holding my greater fire lore scepter/s, max crits & causing 50% more damage; i got all of the enhancements too

guess what? i ran that for the favor with my sor, will never go back, because the quest sucks

they are even bascially immune to dis ray or they have so many hit points that causing 125 in damage means nothing

anyway, that is a real fun quest


If you're going ***** and moan at least get the facts right.

[MysticTheurge]

my firewall was doing about 4 to 8 hitpoints worth of damage to the flesh golems the other night on elite

that was unempowered (need to save my mana), holding my greater fire lore scepter/s, max crits & causing 50&#37; more damage; i got all of the enhancements too

guess what? i ran that for the favor with my sor, will never go back, because the quest sucks

they are even bascially immune to dis ray or they have so many hit points that causing 125 in damage means nothing

anyway, that is a real fun quest

That's not a "random immunity" that's how Golems are supposed to work.


Immunity to Magic (Ex)

A flesh golem is immune to any spell or spell-like ability that allows spell resistance. In addition, certain spells and effects function differently against the creature, as noted below.

Both disintegrate and wall of fire allow SR in D&D, thus flesh golems are immune to both of them.

[TommyBoy]

Please DEVs...PLEASE teach these mobs to stop committing fiery suicide in every quest in DDO. It would increase combat variety, caster variety and player enjoyment across the board. I know AI is a tricky beast to code, but if you cant teach someone to pull their hand away when they touch a burning element, any other sort of education seems pointless right out of the gate.

Careful what you ask for. CK used to be the best and then they "fixed it" so the mobs would stay there by auto agroing to the caster no matter what. So now CK on anything but archers is suiside.

[moorewr]

Fleshmaker? We fight in walls most of the time in there, including the optional chest fight in the pit... but not on elite yet. Elite sounds like a suitably tough nut to crack.. a caster's nightmare, like flesh golems are supposed to be... I'd still use firewalls but I'd expect to mostly buff the melees for that one (and they'd better be in top gear and using smiters).. on elite, it's what, a 16th level quest? Not supposed to be easy.


my firewall was doing about 4 to 8 hitpoints worth of damage to the flesh golems the other night on elite

that was unempowered (need to save my mana), holding my greater fire lore scepter/s, max crits & causing 50% more damage; i got all of the enhancements too

guess what? i ran that for the favor with my sor, will never go back, because the quest sucks

they are even bascially immune to dis ray or they have so many hit points that causing 125 in damage means nothing

anyway, that is a real fun quest

[jkm]

smiters don't work in fleshmakers on elite (well, they do when the golem rolls a 1 which takes forever).

firewall is not the end all be all of spells, but it has advantages that other spells don't have.

1. you are pretty much guaranteed to get it to go off without fizzling, because a) you can cast it multi-directionally without the stupid facing error and b) it doesn't suffer from terrain restrictions
2. with the insane elemental DR that almost every MOB has, it makes it much more mana efficient to get the same damage you should get if it weren't for the restrictions
3. it does double damage to undead and well, undead are everywhere in ddo
4. it bypasses evasion whereas all of the other non-ray type spells allow a reflex save. as more and more mobs are granted evasion (or improved evasion in the case of some of the orcs), having damage spells that can target these guys becomes necessary.
5. mobs retain aggro on the caster forever. there isn't a morale check for them to say 'uh, instant death. run away'. once again, firewall is one of only a few caster spells that can be cast without facing the guy chasing you.

[tihocan]

Just to answer OP since I'm too lazy to read the whole thread... just make it so you can't stack firewalls, and it will be much better.