Suggestions: How to balance higher level encounters

[sirgog]

Thought I'd revisit this with Mod 8 in mind. A couple of things were done well, a bunch were done poorly.

1) Grant more mobs partial fortification. This wasn't done at all, and so Rapiers are still about 4 times the price of any other weapon type on the AH.

2) Use more varied foe types at endgame. This was done. Now Rangers are solid party members but no longer can they have better DPS than a Barbarian combines with solid defenses.

3) Avoid using blanket immunities except where absolutely necessary for game balance. Allow enemy casters access to the spells that grant blanket immunities. Bleh. More blanket immunities were added in large numbers this mod. Pretty much every powerful foe is warded by Mind Block, plus Deathward - making non-Warchanter Bards very unhappy and making Vorpals no longer the budget alternative to WoPs.

4) Stop using ridiculous mob HP as a way to balance otherwise weak encounters. FAIL. 3400 hp is perfect for a red-named miniboss in a quest on Normal. Instead, Frost Giants have 3400hp in the explorer area or normal quests. This doesn't prolong the fight (I assume that was the intention) - it simply makes everyone NEED Con damage weapons to be able to contribute at all to a fight against respawning 3400hp mobs.

5) Give some mobs and all bosses (particularly raid bosses that are intended to be quite long encounters) that have sufficient spellcasting power the spells necessary to cure debuffs that they may be suffering from. These will still be worth casting, but won't be as powerful as they are now. This wasn't done. The only debuff-susceptible foes that you have very long fights against are the optional Dragons in Prey on the Hunter - they could probably do with some ability to cast Panacea on themselves.

6) Use a much, much more varied range of mob To-Hit scores, to make AC matter more at all levels. Wasn't done in any meaningful way. Instead, Evasion has become the new crucial defense.

7) In a similar vein, keep up the current variety in mob SR. Not much has SR this mod

8) Use a much more varied range of mob AC ratings. Wasn't done in any meaningful way. Paragon Kobold Warriors have some considerable AC while the Tainted Kobolds do not, but both are so weak that this does not matter.

9) Consider adding some mob defence to stat damage weapons. Don't make it a blanket immunity, however. A mediocre attempt at this was made, but all the other bad decisions (upping HP to the stratosphere, making mobs immune to Vorpals and so on) instead made WoPs better, not worse. This isn't a good thing. At endgame fighting frost giants, a +1 Wounding Greataxe is better than dual +5 Flaming Burst Heavy Picks of Greater Giant Bane on a barbarian specced for them.

10) Avoid using Air Elementals to hinder melees. They are simply not at all fun to fight. Seriously, *** were the Devs thinking with the Reaver and Stealer of Souls part 4? Neither are particularly difficult, but both are frustrating and not at all fun.

11) Have mobs dispell us a little. Not done, and buff spells thus remain by far the single most useful thing a blue-bar type can do except perhaps for debuffing major bosses.


12 to 15 were less important.


All in all, if game balance was rated at a B prior to this mod, it's fallen to a C-. Melees without Evasion are useless in the hardest parts of two of the four new quests, to the point that they really struggle to get into groups for Enter the Kobold (as they are deadweight there, even if they own Cloaks of Ice they may as well stay outside and pull the lever to recover from wipes) and to a lesser extent Stealer of Souls (as they are deadweight in part 3, which is IMO the hardest part.) Melees without some form of Con damage weapons (straight Wounders are OK) may as well not turn up to Prey on the Hunter or Stealer of Souls.

Arcane caster balance changed little - nuking remains pathetically weak due to mob HP, insta-kill spells work on nothing that you'd consider important enough to spend the SP killing, and the role of arcane casters has gone from glass cannon in Mods 4 and 5 to party support and smoke machine in mods 6, 7 and 8.


To Turbine - please stop giving any foe without a red name HP totals in the thousands. That's the key to fixing game balance, widening the number of viable playstyles at endgame, and making endgame fun.

[Geonis]

I think that post points out almost every fashion that some of the fun has started to be pulled out of the game recently, and gives the method of fixing it.

Now if we could actually get the Devs to read it and use the ideas.............:eek:

[Gennerik]

Currently, most of the endgame quests have mobs which have, to some extent, been metagamed by the Devs against the tactics players used back in Mod 4 and 5. We have most foes immune to fire, with huge quantities of HP, and uber SR to make landing insta-kill spells extremely tough. Raid bosses are granted uber, uber HP in order to prolong fights, and (except in the Xoriat wing of the Subterrane, where beholders are everywhere) mob AC, save DCs and to-hit scores are balanced based on players that are buffed to the max. Except for Beholders, foes do not use attacks (such as Finger of Death) that players are usually protected against.

This has simply resulted in new 'optimum' tactics that counter the Devs' metagaming. Huge HP foes are killed solely by Con damage or Vorpals. AC has become pretty much all-or-nothing (which it has been for too long). Players wanting to play elite endgame content are largely forced to min-max their toons - witness the 500+ HP melees with no AC at all (generally considered to be the optimum build for meleeing Arraetrikos on hard or elite), and the 75 AC evasion Monk splash builds.

Here's a few suggestions to give mobs varied offensive capacities, so that defences other than 500 HP or 75 AC with Evasion can be viable. Some of these were implemented very well in Vision of Destruction, kudos to the Devs for that.

1) Grant more mobs partial fortification. Currently, fortification is all-or-nothing on virtally all foes - making Crit Rage 2 more powerful than it should have a right to be. Frequently encountering foes with 25-75% fortification means that melee Rogues can still be useful, valued party members (in a way that they are not when fighting Undead or Golems), but these foes would help close the gap between Ftr/Pal DPS and Bbn/Rog DPS. Definitely stay away from quests that are almost all undead/constructs, however, as these make several characters very very weak, making it extremely hard for them to get a group.

Works well as long as monsters don't have 10K HP. As you said, nobody likes to beat on something for 10 minutes, but at the same time, when a character can do 200+ damage one out of four swings on a critical, then they do need some method of surviving. Light or Moderate Fortification would be a nice addition.


2) Use more varied foe types at endgame. Currently, it's pretty much all Evil Outsiders with a splashing of Aberrations, except for a small number of quests. Adding more foe types would help close the gap between Rangers and Ftr/Pal classes in DPS a little, making those classes more valued.

3) Avoid using blanket immunities except where absolutely necessary for game balance. Allow enemy casters access to the spells that grant blanket immunities, however. For instance, if players in testing are zooming through quests by spamming the Fear spell on all mobs, give some enemy casters access to Greater Heroism, and have the foes near those casters start combats with GH precast on them. Similarly, Deathward and/or Spell Resistance, Mass for insta-death spells and (in the case of DW) Vorpals.

4) Stop using ridiculous mob HP as a way to balance otherwise weak encounters. Elite Shroud orthons with 12000 HP are a tad ridiculous. Instead of having three Orthons with 12k HP each, consider using six orthons with 2000 HP each - the fight will be of comparable difficulty, but instead of only two tactics (Con damage and Vorpals) being appropriate, there are now many - Con damage, Vorpals, DPS from weapons, DPS from spells, etc. More viable tactics = more game balance and more fun, IMO.

5) Give some mobs and all bosses (particularly raid bosses that are intended to be quite long encounters) that have sufficient spellcasting power the spells necessary to cure debuffs that they may be suffering from. These will still be worth casting, but won't be as powerful as they are now.

It's not just more varied monsters, it's varied in groups. By this level, I think most encounters that we come across should have a healer, a caster, and either 1 or two fighter types. That merges some of your ideas, but that way there is variety in each encounter, and monsters can help each other to survive instead of them just having artificial means to survive. If they gave the melee types "orders" to attack the healers or casters, then the players need to decide if they should take care of the melee monsters or the casters/healers in the background. Everyone always says "Go for the casters first", but it may not be as bright of an idea when the people keeping you alive are being mauled while you beat on a caster. As far as getting rid of debuffs and ability score damage, Mass Heal goes a long way....


6) Use a much, much more varied range of mob To-Hit scores, to make AC matter more at all levels. (VOD succeeded in this). If in the same quest, you have a Frost Giant Barbarian that uses Power Attack to hit like a truck (+22 attack bonus, 55 typical damage) and also a Frost Giant Fighter that focusses on accuracy over damage (+45 attack bonus, 28 typical damage), and a boss that alternates between a Cleave attack (+35 attack bonus, 65 damage) and a single-target precise strike (+63 attack bonus, 34 damage) players will notice that an AC of 35 is better than an AC of 10, and an AC of 50 is better again than the 35 but worse than a 60. It's OK that the Frost Giant Barbarian will be a pushover for any AC build, and that the Fighter will be a problem for an unbuffed AC build - this promotes teamwork and rewards middling AC. Currently, in almost all quests at or near endgame, middling AC (say an AC of 44) is no different to an AC of 7, which is IMO a tad silly.

7) In a similar vein, keep up the current variety in mob SR. Have some trash mobs that a battlecleric with no Spell Pen feats can reasonably hope to Destruct (say SR 20, unimpressive saves) and some that are pretty hard to land anything on (SR 30, impressive saves). Don't give any foes except golems SR so high that it cannot be beaten (I'm thinking of the Mind Flayers in Hound of Xoriat Elite here).

8) Again, similar vein. Use a much more varied range of mob AC ratings. Currently almost noone cares about endgame melee accuracy, as save for Arraetrikos elite and Orthons in the Shroud, most melee toons hit most foes on a 2, or if not a 2 on a 4 or 5. Having an encounter against both a high-AC foe (say a Frost Giant fighter with AC 53) and also a low AC foe (Frost Giant Barbarian with 27 AC) poses interesting tactical questions. Should you leave Power Attack on, as it helps against the Barbarian, or should you turn it off to dispatch the Fighter more quickly? This would be particularly interesting in the case of fights against multiple bosses (at once) where one has a meaningful AC and one has paper AC.
Golems make for excellent high-AC, low-DPS foes - and they are generally pretty survivable, as long as their saves are high enough that they Smite only on a 1.
This suggestion is done particularly well in the Grey Moon Waning quest series, where parts 3 and 4 have a bunch of scorpions that are extremely hard to hit, plus a bunch of Ogres and Trolls that are almost as easy to hit as the broad side of a barn. It's also done pretty well in the Shroud, although the stupidly high Orthon HP undermines this.

9) Consider adding some mob defence to stat damage weapons. Don't make it a blanket immunity, however. Not sure how you'd do this - perhaps grant enemy clerics Mass Restoration, and the necessary AI to cast it when needed, or alternately change Fortification to prevent stat damage from weapons and see suggestion #1. (I prefer the former suggestion).

Kind of like what was done in The Black Anvil Mines. The Clerics there could Heal themselves, but Ability Score damage was still an efficient way to kill them as long as you didn't deal too much damage to make them Heal themselves. At this level, Mass Heal could very quickly get rid of all the Ability Score damage than monsters have suffered.


10) Avoid using Air Elementals to hinder melees. They are simply not at all fun to fight. (A very small number, like in Running with the Devils, is fine). It's a game, and the goal of challenges in a game should be player fun, not frustration. Witness the Abbot debacle for proof of that - people asked for a challenging raid, and we got one that is challenging in a frustrating, not fun way. (Please do NOT derail this thread to talk about the Abbot - there's plenty of other threads to discuss that debacle, including a good current one).

11) Have mobs dispell us at a rate that increases challenge without being frequent enough to be frustrating. I'd suggest about 1/3 of the rate that we get dispelled in the Gnoll area of the Desert. In particular, give some enemy Clerics and Arcanes the ability to chain-cast Greater Dispelling, followed by an instant-death spell. (Of course, we may be protected from this by a Deathblock item, but there's no way the enemy would know that). Likewise, they might cast Greater Dispelling followed by an elemental damage spell (hoping to wipe out our resistances to it first), or Dispel into Fear (hoping to get rid of our GH first). The last tactic should seldom be used, as it can be a bit un-fun to have to wait out a Fear spell since the Remove Fear potion nerf. (Again, please do NOT derail this thread by discussing this nerf)

12) Just as is done in Shroud part 2, have encounters (particularly fights against multiple bosses) where the foes buff each other. This can be done with auras like the Shroud lieutenants, or it can be done with AOE buff spells (as is the case in Foundation of Discord, where enemy casters fire off Good Hope, Mass Bull's Strength, and Haste on their allies). Don't overdo this - only let reasonably intelligent foes use these tactics, and mainly Lawful foes at that. Chaotic Evil orcs are likely to thank the orc caster for buffing them with GH, Bull's Strength and Haste, then go into a rage, smash them with their greataxe, and go and sell all their wands on the Gianthold auction house.

13) Use less energy immunities and more energy resistances at endgame. It isn't fun to play a Fire/Ice specced sorc at current endgame (I know I have heavily respecced mine since Mod 6). Resistances increase challenge in a fun way (as they make party members weaker but not useless). Immunities have the opposite effect, increasing challenge in a frustrating way by making party members potentially close to useless, and so should be used sparingly.
Do this whilst sticking to P&P rules - so instead of making Orthons resistant to fire instead of immune, simply change quest design to include some fire-susceptible foes alongside the Orthons.

14) Have more of a variety in mob saves within any given quest. Taking the Shroud for instance, all foes in there have great Fort saves, good Will saves and (barring Arraetrikos himself) weak Ref saves. This pushes all arcanes toward using Web as their sole CC spell in there. Had the quest been designed with some high-level Troglodyte Rogues, with good Ref saves, Evasion and bad Will saves, there'd be more scope for variety in tactics (particularly if those Trogs appeared later in the quest)

15) Sparingly use no-rez zones like the Reaver/Shroud 4 "Idiot Boxes". Again, challenge for fun, not frustration. When carefully used these add a lot to the game, when overused, they bore people to tears. In particular, having a Reaver-style "Escape from the Idiot Box" optional is a great idea.

In short, give the mobs intelligent ways to punish potential character weaknesses, without specifically targeting any one weakness in particular - while also giving them a wider variety of defences and weaknesses, rather than the current system of almost all endgame foes having high HP, energy immunities and high SR as defences and stat damage, lack of ways to dispel/debuff us and 0% Fortification as pretty universal weaknesses. Mix 'em up a bit, and high level play should be more fun.

Summing up, I agree. Blanket immunities and tons of HP don't make a fun fight. They make a very one-dimensional fight where there is only one way to effectively end the fight. It completely removes the tactics of the game, and it either makes the fight boring if everyone knows and can complete the tactic, or frustrating if you can't. Very rarely is non-conventional methods of fighting rewarded in this.

[Alcides]

I believe the proper term is Mudflation. As the game progresses, the power level takes ridiculous leaps and bounds to accomodate players growing appetites for more power(Something Tim Allen would agree with)! At any rate, it will be interesting to see just how crazy level 20 and beyond quests will be. Personally, I think mobs at this level should be throwing DC 40 spells that will make people think twice about bringing a bunch of low saving throw melee dpsers into the quests.

[Angelus_dead]

9) Consider adding some mob defence to stat damage weapons. Don't make it a blanket immunity, however. Not sure how you'd do this - perhaps grant enemy clerics Mass Restoration, and the necessary AI to cast it when needed, or alternately change Fortification to prevent stat damage from weapons and see suggestion #1. (I prefer the former suggestion).
The suggestion I've made multiple times in the past is to give some monsters Light/Medium/Heavy Preservation, which gives a 25%/50%/75% chance of ignoring incoming stat damage from attacks. This would be available on some armor for players too, and would only apply to damage from attacks like wounding or undead-touch, not poison, disease, or spells.

[Raithe]

First of all, I agree on most points. I wonder, however, how much the interest level of encounters can be raised when the encounters themselves are the same from one instance to the next. Players will always be prepared after the first or second time meeting a challenging static encounter.

I think the game really needs a massive rework of the PvE system. Some areas should be only run once with a particular character, and other areas need a massive randomization of encounters so that the same ones are rarely engaged in the same week, or possibly even in the same month.

I also think the game needs group vs. group PvP systems that have purpose. The very existence of such a system would drastically lower the amount of metagaming that is done through character building.

[krud]

Have some mobs come pre-buffed, as if they knew you were coming. I never understood why with a bunch of mob casters around, none of them were buffed. When the kobolds in the harbor bang that gong it should be a warning for mob casters to get everyone prepared. You could do the same on high end content. Take out a sentry stealthily and they don't get buffed. Let them sound a warning and they all come out buffed, just like we do.

[Angelus_dead]

10) Avoid using Air Elementals to hinder melees. They are simply not at all fun to fight. (A very small number, like in Running with the Devils, is fine). It's a game, and the goal of challenges in a game should be player fun, not frustration. Witness the Abbot debacle for proof of that - people asked for a challenging raid, and we got one that is challenging in a frustrating, not fun way. (Please do NOT derail this thread to talk about the Abbot - there's plenty of other threads to discuss that debacle, including a good current one).
That's a separate design flaw. Both Earth and Air Elementals have a crowd-control attack that fails to scale correctly with difficulty, although leading to very different results.

Air Elemental knockdown is always the same power (DC 20 str/dex save). At low CR it is far too dangerous, and a single air elemental adds more danger to an encounter than almost any other creature. (Charming an Air Elemental is usually the most powerful pet you could have) But also it fails to scale up at higher level, and fails to react to debuffs. The knockdown DC should be more like HD/4 + str mod.

Earth Elemental earthgrab is always the same power, DC 18 reflex. That's lethally dangerous at low level when you first meet Earth Elementals, but as you advance it becomes a trivial save, and of course at a certain point you cast FOM and become completely immune. Plus warforged were always completely immune. The earthgrab fails to fill its intended roll of giving elementals a ranged attack to retaliate to perching / kiting, but it gives them a tiny chance to demolish a character if they fluke-fail the save and then get critted by another monster. Earthgrab should be given a scaling DC based on HD and strength, scaling damage based on strength, increased damage, damage that applies even if the character is immune to constraint, and lesser constraint so that the character can still defend himself a little.

[Angelus_dead]

15) Sparingly use no-rez zones like the Reaver/Shroud 4 "Idiot Boxes". Again, challenge for fun, not frustration. When carefully used these add a lot to the game, when overused, they bore people to tears. In particular, having a Reaver-style "Escape from the Idiot Box" optional is a great idea.
A useful milder version is a region where resurrection spells are impeded, so that there is a time delay of 30-90 seconds before a character can accept the rez. (This information should be displayed both to the caster and the target)

Alternatively, some special attacks in D&D are supposed to damage the victim's body beyond the ability of normal Raise Dead (like the Destruction spell). In DDO, those attacks could instead put the victim in slow-rez mode.

[Turial]

....
Currently, most of the endgame quests have mobs which have, to some extent, been metagamed by the Devs against the tactics players used back in Mod 4 and 5. We have most foes immune to fire, with huge quantities of HP, and uber SR to make landing insta-kill spells extremely tough. Raid bosses are granted uber, uber HP in order to prolong fights, and (except in the Xoriat wing of the Subterrane, where beholders are everywhere) mob AC, save DCs and to-hit scores are balanced based on players that are buffed to the max. Except for Beholders, foes do not use attacks (such as Finger of Death) that players are usually protected against.


This has simply resulted in new 'optimum' tactics that counter the Devs' metagaming. Huge HP foes are killed solely by Con damage or Vorpals. AC has become pretty much all-or-nothing (which it has been for too long). Players wanting to play elite endgame content are largely forced to min-max their toons - witness the 500+ HP melees with no AC at all (generally considered to be the optimum build for meleeing Arraetrikos on hard or elite), and the 75 AC evasion Monk splash builds.


Here's a few suggestions to give mobs varied offensive capacities, so that defences other than 500 HP or 75 AC with Evasion can be viable. Some of these were implemented very well in Vision of Destruction, kudos to the Devs for that.


1) Grant more mobs partial fortification. Currently, fortification is all-or-nothing on virtally all foes - making Crit Rage 2 more powerful than it should have a right to be. Frequently encountering foes with 25-75% fortification means that melee Rogues can still be useful, valued party members (in a way that they are not when fighting Undead or Golems), but these foes would help close the gap between Ftr/Pal DPS and Bbn/Rog DPS. Definitely stay away from quests that are almost all undead/constructs, however, as these make several characters very very weak, making it extremely hard for them to get a group.

2) Use more varied foe types at endgame. Currently, it's pretty much all Evil Outsiders with a splashing of Aberrations, except for a small number of quests. Adding more foe types would help close the gap between Rangers and Ftr/Pal classes in DPS a little, making those classes more valued.
....

These two suggestions need to go hand in hand to prevent rangers from taking over. Rangers tend to have better DPS then other classes (except some barbs) against fully fortified mobs that they also have chosen as a favored enemy.

[sirgog]

A useful milder version is a region where resurrection spells are impeded, so that there is a time delay of 30-90 seconds before a character can accept the rez. (This information should be displayed both to the caster and the target)

Alternatively, some special attacks in D&D are supposed to damage the victim's body beyond the ability of normal Raise Dead (like the Destruction spell). In DDO, those attacks could instead put the victim in slow-rez mode.

The slow-rez idea is brilliant. Sheer evil genius. I like. A lot. Mwahaha...

The idea I had in mind was to have a small number of zones where you have to take the soulstone out of the zone to cast the Raise spell. But I think I prefer your idea.

[Xithos]

Have some mobs come pre-buffed, as if they knew you were coming. I never understood why with a bunch of mob casters around, none of them were buffed. When the kobolds in the harbor bang that gong it should be a warning for mob casters to get everyone prepared. You could do the same on high end content. Take out a sentry stealthily and they don't get buffed. Let them sound a warning and they all come out buffed, just like we do.

I love this idea. It's neat how monster/caster AI has them do some buffing when you approach, but they tend to do it while charging at you and things in this game die so fast that the monster buffing itself during the approach means it isn't spending anytime trying to actually hurt you before you flatten it. The trog casters jumping out of the portals exemplify this; they run at you and cast displace but its too late for them to do much usually after they have cast it anyway.

[Roman]

Great ideas, but even if implemented encounters will still become stale due to their static nature. Encounters need to be more random. And not silly randomness like moving the key around in waterworks, or the ridiculous puzzle in Rainbow. I mean changing mob and trap type/location.

Having situations where a lookout or scout with listening and spot skills can alert party to approaching ambush. Make traps that just cant be zerged thru with impunity. Maybe something like a Teleport trap that splits a group up sending them to random parts of the dungeon. As it stands now, once the "Best tactic" for a particular part of a particular quest is discovered theres no more challenge. Nothing changes, nothing to adapt to.

And please change the AI so mobs avoid firewalls, clouds, etc....I know ogres arn't the sharpest tools in shed but they certainly should know not to stand in a blazing firewall. Simply silly how the AI works in this regard.

And personally, I think resurrection is absolutely lame. Resurrection should only be allowed at shrines, or the cleric or UMD caster should take 1d4 neg lvls for 60 seconds for every raise. Or maybe only be allowed 1 raise dead per day. Death means absolutely nothing at end game and it just shouldnt be that way.

[QuantumFX]

....

These two suggestions need to go hand in hand to prevent rangers from taking over. Rangers tend to have better DPS then other classes (except some barbs) against fully fortified mobs that they also have chosen as a favored enemy.

Ditch Crit Rage, don't allow FE feats to stack and ignore the drama queen antics of all the MMO raised crybabies. Problem solved.

[QuantumFX]

OP: A lot of your issues could easily be fixed by converting DDO over to a system that resembles the BAB/AC system in P&P. (Decreasing attack bonus over multiple swings, Touch AC.) You don't need to multiply an orthon's HP by 1,000 when your players need to roll a 15 or above on their 3rd attack. You don't need to give THF/S&B a leg up when to hit actually matters and the negatives (-9) to hit that TWF's take in this game actually matter.

Stat damage wouldn't be an issue when all a puncturing weapon does is act like a wounder with 3 clickies of "drain 1d6 CON per rest". It would become less effective of a tactic if mobs actually had to make concentration checks as well.

[Samadhi]

Couple points:

1) More dispelling? Only if they bring in the spell from PnP that offers us some protection from dispelling. All dispelling does is further separate the gap from the well equipped and poorly equipped players - because now Bill, with every item in the game, no longer has the buffs he didn't really need to begin with, just moves some equipment around and does fine. Ted, however, is dead three times halfway through the dungeon because he really needed those buffs to be successful.

2) Varied mob variety? Eh - I just remember the ABSURD reaver and ooze combo of threnal too well. I, personally, am a fan of realistic to PnP mob groupings - not absurd mixtures just to have variety. Now, variation BY QUEST I wholly agree with.

3) Inflated mob HP is not the answer? Actually, it kind of is. Otherwise, spellcasters once again become absurdly overpowered compared to melees. The "wear down" model has its benefits.

4) Blanket Immunities Bad? COMPLETELY AGREE (and also think its ********). I agree with many of your points, but this one deserved special attention :D

[QuantumFX]

2) Varied mob variety? Eh - I just remember the ABSURD reaver and ooze combo of threnal too well. I, personally, am a fan of realistic to PnP mob groupings - not absurd mixtures just to have variety. Now, variation BY QUEST I wholly agree with.

Meh... DDO Warforged and Rust Monsters living together in harmony deserves the capitalized ABSURD descriptor. In comparison, Reavers and oozes are only worth a lower cased absurd or possibly a capitolized ILLOGICAL descriptor. ;)

[sirgog]

Couple points:

1) More dispelling? Only if they bring in the spell from PnP that offers us some protection from dispelling. All dispelling does is further separate the gap from the well equipped and poorly equipped players - because now Bill, with every item in the game, no longer has the buffs he didn't really need to begin with, just moves some equipment around and does fine. Ted, however, is dead three times halfway through the dungeon because he really needed those buffs to be successful.

2) Varied mob variety? Eh - I just remember the ABSURD reaver and ooze combo of threnal too well. I, personally, am a fan of realistic to PnP mob groupings - not absurd mixtures just to have variety. Now, variation BY QUEST I wholly agree with.

3) Inflated mob HP is not the answer? Actually, it kind of is. Otherwise, spellcasters once again become absurdly overpowered compared to melees. The "wear down" model has its benefits.

4) Blanket Immunities Bad? COMPLETELY AGREE (and also think its ********). I agree with many of your points, but this one deserved special attention :D

Couple of comments:

1) Agree Ablation would be good if Dispelling becomes more common. IMO Dispelling is fine, however, as the Xoriat wing of the Subterrane shows that characters without uber gear can do just fine under conditions of frequent dispelling.

2) Definitely agree - mad mob combinations are not good. I'm more thinking of having, instead of four Fire Giant Warriors, you have one Fire Giant Forgepriest, two Fire Giant Warriors, and one Fire Giant Beserker.

3) Spellcasters become better than melees as HP go up, as crowd control spells get better and better at dealing with mobs. Run a Sor12 around solo in the Gianthold quests, and you'll find that, except for bosses, you'll almost never need a single spell save for Mass Suggestion. Were mob HP scores lower, melees could solo these quests pretty easily too - but when Arcanes can fire off mass save-or-be-neutralised spells, they often can't care less about those HP. (It's mob saves and SR that make life hard for an arcane and help the melees keep up).
Mod 4 type HP make nuking a pretty tough strategy to get much out of.

[Turial]

Ditch Crit Rage, don't allow FE feats to stack and ignore the drama queen antics of all the MMO raised crybabies. Problem solved.

When did FE feats start stacking? If they did then all rangers would likely have evil, chaotic, and lawful outsiders as 3 of their FE vs just evil outsiders as many have now to cover the whole range of outsiders minus 1 or 2.

[QuantumFX]

When did FE feats start stacking? If they did then all rangers would likely have evil, chaotic, and lawful outsiders as 3 of their FE vs just evil outsiders as many have now to cover the whole range of outsiders minus 1 or 2.

That's not what I'm saying. In DDO at lvl 15 ranger you have +8 damage on 4 FEs before enhancements. In P&P it would be +2 on 4 FEs and 3 increases of +2 to your list.

EDIT:

This will explain things better

Favored Enemy (Ex)
At 1st level, a ranger may select a type of creature from among those given on Table: Ranger Favored Enemies. The ranger gains a +2 bonus on Bluff, Listen, Sense Motive, Spot, and Survival checks when using these skills against creatures of this type. Likewise, he gets a +2 bonus on weapon damage rolls against such creatures.

At 5th level and every five levels thereafter (10th, 15th, and 20th level), the ranger may select an additional favored enemy from those given on the table. In addition, at each such interval, the bonus against any one favored enemy (including the one just selected, if so desired) increases by 2.

If the ranger chooses humanoids or outsiders as a favored enemy, he must also choose an associated subtype, as indicated on the table. If a specific creature falls into more than one category of favored enemy, the ranger’s bonuses do not stack; he simply uses whichever bonus is higher.

[sirgog]

When did FE feats start stacking? If they did then all rangers would likely have evil, chaotic, and lawful outsiders as 3 of their FE vs just evil outsiders as many have now to cover the whole range of outsiders minus 1 or 2.

That's a pretty common misconception, however, the idea that they stack.

[Venar]

Well written post. I mostly agree.
But i must say i have found a lot of varied encouters.
Take gianthold. Most groups is 1-2 melee giant, 1 frost giant, and 1 storm giant.
The bosses are a dragon + a giant. Nice.
In Rainbow, you have earth elem, rusties, bats, beholder, golems, stone scorps, gelly cubes, and devils, a Gnoll tribe (casters, ranged, and melee) and a fire elemental boss. I hardly see how you can make this more varied.
Sleeping Dust offers no-kill mobs, ogre duos of melee + magi, some bats, rats, and Rakshasas, with a protect the queen encouter. Once again, rather varied IMO.

[wrinyn]

Couple points:

1) More dispelling? Only if they bring in the spell from PnP that offers us some protection from dispelling. All dispelling does is further separate the gap from the well equipped and poorly equipped players - because now Bill, with every item in the game, no longer has the buffs he didn't really need to begin with, just moves some equipment around and does fine. Ted, however, is dead three times halfway through the dungeon because he really needed those buffs to be successful.

Unless, a Mob can dispel items for "x" amount of seconds, similar to how shattermantle works. This may be a house rule but the Dev's have made many of their own so far. Previous ideas of having Mobs self buffed if they've rung the gong and other such things would work because it makes you take out the scouts early. Yes, once the quest is learned this becomes easier but still there is that element of tactical work.


2) Varied mob variety? Eh - I just remember the ABSURD reaver and ooze combo of threnal too well. I, personally, am a fan of realistic to PnP mob groupings - not absurd mixtures just to have variety. Now, variation BY QUEST I wholly agree with.

Variety of mob classes would be a boon....Two clerics that buff and heal, a caster, a barbarian for melee damage and a lead fighter....for example....It would truly make tactics worthwhile....


3) Inflated mob HP is not the answer? Actually, it kind of is. Otherwise, spellcasters once again become absurdly overpowered compared to melees. The "wear down" model has its benefits.

As unpopular as it is, give spell casters metamagic based on level and more variety in their spell choices based on situational battles. Somewhat inflated mob hp's will be necessary, but if you truly plan the encounters, using all the tricks that a class has at it's disposal, the battles become challenging but fun....

4) Blanket Immunities Bad? COMPLETELY AGREE (and also think its ********). I agree with many of your points, but this one deserved special attention :D

Yes blanket immunities become bad.....temporary immunities due to protections and other spells such as minor globe or globe of invulnerability coupled with an acid cloud and firewall tends to make things more interesting.

[sirgog]

Well written post. I mostly agree.
But i must say i have found a lot of varied encouters.
Take gianthold. Most groups is 1-2 melee giant, 1 frost giant, and 1 storm giant.
The bosses are a dragon + a giant. Nice.
In Rainbow, you have earth elem, rusties, bats, beholder, golems, stone scorps, gelly cubes, and devils, a Gnoll tribe (casters, ranged, and melee) and a fire elemental boss. I hardly see how you can make this more varied.
Sleeping Dust offers no-kill mobs, ogre duos of melee + magi, some bats, rats, and Rakshasas, with a protect the queen encouter. Once again, rather varied IMO.

Although Rainbow and Sleeping Dust are pretty varied, I don't think that really applies to much in the Gianthold (talking about all of the quests and the preraid here)

Almost all of the mobs there share one glaring weakness - extremely low Will saves. Almost all of them share three strengths - high attack accuracy (rendering medium-level AC irrelevant), savage crits (which can be negated through fortification) and high melee damage output.

This is true of the Fire Giants, the Cloud Giants, the Minotaurs, the Spiders (although they are immune to many Will save effects), the Trolls, the Hobgoblins, the Orcs and more. Even though the encounters vary, most of them involve casting an AOE Will save spell (with Discoball being the #1 choice for most groups, although I personally prefer Suggestion on one foe), then killing the mobs, then repeating.

Some of Rainbow's variety is of the frustrating variety - particularly the Rust Monsters, which are a foe that few players like to fight as they aren't hard to kill, but they can be very frustrating if they hit you a few times. The rest of the quest is IMO very well designed.

[Turial]

That's a pretty common misconception, however, the idea that they stack.

Yeah, I thought we dispelled that rumor a while back.

[Borror0]

You make a lot of good points, most with which I agree. However, I have some hesitations.

If I add nothing that means I totally agree.


Frequently encountering foes with 25-75% fortification means that melee Rogues can still be useful

I'd put it between 25%-50% is enough. 50% is taking 20 points away from a non-halfling DPS, that's a lot.

I understand what you're trying to do and I agree, but unless you give rogues something to bypass that fortification (and that in itself wouldn't be a bad idea) you're going to nerf them severely and that's something one would want to avoid. Rogues are already seen from a bad eye by most PuGs. If you hurt them furthermore... it won't be pretty.


Definitely stay away from quests that are almost all undead/constructs, however, as these make several characters very very weak, making it extremely hard for them to get a group.

I have been thinking of two lines of enhancements by the mindset of 4th Edition where rogues can sneak attack undeads and constructs. One should be added, the other should be simply a revamp of Rogue Wrack Construct. Obviously, one specialized for undeads and another one specialized for constructs.

Rogue Undead Smiting I
Cost: 2 Action Points
Prereqs: Rogue Level 7, Rogue Sneak Attack Accuracy II, Rogue Sneak Attack Training III
Benefit: Your rogue can now deal 2d6 sneak attack damage to undeads.


Rogue Undead Smiting II
Cost: 4 Action Points
Prereqs: Rogue Level 14, Rogue Sneak Attack Training IV, Rogue Undead Smiting I
Benefit: Your rogue can now deal 3d6 sneak attack damage to undeads.


Rogue Undead Smiting III
Cost: 6 Action Points
Prereqs: Rogue Level 20, Rogue Sneak Attack Accuracy III, Rogue Undead Smiting II
Benefit: Your rogue can now deal 5d6 sneak attack damage to undeads.


Then, do the very same for constructs to replace Rogue Wrack Construct.


Stop using ridiculous mob HP as a way to balance otherwise weak encounters. [...] More viable tactics = more game balance and more fun, IMO.

While I do agree with your point, I don't totally agree with the justification.

Simply put, stat damage, Vorpal and other insta-kill are not the most fun ways to kill mobs. If you swing at a mob for 20 hits to then see him die randomly, you don't get any enjoyment from it. Heck, I don't think you even useful. I know I don't. When I kill a mob and see the HP going down FAST it's cool. You know your contribution. I don't know if others are like that, but that's the reason I dislike Vorpal. Sure, once in a while you one-shot the mob... but...

But also, there is the fact it renders spell DPS totally useless. You can throw a FB to take some of their HP away. It's useless! You just throw CC, maybe spam Finger of Death hoping to break through their SR and high fort saves... not really fun from the perspective of a caster either. Of course, some may enjoy it but that's not everyone.


In a similar vein, keep up the current variety in mob SR. Have some trash mobs that a battlecleric with no Spell Pen feats can reasonably hope to Destruct (say SR 20, unimpressive saves) and some that are pretty hard to land anything on (SR 30, impressive saves).

I just want to say I really, really agree here. Some mobs should be easy to affect with spells once in a while...


Avoid using Air Elementals to hinder melees.

There should be a better system to resist them... that should be the real fix to this. Bot other than that, I agree.


Use less energy immunities and more energy resistances at endgame.

I'm thinking of energy absorption rather.

You see, part of the HP inflating was to fight back the ever-nuking sorcerer from Module 5. They wanted to make sure a sorcerer wouldn't have it as easy as in Module 5, so they added fire immune mobs with tons and tons of HP. I'm just saying that if they are worried about the amount of DPS sorcerer can put out in an instance they could always give some of them energy absorption.


Sparingly use no-rez zones like the Reaver/Shroud 4 "Idiot Boxes". Again, challenge for fun, not frustration. When carefully used these add a lot to the game, when overused, they bore people to tears. In particular, having a Reaver-style "Escape from the Idiot Box" optional is a great idea.

I like the idea of giving players in the idiot box something to do meanwhile. Be it a way to return to life for as long as there is a party member alive outside of the idiot box or something to do to help the fight be a bit easier if they happen to die. Waiting is not fun, it's not something Dev should spam, as you said, but the idea of make deaths matter more is attractive. So, punishing them but still giving them something to do meanwhile could be one way of doing it.

[Thrudh]

I like the idea of giving players in the idiot box something to do meanwhile. Be it a way to return to life for as long as there is a party member alive outside of the idiot box or something to do to help the fight be a bit easier if they happen to die. Waiting is not fun, it's not something Dev should spam, as you said, but the idea of make deaths matter more is attractive. So, punishing them but still giving them something to do meanwhile could be one way of doing it.

Maybe instead of placing them in an Idiot box where they can do nothing... Send them somewhere else and raise them (ala Shroud Part 5), and then the character can find his way back to the party... Maybe a maze, maybe some monsters, maybe a puzzle, maybe just a long walk back....

[Borror0]

Maybe instead of placing them in an Idiot box where they can do nothing... Send them somewhere else and raise them (ala Shroud Part 5), and then the character can find his way back to the party... Maybe a maze, maybe some monsters, maybe a puzzle, maybe just a long walk back....

That was what I had in mind, more or so. Either way, they are in a 'penalty area', but still alive.

The Reaver was a bad example of a way of rescuing party members from the box because when you can get them out of there, you can also complete the quest so... not very effective.

[Wizzly_Bear]

..

[Borror0]

They could also scale back their sps a bit. As is they have a higher ratio against wizards than in pnp.
That's not the problem. There were ever nuking wizards too. Was a tad harder, but it wasn't sorcerer themselves that was overpowered but nuking that was.

As far a wizard/sorcerer balance, I blame tier III Shroud items, lack of good level 8 spells, and mid-adapted enhancements for wizard so called 'versatility'. Let's face it, spellcasters' enhancement force into specialization and doesn't reward versatility in anyway. Even if there are mobs with different weaknesses, the enhancement system reward specialization better. Wizards would need a little love in the way of a enhancement revamp, IMO.

[Wizzly_Bear]

..

[SableShadow]

Far simpler to institute damage/stat/skill/save caps and player templates. The essential problem is the overall range between 'best spec' and casual. (see CoX 'Enhancement Diversification' for their solution to this problem).

As for giving *more* monsters immunity or partial immunity to sneak attack...no.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I started a post where I suggested that the devs do the exact opposite, and make mobs immune to alot of popular player tactics and min/maxed builds.

But what I would really like to see is more variety, and some way of making non min/maxed builds, non W/P or other uber weps required to complete quests.

The Op's ideas are good for that I think.

We should have some mobs we can beat up on with ease, and some that make us cringe in fear.

We should have alternatives to beating on them with the biggest barb we can find for hours.....

I understand the Pit Fiend's high HP, but I don't understand why it take my lvl 16 guy 3 hits to kill an elite Harbor Kobold. That just seems rediculous to me.

I like a challenge.
I don't like not being able to complete it because I'm not Superman with a party of 11 other Kryptonians.

But I'd like to feel like Superman on occasion too.
Games are supposed to be fun.

Variety is best IMO.

And finding a way to make challenging monsters without super HP is a great idea.

Also make more mobs that do not hit as well......thus making AC useful.

Yes, we can hit anything (or at least are melees can) so the bad guys should be able to hit us too.
But AC should matter more than it does right now.

Not against the Pit Fiend......
But his lackies are another story.

Give the bad guys more buffs, that we can either take off or have a chance to kill them before they can cast them.

Give some Fort

Add more trash mobs and add more sub-bosses.

things like that.

[Borror0]

This is the same problem you see with fighters being gimped.
The issue with fighter's versatility is much more content based than anything.

[Lithic]

I understand the Pit Fiend's high HP, but I don't understand why it take my lvl 16 guy 3 hits to kill an elite Harbor Kobold. That just seems rediculous to me.


I don't understand your point with this line. You think it should take less than 3 hits to kill an elite kobold at lvl 16? I know a rogue can kill them often in just one sneak attack as can most barbs. Now an elite kobold warrior or shaman may have just enough HP to take 2 non-crit hits from plain +5 weapons, though I doubt it.

Or you think it should take MORE hits? Why? At lowbie levels when you see the kobolds it takes 5-10swings to kill them on elite. If anything, the harbour is quite well balanced IMO, and i'm a reroll-a-holic so I spend lots of time there.

[Wizzly_Bear]

..

[Borror0]

How so? I'm of the opinion that fighter's gimpiness comes from lack of a wide enough selection of viable feats, feats being their specialization.

The small selection of feats hurts the possible quantity of builds.
The low power of feats and strong power of enhancements hurt the fighter's strength/power.

The fact that a fighter build cannot be as versatile as it should be comes mostly from the content.

Don't know if my explanations are clear enough though...

[kingfisher]

Have some mobs come pre-buffed, as if they knew you were coming. I never understood why with a bunch of mob casters around, none of them were buffed. When the kobolds in the harbor bang that gong it should be a warning for mob casters to get everyone prepared. You could do the same on high end content. Take out a sentry stealthily and they don't get buffed. Let them sound a warning and they all come out buffed, just like we do.

HERE HERE!

watching an troll/hobgoblin shaman etc cast bulls strength on his nearly dead compadre is laughable. we dont need tougher mobs we need smarter ones.

[sirgog]

HERE HERE!

watching an troll/hobgoblin shaman etc cast bulls strength on his nearly dead compadre is laughable. we dont need tougher mobs we need smarter ones.

Agreed.

Having sentries that ring a bell and set an entire complex on alert is IMO the best way to handle this. Kill all the sentries, and the later fights are easy. Fail to kill them, and you are dealing with foes with GH, Stoneskin, all 5 Resist Energy and all 5 Protection from Energy spells, Deathward, Invisibilty, Haste, Displacement, yaddayaddayadda - i.e. all the buffs we'd cast on ourselves and some that we wouldn't even bother with.

[efreet5]

Incorrect on the FE Dmg. In PnP it works like this (assuming 15th lvl):

1st favored enemy +5
2nd FE +4
3rd FE +3
4th FE +2

As you can see the dmg scales more for the ones that were picked up earlier. As per the description in the game, it should be working just like this in DDO as well with the addition of +4 dmg from enhancements.

Every time you take a new favored enemy each of the others is given another +1 bonus.

[Borror0]

Incorrect on the FE Dmg. In PnP it works like this (assuming 15th lvl)

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that was only 3.0. It changed in 3.5

[Turial]

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that was only 3.0. It changed in 3.5

Correct, in 3.5 you can choose which FE advance at which times in terms of the bonus you gain. This was done so that players didnt have to try to guess which mobs they would likely face as high level PC's while they were sill low level PC's.

At 1st level, a ranger may select a type of creature from among those given on Table: Ranger Favored Enemies (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/ranger.htm#tableRangerFavoredEnemies). The ranger gains a +2 bonus on Bluff (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/bluff.htm), Listen (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/listen.htm), Sense Motive (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/senseMotive.htm), Spot (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/spot.htm), and Survival (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/survival.htm) checks when using these skills against creatures of this type. Likewise, he gets a +2 bonus on weapon damage rolls against such creatures.
At 5th level and every five levels thereafter (10th, 15th, and 20th level), the ranger may select an additional favored enemy from those given on the table. In addition, at each such interval, the bonus against any one favored enemy (including the one just selected, if so desired) increases by 2.

[sirgog]

Incorrect on the FE Dmg. In PnP it works like this (assuming 15th lvl):

1st favored enemy +5
2nd FE +4
3rd FE +3
4th FE +2

As you can see the dmg scales more for the ones that were picked up earlier. As per the description in the game, it should be working just like this in DDO as well with the addition of +4 dmg from enhancements.

Every time you take a new favored enemy each of the others is given another +1 bonus.


That's wrong. 3.0 worked like that - 3.5 changed it so that you wouldn't be stuck with a +5 bonus that could only be used attacking Kobolds.

[Desteria]

Very well thought out mate I often argure with you over points but i realyl agree with 95% of what you said here.

[Desteria]

That was what I had in mind, more or so. Either way, they are in a 'penalty area', but still alive.

The Reaver was a bad example of a way of rescuing party members from the box because when you can get them out of there, you can also complete the quest so... not very effective.

ohhh put a secodn mini mastermind puzzle in the idiot box that on solving raises you and cna do doen while in ghoste form it rerandomizes when solved :)

I love mastermind proyll the main reaosn i run reaver still well that and +3 tomes never drop for me so i still need a TONE :(