Bring Iterative Attack Penalties to DDO, to PCs and Mobs

[KKDragonLord]

Something that just came to mind, is that the iterative attacks on D&D served the purpose of balancing AC in that, a monster could hit you on its 1st attack, but all the other attacks would have less chances to land, this made AC more balanced in the way that even not Full AC Build characters managed to get Some use out of their AC. On the Monster side, that meant that High AC enemies would only be hit consistently on the first couple attacks.

I never thought much about that before but now i see how the loss of this mechanic wasn't a very good idea to DDO.
The reason why monsters have absurd amounts of hit points is because DPS characters can always hit them as long as they dont roll a 1. This has changed somewhat in Epic, i know, with monsters that actually have good enough AC against the first attacks, and who can hit even Full AC Builds consistenly (making several of those builds obsolete).

We have grazing hits, i know, but that doesn't really cut it...
Missing attacks is important to D&D, especially given the limited range of 2-19 on the D20, which makes AC balance mostly impossible. Maybe its time to start considering giving monster and player attacks iterative penalties as in PnP.

I don't like missing as much as anyone, but it should be a part of the game and it can make the game better, these things are way more important i believe, and i think we can get used to it.

[Visty]

so you cancel your animation chain after the first attack and attack everytime at your full bonus?
no thanks

[Symar-FangofLloth]

So, if my attack chain changed from
+0/+0/+5/+10/+15
to
+0/+0/-5/-10/-15

Why would I ever want to use the additional attacks? I'll just stop/shield block/run for a second to break my chain, and then repeat. I could also save tons of feats by not taking ITWF and GTWF, because I won't bother with those attacks in the chain.


Edit to add:
And that's exactly what happened early game, when they *did* have penalties instead of bonuses. I wasn't there, but I've seen videos.

[KKDragonLord]

so you cancel your animation chain after the first attack and attack everytime at your full bonus?
no thanks

Thats true, for it to work, the Twich trick would have to be removed entirely from the game and this would require changing the attack speed, making iterative attacks faster than the first blows, and special attacks would also have to follow those limits.

Its a major change i understand and i suppose no one would see its benefits.

nvm then... lets just stick with what we have...
At least now i understand why the game is broken in some areas...

[SableShadow]

Thats true, for it to work, the Twich trick would have to be removed entirely from the game

It's not even about the twitch tricks.

Even if you remove all twitches, mobility and positioning are pretty **** good defenses most of the time...and this is an important game feature.

An incrementing to hit at least creates some situations in which standing and completing a chain beats running around and wacking, not many, but some.

[KKDragonLord]

It's not even about the twitch tricks.

Even if you remove all twitches, mobility and positioning are pretty **** good defenses most of the time...and this is an important game feature.

An incrementing to hit at least creates some situations in which standing and completing a chain beats running around and wacking, not many, but some.

But what if, lets say, the attack rate went from 40 per minute in a block, attack, block routine to 140 per minute in a full attack chain routine? (this is just an example)

More attacks also improve odds of critical hits and even if you only had 50% chance to land the last few attacks it would still be better to complete the chain.

And if monsters had Iterative attacks, they didnt have to wait until Epic to have a decent chance to hit a character with 80+ AC, and the guy with 60 AC would still be missed every now and then.

[Cyr]

Thats true, for it to work, the Twich trick would have to be removed entirely from the game and this would require changing the attack speed, making iterative attacks faster than the first blows, and special attacks would also have to follow those limits.


This right here is the core problem with DDO attack mechanics. Too much of game mechanics have been dictated by animation speeds instead of animation speeds being dictated by game mechanics. A better way to work AC's and to hits would have been the reductive method where breaking an attack cycle is impossible. In other words, no twitch movement to break an attack cycle...maybe break the animation off, but the attack goes through as normal if animation is too hard to work out. Then when you are stationary have your attack rate increase and when you are moving have it decrease.

Swing once, no penalty to hit. Wait X mS before next attack can happen based upon if you are moving or not and your attack rate (BAB, TEMPEST...) Next attack no matter what you did in between is -5 to hit. Next attack is -10. Next is -15. Next is -20. Then you go back to no penalty. This would effectively increase the usuable AC range against any particular mob by 20. It would also allow for mobs to have chances to actually miss you on EPIC if you have an AC build. Finally, it would give the devs an excuse to remove the abomination that is grazing blows since there would be a much wider viable AC range...in fact so wide that most toons could be in it.

Of course this would REQUIRE that the developers rework mob base to hits and AC's to reflect this to maintain an appropriate challenge. It would also ideally involve a rework of mob hit points and damage per strike numbers in some cases if done correctly.

[KKDragonLord]

A better way to work AC's and to hits would have been the reductive method where breaking an attack cycle is impossible. In other words, no twitch movement to break an attack cycle...maybe break the animation off, but the attack goes through as normal if animation is too hard to work out.

Yep Your method would be even better.

[gavagai]

Why not scrap penalties and benefits altogether, and just have the attack rate increase over the course of the animation?

1........... 2.......... 3......... 4...... 5.... 6... 7... 8

[KKDragonLord]

Why not scrap penalties and benefits altogether, and just have the attack rate increase over the course of the animation?

1........... 2.......... 3......... 4...... 5.... 6... 7... 8

Lowering the attack rate is not really a good thing, it would only be acceptable as a necessary evil.

the penalties or benefits woud be there there to help balancing the AC mechanic.
and the bonuses are there to make players stand still while they fight, to complete the attack sequence animation.
(twitching is still best for THF though and the bonuses dont matter much when you can hit even with the -4 for movement)

[Gercho]

maybe its not a great idea for chars, but could be done for creatures, give creatures more attacks per cycle, but with penalties after the first attack, that way, an ac 50 can be better than an ac 10, a wider range of ac numbers will be usefull...

[gavagai]

Lowering the attack rate is not really a good thing, it would only be acceptable as a necessary evil.

the penalties or benefits woud be there there to help balancing the AC mechanic.
and the bonuses are there to make players stand still while they fight, to complete the attack sequence animation.

I was thinking by eliminating the iterative bonus to-hit, you'd be making AC more of an obstacle. But you also remove the incentive to not interrupt attacks.

The rebalancing of the attack animations (to get most of your attacks late in cycle) was merely one way replace that incentive to break the attack chain and make feats like GTHF and GTWF meaningful.

Of course, modifying the animation speed will probably be as difficult as making attack chains non-interruptable. So it probably falls pretty low on the "realistic solutions" meter. :)

[SableShadow]

But what if, lets say, the attack rate went from 40 per minute in a block, attack, block routine to 140 per minute in a full attack chain routine? (this is just an example)

And the pendulum swings. :) If standing still equates to higher attack rates, people will go from standing still occasionally for those times they need the extra to hit bonus to standing still all the time...because more hits is always better hits.


A better way to work AC's and to hits would have been the reductive method where breaking an attack cycle is impossible.

Maaaaybe. Heck of a lotta work, when you factor in all the individual rebalancing.

Either option would be a sweet buff to Tumble, tho.

[Impaqt]

Personally, I would of done away with the penalties myself and just left Base attack base attack.....

No negatives.. No Positives.. Bring what ya got.

[Giddlypip]

DDO's core is based off of D&D but I just don't think some things would translate well into DDO. I like the attacks the way they are. Instead of making people miss all the time, which is frustrating, just let them hit and give the monsters high HP like they have. I can understand AC builds frustration in Epics, but I don't think that's a reason to rework the whole melee system. They could just lower the hit bonus of the epic mobs or something (I haven't run many epics so this is based off of things I've heard and read). But anyway, one of my favorite things about this game is throwing on my haste boost and seeing mass amounts of numbers. I assume if they reworked the whole thing to be iterative they would die just the same speed it just won't look at cool, and would be a waste of time programming instead of workin on other stuff that is needed.

Pip

[KKDragonLord]

And the pendulum swings. :) If standing still equates to higher attack rates, people will go from standing still occasionally for those times they need the extra to hit bonus to standing still all the time...because more hits is always better hits.
Standing still while you attack your enemy is not an uncommon thing... in fact, its how we fight most of the time. This would never remove movement from the game because unlike D&D where we move in squares and can stay still during several rounds, in this game you can only hit what you can reach, and chasing the enemy will always be necessary.


Maaaaybe. Heck of a lotta work, when you factor in all the individual rebalancing.

Either option would be a sweet buff to Tumble, tho.

I agree it would be a lot of work, but i think its worthwhile, the AC issue is not all D&D's fault, its DDO's too and this can and should be fixed imo. This is exactly what the devs should have done to fix the whole AC issue, instead of the lame grazing hits mechanic.

[Cyr]

Maaaaybe. Heck of a lotta work, when you factor in all the individual rebalancing.



Yup, it would require a lot of upfront work. This would of course make things easier long term for the developers though as having a viable AC window twice as big as before makes to hits and AC's much more design friendly and more varied.

[Halock]

This right here is the core problem with DDO attack mechanics. Too much of game mechanics have been dictated by animation speeds instead of animation speeds being dictated by game mechanics. A better way to work AC's and to hits would have been the reductive method where breaking an attack cycle is impossible. In other words, no twitch movement to break an attack cycle...maybe break the animation off, but the attack goes through as normal if animation is too hard to work out. Then when you are stationary have your attack rate increase and when you are moving have it decrease.

Swing once, no penalty to hit. Wait X mS before next attack can happen based upon if you are moving or not and your attack rate (BAB, TEMPEST...) Next attack no matter what you did in between is -5 to hit. Next attack is -10. Next is -15. Next is -20. Then you go back to no penalty. This would effectively increase the usuable AC range against any particular mob by 20. It would also allow for mobs to have chances to actually miss you on EPIC if you have an AC build. Finally, it would give the devs an excuse to remove the abomination that is grazing blows since there would be a much wider viable AC range...in fact so wide that most toons could be in it.

Of course this would REQUIRE that the developers rework mob base to hits and AC's to reflect this to maintain an appropriate challenge. It would also ideally involve a rework of mob hit points and damage per strike numbers in some cases if done correctly.

I think alot more work would have to go into a rebalance of this nature than you think, heres the first thing i think when i see this changed.

Monsters attack too slow, this sorta change just makes it so you just have to dodge its first attack then you can go to town for its next followups as they have a much lower chance to connect, and as we get in around 10 attacks for their every 1 ( slight exageration but everyone knows what i mean ) chances are you wont be getting hit at all, even without a super high AC as it'll be dead by the time its next attack chain starts.

I can think o fa few other areas it could cause problems and cause further re balancing, and while i dont necessarily think its a bad idea ( it is that way in d&d for a reason ) i duno if it'll work well for the run and gun type of game that ddo is.

[Cyr]

I think alot more work would have to go into a rebalance of this nature than you think, heres the first thing i think when i see this changed.

Monsters attack too slow, this sorta change just makes it so you just have to dodge its first attack then you can go to town for its next followups as they have a much lower chance to connect, and as we get in around 10 attacks for their every 1 ( slight exageration but everyone knows what i mean ) chances are you wont be getting hit at all, even without a super high AC as it'll be dead by the time its next attack chain starts.

I can think o fa few other areas it could cause problems and cause further re balancing, and while i dont necessarily think its a bad idea ( it is that way in d&d for a reason ) i duno if it'll work well for the run and gun type of game that ddo is.

If your running away from a mob to miss their first attack in sequence you are losing dps in my proposal as you attack slower if you are moving. They could make it even more logical and have the next 5 swings you make slower if you move inbetween swings. If it's one rather weak mob then it's trivial anyways, but groups or stronger mobs would have disadvantages to dps from trying to twitch a lot. As it stands now you now gain both a dps and a reduction to damage suffered bonus from twitching.

[SableShadow]

Standing still while you attack your enemy is not an uncommon thing...

It's the boring part of combat at the cap. One of the things that's truly exciting about epic is the need to move around to avoid being hit, not simply move from mob to mob with the attack button pressed.

Yes, I understand that AC guys want a little somethin' somethin' to keep their builds viable, but there should still be motivation to move about, to get those flank shots, duck the heavy blows, etc etc etc. The d20 AC/to hit system is a powerful hindrance to balancing this all out, unfortunately.

A 300+% (40 to 140) increase in DPS from standing still flips the current epic game from "avoid getting hit" to more of the standard raid yawn of 4-point and swing, and hjeal meh already! Would be a nice bump for Tumble to have both mobility for dodging stuff and DPS from increasing attack rate, sure. However, I'm kinda cautious of using hit rate to try and balance anything...even a 10% alacrity is big enough for people to design whole builds around it. Pull twitch and move an attack hook or two to later in the chain might not be too bad.

Cyr's idea has some promise...just leary of the effort required.

[KKDragonLord]

It's the boring part of combat at the cap. One of the things that's truly exciting about epic is the need to move around to avoid being hit, not simply move from mob to mob with the attack button pressed.

Cyr's idea has some promise...just leary of the effort required.

I agreed with Cyr.

The permanent iterative penalties don't seem to be too hard to apply i think.

What would really be a lot of work, would be the rebalancing (or the actual balancing) of the game to make monsters attack more often, and the AC ranges be more uhm balanced for players and monsters.

The game could change completely if they did that, and i think it would be a much better game in the end.

[SquelchHU]

so you cancel your animation chain after the first attack and attack everytime at your full bonus?
no thanks

Yes. Because forcing everyone to do that stupid twitching is entirely productive and useful. Oh wait... DDO was like that at the beginning, and the devs quickly realized how stupid it was so they put in scaling attack bonuses so you had a reason to stand still.

Not to mention that in normal D&D weapon attacks take high iterative penalties but natural attacks never take more than -5, if that. And that's what most of the bruiser types are using. So hitting is a foregone conclusion and it's just a matter of how hard you're hitting them... you know, just like DDO.

Not signed.

[KKDragonLord]

Yes. Because forcing everyone to do that stupid twitching is entirely productive and useful. Oh wait... DDO was like that at the beginning, and the devs quickly realized how stupid it was so they put in scaling attack bonuses so you had a reason to stand still.

Not to mention that in normal D&D weapon attacks take high iterative penalties but natural attacks never take more than -5, if that. And that's what most of the bruiser types are using. So hitting is a foregone conclusion and it's just a matter of how hard you're hitting them... you know, just like DDO.

Not signed.

You do realize you are restating what visty said right at the beginning right? You also realize the discussion proceeded beyond this point right?

and while D&D rules for NAs was indeed a simple -5, or -2 with multiattack, DDO has a very different attack rate for monsters (cleaving attacks and all that), so if they were to implant iterative attacks to monsters, it would be kind of dumb to do it exactly as in pnp since that would defeat the purpose of iterative attacks entirely and DDO already differs from PnP regarding monster attack rates.

the point is to bring back the sort of balance iterative attacks added to D&D, it's not simple so its best if we try to find the best way to do it instead of just saying "it wont work like this X way so it stinks"

[Kriogen]

Remove iterative to-hit bonus (or penalty) and replace it with damage.

So not 0/0/+5/+10 "to hit", but 0/0/+X/+Y damage if you don't move.

If you want some RP reason, call it: you are more stable, you studied your enemy, you have prepared a more powerfull blow.

To-hit is not a big problem. And if it is, some noobs cry and whine and devs give them Grazing Hits thing. So, why bother with this +tohit or -tohit. Go with what you have (no + or -), but add +damage if you move less.

You don't even have to change animations. It's also easier for begginer to understand. Tohit vs AC is complicated for "other MMO game" players. More damage is simple :)

DPS, damage, big oomph numbers will work. Tohit not.

Edit:
That +X, +Y doesn't have to be +5 or +10, can be less. It can also be different if you have big 2hander or 1hander (TWF) or sword&shield. So it could also be used to balance out combat styles.

[Borror0]

[...] a monster could hit you on its 1st attack, but all the other attacks would have less chances to land, this made AC more balanced in the way that even not Full AC Build characters managed to get Some use out of their AC.
Yes, that is the reason to have iterative attacks on monsters. Currently, the to-hit is fixed which cases problem because there is a very narrow range of Armor Class values that are meaningful. Modifying the attack bonus from attack to attack would widen the range of AC values that are meaningful, making balancing AC far easier.

However, as I am sure Angelus_dead will explain, monsters attack too slowly and generally die too quickly for real iterative attacks to have an effect. Instead of iterative attack, it would be best to implement quasi-iterative attacks where the monster's attack bonus is modified by 1d21-11 (ie any number between +10 and -10). This would achieve the same effect as desired but would do so more effectively.

On the Monster side, that meant that High AC enemies would only be hit consistently on the first couple attacks.
Actually, very little would change because players already have iterative attack bonuses.

The only noticeable change, as others have pointed out, is the fact that we'd go back to early DDO where everyone interrupted their attack chain to only benefit of the high to-hit bonus as well as have a faster attack rate. Meanwhile, there would be no benefit to that change, only negative aspects. It's a bad change.

Lowering the attack rate is not really a good thing
This is probably one of the biggest understatement I read on these forums: lowering the attack rate is so much of a bad idea that, when Turbine tried to in DDO:EU Patch 1, the forums exploded with negative feedback. It's not only "not really a good thing;" it's a terribly bad idea.

[zealous]

From a mechanics perspective, there is absolutely no difference whatsoever between having iterative attack penalties or iterative attack bonus, well kinda at least.

It's just a matter of properly balancing AC against it.
0/0/5/10/10==0/0/-5/-10/-10 + 10, i.e. in this scenario you could chang progressive bonus to regressive bonus and still have the same mechanics, i.e. number of hits on average, by upping AC with 10.

Now +0/+0/+5/+10 is obviously skewed differently than PnP.

Thus changing to hit for players to be progressive was good since it created incentives not to spam the first attack repeatedly, at least in some situations e.g. TS blackguards.



Actually, looking at it entirely objectively and disregarding the specs of the game, breaking the attack chain for an increased attack rate actually makes for PnP fidelity.

In PnP, assuming a certain type of GM, you would only get your full attack chain against a low AC enemy and thus get 4 attacks/round. Against a higher AC target you might only hit some 2/4.

This could, theoretically, be translated to DDO in the way that against a low AC target you can twitch to up your attack rate while against a high AC target you need to stand still to get the higher attack bonus.

I.e. spam the hotbar thingy for your weapon when fighting trolls, stand and swing when facing blackguards.
---
Now mobs not having any attack progression obviously makes the problem with the large numerical difference possible in AC larger, i.e. where would a range of 18 make for a good balance when possible AC is 10-100+. However, if mobs gained progressive attacks, the bonus for certain attacks would have to be extremely large to have any impact.
e.g. mob Y has one attack with +100 tohit that does 1k damage.
---
On the player side of things mob AC is difficult to balance due to a range of 28 being somewhat hard to place properly when tohit can wary so widely depending on party composition/builds/equipment.
---

Possible solutions could be to e.g.
*Give mobs progressive attack bonus/random/warying attack bonus
*Change from linear to log-like or step wise functions

*Change grazing hits to give ~full hits, change glancing blows to only occur on later attacks in the attack chain, make it possible to "twitch" all combat styles, make mobs have a different chance to "grazing hit" on different attacks.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

so you cancel your animation chain after the first attack and attack everytime at your full bonus?
no thanks

They would have to add a "round" factor... In other words your second swing within say 3 seconds would be at the second swing bonus in the attack chain, even if you moved.

OP, I don't see the point personally. Either way you get the same range of to-hit, its just whether its the first or last swing that hits best. AC is out of wack for reasons far more serious than this particular issue.

[KKDragonLord]

Yes, that is the reason to have iterative attacks on monsters. Currently, the to-hit is fixed which cases problem because there is a very narrow range of Armor Class values that are meaningful. Modifying the attack bonus from attack to attack would widen the range of AC values that are meaningful, making balancing AC far easier.

However, as I am sure Angelus_dead will explain, monsters attack too slowly and generally die too quickly for real iterative attacks to have an effect. Instead of iterative attack, it would be best to implement quasi-iterative attacks where the monster's attack bonus is modified by 1d21-11 (ie any number between +10 and -10). This would achieve the same effect as desired but would do so more effectively.


I have been thinking about the Unearthed Arcana Defense Roll option where instead of enemies rolling attack dice, defenders would roll defense dice, this could be applied differently, in that it became an additive thing, players and monsters roll attack, and they also roll defense, effectivley it would be Two d20 rolls, instead of just one, and this could increase the AC range without messing with attack speeds.


Actually, very little would change because players already have iterative attack bonuses.

The only noticeable change, as others have pointed out, is the fact that we'd go back to early DDO where everyone interrupted their attack chain to only benefit of the high to-hit bonus as well as have a faster attack rate. Meanwhile, there would be no benefit to that change, only negative aspects. It's a bad change.
Thanks for elaborating on that, this has been brought up.



This is probably one of the biggest understatement I read on these forums: lowering the attack rate is so much of a bad idea that, when Turbine tried to in DDO:EU Patch 1, the forums exploded with negative feedback. It's not only "not really a good thing;" it's a terribly bad idea.

I know! right?

[knightgf]

This has changed somewhat in Epic, i know, with monsters that actually have good enough AC against the first attacks, and who can hit even Full AC Builds consistenly (making several of those builds obsolete).



This is why I have displacement as my A/C as a bard. And stoneskin when my A/C can be bypassed. And running away when not even stoneskin works. And dying when running away won't even work.

[KKDragonLord]

This is why I have displacement as my A/C as a bard. And stoneskin when my A/C can be bypassed. And running away when not even stoneskin works. And dying when running away won't even work.

Yeah, always wanted to build a battle bard for precisely those reasons, in pnp casters would have unparalleled defense even when naked.

[Borror0]

I have been thinking about the Unearthed Arcana Defense Roll option where instead of enemies rolling attack dice, defenders would roll defense dice, this could be applied differently, in that it became an additive thing, players and monsters roll attack, and they also roll defense, effectivley it would be Two d20 rolls, instead of just one, and this could increase the AC range without messing with attack speeds.
Yeah; it involves replacing the base +10 bonus to AC by a d20 which has the effect of widening the range of meaningful Armor Class. The neatest part about this is that it does not require to reevaluate most monsters' to-hit. It's not a bad change at all - in fact, I suggested it myself a few times in the best - but it will have a much smaller effect than iterative attacks would. It would not be enough on its own to achieve the goal you have in mind.

As for the last comment about attack speeds, I still don't get how you people drew the conclusion that attack speeds would have to modified in some ways...

[Borror0]

Standing still while you attack your enemy is not an uncommon thing... in fact, its how we fight most of the time.
You say that as if that would be a good thing. It's not.

As SableShadow pointed out, it's also the most boring thing at end game. As a result, the game has to force players to move. If that is not accomplished, Turbine is failing terribly at making fun encounters. If DDO's combat is seen as unique and fun to many of us, it's because of how movement-based it is. You don't stand still and activate skills like in other MMOs; here, you move. That's what makes it fun, and stand out.

If DDO fights consisted of standing still, we'd move to other MMOs. About all MMOs have a better combat system than DDO's when standing still.

Because DDO's system is so reliant on movement, there has to be an advantage to attacking while standing still so that we at least consider stopping moving once in a while, to force players to chose between dodging hits or dealing more damage. That's good gameplay. If you need additional reasons, it would be ridiculous that the best strategy to damage a portal would be to run while attacking and it would also be against D&D rules.

[KKDragonLord]

Yeah; it involves replacing the base +10 bonus to AC by a d20 which has the effect of widening the range of meaningful Armor Class. The neatest part about this is that it does not require to reevaluate most monsters' to-hit. It's not a bad change at all - in fact, I suggested it myself a few times in the best - but it will have a much smaller effect than iterative attacks would. It would not be enough on its own to achieve the goal you have in mind.

As for the last comment about attack speeds, I still don't get how you people drew the conclusion that attack speeds would have to modified in some ways...

sooo... you agree that if there was a way to add iterative attacks in a functioning way (including making monsters attack faster or whatever else was necessary) the extra range this could bring would be very beneficial to the game?

As for speeds
Well no one here said anything about making full attack speeds lower than they are.
What has been proposed was to make the attack speed become a component of the iterative attack system in which it would vary if the character completed the attack chain or not. Thus, completing the chain would add more benefit overall than interrupting it.

Then it became the point where people said "standing still all the time stinks" and "moving and twitching all the time stinks". Without ever considering there could be a middle ground.

The better method so far, it seems, was presented by Cyr. The implementation of persistent bonuses, no matter if you move or stand the penalties always happen when you make an attack against an enemy. And as for monster attack rates, it has been suggested from the start that they should increase to make the system viable.

One interesting thing i have realized is that, at first the active combat of ddo included tumbling, blocking, moving away from monsters when they make attacks, thats why i believe the design of monster attacks is as slow as it is, to make people capable of using skill to get better results.

Lately though, monsters hit characters with melee attacks from accross the room and dodging rays is prohibitively difficult most of the time. Either way what im trying to say is that getting back that player skill aspect is not really a bad thing at all.

Yeah people like Shade would be able to never get hit doing Epic naked runs, but us mortals would only manage to reallistically avoid high Hit rate attacks every now and then, combat is extremely hetctic most of the time when it matters.

[zealous]

Yeah; it involves replacing the base +10 bonus to AC by a d20 which has the effect of widening the range of meaningful Armor Class. The neatest part about this is that it does not require to reevaluate most monsters' to-hit. It's not a bad change at all - in fact, I suggested it myself a few times in the best - but it will have a much smaller effect than iterative attacks would. It would not be enough on its own to achieve the goal you have in mind.

As for the last comment about attack speeds, I still don't get how you people drew the conclusion that attack speeds would have to modified in some ways...
Another, possibly easier and better solution would be to...

Simply remap AC and tohit internally and use two sets of numbers; numbers used and numbers shown.

In it's simplest form this could be 5AC on paper=1 real AC. The more advanced version would be to have it change according to mobs faced.

The only caveat with this is that it probably would be easy to spot by players =P


Optionally this could be coupled with adding secondary effects to AC/tohit. This could be in the form of effecting damage dynamicly, i.e. damage is multiplied by tohit/AC, or more staticly, i.e. damage is increased with x% for every y tohit, damage is decreased by j% for every k AC.

[zealous]

Yeah people like Shade would be able to never get hit doing Epic naked runs, but us mortals would only manage to reallistically avoid high Hit rate attacks every now and then, combat is extremely hetctic most of the time when it matters.
In the perfect game this would even be balanced so that while you could make the choice to twitch away from the attack, you wouldn't be able to do damage while avoiding damage. I.e. avoiding attacks would consist of jumping/tumbling away out of attack range, not running circles while swinging or similar.

[KKDragonLord]

In the perfect game this would even be balanced so that while you could make the choice to twitch away from the attack, you wouldn't be able to do damage while avoiding damage. I.e. avoiding attacks would consist of jumping/tumbling away out of attack range, not running circles while swinging or similar.

Tumbling has been a part of several action games for a good while, a fast movement that the character makes to avoid powerful signature attacks, this was its original purpose, but in DDO it doesnt work so well for various obvious reasons.

In other active games like Devil May Cry and Bayonetta though there is a dodge button which makes you dodge if you hit it the moment the attack lands, obviously if something similar was used to represent tumbling it shouldn't be as powerful as full avoidance in DDO, but it could represent acrobatic defense bonuses that exist in PnP, or it could simply make you not attack during it, giving a similar benefit that Blocking gives with perhaps a percentage of damage avoidance or a miss chance, or even really just an AC bonus.

In a similar manner, the Bashing attack could work in a way that it gives the same benefit as blocking but it reflects back a portion of the enemy damage as well, like an active parry, it would be an advanced form of blocking that would require a better timing still.

Certainly doing all that would require the blocking and dodging system to not be disruptive with the attack speeds as it currently is.


BTW jumping is also something widely used in action games, in those games, some enemies or bosses have specific attack powers that work in such a way that jumping is the only way to avoid them. Like Stomping attacks that you have to be out of the ground, and continual rays that you have to jump above its path etc... (mega man comes to mind)

[Borror0]

sooo... you agree that if there was a way to add iterative attacks in a functioning way (including making monsters attack faster or whatever else was necessary) the extra range this could bring would be very beneficial to the game?
Of course. I have been asking Turbine to add iterative attacks to monsters for nearly three years now.

As for speeds
Well no one here said anything about making full attack speeds lower than they are.
What has been proposed was to make the attack speed become a component of the iterative attack system in which it would vary if the character completed the attack chain or not. Thus, completing the chain would add more benefit overall than interrupting it.

Then it became the point where people said "standing still all the time stinks" and "moving and twitching all the time stinks". Without ever considering there could be a middle ground.
Okay. I see where the problem is: you didn't abandon your iterative attack bonuses on players yet. There is literally no need nor benefit into changing player characters' iterative attack bonuses and I challenge you to prove otherwise. All that you might want to propose as a benefit is already taken care of by the current design.

The only problem, as I said before, is with the monsters who still have a static attack bonus.

One interesting thing i have realized is that, at first the active combat of ddo included tumbling, blocking, moving away from monsters when they make attacks, thats why i believe the design of monster attacks is as slow as it is, to make people capable of using skill to get better results.
That's correct. Notice, though, that in the most cases it amounts to nothing because attacks are typically not visible enough or not threatening enough. Turbine got that right only on a few monster, such as minotaurs where the attack is visible and threatening enough to react to the monster's actions. The rest of the time, we don't bother.

That can be fixed by giving each (or many) monster type a special attack that is slow of execution but that is devastating.

Nerfing fortification to enable critical hits on players so that individual hits are viewed as more threatening, while keeping the general damage output low, would help too. Of course, that would be unpopular with some because that's taking away their easy button.

Either way what im trying to say is that getting back that player skill aspect is not really a bad thing at all.
I agree. I'm not sure how you are trying to accomplish that.

[Poffel]

It's the boring part of combat at the cap. One of the things that's truly exciting about epic is the need to move around to avoid being hit, not simply move from mob to mob with the attack button pressed.I think that the active combat system is one of DDO's strongest selling points, and thus party agree with you. But on the other hand, AC is a score that reflects the *character's* ability to move around to avoid being hit. So while not every movement is visually displayed for us, the combat at cap is not as boring as it looks... Just pick a character with evasion and put him in the trap at the lever in VoN 4, and you'll see that the fact that those evasive maneuvers aren't visually displayed, doesn't mean that the character is just standing there.

[Cyr]

Another way to address this concern about the limit of useful AC range which would require less coding is to de-link mob to hits from the d20 entirely. This would not hurt DnD flavor since you don't see the mob d20 anyways.

Instead make mob attack roles follow a bell curve with it's center as it's base to hit +10. For those less literate in math speak let me explain. A bell curve is a statistical distribution which graphs the odds of something happening on the Y axis versus some raw number or event. So in our case the raw number would be the monster's attack role. It is called a bell curve because it looks like a bell, so that the thing that is most likely to happen is the top of the bell and on either side it gets less and less likely for something to happen. In our case, it would be much more likely for a mob's attack role to be near what it's average is now but it could roll much higher or lower then what happens now. This would expand the range of useful player AC's.

Another thing that could be done with this system is to recode fortification on players to instead provide bonuses to AC versus a critical confirmation and on the base attack for sneak damage (where if they hit your modified AC they do sneak damage and if they only hit your normal AC they only do normal damage). This would allow for the lowering of base monster damage per swing since criticals at high levels would still be possible (as A_D has often promoted due to spike damage being much more interesting then steady damage). It would also provide more reasons to keep a decent AC with middle AC toons instead of dump stating AC completely on everyone, but AC builds.

[KKDragonLord]

Another way to address this concern about the limit of useful AC range which would require less coding is to de-link mob to hits from the d20 entirely. This would not hurt DnD flavor since you don't see the mob d20 anyways.


Yes, one of few great changes 4e D&D added was the near complete disconnection from Player Stats and Monster Stats, which allows whatever is necessary to make the encouter challenging and a lot of tweaking by the DM. (the bad points of 4e are not a part of this discussion though).

In 4e a lvl 8 elite orc shaman for example doesnt need to wear a fullplate (or have monk levels) to have a very high ac, he is just that good.

[zealous]

That's correct. Notice, though, that in the most cases it amounts to nothing because attacks are typically not visible enough or not threatening enough. Turbine got that right only on a few monster, such as minotaurs where the attack is visible and threatening enough to react to the monster's actions. The rest of the time, we don't bother.

That can be fixed by giving each (or many) monster type a special attack that is slow of execution but that is devastating.

well...didn't it use to be a bit better?

http://community.codemasters.com/forum/suggestions-forum-431/273652-bring-back-real-time-combat.html
http://community.codemasters.com/forum/combat-general-discussion-402/259385-big-flaw-disparity-engine-graphics.html

Can't really recall accurately but I think you used to be able to twitch away from e.g. giant stomps and block/twitch giants swings as well as ogres tripple bash of lowbie doom.

Mobs having different moving and stand still attacks, even if only "beneath the hood", i.e. different tohit/damage not animation, would be good.

Having decreased movement speed while swinging would also be quite good.


Yes, one of few great changes 4e D&D added was the near complete disconnection from Player Stats and Monster Stats, which allows whatever is necessary to make the encouter challenging and a lot of tweaking by the DM.
A GM can do the same thing in 3.5 and the reasons for that being a bad idea remains the same.
e.g. I can create a custom class for orcs being the exact same as some other class but give +50AC and +500hp at first level.

Sure it's easier to just give mobs blanket inflated stats, a creative GM can use knowledge of the system to create as crazy-broken builds as the players and moreover control the environments of the encounters to create situations favorable for either side.

[KKDragonLord]

A GM can do the same thing in 3.5 and the reasons for that being a bad idea remains the same.
e.g. I can create a custom class for orcs being the exact same as some other class but give +50AC and +500hp at first level.

Sure it's easier to just give mobs blanket inflated stats, a creative GM can use knowledge of the system to create as crazy-broken builds as the players and moreover control the environments of the encounters to create situations favorable for either side.

Sure you can create anything out of thin air in whatever RPG system, 4e is designed for it way more than 3e is though.

You don't expect Turbine devs to be this skillful as DMs do you?
There arent even any Monk/mummys out there