Combat Feedback for Update 5.

[Gobbothegreen]

are they nerfing thf or are they making thf and twf kinda equal?
thf looses abit damage cause no twitching but twf looses some too cause of less hits

in the end they might be balanced now without relying on twitch

Yeah, thats kinda what i tried to say but it came out in a hard to understand way, i only hope tempest wont get hit as hard as it seems like it will now.

[akiraproject24]

Hmmm...haste run speed got the nerf
dungeon alert implemented
now our attack speed is getting the nerf


Im sick of being slowed down...

When the cap was raised to 20 your hardware should have been upgraded to meet the performance requirements that would enable lvl 20 characters to perform as intended. This entire idea is unacceptable...not that anyone cares but when this nerf takes place I will cease paying for this game any longer..Ive sat through the nerfs since the cap was 10 remember human adaptability was passive...well since then thru the years Ive watched the nerfs take place and have adapted to them, mod 9 killed our movement speed and effectiveness of stat damagers, and now our attacks are going to be hit...thats will be the straw that breaks this camels back.

[Zerkul]

I don't like this change. I didn't like grazing hit system too... but this percentage of proc offhand attacks sounds to me ridicolous really: what's next?

[Raveolution]

I don't like this change. I didn't like grazing hit system too... but this percentage of proc offhand attacks sounds to me ridicolous really: what's next?

Agree at 100% all this sucks, is **** !!

[akiraproject24]

I don't like this change. I didn't like grazing hit system too... but this percentage of proc offhand attacks sounds to me ridicolous really: what's next?

ill tell ya whats next...

"Since your characters are too overpowered and our last attempt to fix it was unsuccseful we are asking that all players stop fighting monsters as our system cannot handle the load. Please just stand still and be very quiet..if you are quiet enough maybe they wont see you. This should stop the lag you are seeing as it will enable our system to process whats actually happening in the game" Thank you and see you in game!

[Pyromaniac]

I'm not a big fan of the changes, as I think within the 60+ pages so far I saw some good suggestions:

1) repeat previous dice rolls
2) combine player dps data and tie it to variables outside of combat. Then use that variable and only have 1 dice roll per attack for damage i.e. with this weapon, this toon does 120-140 damage, random between 120-140 instead of rolling up everything during combat.
3) reduce mob HP by the amount of the nerf to dps\
4) eliminate grazing hits, as it also adds dps lag
5) eliminate DA, because it slows the game down, and you'll need to speed it up to compensate for this DPS slow down. I'm also a fan of turnbased, so we could go to turnbased too :)

Regardless, since this is appearing here, its a done deal.

So I propose this: Allow full Lesser Reincarnation+20 tokens for every existing character. Provide full greensteel deconstruction for every existing character. We can all switch to THF with our SOS and not kill most of our characters.

Wiping out the vast majority of my melee toons isn't making a customer that's going to provide more money. Allow me to fully respec/re-greensteel every character for free might keep me giving more $.

[Cybersquirt]

How about you nerf the greensteel and not the monks.

Here's an idea. How about you start nerfing CASTERS for once.

[akiraproject24]

Hmmm...haste run speed got the nerf
dungeon alert implemented
now our attack speed is getting the nerf


Im sick of being slowed down...

When the cap was raised to 20 your hardware should have been upgraded to meet the performance requirements that would enable lvl 20 characters to perform as intended. This entire idea is unacceptable...not that anyone cares but when this nerf takes place I will cease paying for this game any longer..Ive sat through the nerfs since the cap was 10 remember human adaptability was passive...well since then thru the years Ive watched the nerfs take place and have adapted to them, mod 9 killed our movement speed and effectiveness of stat damagers, and now our attacks are going to be hit...thats will be the straw that breaks this camels back.

This isnt coming from a player with twf main, I actually play 3 thf characters 2 with completed epic sos's/ I also play 4 twf toons so i stand on both sides here. But a DPS nerf is a DPS nerf and it isnt fair to those that have invested the time and money to create our intruments of destruction. 4 years of paying for this game I believe some of that money should have been invested more wisely i.e hardware but instead you expect me to basically pay again by watching my characters cease to perform as I built them to. Can someone say heated! Its taking quite a bit of will power not to make a jack hole of myself here and just accepting a ban in lieu of quitting my sub

[Cybersquirt]

They're continuously "revising" the rules of this game. I'll be interested in seeing the fallout from this move.

[Natashaelle]

I'm REALLY hoping STWF will only require 17 dex.

You're not the only one mate :)

[RangerRat]

One of the major issues that we’ve been working on is the dps lag problem in high level content (especially raid content). We’re attacking this problem from many angles, and since some of the changes we’re considering will have significant impact on many characters, we’re interested in your feedback before it goes to Lamannia or live. We're trying to aggressively attack the issues that cause these lag problems and are interested in feedback regarding how aggressively we should be attempting to tackle them.

My post is a bit more technical than I normally write for public consumption, but I want to make the issues and the reasons we’re considering these changes extremely clear.

Some people may have noticed that problems occur most often when there are many monks or two weapon fighting characters that are loaded with many on-hit effects attacking en masse. These characters currently perform many attacks very quickly, and each attack is pretty heavy performance-wise. Rather than attack the problem by changing common heavy-load equipment, we’ve already taken some steps to optimize the way we perform attacks, and are considering the following changes to reduce overall performance loads:

Currently a single two weapon fighting attack makes a physics detection check with your main hand, followed by a second detection check for your off hand (roughly 0.15 seconds after the first one). Instead of making multiple physics checks, all two weapon fighting attacks (weapons or unarmed) would now make a single check for your main hand attack, and would “piggyback” on that detection check and have a chance to proc (trigger) an off-hand attack based on the number of two weapon fighting feats (or related enhancements) you possess. Off-hand attacks would have a chance to proc on any main hand attack now, instead of being predetermined on certain attacks. Having more TWF feats increases the % chance of proccing an off-hand attack.

We would now assume that if your opponent was within range for your first attack, it will still be in range 0.15 seconds later. We also go about determining whether or not a particular swing gets an off-hand attack in a much cleaner manner than before.

We’re also considering introducing a new mechanic to replace some speed bonus effects, called double strike:

A character with a double strike chance has a chance to make an additional attack roll with their main hand weapon any time they make a main hand attack, on the target of the first attack. (Note that two handed weapons count as “in the main hand” for these purposes.)

The Fighter Alacrity capstone, and the Paladin spell Zeal would be changed to a +10% bonuses to double strike.
A TWF Paladin that Smites something under the effect of Zeal would attack with the main hand, have a 10% chance to attack with the main hand again, and would have a chance (based on TWF feats) to attack with the off hand in one sequence. Level 20 Fighters with the capstone would simply always hit twice 10% of the time with their main hands. For a future update, we’re considering revisiting some old items (such as Jorgundal’s Collar, which currently doesn’t stack with Haste) and replacing the effects with a double strike effect.

For those that are interested in the “how does that help? You’re still making 11 attacks in 10 swings” – double strikes, like the proposed off-hand attacks, would bypass the additional physics detects and secondary characteristics of normal attacks such as glancing blows, while still providing an increase to overall damage over time. It would have the advantage over speed boosts of sometimes proccing on special attacks, and opens up a new itemization and enhancement pathway. (Warchanters, for instance, are likely to end up with a double strike song in a future update.)

Proposed Numbers:
A character with no two weapon fighting feats has a base 20% chance to proc off-hand attacks.
The Two Weapon Fighting feat grants a +15% bonus to proc off-hand attacks.
The Improved Two Weapon Fighting feat grants a +10% bonus to proc off-hand attacks.
The Greater Two Weapon Fighting feat grants a +10% bonus to proc off-hand attacks.
Monk Air stances now grant a +5%/+10%/+15%/+20% insight bonus to the chance to proc off-hand attacks instead of an insight bonus to attack speed. (Enhancement bonus to attack speed remains.)
Ranger Tempest now grants a +10%/+20%/+30% bonus to the chance to proc off-hand attacks when dual wielding instead of a bonus to attack speed or granting additional off-hand attacks.
Monk Air Stance and Ranger Tempest now stack with each other for these purposes.
Attacks with two handed weapons while moving no longer perform Glancing Blows.

Fighter Alacrity (capstone) now grants a +10% bonus to double attack with the main hand instead of a 10% speed increase.
The Paladin spell Zeal now grants a +10% Sacred bonus to double attack with the main hand instead of a 10% speed increase.

Things like the Shield Bonus and to-hit penalty reductions that Tempest grants when wielding two weapons, or the enhancement bonuses to speed from Wind Stance remain unchanged.

For example, a Ranger 18 (Tempest III) / Monk 2 in Wind Stance I would have a 90% chance to proc off-hand attacks per swing, while a completely unskilled character would only generate off-hand attacks 20% of the time. A Monk 20 in Wind Stance IV would have a 75% chance to trigger off-hand attack hooks.

I won’t hide that these proposed changes do reduce the effectiveness of off-hand attacks, which reduces the two weapon fighting style’s extreme dominance over two handed fighting. Skipping the extreme outlier of the Epic Sword of Shadows (we got a little carried away there, didn’t we?), estimated damage output over time for the two styles should be extremely close to each other if we go this route. (Which style is superior ends up being heavily dependent on your character's abilities.)

It’s likely that we’ll change Glancing Blows to operate in a similar manner in the future as well (chance to proc based on feats/enhancements rather than guaranteed on swing X), but right now I have to stay pretty focused on TWF and monk unarmed combat.

These are not the only things we’re currently investigating, and will not solve all of the dps lag issues - it’s one of many steps we’re taking to pursue them. I also highly recommend reading this post and thread ( http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=2374594&postcount=5) - especially the part about intra-DAT fragmentation[step 3] if your install is a year or more old - if you’re suffering serious problems, it may help with some client-side issues.

We wanted to get your reactions and comments to this now though, before (and after) it hits Lamannia.

---

Some sample attack percentages with this system (assuming you took all possible available feats and enhancements) would be:

INVALID CHART FOLLOWS:
Build Main-hand Off-hand
20 Ranger (Tempest 3) 100% 85%
20 Monk (Wind Stance 4) 100% 75%
20 Fighter (Alacrity) 110% 55%
20 Paladin (Zeal) 110% 55%
20 [Other] 100% 55%
12 Ftr/6 Rng/2 Mnk 100% 70%
15 Pal/3 Mnk/2 [Any] (unarmed) 110% 60%
14 Pal/6 Rng 110% 65%
18 Rgr/2 Mnk 100% 90%


---

Edit:
Thanks for the massive amount of feedback all.

We're currently thinking of adjusting the numbers to:



Doublestrike Bonus Main hand Off hand
No feats 0 20% 100% 20%
TWF 0 +20% 100% 40%
ITWF 0 +20% 100% 60%
GTWF 0 +20% 100% 80%
STWF 0 +20% 100% 100%
Tempest I 0 +10% 100% 90%
Tempest II 0 +10% 100% 100%
Tempest III +5%* 0 105% 100%
Wind IV +10% 0 110% 80%
Zeal +10% 0 110% 80%
Alacrity +10% 0 110% 80%
* Only when wielding two weapons.

This set switches Wind Stance and Tempest III to doublestrike bonuses, increases the benefits of the TWF feat chain, and adds an additional feat for high BAB characters.

All of the bottom rows assume that the person has GTWF, except for the STWF row.

All this planning seems great if you were the Government trying to fix the problem. Lets try to nickle dime the public and still make enough money. How much resources are you putting towards the servers? Will it cost to much to fix or add more to it? So we give out players some great stuff, we make them happy and have them spend hours of time creating characters around it, then take it away. We used to call people a name in the 1800 that dealt with the Native Americans the same way. With the over 1 Million subscribers money, upgrade the servers instead of nerfing the players.

[gizmos19]

I don't like this change. I didn't like grazing hit system too... but this percentage of proc offhand attacks sounds to me ridicolous really: what's next?

from a hustlers point of veiw .. i would nurf what 90 of the populus made/make so that way it would force them to reroll or GR TR . thus bringing in a ton of loot . the name of the game is keep pepol rolling new toons .. a remake of old or what ever f-what you spent the last 4 years building . the toon that you said was complet dosent genarte mony .
heres the real fix to lag .. turbine GET N UP GRADE FROM DIAL-UP .. get um cox high speed on demand . they can run 1billon x boxs at the same time .. you cant run 1 mil ppl .

hears what i want from a game . i want to plan my toon and know that when i complet the toon it wont be gimp cuz of a nurf that was needed to line a pockett



thank you roc

[akiraproject24]

from a hustlers point of veiw .. i would nurf what 90 of the populus made/make so that way it would force them to reroll or GR TR . thus bringing in a ton of loot . the name of the game is keep pepol rolling new toons .. a remake of old or what ever f-what you spent the last 4 years building . the toon that you said was complet dosent genarte mony .
heres the real fix to lag .. turbine GET N UP GRADE FROM DIAL-UP .. get um cox high speed on demand . they can run 1billon x boxs at the same time .. you cant run 1 mil ppl .

hears what i want from a game . i want to plan my toon and know that when i complet the toon it wont be gimp cuz of a nurf that was needed to line a pockett



thank you roc

That brings up an excellent point, are we fixing lag, or fixing lag in a way that will line turbines pocket...I believe the answer is apparent.

[Angelus_dead]

It would have the advantage over speed boosts of sometimes proccing on special attacks, and opens up a new itemization and enhancement pathway. (Warchanters, for instance, are likely to end up with a double strike song in a future update.)
I skimmed over this before, but now that I think about it, I recommend against giving Warchanters a Song of Doublestrike.

It could be too powerful, making it hard to balance content against groups both with Warchanter and with other bards, or with Warchanter and with no bard. Of course whether that happens depends on the details of how long Song of Doublestrike lasts and what it stacks with, but it seems it would be quite hard to create a version that feels powerful enough for the Warchanter player to notice the effect without being overpowered.

Doublestrike is a multiplicative bonus to damage (like Haste is), and multiplicative damage bonuses are often deceptively powerful. Warchanters already get more Inspire Courage damage than other bards, and that advantage will probably increase at tier 2 and 3. That'll be enough of them getting songs to boost the damage of melee-specced characters; other bonuses they get can be for defensive/utility buffs or the damage of characters who aren't already near the top of the DPS heap (like maybe Song of BAB).

[Theragorn]

One of the major issues that we’ve been working on is the dps lag problem in high level content (especially raid content). We’re attacking this problem from many angles, and since some of the changes we’re considering will have significant impact on many characters, we’re interested in your feedback before it goes to Lamannia or live. We're trying to aggressively attack the issues that cause these lag problems and are interested in feedback regarding how aggressively we should be attempting to tackle them.

My post is a bit more technical than I normally write for public consumption, but I want to make the issues and the reasons we’re considering these changes extremely clear.

Some people may have noticed that problems occur most often when there are many monks or two weapon fighting characters that are loaded with many on-hit effects attacking en masse. These characters currently perform many attacks very quickly, and each attack is pretty heavy performance-wise. Rather than attack the problem by changing common heavy-load equipment, we’ve already taken some steps to optimize the way we perform attacks, and are considering the following changes to reduce overall performance loads:

Currently a single two weapon fighting attack makes a physics detection check with your main hand, followed by a second detection check for your off hand (roughly 0.15 seconds after the first one). Instead of making multiple physics checks, all two weapon fighting attacks (weapons or unarmed) would now make a single check for your main hand attack, and would “piggyback” on that detection check and have a chance to proc (trigger) an off-hand attack based on the number of two weapon fighting feats (or related enhancements) you possess. Off-hand attacks would have a chance to proc on any main hand attack now, instead of being predetermined on certain attacks. Having more TWF feats increases the % chance of proccing an off-hand attack.

We would now assume that if your opponent was within range for your first attack, it will still be in range 0.15 seconds later. We also go about determining whether or not a particular swing gets an off-hand attack in a much cleaner manner than before.

We’re also considering introducing a new mechanic to replace some speed bonus effects, called double strike:

A character with a double strike chance has a chance to make an additional attack roll with their main hand weapon any time they make a main hand attack, on the target of the first attack. (Note that two handed weapons count as “in the main hand” for these purposes.)

The Fighter Alacrity capstone, and the Paladin spell Zeal would be changed to a +10% bonuses to double strike.
A TWF Paladin that Smites something under the effect of Zeal would attack with the main hand, have a 10% chance to attack with the main hand again, and would have a chance (based on TWF feats) to attack with the off hand in one sequence. Level 20 Fighters with the capstone would simply always hit twice 10% of the time with their main hands. For a future update, we’re considering revisiting some old items (such as Jorgundal’s Collar, which currently doesn’t stack with Haste) and replacing the effects with a double strike effect.

For those that are interested in the “how does that help? You’re still making 11 attacks in 10 swings” – double strikes, like the proposed off-hand attacks, would bypass the additional physics detects and secondary characteristics of normal attacks such as glancing blows, while still providing an increase to overall damage over time. It would have the advantage over speed boosts of sometimes proccing on special attacks, and opens up a new itemization and enhancement pathway. (Warchanters, for instance, are likely to end up with a double strike song in a future update.)

Proposed Numbers:
A character with no two weapon fighting feats has a base 20% chance to proc off-hand attacks.
The Two Weapon Fighting feat grants a +15% bonus to proc off-hand attacks.
The Improved Two Weapon Fighting feat grants a +10% bonus to proc off-hand attacks.
The Greater Two Weapon Fighting feat grants a +10% bonus to proc off-hand attacks.
Monk Air stances now grant a +5%/+10%/+15%/+20% insight bonus to the chance to proc off-hand attacks instead of an insight bonus to attack speed. (Enhancement bonus to attack speed remains.)
Ranger Tempest now grants a +10%/+20%/+30% bonus to the chance to proc off-hand attacks when dual wielding instead of a bonus to attack speed or granting additional off-hand attacks.
Monk Air Stance and Ranger Tempest now stack with each other for these purposes.
Attacks with two handed weapons while moving no longer perform Glancing Blows.

Fighter Alacrity (capstone) now grants a +10% bonus to double attack with the main hand instead of a 10% speed increase.
The Paladin spell Zeal now grants a +10% Sacred bonus to double attack with the main hand instead of a 10% speed increase.

Things like the Shield Bonus and to-hit penalty reductions that Tempest grants when wielding two weapons, or the enhancement bonuses to speed from Wind Stance remain unchanged.

For example, a Ranger 18 (Tempest III) / Monk 2 in Wind Stance I would have a 90% chance to proc off-hand attacks per swing, while a completely unskilled character would only generate off-hand attacks 20% of the time. A Monk 20 in Wind Stance IV would have a 75% chance to trigger off-hand attack hooks.

I won’t hide that these proposed changes do reduce the effectiveness of off-hand attacks, which reduces the two weapon fighting style’s extreme dominance over two handed fighting. Skipping the extreme outlier of the Epic Sword of Shadows (we got a little carried away there, didn’t we?), estimated damage output over time for the two styles should be extremely close to each other if we go this route. (Which style is superior ends up being heavily dependent on your character's abilities.)

It’s likely that we’ll change Glancing Blows to operate in a similar manner in the future as well (chance to proc based on feats/enhancements rather than guaranteed on swing X), but right now I have to stay pretty focused on TWF and monk unarmed combat.

These are not the only things we’re currently investigating, and will not solve all of the dps lag issues - it’s one of many steps we’re taking to pursue them. I also highly recommend reading this post and thread ( http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=2374594&postcount=5) - especially the part about intra-DAT fragmentation[step 3] if your install is a year or more old - if you’re suffering serious problems, it may help with some client-side issues.

We wanted to get your reactions and comments to this now though, before (and after) it hits Lamannia.

---

Some sample attack percentages with this system (assuming you took all possible available feats and enhancements) would be:

INVALID CHART FOLLOWS:
Build Main-hand Off-hand
20 Ranger (Tempest 3) 100% 85%
20 Monk (Wind Stance 4) 100% 75%
20 Fighter (Alacrity) 110% 55%
20 Paladin (Zeal) 110% 55%
20 [Other] 100% 55%
12 Ftr/6 Rng/2 Mnk 100% 70%
15 Pal/3 Mnk/2 [Any] (unarmed) 110% 60%
14 Pal/6 Rng 110% 65%
18 Rgr/2 Mnk 100% 90%


---

Edit:
Thanks for the massive amount of feedback all.

We're currently thinking of adjusting the numbers to:



Doublestrike Bonus Main hand Off hand
No feats 0 20% 100% 20%
TWF 0 +20% 100% 40%
ITWF 0 +20% 100% 60%
GTWF 0 +20% 100% 80%
STWF 0 +20% 100% 100%
Tempest I 0 +10% 100% 90%
Tempest II 0 +10% 100% 100%
Tempest III +5%* 0 105% 100%
Wind IV +10% 0 110% 80%
Zeal +10% 0 110% 80%
Alacrity +10% 0 110% 80%
* Only when wielding two weapons.

This set switches Wind Stance and Tempest III to doublestrike bonuses, increases the benefits of the TWF feat chain, and adds an additional feat for high BAB characters.

All of the bottom rows assume that the person has GTWF, except for the STWF row.

No

[Angelus_dead]

Bring back STWF. A class that can heal itself and cast blade barrier shouldn't be as good at melee as a real melee class.
Clerics and Favored Souls are already have melee damage far behind the primary melee classes. Is there any justification to give them a further reduction compared to Fighters, Barbarians, and Rangers?

[caution]

Kambuk, you have brought up something that we have addressed for the next update. There was a bug where AOE spells were requiring all clients affected by the spell to be synchronized. Essentially, before an AOE (many, but not all) would go off all the clients had to report in to the server with a "I'm here!" message. This would cause exactly the problem you describe. We've fixed this, and now every player will get the effect applied immediately after the spell is cast.

Is this true? I live for the pre-DDO:EU days where my combat log does not say "Casting FoD.. Casting FoD... Casting FoD" till one finally goes off.

I related this to the synchronisation changes so I am all for this one!

[Sarnind]

this system has no sense! It s a abberration of D&D rules!

[Sarr]

I think Turbine wants to add much more new mechanic to our present DDO game, so they are thinking in advance of lowering the impact of those new systems. We already know about guild system (many people in the same place again, many new pages of code, statistics, etc.), then we might see the return of the revised bounty system, new races, classes, UI changes (which may be an occasion to add more *fun* functionality), etc, etc.
So overall, knowing that Turbine got a massive investment in them and the success of DDO:U, I'm sure they already estimated how new hardware would help, and probably it wasn't worth it at all. So I wouldn't say, like many others here, that "I know better how to do it differently". Because we just don't have the required knowledge nor qualifications for estimating such things (or at least 99% of us don't have it).

Other than that, I'm worried about going further and again further from the D&D ruleset. Please Turbine, be aware that it could turn in to something bad for the popularity of DDO at some point - we already see people complaining about it on some MMO sites in comments. That's nothing good in my opinion.

Though I love TWF nerf and I really hope that THF will be as good of a choice as TWF at some point. Because it should be that way in my opinion. That would mean we really have _choice_, instead of a posibility to be weaker than TWF'ers.

So, I really like TWF nerf, but I have mixed feelings about going further away from the D&D Ruleset. And yes, this system is nice, but it's not something I've ever seen in D&D.

FINAL THOUGHT:
Maybe it's time to start some "behind the scenes development of DDO2?" ;) I mean, really. I'd like to see open world exploring and simple quests + instanced dungeonsin DDO2. It would be a blast to have that social, vast, open world DDO with DDO-like instancing integrated. Maybe even Sandbox, like Asheron's Call or Darkfall / Ultima Online? That would be really the best possible D&D experience in my opinion, being able to "steal" as a rogue, to create events like in RedDeadRedemption, etc.

I love DDO and will stay with it, but DDO2 would be a new pretender to the throne for years forward from now ;). More social, open world, more of D&D ruleset (heck, even in 4th edition) + the best from our current DDO and we have a new winner, lighter on the back-end.

[Beherit_Baphomar]

+20 True Reincarnate for your TWF; $30
Half-Orc Race; $19.95
Epic SoS; $49.95
Constant changes and nerf to this game; priceless.

Y'know what's really getting to me is the slowed down combat speed and this being touted as a fix to lag.

Ah I dunno man, the fastpaced combat is what DDO is about.

I just don't know anymore...

[krud]

Originally Posted by Calebro View Post

The more I think about it, the more I like STWF being implemented. Rangers essentially get it for free, making them King of TWF (as it should be).
Others now have the option if they devote enough resources (build points and stat raises) to get it.

Few are likely to do this, but the option is there. So Rangers are still TWF kings in most cases, but the extremely rare exception may occur.

LOL
And I give you this:I would prefer to put STWF in as a selectable only feat for all (including rangers), minimum character level 18 (or BAB13 if they can't do that), and dex19 prereq. High dex builds would have no problem qualifying. Str builds would have to make some important stat decisions. No longer would it be max str and con, plus get all the attacks too. Might help get rid of the notion that "finesse builds are teh gimp" .

[Razcar]

Devs, will the the slowing down of swing speed for lower BAB's persist? If so, rogues will have both slower swing speed and loose 20% off-hand attacks.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Y'know what's really getting to me is the slowed down combat speed and this being touted as a fix to lag.

Nope, Eladrin has said in this thread that's not what its about.

Changing how collisions are detected is to deal with lag.

While they were at it, slowing down TWF was a deliberate TWF nerf that they just conviniently did at the same time.

[akiraproject24]

Edit:
Thanks for the massive amount of feedback all.

We're currently thinking of adjusting the numbers to:


Code:
Doublestrike Bonus Main hand Off hand
No feats 0 20% 100% 20%
TWF 0 +20% 100% 40%
ITWF 0 +20% 100% 60%
GTWF 0 +20% 100% 80%
STWF 0 +20% 100% 100%
Tempest I 0 +10% 100% 90%
Tempest II 0 +10% 100% 100%
Tempest III +5%* 0 105% 100%
Wind IV +10% 0 110% 80%
Zeal +10% 0 110% 80%
Alacrity +10% 0 110% 80%* Only when wielding two weapons.

This set switches Wind Stance and Tempest III to doublestrike bonuses, increases the benefits of the TWF feat chain, and adds an additional feat for high BAB characters.

All of the bottom rows assume that the person has GTWF, except for the STWF row.

Isnt tempest III currently the only form of stwf and my ranger is granted the line of twf feats so...what benefit am I getting tempest III and greater twf should give me 205%/180%

[Malthana]

Sorry...I read the first 25 pages then my eyes started to bleed.
I don't believe anyone has questioned the stated reason for these changes?

'Some people may have noticed that problems occur most often when there are many monks or two weapon fighting characters that are loaded with many on-hit effects attacking en masse. These characters currently perform many attacks very quickly, and each attack is pretty heavy performance-wise.' was the quote.

If some one can form a raid consisting of 2 clerics 2 casters 1 bard and 7 THW users, all with combat logs turned on, and then tell me there is no lag...then i believe this discussion should continue...if not then the Devs should be looking elsewhere for the cure.

[Ebforest60]

Attaching the offhand attack to the mainhand is a smart way to reduce lag, but reducing two weapon fighting's DPS by 25% is a problem for me.

The game was getting quite balanced between two-handed and two weapon fighting for most classes, with clear advantages in both. Two weapon fighting gave the vanilla baseline character an advantage, but it cost far more to maintain. Fighting multiple monsters with Greater Two Handed Fighting quickly changed that balance enough to matter. Class/race bonuses & equipment propped up two handed fighting to beat out that baseline on a large number of builds. Many weapons besides khopeshes were finally getting some use. Scimitar & falchion enhancements, favored soul favored weapons, ranger bow & arcane archer enhancements -- all of these were shaking things up. I have never seen the game this balanced (and varied) in that respect.

This change brings too many unintended nerfs to classes that simply don't deserve it. A small change in power is one thing, but I can think of dozens of builds that simply need to go reroll because they took lines like Kensei or Monks at face value, assuming the theme would keep them afloat even as the game changed.

I don't know what more to say. In all the time I have played DDO ... through "mod 9 coming soon" and Dungeon Alert and epic and everything else, nothing has really fazed my desire to keep pushing the norms and keeping things fresh in DDO. The way this change was implemented leaves me very, very disappointed.

Well said. This proposed change has far reaching affects. You can't just look at the pure Kensai/Tempest/Monk/Paladin...the builds that splash here and there look to be taking huge hits.

[Angelus_dead]

High dex builds would have no problem qualifying.
Well if it goes by BAB 13 then most Rogue19/Monk1 builds would find it impossible, as they don't get the BAB until no feat slots are left. But ignore that and suppose he did qualify: there's still the matter of that feat slot itself. How would it benefit the game to push Rogues (and many other typical TWF characters) to spend another feat slot on their combat style? I don't think anyone could say that Rogues have too many spare feats now.

What about the alternative: Giving STWF as a granted benefit to anyone who has GTWF and meets the requisite of BAB, dexterity, and/or ranger features? That way it's still a bonus to characters with higher dex, and still pushes TWF fighters to respec their stats, but it's not biased towards classes with a lot of free feats. It could even be based on current BAB/dex instead of naked stats, meaning that instead of being excluded from STWF, lower-dex builds be forced to equip dexterity gear for battle.

[krud]

What about the alternative: Giving STWF as a granted benefit to anyone who has GTWF and meets the requisite of BAB, dexterity, and/or ranger features? That way it's still a bonus to characters with higher dex, and still pushes TWF fighters to respec their stats, but it's not biased towards classes with a lot of free feats. It could even be based on current BAB/dex instead of naked stats, meaning that instead of being excluded from STWF, lower-dex builds be forced to equip dexterity gear for battle.That works too.


"...and meets the requisite of BAB, dexterity, and/or ranger features."

I think bab, and dex prereqs would be enough. I still think rangers need have the same stat considerations as all other twf. It's too easy to just max str and con and get everything else for free.

[adRyft]

Some people may have noticed that problems occur most often when there are many monks or two weapon fighting characters that are loaded with many on-hit effects attacking en masse. These characters currently perform many attacks very quickly, and each attack is pretty heavy performance-wise. Rather than attack the problem by changing common heavy-load equipment, we’ve already taken some steps to optimize the way we perform attacks, and are considering the following changes to reduce overall performance loads:

So, basically you're saying that this nerf is really all because Turbine is too frugal to install higher end equipment?

Fine. Whatever.

I'll look at this from a build perspective...

For those outside of being a ranger, it's a big thing to finally be able to cover the ability score spread to play a strength-based two weapon fighter. Two-handed fighting builds don't have to manage a 17 natural dexterity in order to qualify for the upper tiers of their line. A dexterity score that for many doesn't contribute to DPS in any way, or even towards a meaningful AC. And for this trouble, you want to make the two fighting styles *equal* in DPS, now? Look at how tight the ability scores need to be to get a gTWF paladin build that qualifies for DV4 sometime, and ask me why someone would bother going that route when they could instead just go with two-handed fighting, nerf their dexterity score, and have a higher strength score besides?

And for those who realized early on that the best way to optimize sneak attacks was to tack them onto a rapid-fire monk style, or to pursue two-weapon fighting feats to increase attack speed, this 100/80 nonsense is tantamount to lowering their DPS by 20%. It's a complete slap in the face. Do you want to give us a 20% generic DPS increase to make up for it? And what about the lower tiers of ability, when our 100/100 just became a 100/40? Ugh.

I do really appreciate that some people want to see some diversity with the disparity between the two fighting styles. I also understand that Turbine wants to address some lag issues.

But trying to kill these two birds with one stone, while creative, is also going to upset some folks when you do things as sloppy as this is looking to be.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

2) combine player dps data and tie it to variables outside of combat. Then use that variable and only have 1 dice roll per attack for damage i.e. with this weapon, this toon does 120-140 damage, random between 120-140 instead of rolling up everything during combat. Doesn't work at all because of monster imunities/resistances, not all parts of weapon damage apply to crits, etc.
3) reduce mob HP by the amount of the nerf to dps The raid bosses and some others could use a general HP reduction, but I'm not sure this change as proposed actually justifies it in any serious way
4) eliminate grazing hits, as it also adds dps lag Agreed, but they won't. This was one of their pet projects to keep bad..errr...new players happy.
5) eliminate DA, because it slows the game down, and you'll need to speed it up to compensate for this DPS slow down. I'm also a fan of turnbased, so we could go to turnbased too :) another pet project, we've been told 1000 times it will not change, give it up.

So I propose this: Allow full Lesser Reincarnation+20 tokens for every existing character. Provide full greensteel deconstruction for every existing character. We can all switch to THF with our SOS and not kill most of our characters. If the small planned DPS loss will kill your character is sucked to begin with. GS deconstruction is however long overdue and needed.


I notice a certain amount of exageration in this thread.


this 100/80 nonsense is tantamount to lowering their DPS by 20%.

I've seen this repeated frequently in this thread, and its wrong. That wouild be a 10% reduction in DPS.

[Razcar]

What a mess this game has become.

Our DM is an engineer with illusions of grandeur ("Wizards of the Coast are nothing against me! Look at these TWF rules!") instead of a storyteller and a leader who has everyone's fun as his/her focus. There are just too many contrived, complicated and meaningless house rules, house rules that are playing favourites ("take that you smug rogues!").

Sad.

[Nightorb]

Eladrin,

Firstly i would like to point out i am a VIP member and pay for my content monthly so anything that may detract from my gaming experience i have to consider carefully as i am paying for something i like....after all you wouldnt buy something you dont like would you.

The company needs its subscribers like myself for revenue however if too many people dont like the changes implemented due to gimping etc how many would stay ??

After reading a lot of posts i can see why the system needs changing to rectify lag...however, the point is viable how there only seems to be replies to only pro change posts. After your honesty at posting i would have thought that you or other developers would take up the challenge and reply to the negative feedback which has been posted, and to be honest there is quite a lot. That aside i have both a monk (lvl 6) and a rogue (lvl 10). i struggle now because as a rogue we have to create the right situation to gain sneak attack, top that with the fact that the 20 - 25% approx decrease in dps when i finally do make that sneak will in my opinion (and it seems a lot of others), gimp my build.

Further what about hardware upgrades ?? i notice this question was not answered either, is this because you know its a way it can be done but cant afford to implement but not want to give the community the idea of lack of funds which should not be the case after the recent buyout. (square peg round hole....make the round hole bigger). i cannot believe that in this day and age its not possible with all the technology out there to remedy this with hardware.

Also as stated with previous posts what about simply cutting down the dice rolls...1 roll for both hands...and the other various ways to minimise cpu usage. (pointning to hardware issues as opposed to combat system). there is no doubt a great deal of debate ongoing about this with you developers.

The fact still reamins for TWF users to have such high dps they invest a lot more time and feats, weapons in game gold, or be extremely lucky for loot drops to get it only to find that the new system if implemented has rendered a 25% loss in dps simply abhorent.

Dont get me wrong i dont oppose change i just think that change can be implemented in other ways, as opposed to a complete revamp of a system which at this point seems to be working.

IF ITS NOT BROKE DONT FIX IT

having played both WoW and Runes of Magic i came to DDO as it was the closest to the pen and paper game ive loved for over twenty years...and yes i realise you cannot directly transfer to online and expect it to work but i also think this latest "fix" is deviating from the core a little too much. TWF works just fine in PnP and up till now just fine here. why not fix the lag problem by other means then look at balancing ??

Lastly if this is going to proceed then give something back to those who have dedicated time and money to creating thier characters thier way (DnD ethos) only to find in my opinion that you dont care you haved gimped thier characters. Sorry for such a long post, but i dont post at all usually but found this to be a step too far along the line of detracting from an experience i am enjoying PAYING for and im sure those that dont pay feel the same. i hope this sits nicely with your paid subscribers as without them regular incoming would not be forthcoming.

[Natashaelle]

Well now before I log for the night just thought I would say:
R.I.P
Monk, Rogue, and Warchanter, and battle clerics/fvs/arcanes.
R.I.P
Diversity.
R.I.P
Twitch THF's

Let a new era reign.

You're rather quick and eager with your spade and your six-foot plot of land ...

I have a couple of unorthodox build battle clerics, and they both look set to actually become *more* powerful as a result of the proposed changes ; although I may need to wait on my main's second TR to see what comes out of this first, and maybe LR the other one.

My other 2wf toons are a dorf who's so thick he won't notice the difference, a ranger with rogue and wizzie splashies who won't be much affected, a bunch of lowbies who can adapt, and my poor arcana gimp who's gonna get himself gimped into oblivion by Update 5 and will *definitely* need a good dose of LR... (but I wanted to keep him gimped as he is now :( )

The only thing I really dislike about the STWF proposal is that it's one extra feat, and that's rather a lot for the more unorthodox mêlée types, as well as this idea of minimum +16 BAB and 19 Dex, which many people will find to be quite frustrating -- though it might be more palatable if the prereqs for STWF were GTWF and +16 BAB *OR* 19 Dex ?

I think that I'd have no problem at all with the changes *IF* there were a level cap increase in the works for the medium term future. A level cap of 24 would ensure that a diverse range of builds could continue to use the 2WF tactics unimpaired ;)

[bloodyrag]

i have 9 2wf toons and a 2hf barb. im not against nerfing 2wf a bit but am totally deadset against it unless the customer base is given a free chance to change their toons and deconstruct the greensteels made. this doesnt even begin to cover the costs of building such toons up if u think of the hours upon hours of running shrouds nor the cost of paying for those top notch random generated items u also need. that cost cant b covered in any way but greensteels are completly able to b recovered. to me this is more of a money spinner from turbine and can only hope that we are at least given a scrap from the table to lessen the impact this will have on a massive percentage of the server population. bring on deconstruction even if its just a once off for toons that have 2wf in their build as these are the ones being nerfed.
kudos to at least attempting to reduce lag its nice to see some serious thought is going into that side just dont do another downer to your customers without acnowledgeing the time and effort we have put in. we waited more than 8 months for an update in blind faith with turbine hanging in with no word from turbine time to think of your customers instead of the bottom dollar

[zealous]

What u mean here is u figured out the "new" way to tap the button.

No. What I mean is that they are fundamentally different. The spam glitch had virtually no drawbacks, twitching does.



What u mean here is that my DPS is much, much better this way so I can kill stuff faster.

NO. What I mean is that it's more fun to move around while fighting and having to concentrate on maintaining twitch than standing still and holding autoattack. DPS would be higher with 2wf in most cases.



What u mean here is ur version of pnp.

No. What I mean is that if you look at it objectively there are similarities.
In PnP you get increased attacks against low AC targets, in DDO you get increased attacks against low AC targets if you twitch.



What u mean here is: because ac doesnt matter in game it means ur DPS is much, much better this way so U can kill stuff faster.





What u mean here is: Massive decrease in twf so that my twitch THF can have higher dps than a weakling twf build.

No. I play many builds, mainly 2wf. Incidently the dps nerf to THF will likely be greater since glancing blows generally consists of more than 10% of THF damage output.



Here u mean the nerf to ur toon matters to u!! Well the NERF to my toons matter to me!! And im not using any bug in game to increase my dps.

No. What I try to illustrate is that the change is probably good for game balance and that additionally it will likely lead to more fun due to less uniform visual feedback.


In any case the nerf is comming.....I just hope the eSOS gets the hammer as well. As for twitch fighting...the devs attempted to git rid of it along time ago.....if it's of any consolation to u...misery loves company...POW take a Nerf hammer hit to ur THF!

The Bytcher~[/QUOTE]
If they had wanted to get rid of twitching they would have, what they instead did was to lessen the benefits of it. Something they're doing yet again with the changes proposed here.

Your reply is fatally flawed in that you try to pass off your interpretation as my opinion. Simply changing "What u mean" to "Do you mean" would make it much more constructive.

[krud]

What a mess this game has become.

Our DM is an engineer with illusions of grandeur ("Wizards of the Coast are nothing against me! Look at these TWF rules!") instead of a storyteller and a leader who has everyone's fun as his/her focus. There are just too many contrived, complicated and meaningless house rules, house rules that are playing favourites ("take that you smug rogues!").

Sad.
Since DDO is not a turn based game, then how do they "stick to the rules"? As long as they are getting roughly the same number of attacks, what difference does it make how they are determined by the computer?

[Merlocke]

Here's an idea. How about you start nerfing CASTERS for once.

Never! Oh and fix our fogs please.

[krud]

NO. What I mean is that it's more fun to move around while fighting and having to concentrate on maintaining twitch than standing still and holding autoattack. DPS would be higher with 2wf in most cases..
They could always make glancing blows proc in the same manner that offhand weapons do, and keep glancing blows while moving. It would keep real twitch THF dps intact, but remove the quirky, stutter step, so-called "twitch" exploit.

[Razcar]

Since DDO is not a turn based game, then how do they "stick to the rules"? As long as they are getting roughly the same number of attacks, what difference does it make how they are determined by the computer?
Of course it doesn't matter how they are determined by the computer, don't be silly.
What matters is your "roughly", lol. Why are rogues getting the shaft Krud? Please give me the reason.

And while how the game is implemented technically cannot be the same, the correlation between the classes and the spirit of the rules can. (One good thing they did in their bastardized version of 3.5 was calm down high level casters, that I agree on.)

Instead we get crack-pot sweeping game changes from an out-of-touch DM who would really need to sit at the player's spot at the gaming table for a couple of months.

[Aspenor]

Yeah, rogues are really getting kicked in the nuts on this one. So much so that I'd argue something like Acrobat and Assassin should give them something equatable to zeal, tempest, and alacrity (and not just with one weapon type).

[Scraap]

I can see where reducing k-tree check frequency would be of benefit (typically the heftiest load in a raycast, since it involves parsing areas for subareas then checking the list of critters in that area, at which point we finally bear on down to point vs point comparison, if it's an even remotely typical physics setup, anyway). I might however offer one early-out on the suggestion, since you've proven you've the backbone built in already:

First check for movement by both parties, *then* calculate percentages to striking in order to simulate the probability of something remaining in-range.

You are, after all proposing doing so for the THF line in terms of procs.

Seems like that would apply a bit more of a scalpel approach.

[tkneip1874]

ive been reading this off and on so im not 100% up to speed but from what i have gathered the problem is all the dice rolls for damage. why not set damage instead of random. instead of acid doing 1d6 why not make it 4? just a thought

[Aesop]

I skimmed over this before, but now that I think about it, I recommend against giving Warchanters a Song of Doublestrike.

It could be too powerful, making it hard to balance content against groups both with Warchanter and with other bards, or with Warchanter and with no bard. Of course whether that happens depends on the details of how long Song of Doublestrike lasts and what it stacks with, but it seems it would be quite hard to create a version that feels powerful enough for the Warchanter player to notice the effect without being overpowered.

Doublestrike is a multiplicative bonus to damage (like Haste is), and multiplicative damage bonuses are often deceptively powerful. Warchanters already get more Inspire Courage damage than other bards, and that advantage will probably increase at tier 2 and 3. That'll be enough of them getting songs to boost the damage of melee-specced characters; other bonuses they get can be for defensive/utility buffs or the damage of characters who aren't already near the top of the DPS heap (like maybe Song of BAB).


That's a good point. Maybe instead they should roll it into Inspire Heroics and not make it part of a PrE at all.

and I'd be against STWF in general.

Also wondering about Wind Stance. I see WInd Stance IV granting a double strike... what about the rest of the levels?


WS1: +10% OH
WS2: +10% OH
WS3: +10% OH
WS4: +10% DS

maybe?

Dunno it doesn't seem to me that they should match Tempest flat out...

We have

Basic: 20%
TWF: 40%
ITWF: 60%
GTWF: 80%
Tempest 1: +10%
Tempest 2: +20%
Tempest 3: DS +10%
WS1: +5%
WS2: +10%
WS3: +15%
WS4: DS +10%


Kensai could also grant DS bonuses and the capstone could apply to both sides

so
Ken1: +2.5% DS
Ken2: +5% DS
Ken3: +10% DS
Capstone: +10% DS
Capstone: +10% OH

So the supreme Weapon Fighter kensai would have (w/ TWF)
Main Hand: 120
Off Hand: 90

Tempest would have
Main Hand: 110
Off Hand: 100

Wind Stance Monk would have
Main Hand: 110
Off Hand: 95

note monk doesn't include any PrE benefit or Capstone



Something that would be interesting to have added in would be a feat from Complete Warrior, Roundabout Kick. Extra Unarmed Attack Procs on Crit...


Aesop

[krud]

Of course it doesn't matter how they are determined by the computer, don't be silly.
What matters is your "roughly", lol. Why are rogues getting the shaft Krud? Please give me the reason.

And while how the game is implemented technically cannot be the same, the correlation between the classes and the spirit of the rules can. (One good thing they did in their bastardized version of 3.5 was calm down high level casters, that I agree on.)

Instead we get crack-pot sweeping game changes from an out-of-touch DM who would really need to sit at the player's spot at the gaming table for a couple of months.
The numbers can always be worked on a bit. This is a proposal, and they are asking for feedback. They can always adjust the final implementation and values. I have a rogue, and a twf fighter who are getting the shaft too, but i'm not gonna categorically reject everything just because i'm afraid of every change they propose.

[Aesop]

Also adding in a DS proc for Weapon Finesse (while finessing a weapon) would be a good benefit for the quick and nimble

Aesop

[Boromirs]

[Problems with this Solution]

1.) If you are adamant about adding STWF (which is a must to retain some semblence of DPS for TWF), you must drop or lower the reqs. Lower the BAB reqs, get rid of the 19 dex (it'll be 17). And perhaps allow for some players one free feat swap. Otherwise, very few people will be able to get STWF without totally starting over and even then it won't be worth getting, due to the now featless/more benefit THF. I will state that currently it would be impossible for a Paladin to get STWF (19 dex paladin?..um there goes your build).

2.) Debug it. Don't implement this live in the other servers without an insane amount of playtesting and debugging, thats part of the smooth transition so players don't go all in a uproar.

3.) Frankly, I would suggest keeping TWF the same and not messing with it. Work around this issue by just having both weapons piggyback on the same physics detection. This is still a severe nerf, but if you ABSOLUTELY MUST implement it keep a open mind during playtesting on Lamannia (don't be stone set on everything) and again playtest playtest playtest.

[Possible Physics detection solution?]

It looks like what you are doing is checking each weapon and calculating if it touches the monster or not (hence physics detection).If this is right then I think this is redundant. Divide your TWF character in half (from top of the head to the feet) and from left to right. The Main hand is the only one doing any collision detection, whenever an attack is made with it, it detects if any collision occured across the line from left to right. If detection occurs the system checks if it occured left of the (head to feet) line which then triggers the lefthand attack toward whatever is in the left or if the right of the line then right hand attack. So, there is ONE physics check but the point it was "breached" (left or right of line is factored in) is used for the main hand attack and "remembered" for the off-hand attack.

[krud]

And for those who realized early on that the best way to optimize sneak attacks was to tack them onto a rapid-fire monk style, or to pursue two-weapon fighting feats to increase attack speed, this 100/80 nonsense is tantamount to lowering their DPS by 20%. It's a complete slap in the face. Do you want to give us a 20% generic DPS increase to make up for it? And what about the lower tiers of ability, when our 100/100 just became a 100/40? Ugh.
Actually it's -10% dps, not 20% (and even less if you take into account that offhand attacks halve strength bonus)

going from 100+100 to 100+80 = 90% the number of attacks.

[krud]

also Adding In A Ds Proc For Weapon Finesse (while Finessing A Weapon) Would Be A Good Benefit For The Quick And Nimble

Aesop
/agreed

[Visty]

So, basically you're saying that this nerf is really all because Turbine is too frugal to install higher end equipment?
no, he said they decided between slowing down attacks or nerfing greensteel

they went with the lesser evil

[Aesop]

The numbers can always be worked on a bit. This is a proposal, and they are asking for feedback. They can always adjust the final implementation and values. I have a rogue, and a twf fighter who are getting the shaft too, but i'm not gonna categorically reject everything just because i'm afraid of every change they propose.

Ya know another thing could be to add a Rogue Special Bonus Feat that adds to either off hand or Double Strike... or both

perhaps a 10% OH bonus

Aesop

[Aesop]

oh wait I got one...


successfully Bluffing an opponent could add a 5% DS bonus... and Improved Feint could make that +10% for 6 sec


that would be a benefit for Rogues and other Bluff masters (bardsI guess) and actually make Bluff useful for a change

[Razcar]

Yeah, rogues are really getting kicked in the nuts on this one. So much so that I'd argue something like Acrobat and Assassin should give them something equatable to zeal, tempest, and alacrity (and not just with one weapon type).Well, Mechanics are getting repeating crossbows for free! I guess that is symptomatic with the rogue capstone. We are supposed to range trashmobs in adventure zones and run the solo quest Raiding the Giants Vault while other classes raid and run Epic.

Because why would anyone pick a rogue, *now coming with freshly lowered DPS!* over a THF barb in his group anymore? So thanks devs, you drove away Sableshadow, one of the best rogue players in the game with your rogue hate - let's see how many you manage to drive away with this stunt.

[Aspenor]

Regarding STWF, the prereqs need to be lower. The feat, as written, is meant for EPIC characters. This means not available till level 21. It is much more viable for an epic character to have the necessary BAB and DEX requirements, due to simple progression of levels and wealth (availability of +5 dex tomes).

I say eliminate the 19 dex and BAB requirement. In fact, I personally prefer it to be a feat naturally granted to any character with GTWF and BAB 15. If it must be made purchaseable, these pre-reqs must be toned down or eliminated.

[stockwizard5]

I might have mentioned this like 100 times already but ...

1. Fix the combat log issue - a well designed log should not induce lag
2. Reduce the number of damage types (e.g. Force Ritual --> +1 Base, etc)

Analyze the impact of changes like this first before restructuring the core game mechanics.

Note: If the development team can't accurately calculate DPS, then efforts to balance this change is hopeless and will lead to allot of anger. Figure out haste, alacrity, stances, stacking, round length, attacks, etc in REALITY, fix the rates and descriptions - and then propose changes when you can accurately calculate the impact.

[Wizzly_Bear]

I haven't seen a Dev mention it not working, if you look, Eladrin or Tolero(can't remember which) said that it fixed a type of lag not all lag(and yes many things can cause lag and different types of lag). This is another route they are taking to decrease lag of another sort.
Of course you haven't seen them mention it not working. They haven't said its not working because it is working - just not in the manner they say. Its primary effect is as an anti-zerg, not as an anti-lag. Lag did not decrease after dungeon alert.


NO, you run too fast and it causes lag...:rolleyes:



...and you attack too fast and it causes lag.:rolleyes:
Can't wait for the next race after half-orcs....snails.

I want to play hard and fast.

/sings "and baby when its DDO if it aint rough it isnt fun" :eek:


and "on topic" Turbine....get your chit together. Constant nerfing sucks. You know this. Stop creating the necessity for it by breaking your game in the first place. Playtest with all skill level of players. I don't play or care for melees much so this particular one doesn't hurt me much, but 10-20% dps loss is just ridiculous for those who do.

[Aspenor]

oh wait I got one...


successfully Bluffing an opponent could add a 5% DS bonus... and Improved Feint could make that +10% for 6 sec


that would be a benefit for Rogues and other Bluff masters (bardsI guess) and actually make Bluff useful for a change

First, they'd have to make bluffing more accessible. Giving a boost to bluff while it is essentially useless in the first place won't fix it. The lost damage from actually using the skill will outstrip the gains, by a long shot. It needs to be made into a clickable attack, a'la Smite Evil, and not freeze your attack chain.

[arminius]

All you who are posting that the only thing paladins will lose out on is the Extend feat slot to get STWF--have you seriously thought about what it would take for a paladin to get a natural 19 dex? A starting Dex of 15 with ASSUMING a +2 tome to get to 17, from the Store if nowhere else, is quite onerous enough, almost gimping, especially to Con and total HP.

Starting Dex of 17 would be insane, and thoroughly gimping. That means you have no choice but 1. wait for a +4 Dex tome (ha ha) or 2. use the level up points you would have put into Str or Chr.

So, don't be surprised when you see coming soon to the DDO Store: +4 Dex Tome 8500 points.

[Tarnoc]

so i am curious as to who on here will admit that thier fully geared uber THF barb gets out DPSed by TWF.....

the only time i ever steal agro from a barb tanking is

1 they get chained or slowed..
2 they are new and actually dont have all the gear that my elder TWF has
3 thier INT based lol
4 i get lucky and way out crit the barb who cant roll above a 1...and that shouldnt be considered out dpsing as that just bad rolling vs my good rolling

So tell me shade do the TWF in your group steal your agro in normal conditions?

im guesssing not and all the TWF cryign for balance just see an opurtunity to be on top without any really uber gear......

and btw this was this way before epic SOS so i only see that weapon as taking it even further to THf favour......guess ill have to get an epic SOS on my ranger hmm coupled with favoured enemys it might be uber dps

P.S.the dps lag is mostly a factor of GS procs this is widely known.....so why not loose the procs nerf GS which you will do anyways...make it ona crit and lower damages from 500+lightning strike to say 20 points.....this would stop the whole calculate 1% to 5% thing everyswing......this is the true solution and as much as you think nerfing our attacks is the lesser of two evils it is not.....i own 7 GS weapons on my TWF alone and im in favour of toning them down over nerfing my speed period to only have it not address the issue of LAG

[Angelus_dead]

The spam glitch had virtually no drawbacks
Exactly untrue. Using it reduced both your attack bonus and critical threat range.

[Aesop]

First, they'd have to make bluffing more accessible. Giving a boost to bluff while it is essentially useless in the first place won't fix it. The lost damage from actually using the skill will outstrip the gains, by a long shot. It needs to be made into a clickable attack, a'la Smite Evil, and not freeze your attack chain.

or just make it fast acting like Intimidate and Diplomacy (ie faster enacting)

[Aspenor]

or just make it fast acting like Intimidate and Diplomacy (ie faster enacting)

Even if they did that, you would still probably have been better off just swinging. This is why it needs to not interrupt your attack chain.

[Iambeastx]

Just to agree with others on the ability for requirements for STWF
19 dex is nuts for my main - IF you do that, i'll need base 20 cha AND base 19 dex, not mention needing str just to hit AND a decent con score to survive.

Outside of this i'm still very unsure of these changes, they seem to be more inline with reducing dps than streamlining data flow.

[Razcar]

First, they'd have to make bluffing more accessible. Giving a boost to bluff while it is essentially useless in the first place won't fix it. The lost damage from actually using the skill will outstrip the gains, by a long shot. It needs to be made into a clickable attack, a'la Smite Evil, and not freeze your attack chain.
No - first they should make sneak attacks work regardless of enemy fortification - kind of like it does in D&D 4.0.
And yes that would make rogues more powerful. And yes, that would make rogues more popular. And getting more popular is what the class needs. It is easily the weakest and most neglected class in the game (yes ranged builds are even worse, but that is a build not a class).

[Beethoven]

It's been said, but probably can't be said often enough: thanks Eladrin for opening the lines of communication and explaining the issue so thoroughly. Also, the solution of having off-hand attacks piggy-pack on main-hand is ingenious. Finally, probs Tolero for coming up with the disease analogy. It really should make it clear how complicated it is to address "lag" in a general sense.

The second table looks far better than the first one: 100% / 80% is far less a bitter pill to swallow than 100% / 55%. It still hurts compared to current numbers and I do not envy you guys for the decision you have to make.

Lots of people want dps lag addressed and anything improving the situation is going to be welcome by a large amount of the playerbase.
Lots of people like the combat/melee system the way it is. Twf is incredibly popular and players will not like it being messed with, especially if the change does not work in their favor.

What I feel is important for us (the players) to understand is how much the developers are between a rock and a hard place here. They wouldn't care, they wouldn't go through the trouble of creating a thread like this and then sit there shifting through 60+ pages in less than a day.

As for the numbers specifically, for me it's relative hard to say; I understand what the change does in principle and the fact that it will result in a decrease of off-hand attacks. However, I find how drastic this change will be is a little bit hard to determine without raw numbers (ie: actually testing of toons before and after, attacking the same target and comparing the damage per minute).

Stwf: I'm with bbqzor on this one and think it will do more harm than good.
* many people will fill obligated to take the feat to not fall behind alone for knowing it exists (and assuming everyone else took it).
* it's not going to be easy to fit it into Paladin builds for feat and dexterity requirements and potentially create a lot of frustration there.
* it's going to be nigh impossible to fit it into rogue, bard and caster builds (including splashes) making them fall even further behind than they already are.
* it'd create a unique situation where taking a feat basically duplicates the primary benefit of an entire PrE. I am reading the table right, a fighter with Stwf and Alacricity gets 10% Doublestrike, 110% Mainhand and 100% offhand - whereas the Tempest prestige line grants: 5% Doublestrike, 105% mainhand and 100% offhand. The fighter also gets his own PrE (ie: Kensai) on top of it while Tempest has the added limitation of only getting the benefits when wielding two weapons. That's hardly balanced. As for the argument that rangers get other nice things like spells; we are talking about PrE's and the Tempest PrE does not add a single spell or other benefit that does not have to do with two-weapon fighting.

So, in conclusion - my initial thoughts on the matter are either:
1. remove the unnecessary collision check and simply have off-hand attacks piggy-pack on main-hand attacks at the same rate as they are now.
2. use Eladrin's second table, but take out stwf.

In case of option two, I do want to point out that "versatility" is not necessarily a good reason; while it is true that twf allows more versatility by wielding different combination of weapons, thf allows for more versatility in feat distribution (it's not quite as critical to purchase all 3 thf feats) and distribution of attribute points (you do not need an as high dexterity, thus can put more points into other stats). Having more "slots" for crafting (ie: epic) is most likely not going to be much a long term benefit. The more epic content we get and the more people start running it, the more epic gear toons will eventually have and there is only so much useful stuff you can put into those augment slots.

[Zenako]

Gonna toss out a couple of thoughts on this. (I have not read much of the overnight posting...had to do that semi optional thing called sleep....:D)

Stepping back from the details a bit.

IF the net effect of all the changes to TWF and THF are to reduce the overall DPS rate of top end builds, then that gives the developers an opportunity to do some other tweaks in the game on the Mob side of things.

For example, the shear number of HP of many mobs has been driven up and up by the incredible levels of dps we can achieve in game. Having huge HP piles reduces the tactical and strategic options for killing them (fewer spells work, etc). Keep in mind that while the effects are most pronounced at cap, they also extend thruout the game.

If the overall DPS peak is lowered say 20% then it would be reasonalbe to drop the HP of the mobs 20% or so to keep the level of challenge somewhat simialar. A two minute fight is still a two minute fight (or a 5 second fight is still a 5 second fight). Direct Damage spells or those based on mob HP would become more viable.

As an overall tweak to the game, this might make the overall gameplay more robust and engaging.

Just a thought... hard to keep up on a thread that grows almost faster than you can read it.:)

[jstroud]

So I'm sure more will come to light after playtesting on Lamannia, but from what I have read thus far my general assumptions are:

My Tempest I/Kensai II TWF Fighter will be slightly nerfed, but not enough to break his DPS.

My TWF Paladin will now be gimped and will probably need to do several feat exchanges and/or a reincarnation in order to pick up THF instead.

This sucks, but not enough to make me stop playing...although it does take away from my original concept of the builds it's not going to irreversably destroy them.

The only real gamebreaking issue I see is now I'll have useless weapons, especially on the Paladin.

Perhaps if it is not feasable to provide a way to deconstruct exsisting Greensteel, why not change them from Bound to Character to Bound to Account, at least until deconstruction is available. That way I could at least trade all the Scimitars I will have and will no longer be using over to another one of my characters that could actually use them after this nerf.

I can stomach the proposed changes to the combat system, and I can stomach running the Vale and Shroud to farm ingredients to make Falchions for my former TWF/now THF toons. What I can't stomach is all the hours spent making weapons for a build that is now gimped due to a game update being wasted.

[Galacticus]

Another note on lag...

I haven't run ToD, DQ, SoS, Titan so I can't comment on those.
I have done VoN and I don't expierence lag.
I have done VoD and I don't expierence lag.
I have done Hound and I don't expierence lag.
I have done Revers Fate and I don't expierence lag.
I don't expierence lag on regular 6 man quests at any level or difficulty.

I have done Tempest spine and I get lag when fighting all those trash mobs but not when we fight Sorjek.

Shroud, now that quest is full of lag but not just when fighting.
Part 1, I get lots of lag when we are going to the chests after beating all the portals but not when we are beating on the portals.
Part 2, I get lag when everything is dead and the crystal is broken and we are heading to the chests and also when we are beating down the trash mobs.
Part 3, I don't get lag.
Part 4, well that is just a lag fest when the blades come in but I don't have much trouble with beating on Harry before the blades so much. Was recently on a run where part 4 was a 3 rounder and we still had a lot of lag. Another recent run we had a wipe on part 4 where the clerics were lagging and heals didn't get through. Even if we had survived, part 4 would have been a 2 rounder. I'm fairly sure that the lag in these 2 runs was not from DPS.
Part 5 I usually don't have a lag problem until Harry dies then things get a little laggy.
I will expierence lag with either my Bard which gets in the melee but also with my Wizard which stays out of the gank pile.
I tend to expierence way more lag in the afternoon to around midnight so my lag expierence will vary.

I have had some fairly lag free(none in part 1 and little in part 2) Shroud runs but those tend to be during midnight to mid-morning EST. That time frame also tends to have less people on at once.



This is exactly what everyone else experiences. The change MIGHT only affect 1-2 quest, but since we get no lag in other 200+ quest you're willing to change the TWF combat style for just those 2

Stop nerfing and solve the problem. The lag problem is not US(toons) it's the quest itself.

[Aspenor]

Eladrin, couldn't you just remove the off-hand physics checks and call it a day, as well? If these make up the larger portion of the load......

[Syntax42]

[Possible Physics detection solution?]

It looks like what you are doing is checking each weapon and calculating if it touches the monster or not (hence physics detection).If this is right then I think this is redundant. Divide your TWF character in half (from top of the head to the feet) and from left to right. The Main hand is the only one doing any collision detection, whenever an attack is made with it, it detects if any collision occured across the line from left to right. If detection occurs the system checks if it occured left of the (head to feet) line which then triggers the lefthand attack toward whatever is in the left or if the right of the line then right hand attack. So, there is ONE physics check but the point it was "breached" (left or right of line is factored in) is used for the main hand attack and "remembered" for the off-hand attack.

I highly doubt they are doing anything that complex. If they are, they are making more work for themselves and probably causing lag with their complex calculations. Something like this is about as simple as it can get:

Monster is in range if: Weapon Reach ≥ Range from center of player to center of monster (there's a simple equation for that) - monster radius (aka size) - player radius

Calculating individual arm lengths and weapon sizes and which hand the weapon came from is too detailed for an online game like this. Nobody would notice the difference.



I like the new proposed changes better than the old ones, but that's like saying I like getting punched in the face better than I like getting stabbed.

[Aesop]

Even if they did that, you would still probably have been better off just swinging. This is why it needs to not interrupt your attack chain.

I'm ok with that... the not interruptin the combat chain. as long as it lasts 6+ sec it should give benefit over time. Maybe not every time but it would make it a viable option instead of just downright silly option

Aesop

[Rexmundis]

-TURBINE,

Dudes, just DON'T do this. You guys will completely NUKE my characters. Theres got to be another way to kill the lag on those few raids don't burn the house down just to get rid of lag for a few epic tier runs.

PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS!

[Elfvyra]

A question I'd like to see answered is: Will these changes also be applied to the AI?

[Smexxy]

oh wait I got one...


successfully Bluffing an opponent could add a 5% DS bonus... and Improved Feint could make that +10% for 6 sec


that would be a benefit for Rogues and other Bluff masters (bardsI guess) and actually make Bluff useful for a change

What about a granted feat given every 4 rogue levels that gives 2-3% of a chance at a DS, this way at level 20 a pure rogue would have 110-115% main hand and 80% off hand if they haven't taken STWF. With that addition, Rogues would be at 95-97.5% of their previous damage output.

[Razcar]

Eladrin, couldn't you just remove the off-hand physics checks and call it a day, as well? If these make up the larger portion of the load......
Yes! If you are in range for your main hand attack, you will of course be in range for you off-hand attack.

Of course, that wouldn't nerf TWF which seems to be part of his goal.

[moorewr]

Yes! If you are in range for your main hand attack, you will of course be in range for you off-hand attack.

Of course, that wouldn't nerf TWF which seems to be part of his goal.

Well, for my part, I say this is the perfect time to introduce reach weapons...

[Aspenor]

Yes! If you are in range for your main hand attack, you will of course be in range for you off-hand attack.

Of course, that wouldn't nerf TWF which seems to be part of his goal.

I choose to hope his reasons for doing this are genuinely to fix DPS lag.

This is definitely a global nerf for TWF, but it's a kick in the teeth directly to rogues, twf melee FVS, TWF bards, etc.

[Aesop]

What about a granted feat given every 4 rogue levels that gives 2-3% of a chance at a DS, this way at level 20 a pure rogue would have 110-115% main hand and 80% off hand if they haven't taken STWF. With that addition, Rogues would be at 95-97.5% of their previous damage output.

I was just going to suggest a Rogue Bonus Feat to make up a little of the difference maybe add 10% or so.

really this suggestion is just trying to get Bluff to have a use besides making rogues who don't know better worse at dealing damage

;)

Aesop

[moorewr]

I was just going to suggest a Rogue Bonus Feat to make up a little of the difference maybe add 10% or so.

really this suggestion is just trying to get Bluff to have a use besides making rogues who don't know better worse at dealing damage

;)

Aesop

I quite like A_D's suggestion which, roughly speaking, was a bonus to to the off-hand proc based on your Dex.

Sigh. We've wandered far from d20 here...

[noinfo]

STWF is nice in theory but horrid in feat starved character builds.

Here is a thought regarding this:

Drop STWF

Currently 20% is the starting point for no 2wf make it 10% + current dex. This reflects the higher dex toons ability to weild 2 weapons effectively. Rogues for the most part have a higher dex and will benefit, Pallies will probably still have to equip dex items for 17+6 -10 or +13 bonus.

Expanding on this:

A good dex rogue with 34 dex with full gtwf would have +24% allow the 4% chance to proc a double strike with off hand. It would be a nice way to boost dex based toons dps a little.


And maybe get rid of grazing hits? :-p

[Rexmundis]

I really think this isn't about lag (ok so what .001% of the population doing Epic VoN runs will be laggy...cry...). This is more about an EPIC NERF on TWF, the most popular combat style. Hrmm, +5 heart of woods in tandem with this announcement...coincidence? I THINK NOT!

[kamimitsu]

Well, Mechanics are getting repeating crossbows for free! I guess that is symptomatic with the rogue capstone. We are supposed to range trashmobs in adventure zones and run the solo quest Raiding the Giants Vault while other classes raid and run Epic.

Because why would anyone pick a rogue, *now coming with freshly lowered DPS!* over a THF barb in his group anymore? So thanks devs, you drove away Sableshadow, one of the best rogue players in the game with your rogue hate - let's see how many you manage to drive away with this stunt.

Screw that. I'm keeping my Pure Rogue Assassin until the very day that this game goes belly up. If nothing else, so that other melee classes (Barbarians and Rangers, the only ones left) can whisper as he runs by, "See, that is what DPS used to look like!"

In all seriousness, I hold out hope that while there will no doubt be a lessening of DPS for TWFers, there will be some balancing overall and opportunities for the classes most severely hit to make up the difference. Where and why I still have that hope is anybody's guess; perhaps I'm just an eternal optimist.

[Ollathir]

So why would anyone bother with TWF anymore? Are we getting free hearts of wood and large ingredients (or Epic SoS since you mention it ;)) to respec and re-equip our characters?

To answer my first question I guess Rangers (since they get the feats for free), Monks (since you can't go THF with handwraps) and Rogues (since sneak attack on both hands is quite useful) may still prefer TWF. For other classes it seems like the investment is not worth it if you end up with similar DPS against single targets (assuming the THF is not twitching), less DPS against multiple targets, less to-hit, and one less feat if you are a Khopesh user (in addition to typically lower Str as well due to the heavier Dex investment).




With the addition of FB pre and the introduction of the ESoS I think THF has been brought back up to par with twf. If DPS is reduced for twf with this proposed fix im not for it, unless another way can be introduced to boost twf dps.

TWF requires a hardier investment than thf. With the need to have a high base dex, and the necessity of two weapons, it literally costs more to be a twf then a thf. The only bonus left would be the flexibility of having different stats on two weapons (for example, a monk splash ac ranger having +2 wis on one min II and +4 insight on the other)

With fighter/paly hate seeming broken, its already a large hill to climb to be able to do enough dps and have enough ac, AND enough hitpoints to be able to hold agro in a raid like ToD (a raid where lag is atrocious), by lowering twf dps this makes it that much more difficult for a twf fighter to do this. This is just one example, however with the cost involved going twf I think it should do more single target dps then thf, but less AoE dps then THF.

Obviously these are simply my opinions on the matter, but I think by reducing dps on twf you have taken away the last reason to go twf (similar dps to thf in most cases) and we will see mostly thf running around (this bodes bad for my pure paly who will have more competition for the ESoS ;) )

If the issues is # of calcs/second, what about streamlining the additional weapon procs done by greensteel? Maybe instead of 1dX damage on a tier, it becomes X damage every hit.

How about adding more chances per attack? Instead of a % chance every attack as you propose, what about a guaranteed attack & a % chance (much less then 90% prolly) So, if you have all the twf you get X number of xtra attacks guaranteed, as well as X% chance to proc another attack per offhand, or main hand swing.


Im not a math wiz, and others can do it much more reliably than I can, but it seems we should be able to come up with some combination that gives similar or slightly buffed dps, while reducing lag at the same time.



EDIT:::Big props for attempting this. Many have seen this as a game breaking problem for a long time (the only times i think about canceling for 2 years now is when extremely lagged out). While most understand its not a simple fix, it is still fresh to see someone trying to fix it, instead of "Hey we fixed lag, heres Dungeon Alert"



Ya, I'm with ya on this Cyr... If it hits Lamania with Update 5, it will come to live servers. I forsee no changes to this system and it is coming. Time to gear up for THF.

I'm sorry but 55% chance to land your off hand attack with a base GTWF build is a waste of 3 Feats and attribute points to get those Feats. You are going away from the D&D system once again.

Agreed. TWF is a heavier investment than THF, and shouldnt be 'adjusted down' to THF DPS. Rather bland choice of melee builds would be encouraged if people decided to stick around and adapt to the proposed changes. Max STR high CON, ESoS or greensteal.



I am extremely disappointed to hear of this nerf. 2HF had already caught up to 2WF and even passed it with epic SoS. Elite and Epic play is dominated by 2HF Barbarians and Kensai. All I see is a terrible and unwarranted nerf to 2WF and especially to the poor rogues who already struggle to find a place in high end content.

It sounds like you have proposed to reduce DPS lag by simply reducing DPS altogether. Make no mistake, this change will cost the average rogue 25% of his DPS and greatly nerf all strategies that involve high attack rate (vorpal, smite, banish, WoP, WoE, etc.). The sheer number of attacks being thrown by 2WF was the only thing keeping it remotely competitive with 2HF, now that is gone.

Agreed. No reason to carry a Vorpal in the offhand if you need to roll and confirm your 20 only after seeing if you even used your offhand. Again, better off switching to THF if you plan on tanking under these proposed changes.


At this time there are no changes planned for haste action boosts.


You are correct, double strike at this time does not apply to ranged or thrown attacks. We are planning on investigating various improvements to ranged combat in a future update.


Monsters would take 50% longer to kill only if the off-hand chance was reduced to zero, and a chance to attack under 100% was applied to the main hand as well. (As main hand attacks deal more damage than off-hand, with the exception of the monk.)

At least I know where I stand with my Monk.


The biggest problem with all of this, is that some people have spent 4 years collecting weapons and building toons that are 2WF, and some of them are pretty freaking good! Some of them are "Godly" compared to most. I have 6 2WF's and 3 THF's. I enjoy playing the THF's more, but the 2WF's clearly outclass the THF. Like I said, people have spent YEARS developing and fine tuning these toons and outfitting them. Now you plan to make adjustments to all of that and it may take them years to get them back to being the "best".

If you want to get past all the fears that most of these people have then you may have to make some sacrifices, such as;

Allow a full/free respec
Allow Greensteel items to be changed (years of farming gone/useless for some toons)
Allow DT runes for DT Armor to be returned or adjusted (years of farming)

Some people have farmed for years to make their toons great and now will think YOU are nerfing them. YOU ARE! But for the benifit of all, and I think it's great! I can't begin to tell you about all the 2HF's in Pre Launch that were VERY discouraged when they figured out that they were being out gunned by Khopesh and Dwarven Axe dual wielders.. and then when WOPS came in to play....eek....

Anyways, you are bringing a whole lot of fear into people that have worked for years to get their toons to being the BEST... Help them get over it... give them some options... just in case.

Battlehawke

That would be nice, but unlikely for a couple reasons. Doing that would be like saying "We made this change, we know you wont like it, here build a THF if you want to be a main tank. Also as you mentioned many folks have spent years getting to where they are... well, kind of makes sense from a buisiness perspective to make us spend another couple years doing it all over again don't it?




Attaching the offhand attack to the mainhand is a smart way to reduce lag, but reducing two weapon fighting's DPS by 25% is a problem for me.

The game was getting quite balanced between two-handed and two weapon fighting for most classes, with clear advantages in both. Two weapon fighting gave the vanilla baseline character an advantage, but it cost far more to maintain. Fighting multiple monsters with Greater Two Handed Fighting quickly changed that balance enough to matter. Class/race bonuses & equipment propped up two handed fighting to beat out that baseline on a large number of builds. Many weapons besides khopeshes were finally getting some use. Scimitar & falchion enhancements, favored soul favored weapons, ranger bow & arcane archer enhancements -- all of these were shaking things up. I have never seen the game this balanced (and varied) in that respect.

This change brings too many unintended nerfs to classes that simply don't deserve it. A small change in power is one thing, but I can think of dozens of builds that simply need to go reroll because they took lines like Kensei or Monks at face value, assuming the theme would keep them afloat even as the game changed.

I don't know what more to say. In all the time I have played DDO ... through "mod 9 coming soon" and Dungeon Alert and epic and everything else, nothing has really fazed my desire to keep pushing the norms and keeping things fresh in DDO. The way this change was implemented leaves me very, very disappointed.

Couldn't agree more.


That is correct.


Dungeon Alert was meant to control one particular source of lag. (Specifically, pathing and perception systems of large numbers of monsters in a small area, since that's an n^2 problem.) It was never expected to banish all of it. Likewise, these changes are not expected to banish all forms of lag, but should help some of them.

E, I'd much rather have lag than a sweeping change like this that should help some forms of lag. I dont really need to see it on live server to understand what the end result will be for TWF. As stated I think the investment as a good TWF deserves a better payout than whats on the table and doesnt need to be moved anywhere closer to THF.

[M3thos]

I hope you guys would address the lag issue pretty fast. I seem to lag in just about every raid and kinda dont want to run them anymore. So if u guys can get that worked out some I would love to run more raids. I know you wont be able to get rid of all the lag but just fix it some. When I go to the raid I drop my graphics all the way down and it still doesn't help. So I hope you guys can help

[Razcar]

The only rogue we will see in high levels is an NPC. "Wave to Jeets now children, he is the last of his kind!"

[Rexmundis]

The only rouge we will see in high levels is an NPC. "Wave to Jeets now children, he is the last of his kind!"

LOL.

Throw in Paladins too... and fvs.... and warchanters... and...fighters

[Chai]

Alot of absolute statements beng made in this thread, long before any testing has been done.

I am looking at the WoP "nerf" threads here as a past example. End result, it takes 2 nanoseconds longer to kill a mob than it used to.

Are you all willing to eat all those absolute statements if you are incorrect?

[Seikojin]

Close, but not quite yet there. Only 5% from Tempest 3? Make it 10. Drop STWF.

Rangers now attack 10% (20% offhand/2) faster than Fighter 20, which is offset by their higher strength and crit multi. Paladins via Zeal will be either (depending on smite mechanics). Fighters will be either, with a preference toward THF. Barbs will be THF. Rogues will be TWF.

Done.

Actually, the percentages in that is perfectly fine because the Temp 3 tier has over 100% on the mainhand, producing more hits than everyone else. %% over doesn't seem like much to you, but it yeilds an extra attack every 20th swing of the main hand. And that doesn't include the doublestrike feature (if that is still left in).

The doublestrike feature is really a stopgap to keep dps pretty much the same as dps is now when the off hand proc appears.

Also, I dunno why people say temp 3 is the king of swing hill. A full feat twf swings as many times as a tempest, currently.

[Sirslapemsack]

could someone bring the charts to the front or point to the page they are on?? Hard to find them and ppl are still talking about this as if its a lag issue.

[Razcar]

Alot of absolute statements beng made in this thread, long before any testing has been done.

I am looking at the WoP "nerf" threads here as a past example. End result, it takes 2 nanoseconds longer to kill a mob than it used to.

Are you all willing to eat all those absolute statements if you are incorrect?
What "testing" do you want to do? It is not like he said "we will lower DPS a little bit" or "TWF will loose some DPS". Rogues, TWF bards and others are getting 10% lower DPS if this is carried through, with no possibility to take STWF. It is on the first page on this thread. That's it.

I was in favor of the WoP nerf, even though I had two capped characters using WoPs alot. But this change I am totally against. It strikes at the ones already weak.

[Wizzly_Bear]

I am looking at the WoP "nerf" threads here as a past example. End result, it takes 2 nanoseconds longer to kill a mob than it used to.
That is incorrect. It can take several seconds longer for some enemies.

[Seikojin]

What about replacing mob clusters so there aren't as many per engagement as there currently is? I am sure that there would be less data load if you only were swinging against 2 or 3 monsters at once rather than 10 to 15.

[Winteris]

There is one more solution, pump up mobs AC a bit, less hit means less pocs, less calculations. Additonally it will make some sense, whats a point to roll for hit if everyone hit on 1? It will be also more twf nerf than thf, but changing whole combat mechanics in proposed way mean many unpredicted and unwanted effects. That system will be also simpler and easier to understand for new players. It will make a destruction, maladroit weapons and sunder ability viable choice. Will be also easier to balance, just give some classes to-hit bonuses, it will be in flavor for some Pre, like assasins, thief acrobat (full BAB with staves ?), kotc paladins (+ to hit against outsiders) etc

Also it is really funny that through 60 pages of that thread i saw maybe few questions about THF nerf, but i saw many ppl whining how bad TWF is, how they cant pull aggro from THf barbs etc. Its hilarious , u really dont have to suffer any more, just drop that cursed style and start to roll THF chars.

[Tapsimanxer]

i dont know if this got mentioned, im just a simple hack and slash player. what will happen to my exalted smites and divine sacrifices on the offhand? will they still proc twice for twf?

im afraid my playstyle is nearing the end. and i havent been playing a year even.

[SisAmethyst]

So...someone posted what sounds like a good idea to reduce calculations...'1 roll to rule them all', rather than 10 different rolls..and its too late to make that kind of change?
...
As other people have already said...if the servers cannot handle the calculations now, but apparently reducing twf attacks by the 25% number people are saying will...I mean seriously - chips can handle millions of calculations a second and 25% less is going to make a difference?

They will as well reduce calculation (physics check) by 50%, this part is the reduce of the lag. However they thing also that TWF is too much overpowered over THF and will nerf that (statement around page 30 I guess). So the nerf of the TWF has not really much to do with the lag reduction.


It is pretty hard NOT to ask about the quality of the servers at that point isnt it?

They even posted in this Thread more then once that they already upgraded the Hardware, but just upgrading Hardware will not solve the Problems as it is as well absolutly un-economic to just improve the Server performance in the Sky to have it finally 95% being in idle mode while when the lag happens in burst moments the Load still exceed 100%. I know it is hard to read the previous 60 pages :) but please stop asking for Hardware, the Devs start to get annoyed about this sentences and at least me I am glad they listen to us.


And side note - many people playing, and posting, are programmers and engineers in their own right...why not open up the discussion BEFORE it is too late to make changes? I mean...really.

If you would have read the first post more carefully then you would notice that THIS actualy happen. They ask us right now what we think about the ide, about comments, feelings, suggestions AND they already modified their initial proposal due to feeedbag!

[Forzah]

Before deciding whether this change is any good, I'd like to hear some more numbers. How much damage (in percentage) does TWF approximately do more than THF for two equally well geared characters?

[Skull_49]

i dont know if this got mentioned, im just a simple hack and slash player. what will happen to my exalted smites and divine sacrifices on the offhand? will they still proc twice for twf?

im afraid my playstyle is nearing the end. and i havent been playing a year even.

this is a prime example ... especially the people who have been playing a year+ and eithor dislike thf or just have twf toons and prefer it. Let alone no more monks maybe a few full str twf builds probably not tho. Although the lag should go down because 1/4 of the players quiting the game will make the server do less calculations on top of the twf nerf so lag should go down.

[krud]

Just to agree with others on the ability for requirements for STWF
19 dex is nuts for my main - IF you do that, i'll need base 20 cha AND base 19 dex, not mention needing str just to hit AND a decent con score to survive.

Outside of this i'm still very unsure of these changes, they seem to be more inline with reducing dps than streamlining data flow.
Actually, I'd rather them make the dex prereq so high that only finesse builds can get it. Keeps them from being gimp, and gives some added benefit for taking the extra feat. Str builds will just have to do without. It's the trade-off for having higher str damage. rangers would also have to meet the dex prereq.

[alcmaeon]

Change is evil. So if you are going to do this radical of a concept change. You need to put in a reasonable ability to remake my greensteel. I've put a lot of time and effort in the Shroud. IF you don't you are just going to p me of, and make me start thinking about a long, long time ago in a galaxy far far away...

[Iambeastx]

Actually, I'd rather them make the dex prereq so high that only finesse builds can get it. Keeps them from being gimp, and gives some added benefit for taking the extra feat. Str builds will just have to do without. It's the trade-off for having higher str damage.

Your suggesting that an already feat starved class, paladins, should be forced to take two extra feats in order to try to keep up with dps? and most likely still not keep up with Thf dps.

[Tapsimanxer]

hmm, i think the devs are bastard sword users.

[krud]

Your suggesting that an already feat starved class, paladins, should be forced to take two extra feats in order to try to keep up with dps? and most likely still not keep up with Thf dps.
Not at all, they just won't take it, just like every other str build. Only high dex builds would hit the prereqs. You go with str and do without the feat. It's not like finesse builds aren't gonna become kings of dps if they're the only ones with stwf.

edit - keep up with THF? lol. they're already ahead.

[redgod]

kills monk dps arent we hated enough makes us fight with 1 hand tied sad fix lag erase toon then theirs no lag issue

swatting flies with a baseball bat is not a good idea

and what about monks who dont stand arround in wind stance you gave earth stance life when you gave gear that raised the dammage die now you cut the attacks in half and really dungen alert fixed low level lag. ya right ... what low level lag it was never an issue raid lag was dungen alert dident do anything for raid lag.

this will no more reason to raid my toons are trash

like 2wf rogues relie on off hands for dps for stat dammage and such is raising the dammage of their mainhand is not going to do anything no this will put stat dammagers obsolete monks useless and 2hf barbs and fighters everywere if this goes live ill quit before i re build greensteele and tr 12 of my 16 toons

this is going to be tarded please dont make this live before i can play starcraft 2 i want something to do when i quit

[SisAmethyst]

you have x number of players all hitting a mob, y number of mobs all hitting players and x * y number of attacks which need geometry checks, attack rolls, damage rolls, ciritcal rolls etc etc
...
reducing the number of geometry checks is a start (and a good one) ...

Well as already mentioned before (yes 60 pages is awesome to crawl through), the big problem are the geometry checks not the rolls! And they will reduce that physics checks by 50% which will reduce the ammount of calculations far more then 50%!


...the damage roll will be:
1d6 Slashing from weapon, 2d6 good from holy, 1d6 good from cap stone, 2d6 light from cap stone, 4d6 from KotC, 1d6 from Kotc set, 9d6 light from divine sacrifice
...
instead of the above I would use:
1d6 slashing from weapon, 1 D15 + 3 Good, 1D55 + 11 Light, 1D25 + 5 from Kotc

the BIG problem here is

1d6 + 2d6 + 1d6 + 2d6 + 4d6 + 1d6 + 9d6 != 1d6 + 1D15 + 3 + 1D55 + 11 +1D25 + 5

Its a totaly differenet equation with statistically totaly different numbers and end results! (Not to mention that it wouldn't be D20 system anymore) see this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution) about the Normal distribution. For example this is the statistical image of a single 1d9:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/Planche_de_Galton.jpg/724px-Planche_de_Galton.jpg

Your equation would change the outcome of this fundamental!

To make it more visible: 2(1+7) != 7(1+2) --> 16 != 21

It will just not work to replace several smaller dices with one big!

[Tarnoc]

Not at all, they just won't take it, just like every other str build. Only high dex builds would hit the prereqs. You go with str and do without the feat. It's not like finesse builds aren't gonna become kings of dps if they're the only ones with stwf.

edit - keep up with THF? lol. they're already ahead.

i dont see this i guess that thelanis must just have uber THF s because like ive stated before the only way anyone steals agro is because the THF is chained slowed or rolling 1s and 2s assuming that the THF isnt build yesterday vs TWF build 4 years ago

so imo THF who is almost complete with thier gear vs a TWF almost complete with gear the THF will out dps the TWF short of the luck of die rolls and honestly they shouldnt be basing the dps out on good or bad rolls

P.S. ive seen a sword and board pali steal agro from aTHF who couldnt roll outta a paper bag....oooo lets nerf pali smites while were at it


IDE RATHER SEE THEM NERF GS WEAPON PROCS BEFORE THEY NERF THE SPEED AT WHICH WE KILL THINGS

[uhgungawa]

That's right, you heard it here first. The finalized TWF is here now for your viewing, enjoy.

http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0909/12.jpg

[Daehawk]

Kambuk, you have brought up something that we have addressed for the next update. There was a bug where AOE spells were requiring all clients affected by the spell to be synchronized. Essentially, before an AOE (many, but not all) would go off all the clients had to report in to the server with a "I'm here!" message. This would cause exactly the problem you describe. We've fixed this, and now every player will get the effect applied immediately after the spell is cast.

Unfortunately, we still have other dps lag issues.

I was not in the office today, so I apologize if this was already addressed by Eladrin, I have not had the time to read 90% of this thread.

I never saw the question asked before or an answer received so you're fine Phax.

But I have a question if you want to answer it. Some spells that we cast like fireball or another spell that does an aoe explosion. If we have one target and it dies while we cast it the spell just disappears. Has this been fixed with this change above where the spell will still shoot over to the pre-destined spot?

[akiraproject24]

so i am curious as to who on here will admit that thier fully geared uber THF barb gets out DPSed by TWF.....

the only time i ever steal agro from a barb tanking is

1 they get chained or slowed..
2 they are new and actually dont have all the gear that my elder TWF has
3 thier INT based lol
4 i get lucky and way out crit the barb who cant roll above a 1...and that shouldnt be considered out dpsing as that just bad rolling vs my good rolling

So tell me shade do the TWF in your group steal your agro in normal conditions?

im guesssing not and all the TWF cryign for balance just see an opurtunity to be on top without any really uber gear......

and btw this was this way before epic SOS so i only see that weapon as taking it even further to THf favour......guess ill have to get an epic SOS on my ranger hmm coupled with favoured enemys it might be uber dps

P.S.the dps lag is mostly a factor of GS procs this is widely known.....so why not loose the procs nerf GS which you will do anyways...make it ona crit and lower damages from 500+lightning strike to say 20 points.....this would stop the whole calculate 1% to 5% thing everyswing......this is the true solution and as much as you think nerfing our attacks is the lesser of two evils it is not.....i own 7 GS weapons on my TWF alone and im in favour of toning them down over nerfing my speed period to only have it not address the issue of LAG

My twf wf kensai with khopeshs does it all the time

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Eladrin, couldn't you just remove the off-hand physics checks and call it a day, as well? If these make up the larger portion of the load......

Frankly if they were smart they would have fixed the physics checks...and not attempted to merge it with a nerf.

If they had to nerf for balance, they could have done that later, and the mechanic would already be in place. As it is people are just confused and coming up with suggestions that don't help at all becuase they don't understand there are two seperate things happenning.

[Trillea]

I don't know if this has been covered yet, but currently the assassinate ability with 2 weapons is always a 2-weapon strike causing either 2 saves on 1 mob, or 1 save on 2 different mobs. Would this change significantly? If so this is a major hit to rogues, at least until assassinate is no longer viable like in epic.

[Argo112]

I'm pretty intimately familiar with "tolerance" levels of the community after all this time (even with all the new folks in the mix since F2P launch), and it is definitely not a case of "apathy".

As for seeing non-dps lag, on your end, there is no way for you to know when you experience lag in your quest what the person in another quest is doing that could be causing it. It's the nature of the way instances relate to one another in game. Your waterworks quest could be sharing with an instance of the marketplace, a full shroud run, a partial shroud run, korthos island, someone with a hireling that had a pathing issue in Von2 (which was fixed fortunately in the last update), etc. This is what our performance studies are for. We sit down and study the poor performance, then start parsing the data to see what is being so expensive. Sometimes it's very clear, and sometimes it requires more digging on the part of the teams. To a point, there will always be some moments of lag because there are so many different things that relate to it. It really is like illness - you can't prevent every cold and flu, but you can reduce the likelihood of catching it for better living :)

If DPS lag in high level content is being caused by a servers having a problem keeping up with the activity on the server ... why not have servers dedicated to high-end content alone? VIP subscription money can pay for it, and I don't *think* it would be that hard to implement....

[Brother_Solar]

Edit:
Thanks for the massive amount of feedback all.

We're currently thinking of adjusting the numbers to:



Doublestrike Bonus Main hand Off hand
No feats 0 20% 100% 20%
TWF 0 +20% 100% 40%
ITWF 0 +20% 100% 60%
GTWF 0 +20% 100% 80%
STWF 0 +20% 100% 100%
Tempest I 0 +10% 100% 90%
Tempest II 0 +10% 100% 100%
Tempest III +5%* 0 105% 100%
Wind IV +10% 0 110% 80%
Zeal +10% 0 110% 80%
Alacrity +10% 0 110% 80%
* Only when wielding two weapons.

This set switches Wind Stance and Tempest III to doublestrike bonuses, increases the benefits of the TWF feat chain, and adds an additional feat for high BAB characters.

All of the bottom rows assume that the person has GTWF, except for the STWF row.
For monks, I like this. Lots. This will actually REDUCE the supremacy of Wind stance over all of the other monk stances (assuming that the other stances are Hasted). Without Haste, Wind will still keep its major lead, and with Haste, other stances will be within 5% of Wind DPS.

I can't comment on any of the other classes though, I'm just a monk junky. :D

[SisAmethyst]

Clerics and Favored Souls are already have melee damage far behind the primary melee classes. Is there any justification to give them a further reduction compared to Fighters, Barbarians, and Rangers?

/ironie on

Yeah, reducing Clerics and FvS to just plain Healbots, put them in the corner where they do belong!!!

Player A: Mhhh, where did all the Clerics and FvS go?
Player B: Well its too awesome to play those classes.
Player A: Why, but I need someone to heal me?!
Player B: They only can Heal and are unable to solo and are sooo boring to play...
Player A: They should be able to solo perfectly as they can heal themself!
Player B: ... the last one who tryed that fought several minutes the same Mob with his low damage output but was finally slain as his SP ran out from self healing.

/ironie off

[sly_1]

So long as 2wf is still a viable and effective character build than imo it doesn't matter if it receives a slight nerf.

Overall 2wf should be at least slightly better than 2hf simply because you need to sacrifice a lot for 2wf:

- most 2wf builds you need to start with 15 dex and buy a tome or start with 16+ dex: that is a large sacrifice compared to 2hf that can dump dex to pump other stats.
- you need to craft 2 gs weapons, or farm/buy in ah etc 2 weapons, meaning double the effort compared to 2hf.

So yeah, given the sacrifices, 2wf should have a slight edge. Doesn't have to dominate, just should be a bit better than 2hf against a single foe is all.

[Sirslapemsack]

eladrin already stated that windstance would keep its attack speed bonus. it would just also add to the TWF abilities. I believe these charts are just proc % not attack speed.

[Tarnoc]

My twf wf kensai with khopeshs does it all the time

well im all for nerfing your dial up connection anyhow...but once again im sure the only time you steal agro is because your critting and the THf is not or thus chained or outta buffs that you got in the other side of the room......and he didnt get even haste for fear of taking off his boots......also a factor dont wf get a power attack enhancement line so if your kensia is wf and the barb isa dwarf i can see an issue thier....

NERF WF

[akiraproject24]

well im all for nerfing your dial up connection anyhow...but once again im sure the only time you steal agro is because your critting and the THf is not or thus chained or outta buffs that you got in the other side of the room......and he didnt get even haste for fear of taking off his boots......also a factor dont wf get a power attack enhancement line so if your kensia is wf and the barb isa dwarf i can see an issue thier....

NERF WF

First of all against horroth I know how to not take aggro so I dont, on other boss mobs critting is DPS and a lv 20 kensai fighter crits 16-20 with khopeshes so yeah Im crittin like a champ and therefore out DPS'n the barb and taking his aggro. As for dial up no clue what your talking about...can take this to another thread though as it has nothing to do with the issue at hand

[Therilith]

To all the people saying that this change sucks because you won't be able to play your TWFers: FEAR NOT!

Using my mighty brain I have come up with a solution to your problem!

"Keep playing your TWFers."


That is all.

[Redcoil]

Only hard part I see is fighters get less of an investment per level. As the basic tempest and Zeal need less of an investment - 14 zeal, 6 ranger vs 20 for a fighter, they just seem a little bit shorted.

Also by reducing number of dicerolls and using double-procs instead, it's reducing chances of vorps. However it increases usage of monk attacks such as touch of 500 points of pain, as properly timed it seems that that'll be an instant 1000 damage of this seems to work. So the tanks that focus purely on DPS seem to actually be shorted a bit while those with special attacks get a bigger bonus.

[Rav'n]

To all the people saying that this change sucks because you won't be able to play your TWFers: FEAR NOT!

Using my mighty brain I have come up with a solution to your problem!

"Keep playing your TWFers."


That is all.

YUP! I agree, play the game, don't worry about whether you go blind with 1 hand or 2!:D

[IronClan]

Combat was temporarily reduce to 10% of what it is now in patch 1 of DDO:EU. It resulted in a major uproar on the forums (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=201211) and an hotfix was made less than a week later, increasing the speed back by 10% (and nerfing Haste from 25% to 15%). So, while it is technically feasible, it's a really bad idea.

It does not sound that way on paper but slowing down the attack speed, even by a mere 10%, takes a lot of the fun of the game.

Yeah seems like something the user base should just suck up and deal with, 10%... hard to even tell

maybe drop it by 2% every couple weeks... no one will know they will get used to it before they think to check... and then when someone posts a before after on youtube everyone will be like "hey when did they do that".

It obviously would give them more hardware overhead or they wouldn't have tried it back then :)

Seems like a much easier sacrifice than nerfing the majority of melee's and kludging on this distinctly arcadey non D&D feeling Double strike thing

[redgod]

problem solved people you can all settle down now


just add all 2wf dps togeather and use a 2hf animation i mean twf doesent mean in each hand you could squeeze them togeather and swing like an idiot

walaa no more off hand attacks at all

lag solved well all look stupid and itll be pointless but hay its a lot less complicated

[Arctigis]

Frankly if they were smart they would have fixed the physics checks...and not attempted to merge it with a nerf.

If they had to nerf for balance, they could have done that later, and the mechanic would already be in place. As it is people are just confused and coming up with suggestions that don't help at all becuase they don't understand there are two seperate things happenning.

The cynical amongst us might conflate this with a longstanding political technique of piggybacking bad news onto
good. "Good news everyone, we're fixing DPS lag! <mumble>By nerf'ing twf</mumble>"

[Aashrym]

Clerics and Favored Souls are already have melee damage far behind the primary melee classes. Is there any justification to give them a further reduction compared to Fighters, Barbarians, and Rangers?

Yes, you said it in your statement. Primary melee classes. Look how far behind fighters, barbarians, and rangers are behind clerics and favored souls in their casting ability. Do you think changes should be made to make barbarians better healers?

That's the reason I disagreed with you earlier on that point. I do understand what you are saying, but I don't agree clerics and favored souls need access to this one feat for a bit more melee ability just because fighters and rangers will have easy access.

Fighters don't exactly have easy access to the heal spell ;).

[Visty]

Fighters don't exactly have easy access to the heal spell ;).
it just needs 9 levels of halfing and 3 feats (which fighters have enough) ;)

[cdemeritt]

I've seen a lot of comments about Hardware upgrades needed, before changing the mechanics... Well, as much as I'd like to say this was indeed true, I really doubt it. While many companies do sacrifice quaility for profit, I think spending a little more, and making the problem go away would be much easier than dealing with us. The root of the problem actually seems to be elsewhere...

It has been many years since I coded anything, but it seems that the original programmers back 5 or more years ago chose a framework that limited their growth potential... Now several years later, and many added systems shoehorned in, we are past the maxout point of what the coding not the hardware can handle. Some have commented on the way we receive client feedback, as we get it a little at a time, and this slows many things down. However, many have said the more feedback they turn off (the floaty numbers, the effects, stencil shadowing in the Sub-T, etc, etc) the less lag they get. I can't tell you how many times I have heard people complaining about lag in the Sub-T, and their immeadiate reduction in said lag by turning that stencil shadowing off... Granted this isn't DPS lag, but, maybe a better encoding of how we get that feedback will go a long ways in correcting the issue...

Many posts ago, someone made a comment about "if the servers can't handle 250 calculations a second, do you really think are they going to handle 200 all that much better"... paraphrased, but basically what he ment, and I sort of agree... hard to think this change will do all that much for lag.

[Angelus_dead]

What about replacing mob clusters so there aren't as many per engagement as there currently is? I am sure that there would be less data load if you only were swinging against 2 or 3 monsters at once rather than 10 to 15.
That's the opposite of the real situation. The problem under consideration occurs in battles against only one enemy.

[Angelus_dead]

That's the reason I disagreed with you earlier on that point. I do understand what you are saying, but I don't agree clerics and favored souls need access to this one feat for a bit more melee ability just because fighters and rangers will have easy access.
You still have not acknowledged the point that matters:
In what way will it improve the game to further reduce the effectiveness of TWF Clerics and Favored Souls?

Do you think the current TWF potential of divine casters is overpowered compared to other kinds of characters?

[uhgungawa]

it just needs 9 levels of halfing and 3 feats (which fighters have enough) ;)

OK, I'm game. But what race do I take for the other 11 levels ;)

[arminius]

OK, I'm game. But what race do I take for the other 11 levels ;)

LOL. Try wholeling!

[Tapsimanxer]

YUP! I agree, play the game, don't worry about whether you go blind with 1 hand or 2!:D

ive invested all my time learning and twinking out for twf play style (good rapiers cost a frikkin fortune). my best efforts just so i can contribute to the success of the group. once i become useless to them, the game becomes useless to me.

[Devonian]

You still have not acknowledged the point that matters:
In what way will it improve the game to further reduce the effectiveness of TWF Clerics and Favored Souls?

Do you think the current TWF potential of divine casters is overpowered compared to other kinds of characters?

Well, while I admit I know nothing about DDO late game, I do know pen and paper, perhaps fixing the mess that moved two weapon fighting from being best used only with precision damage like sneak attack, to must have source of damage would help, this would also diversify builds late game adding freedom and variety.

But then I am biased in that Id like a much more by the book experience on several fronts. But By the source material Two Weapon fighting is manifestly too good as stands. (and I say that as a huge monk fan who relies on TWFing feats there in.)

[Aashrym]

I skimmed over this before, but now that I think about it, I recommend against giving Warchanters a Song of Doublestrike.

It could be too powerful, making it hard to balance content against groups both with Warchanter and with other bards, or with Warchanter and with no bard. Of course whether that happens depends on the details of how long Song of Doublestrike lasts and what it stacks with, but it seems it would be quite hard to create a version that feels powerful enough for the Warchanter player to notice the effect without being overpowered.

Doublestrike is a multiplicative bonus to damage (like Haste is), and multiplicative damage bonuses are often deceptively powerful. Warchanters already get more Inspire Courage damage than other bards, and that advantage will probably increase at tier 2 and 3. That'll be enough of them getting songs to boost the damage of melee-specced characters; other bonuses they get can be for defensive/utility buffs or the damage of characters who aren't already near the top of the DPS heap (like maybe Song of BAB).

I doubt the Inspire Courage bonus will increase with higher tiers. But if it did, and with your solution to increase BAB it think we would see more demand for warchanters now than before, unless we can get something in spellsinger and virtuoso to compete with the bonus.

We already see the demand for warchanters over a simple +1/+2 bonus. BAB also only helps classes not capped in the BAB unless the full BAB classes can exceed the current limits. To me all that looks like is a way to increase the the number of attacks for other classes and not for fighters/barbarians/paladins/rangers.

Doublestrike song would give more attacks to all classes, with does seem reasonable. Implementing the stacking might be a concern. Too many bonus could lead to issues if done incorrectly but I'd rather not tear too many holes in a doublestrike song just yet. I like it. ;)

[Roman]

Sometimes there's an opening for an attack and sometimes there isn't.


Then all forms of attack should be affected by this fact, not just offhand.

[Aashrym]

Ya know another thing could be to add a Rogue Special Bonus Feat that adds to either off hand or Double Strike... or both

perhaps a 10% OH bonus

Aesop
A_D recommended "opportunist" as a double strike rogue special bonus feat. I think that's was an excellent idea and I hope it gets implemented.

[Aashrym]

oh wait I got one...


successfully Bluffing an opponent could add a 5% DS bonus... and Improved Feint could make that +10% for 6 sec


that would be a benefit for Rogues and other Bluff masters (bardsI guess) and actually make Bluff useful for a change

I kinda like this one too. I'm picturing WF melee sorcerer bluff master builds popping up and that just sounds ODD ;)

[Eeomis]

My bleeding eyes may have missed it but....

How will these proposed changes affect Ki regeneration?



Eeo

[grodon9999]

I missed 20 pages of this, has any mention been made for lower mob HP to correspond with this nerf that will in now way actually affect lag?

[Trillea]

I kinda like this one too. I'm picturing WF melee sorcerer bluff master builds popping up and that just sounds ODD ;)

Hmm THF epic-SOS-wielding doublestriking self-healing melee tank sounds good to me..

[Tarnoc]

well my feelings on this BIG TWF NERF...

is that they look at is as a way to generate more cash from the older player base...through TRs LRs and GRs

and at the same time disregarding us because the new people who dont have wat we have from 4 years of grind will then be equalled up in dps.....now any newb can easily make a barb THF and out dps some vets TWF baby whose had 4 years of attention.....

this is wat this nerf is about nothing to do with lag at all....seeing as the lag has to do with GS procs and not so much offhand attacks and or TWF dps

wat i dont get is how 5 dollars to be premium out wieghs a full vip payment but i guess that turbine has a bigger money crunch going on......

[Captain_Wizbang]

Well the thread that has had more posts, faster than Santa can deliver presents has opened a lot of eyes to how much we have going for us with TWF!

So, people, the devs are asking our opinion, and in no way have made any drastic changes, YET....


Even with the current proposal, TWFs' will not have that big of a drop in abilities or APR,
The proposal is to streamline the time line in the current attack mode, to a more automatic modifier! much like the change from 2.0 rules to 3.5!

Yes all TWFs' (including bare handed monks) will see a change, but it wont destroy your character!

One thing most people are missing in the proposal is that they will also work on the back side of this change! (ie ghasts jumping around like a frog so fast we have to lasso them)

Its all directed at reducing the timing of the data stream the melee has to follow!
They wont nerf our toons so bad, it will be the end of the over-powered TWFs we have now!

We have gotten complacent with what we have, and for the most part have ignored the fact that TWFs are slightly over powered!

Think about it, when Tempest was released and then tweaked, it became the single most powerful melee build without having to be a rocket scientists to build one!

I am not totally freaked out by the proposal, and I know that they will also alter the other parts of melee streams to help reduce lag!

And I have run mainly TWFs for 2 years!
I have 7 rangers!

But Im not being paranoid about the proposal!

In PnP, a ranger never has the ability to out melee a kensai! Or very seldom!

Id like to see constructive replies, that dont have some type of hypothetical graph on stats!

[Coldin]

I'll chime in again.

I like the idea of rogue's getting a feat to do double strikes. Opportunist seems like a good fit for that too. +10% double strike seems like a good amount since it's costing a special ability.

As for Bluff and IF, it would be nice if those had more functionality, and opening up a monster to double strikes seems like a good use for it. Bluff could keep it's old functionality, just make it quicker. IF could be changed to a normal attack that simultaneously bluffs, and gives some percentage of a double strike during that attack.

One last thing. Assassins are getting a bit of a raw deal with the single detection on two weapon attacks. This is because as it stands right now, you can sometimes assassinate two monsters at once, so long as they are standing close together. If the system gets changed for only one detection, double assassinations will no longer happen. Please consider leaving two detections for assassinations so we don't lose this neat ability.

[Trillea]

One last thing. Assassins are getting a bit of a raw deal with the single detection on two weapon attacks. This is because as it stands right now, you can sometimes assassinate two monsters at once, so long as they are standing close together. If the system gets changed for only one detection, double assassinations will no longer happen. Please consider leaving two detections for assassinations so we don't lose this neat ability.

I had a post similar to this earlier, and since it is the speed of TWF that is causing the lag, and since attack speed in sneak mode is REALLY slow already mitigating this, I am /signing this 100%.

/signed.

[eonfreon]

I choose to hope his reasons for doing this are genuinely to fix DPS lag.

This is definitely a global nerf for TWF, but it's a kick in the teeth directly to rogues, twf melee FVS, TWF bards, etc.

Why would you choose to believe something that's not true.

Eladrin has specifically stated that the TWF nerf is because he considers TWF to have an "extreme dominance over two handed fighting".


I won’t hide that these proposed changes do reduce the effectiveness of off-hand attacks, which reduces the two weapon fighting style’s extreme dominance over two handed fighting. Skipping the extreme outlier of the Epic Sword of Shadows (we got a little carried away there, didn’t we?), estimated damage output over time for the two styles should be extremely close to each other if we go this route. (Which style is superior ends up being heavily dependent on your character's abilities.)




The lag fix was the piggybacking of the offhand attack to the main hand attack.

Had they tried to sell the TWF nerf as fair because now there is no collision check for the offhand, they would have been called outright liars. Because anyone who plays the game can see that the offhand collision check is superfluous and unnecessary. How often have the monsters moved away fast enough that you didn't get in the offhand attack?
Especially Raid Bosses who stand there and attack.

I believe they did consider selling it as part of the "fix" but thought better of it. Hence the "I won't hide the fact...." line.
Because until that point in the post there was no mention that the two were really unrelated.

As far as Eladrin's later comment that "sometimes you have an opportunity to attack with the offhand and sometimes you don't" as an attempt to justify the "missing" attack when you are clearly in range but the % dice roll says the second hand doesn't have a chance to attack, all I can say is that is attempt to say that it's fair because now that there is no offhand collision check that we will hit the monsters more often, which I mentioned above.

The attack roll determines if you have a chance or not. It's always been understood by long time D&D players of all types that "hitting" is not always an actual hit. Sometimes it is just that, opening up an opportunity for a true strike.

Just as hit points are not a full picture of the health of the character but also his ability to "survive" combat. That's why "resting" recovers some hit points, because he's getting his wind back, regaining his stamina, etc.

So the to-hit roll is what determines if you have an "opportunity to hit" just as much as an actual hit. And the damage done determines if it's a full hit, a scratch, or just enough to "open" the monster for another attack.

[Aashrym]

it just needs 9 levels of halfing and 3 feats (which fighters have enough) ;)

And when that halfling fighter get his heal will that include more 6th, 7th, and 8th level spells so he can be almost as good as a cleric or fvs?

STWF is 1 feat short of the full chain. My fighter deserves 8th level spells if anyone's FvS deserves access all any full feat chains just because they want to melee more on par with fighters. :D

[redgod]

well you are nerfing my toons into uselessness and i don't trust your doing it for the masses hate of lag.

and i have all this green steell i wont be using on my elf int based barbarian shuriken thrower (Nerf that if ya can)
what now start over

if you institute a change that effects the mass population negatively you should let us deconstruct green steel and reincarnate free and i don't mean as it is now

i mean let us roll a new toon from scratch keep our xp and items and change everything

your planning on changing everything now theirs no way to fix that. fixing them will require not being them anymore i want a true reincarnate free without needing to grind my way back i want to change everything if you rip out my toons soul you should give me one to replace it

[Jastron]

Wow, this is a long thread. Took me awhile to read. I'm glad though, it shows Turbine we are very concerned about this proposed change.

I have been playing DDO since 2005, in fact I have over 7,000 hours of my life invested in this game, so even though I only have a couple chars who are primarily TWF melees, I'm still a stakeholder of note in this matter, and I'm even more concerned about what it means to others who have countless hours invested in nearly perfect TWF builds. My THF builds are not at all envious of TWF DPS compared to them. This is a PVE game, you do 2x as much damage as I do, that's cool, we all work together, you know?

I was vocal about the DA changes last summer, and I applaud Turbine for listening to us and scaling that back at the time, although I'm still not a fan of the system. I am hopeful they will do the same with this change.

This change will impact far more builds than the Devs may anticipate....for instance, my Rogue, my Favored soul who used to melee as well (no longer, I'm retooling him today to be just ah ealer/spellcaster) and in fact, even my S&B intimitank as even he uses dual axes when he needs to vorpal things or do max DPS such as on Harry.
Even my non-melee Cleric will suffer, as when raids and quests take say 25% longer to complete, questing will become more costly. For that reason I dont think this really increases the power of casters relative to melee, as they may be in a quest for a longer period between shrines.

I am quite concerned about the potential loss of guild members and skilled players overall, that this change could cause. I am hoping this is not the dinner mint or straw, but you never know. Best to play it safe Eladrin, do the physics change first, and only go further if tests can truly PROVE that the lag gets reduced a considerable amount by altering the combat rules further. I'd much rather have this amount of lag, or even more! and not have to lose any more beloved members of our community over this.

Thanks for your consideration!

[Grindor]

In the 70+ pages of comments, I'm sure this has been covered, but I want to be sure...

Even with the edited changes, Ranger Tempest I gets a huge nerf. I'll give you this example based on my own characters build (or eventual build).

12 fighter, 6 ranger, 2 rogue
TWF, ITWF, and GTWF feats
Tempest I

That would give me a 10% haste and 80% off hand attacks. That's the equivalent of 110% main hand attacks and 88% off hand.
Under the new plan, it would be 0% haste and 90% off hand attacks. I'd lose 10% of my main hand damage and only gain 2% on my off hand (which also does less damage than my main).

You state that this is not going to do anything to fix lag... so why the nerf? If Tempest I were to give a 10% chance of a main hand double strike and a 5-10% chance of an off hand attack, THAT would be a lot more fair.

[Redcoil]

This is a TWF CHANGE not a nerf. (Unless you're a rogue. Kinda hosed there.)

Points to make:
THF: Fighters and Pallies get THF increase.

Monks: Big DPS increase potential.
Ranger: No big change for you, really. Just less lag for the rest of us.
Pallies: Slight offhand loss, but gain on mainhand. Again, you're not missing out on much.
Fighter: THF increase, TWF about same.

Downside: Rogues get hosed. Without TWF buffs they flat out lose 20% offhand, as well as vorp/assassinate checks.
Anyone else splashed- bard/fighter combos etc. Lose DPS with no benefits.

Doublestrike Question: as some of the weapons that'll doublestrike have many many effects; holy, burst/blast/force/sneak attack etc, will it be seperate dice rolls for that as well, or since its taken the first hit to double, will all numbers be just copied over.

aka a crit for 250 mainhand, 8 damge from holy, 12 good burst 12 blast 11 sneak attack and +1 force, would the numbers be exactly copied to again reduce computations, or new set? Just curious. Seems simpler is all.

[iwantitall]

These nerfs are a bad idea. Alot of TWF builds rely on their speed to be viable. Its why there is so many builds a person can play with. Taking away from the TWF only will make alot of options for builds less viable and basically make builds more cookie cutter. That is the reason I left World of Warcraft and most likely I will leave DDO if this happens. In my opinion playing a game that if you don't build your toon exactly like (insert build/rotation) no one wants to run with you sucks.
I find it humorous that the term "go back to WOW" is an insult in DDO. It wasn't said to me but i laughed and honestly believe its because of the cookie cutter approach they have to dps. There everyone goes by the same (insert spec/rotation). If you start eliminating the ability to be viable with builds you will be going the same route. I made my first toon a monk and I'm having a blast. Its the speed in which my toon fights. I finally left WOW because it was difficult to stand out among the others because everyone was the same. It looks like TWF/THF are pretty balanced at this time.
I also know it really doesn't matter much because I'm only one person but if everyone is going to have to go to just THF and classes that barely can make it into raids now are going to be even less attractive to raids. Ill have to look for another game. Just my thoughts and I don't mean to jump around so much on ideas but I'm not typing this **** again.

[redgod]

My bleeding eyes may have missed it but....

How will these proposed changes affect Ki regeneration?



Eeo

easy ki generation based on hit will be cut massivly lowering the ammount of elemental strikes
futher gimping all handwrap monks

[Therilith]

ive invested all my time learning and twinking out for twf play style (good rapiers cost a frikkin fortune). my best efforts just so i can contribute to the success of the group. once i become useless to them, the game becomes useless to me.

Good thing you won't "become useless to them" then.

[Isolani]

Who knew the fix to dps lag could be so simple? Just remove dps. Duh.

This isn't something I would cancel over, but it does hurt a lot of my characters (TWF FvS, TWF wiz/kensai, etc). Some of my favorite characters are twf casters, they aren't exactly melee dps powerhouses to begin with and this won't help at all.

I spent real money at the ddo store on +2 dex tomes for a lot of characters so they could get GTWF...turns out I should have just used a greataxe all along instead of wasting money at the ddo store.

Hmm, I find myself becoming enraged the more I think about that.

[Aashrym]

You still have not acknowledged the point that matters:
In what way will it improve the game to further reduce the effectiveness of TWF Clerics and Favored Souls?

Do you think the current TWF potential of divine casters is overpowered compared to other kinds of characters?

Melee classes should be much better at melee than TWF and FvS. That really is like saying fighters should be more effective casters compared to clerics and fvs.

I'm not sure why you think they should be entitled to the feat just because a fighter are ranger would have access. Fighters fight. That pretty much is what they do. They might THF or TWF, but they have those feats and those options because that is what the class is capable of.

Clerics and FvS are primarily casters. They really can be built to melee well but if we push them closer and closer to melee those top tier feats that fighters (rangers too, simply because they were built with TWF in mind) have access too it's more like a proxy nerf (your term) to fighters as we give what they can have to other classes with nothing in return.

There are also PnP roots to this game and clerics didn't have access to all feat chains there either. That might be a weaker point in the discussion, but it is valid too.

When I read your comments I see, "I want to have the feat because it exists in my chain so I should have it because it exists and other people can get it."

We all have to make choices when we build characters. Fighters still have to meet requirements to get those feats too. If there is a DEX requirement and a BAB requirement this feat will exist and it will be hard for everyone to qualify for, except rangers if they get it free. And only classes capable of doing that will get it. That makes it a top tier feat.

It might not be worth putting in. But not putting it in because not everyone will have easy access to it doesn't make a lot of sense looking at what those classes already have in lieu of that feat.

Sure a fighter can get it, but he really won't have the casting ability of either clerics or favored souls. Is the one feat really worth what that fighter doesn't have when he makes his build choices to grab that one bit more chance at an offhand attack?

Sorry for the wall. I think you post a lot of good comments and ideas, and I have given rep to you several times. Clerics and FvS's (and several other classes) thinking they need to add that one more feat just because it's there in order to be viable does seem silly to me.

[Therilith]

This is a PVE game, you do 2x as much damage as I do, that's cool
All other things equal it is, in fact, not cool that one style of combat outclasses another to such an embarrassing degree.


Best to play it safe Eladrin, do the physics change first, and only go further if tests can truly PROVE that the lag gets reduced a considerable amount by altering the combat rules further
The TWF nerf isn't about reducing lag, it's about nerfing TWF. Don't feel bad though, I only know that because I'm part of a secretive and elite group of people who actually read the OP.

[Chai]

That is incorrect. It can take several seconds longer for some enemies.

Non epic trash mobs with full con and crits only on weapon threat take that long to kill. Non epic trash mobs in auto crit with 0 con, which is what WoP workes on, take barely a second to drop once they are in auto crit mode. The difference had minimal impact to the game. Theres a chance this one will too. I see parallels here in the amount of open forum neg feedback.

So my question still stands. Are you willing to eat those words if all this gloom and doom forshadowing is incorrect?

[Tarnoc]

Good thing you won't "become useless to them" then.

how do you know this as you dont have any meellee toons

[SteeleTrueheart]

Again I hope that the lesser reincarnations are given 1 per character or at least on sale for something like 90% off for a week.

A question a guildy asked me today and I wasn't sure. If your main hand attack misses, does that mean you have no chance to proc a 2nd hand attack from that swing? Or are these independent of each other?

[IronClan]

That's right, you heard it here first. The finalized TWF is here now for your viewing, enjoy.

http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0909/12.jpg

Eladrin has already stated they that they feel that TWF is overly dominant and needs to be nerfed... would people stop acting like they're trying to pull the wool over their eyes?

The problem with "democracy" and player feedback is that the average person only cares about his own self interest and will rabidly fight anything that threatens it.

Turbine might have to make some hard decisions here... there are obviously an overwhelming number of players here who are against this, for turbine it's a made your bed now lay in it problem... to fix the large disparity between S&B and TWF/THF they need to knock both of them down a little (very little in the case of THF) to make any buffs to S&B not be so drastic... TWF is still more uber than THF with this nerf (as it should be due to the possible need for an extra feat for OTWF) unless you're one of the teeny tinny few who have an Epic Sword of Shadows... In other words unless you're among a handfull of players. This nerf does not make TWF inferior to THF; and the game can not be balanced for a handful of extreme outlier players who are a minority even among the minority who grind epic content...

The game must be balanced for the majority... and the majority will never even SEE an Epic SoS in action let alone grind for one... If ESoS is such a problem then they'll need to put in something equally as epic (and rare) for dual wielders and make it exclusive, Epic TWF Khopesh in main hand and GS in the other...

For the record I hate the double strike idea, it's a klunker. But i recognize that it's a bone thrown in to try and lessen the pain of a needed adjustment to the TWF style... And also slow combat down a little. The actual TWF nerf is really not that bad... 10-15% is a small thing... except to those who are most self centered, most "min maxed" and play the game thinking they and everyone that dares join their party, MUST be optimal... or they are the scum of the earth "gimps" "short bus" players, etc....

Sadly the nerf that DDO most needs, is a nerf of Munchkins...

[moorewr]

What I object to anything that stovepipes builds in ways not intended by PnP.

It is all very well to give a % boost to Tempest, as it does now, but here we are talking about an insurmountable difference between an STWF Tempest III and a GTWF rogue. The rogue will simply have no chance to compete with th off-hand and double-strike chances built into the new system. That's far inferior to the situation with alacrity now.

That's far more unbalanced than the classes are in PnP, and it is bad for the game because it removes choices from us players in building a character.

[Chai]

Melee classes should be much better at melee than TWF and FvS. That really is like saying fighters should be more effective casters compared to clerics and fvs.

I'm not sure why you think they should be entitled to the feat just because a fighter are ranger would have access. Fighters fight. That pretty much is what they do. They might THF or TWF, but they have those feats and those options because that is what the class is capable of.

Clerics and FvS are primarily casters. They really can be built to melee well but if we push them closer and closer to melee those top tier feats that fighters (rangers too, simply because they were built with TWF in mind) have access too it's more like a proxy nerf (your term) to fighters as we give what they can have to other classes with nothing in return.

There are also PnP roots to this game and clerics didn't have access to all feat chains there either. That might be a weaker point in the discussion, but it is valid too.

When I read your comments I see, "I want to have the feat because it exists in my chain so I should have it because it exists and other people can get it."

We all have to make choices when we build characters. Fighters still have to meet requirements to get those feats too. If there is a DEX requirement and a BAB requirement this feat will exist and it will be hard for everyone to qualify for, except rangers if they get it free. And only classes capable of doing that will get it. That makes it a top tier feat.

It might not be worth putting in. But not putting it in because not everyone will have easy access to it doesn't make a lot of sense looking at what those classes already have in lieu of that feat.

Sure a fighter can get it, but he really won't have the casting ability of either clerics or favored souls. Is the one feat really worth what that fighter doesn't have when he makes his build choices to grab that one bit more chance at an offhand attack?

Sorry for the wall. I think you post a lot of good comments and ideas, and I have given rep to you several times. Clerics and FvS's (and several other classes) thinking they need to add that one more feat just because it's there in order to be viable does seem silly to me.


I agree with most of what you say here however...

What about dex builds?

Its more realistic that a high dex build will have STWF than min maxed str builds who take the min dex requirement just to fit the feat in. My 40 dex rogue wont have access to this due to the BAB 16 requirement but a 19 dex fighter will have access to it. Unrealistic at best. I believe they will have to change to requirements to please people, and if they do, whats to stop all the clerics, bards, and FvS from jumping on that bandwagon too?

I believe what you say about fighters, and Id toss barbarians in there too. If you bring everyone elses melee too close to theirs, it takes away from fighters and barbarians. If I can build a FvS that can melee 90% as well as a barbarian or fighter, I will take that any day of the week.

[Towrn]

Monk Air stances now grant a +5%/+10%/+15%/+20% insight bonus to the chance to proc off-hand attacks instead of an insight bonus to attack speed. (Enhancement bonus to attack speed remains.)
remain unchanged.

We're currently thinking of adjusting the numbers to:



Doublestrike Bonus Main hand Off hand
No feats 0 20% 100% 20%
TWF 0 +20% 100% 40%
ITWF 0 +20% 100% 60%
GTWF 0 +20% 100% 80%
STWF 0 +20% 100% 100%
Tempest I 0 +10% 100% 90%
Tempest II 0 +10% 100% 100%
Tempest III +5%* 0 105% 100%
Wind IV +10% 0 110% 80%
Zeal +10% 0 110% 80%
Alacrity +10% 0 110% 80%
* Only when wielding two weapons.

Eladrin, in your first posting of numbers you didn't have double strike.

Now that you do I have a question pertaining to monks. (Please forgive me if it's been asked, I don't have the time to read all 1400 posts.)

In the first sentence I quoted it says that monks wind stance will get 5%/10%/15%/20% to off hand proc rate.

Now you have changed it to double strike %. But wind 4 says it would give a 10% chance for double strike proc. Does that mean that each level of wind stance will give a 2.5% chance, or is wind 4 the ONLY level of that stance that will give double strike proc %?

Also, has there been any thought to Ki generation? With monks taking a big hit to the amount of times they will hit with their off hand they will not be generating as much ki, perhaps on double strikes they should get a percentage of extra ki than a normal hit? Ideas on this?

[Tapsimanxer]

does double strike just copy the damage of the main hand? so if i smite for 400 on the main hand, doublestrike just copies the number? will my smite still proc on the offhand? can there be 3 smites for one turn undead? if it's like this, maybe i can work with the change.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

This is a TWF CHANGE not a nerf. (Unless you're a rogue. Kinda hosed there.)

No, even Eladrin says its a nerf. This change was deliberately designed to reduce DPS for ALL TWF. Yes, rogues are among the worst hit, but everyone is hit, that's the point.

[Philam]

Are you, ie devs, asking for the player base opinion on this so called "fix" to the lag issue OR have you already made up your minds and this is just a "courtesy" warning?

Ph

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

A question a guildy asked me today and I wasn't sure. If your main hand attack misses, does that mean you have no chance to proc a 2nd hand attack from that swing? Or are these independent of each other?

assuming the main hand swing had a physics hit with a mob in front of you (and didn't miss because they were 3 feet away), then you get a combat roll against the mob with your main hand, then a % chance (e.g. 80% for monk... see the table in the OP) of a combat roll against the mob with your off hand weapon. Then you get another % chance of your main hand having another second attack (e.g. 10% for fighter/20 capstone). All three of these potential rolls are independent of each other and are done using the attack bonus of the individual weapon you're attacking.

The answer to your question is even if you roll a combat miss (e.g. a 1) on your main hand you still get a chance to hit on your 'off hand attack' and also on your potential double strike (with main hand weapon)

Garth

[Chai]

What I object to anything that stovepipes builds in ways not intended by PnP.

It is all very well to give a % boost to Tempest, as it does now, but here we are talking about an insurmountable difference between an STWF Tempest III and a GTWF rogue. The rogue will simply have no chance to compete with th off-hand and double-strike chances built into the new system. That's far inferior to the situation with alacrity now.

That's far more unbalanced than the classes are in PnP, and it is bad for the game because it removes choices from us players in building a character.

Yeap, you think you see alot of multiclass rogues now? the most rogue levels that will be taken will be 2 unless something is built into the rogue class that makes it compete.

I am STILL reserving actuall numerical judgement until I see it tested.

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

does double strike just copy the damage of the main hand? so if i smite for 400 on the main hand, doublestrike just copies the number? will my smite still proc on the offhand? can there be 3 smites for one turn undead? if it's like this, maybe i can work with the change.

Each strike gets an independent attack roll and chance to proc effects on a successful combat hit.

It's therefore possible for a paladin with zeal to smite for 400 three times in one attack (once on the mainhand, once on the off hand, and once through double strike due to Zeal 10% double strike rate)

Garth

[Tarnoc]

Eladrin has already stated they that they feel that TWF is overly dominant and needs to be nerfed... would people stop acting like they're trying to pull the wool over their eyes?

The problem with "democracy" and player feedback is that the average person only cares about his own self interest and will rabidly fight anything that threatens it.

Turbine might have to make some hard decisions here... there are obviously an overwhelming number of players here who are against this, for turbine it's a made your bed now lay in it problem... to fix the larg disparity between S&B and TWF/THF they need to knock both of them down a little to make any buffs to S&B not be so drastic... TWF is more uber than THF unless you're one of the enny teeny tinny few who have an Epic Sword of Shadows... In other words unless you're handfull of players. This nerf does not make TWF inferior to THF (unless you're among the handfull) and the game can not be balanced for a handfull of extreme outlier players who are a minority evenj among the minority who grind epic content...

The game must be balanced for the majority... and the majority will never even SEE an Epic SoS in action let alone grind for one... If ESoS is such a problem then they;ll need to put in something equally as epic (and rare) for dual wielders and make it exclusive Epic TWF Khopesh in main hand and GS in the other...

For the record I hate the double strike idea but i recognize that it's a bone thrown in to try and lessen the pain of a needed adjustment to the TWF style... And also slow combat down a little. The actual TWF nerf is really not that bad... 10-15% is a small thing... except to those who are most self centered, most "min maxed" and play the game thinking they and everyone that dares join their party, MUST be optimal... or they are the scum of the earth "gimps" "short bus" players, etc....

Sadly the nerf that DDO most needs, is a nerf of Munchkins...

have you had a lvl 20 toon?and i dotn know wat content you play but almost all barbs i know and alot of uber dps wf fvs i know have epic SOS....funny how you can make blanket statements yet your highest toon is lvl 6.......

[IronClan]

As for dial up no clue what your talking about...can take this to another thread though as it has nothing to do with the issue at hand

Tarnoc appearently has some goofy notion about other players connection speeds causing lag for him...

[sephiroth1084]

I'd bet that greensteel weapons would be changing significantly in a future update if we revert these changes.



As unpopular a topic as it may be for some people, greensteel weapons should probably get looked at for an adjustment irrespective of what happens with this lag fix. And obviously, we would need deconstruction to go along with whatever adjustments are made.

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

Eladrin, in your first posting of numbers you didn't have double strike.

Now that you do I have a question pertaining to monks. (Please forgive me if it's been asked, I don't have the time to read all 1400 posts.)

In the first sentence I quoted it says that monks wind stance will get 5%/10%/15%/20% to off hand proc rate.

Now you have changed it to double strike %. But wind 4 says it would give a 10% chance for double strike proc. Does that mean that each level of wind stance will give a 2.5% chance, or is wind 4 the ONLY level of that stance that will give double strike proc %?

Also, has there been any thought to Ki generation? With monks taking a big hit to the amount of times they will hit with their off hand they will not be generating as much ki, perhaps on double strikes they should get a percentage of extra ki than a normal hit? Ideas on this?

this is a good observation - I don't think monk wind stance gets any bonus to offhand attack % rate with the new table: the 80% that monks get is from taking all the twf feats (base 20% + twf 20% + itwf 20% + gtwf 20% = 80%)

I would guess that it's 2.5% insight bonus to double attack rate per wind stance but Eladrin would have to confirm and update the OP.

A potential option to make up for the fact that monks are unable to take stwf (because of BAB being too low) would be to give each wind stance a 5% bonus to offhand rates as well as a 2.5% bonus to double strike meaning a monk with gtwf in wind4 stance would have a 10% double strike and 100% offhand.

Garth

[Neechen]

While you are at it, why don't you make Sword and Board builds more attractive so that less people opt for two-weapon builds? If you cut down 20% of the two-weapon fighters this way, you'll also gain, no?

[Aashrym]

I agree with most of what you say here however...

What about dex builds?

Its more realistic that a high dex build will have STWF than min maxed str builds who take the min dex requirement just to fit the feat in. My 40 dex rogue wont have access to this due to the BAB 16 requirement but a 19 dex fighter will have access to it. Unrealistic at best. I believe they will have to change to requirements to please people, and if they do, whats to stop all the clerics, bards, and FvS from jumping on that bandwagon too?

I believe what you say about fighters, and Id toss barbarians in there too. If you bring everyone elses melee too close to theirs, it takes away from fighters and barbarians. If I can build a FvS that can melee 90% as well as a barbarian or fighter, I will take that any day of the week.

4 Fighter levels and 16 Bard/rogue/monk/cleric/favored soul meets the 16 bab requirement and adds the bonus feats to do it. TWF might turn into a splash build or fighter/ranger build for the most part. I do see rogues and monks needing the feat more than bards, clerics, or favored souls. But it really is the same basic idea: 16 bab minimum requirement is designed to open up the feat to certain classes. That is how the game works.

I don't like it all the time and other ppl don't like it all the time and those aren't always the same times ;). If enough people do want the access turbine may or may not just "house rule" the dex requirement and ignore the bab requirement. I don't like that idea but would accept it if that is how things play out. I recommend against it in defense of rangers and fighters but I can accept it, just like other players will need to accept some things too. ;)

I have a sudden urge to discuss cookies (thanks the doctor) but I said I'd be good ;)

[Alintalkin]

While you are at it, why don't you make Sword and Board builds more attractive so that less people opt for two-weapon builds? If you cut down 20% of the two-weapon fighters this way, you'll also gain, no?

Sword and board builds will be more attractive, but not because of this but because of:


Bastard Swords
Bastard Swords when wielded as a Single Weapon or Sword and Shield will now produce Glancing blows on enemies around wielder. The glancing blows are increased by Two Handed Fighting Feat Chain and Enhancements that increase the effectiveness of them.

Dwarven Axes
Dwarven Axes when wielded as a Single Weapon or Axe and Shield will now produce Glancing blows on enemies around wielder. The glancing blows are increased by Two Handed Fighting Feat Chain and Enhancements that increase the effectiveness of them. DA and BS S&B users will have better dps in update 5.
Edit: As I have a night's sleep since last posting I have decided to see how this goes before I hold a final judgment on this TWF change.

[coolpenguin410]

I believe it was stated multiple times that they were looking for feedback and testing.

[dunklezhan]

I believe it was stated multiple times that they were looking for feedback and testing.

I think you may have missed the rather heavy dose of cynicism in Philam's post.

[coolpenguin410]

I think you may have missed the rather heavy dose of cynicism in Philam's post.

I got it. I just felt it wasn't necessary.

[Gobbothegreen]

What I object to anything that stovepipes builds in ways not intended by PnP.

It is all very well to give a % boost to Tempest, as it does now, but here we are talking about an insurmountable difference between an STWF Tempest III and a GTWF rogue. The rogue will simply have no chance to compete with th off-hand and double-strike chances built into the new system. That's far inferior to the situation with alacrity now.

That's far more unbalanced than the classes are in PnP, and it is bad for the game because it removes choices from us players in building a character.

The rogue will be closer to the ranger attack speed if this update goes through as it looks now. As now the ranger get 10% increase to all attack speed and 1 extra offhand (basicly 110% main hand and 135% offhand).

[Zenako]

While not Tolero, I have done a lot of testing of things on Lammania and I can assure you that the Developers do LISTEN to feedback. There have been numerous features introduced on Lamania which either NEVER made it to the live servers or were substantially changed before going live. Do you see Heroic Surge on Live??? Nope, it was put to rest based on feedback from Lammania.

While the current implementation of DA annoys some players, the original implementation was far far more onerous and would have been a huge disaster for almost ALL play styles, not just a subset.

It appears that Eladrin is working on a system tweak and was looking for some feedback. Getting hundreds of voices to chime in gives them a far better chance of making changes without overlooking aspects that would break some builds or systems. It is also possible that some of those changes could go in, but with a default level of change set to 0%, which would let them nudge things later if they wanted, instead of setting that variable to something like 15%. It allows a subset of devoted and passionate players to voice their feelings, although those same players do need to keep in mind that they are in the final analysis merely a small subset of the overall player base.

[moorewr]

The rogue will be closer to the ranger attack speed if this update goes through as it looks now. As now the ranger get 10% increase to all attack speed and 1 extra offhand (basicly 110% main hand and 135% offhand).

I disagree. Compare the above to the new system: to infinitely more double strikes (5% to 0%), 5% more main-hand strikes, and 25% more off-hand strikes.

Edit: Plus, assuming they make the mistake of introducing STWF, the ranger has the BAB to buy STWF, and the rogue doesn't.

[Baahb3]

A potential option to make up for the fact that monks are unable to take stwf (because of BAB being too low) would be to give each wind stance a 5% bonus to offhand rates as well as a 2.5% bonus to double strike meaning a monk with gtwf in wind4 stance would have a 10% double strike and 100% offhand.

Garth

I think those with STWF and Tempest III should stay at that 100% and a Wind IV monk should be 90%.

In other words in addition to the 2.5% Double Strike at each tier they should also get a 2.5% (instead of 5%) to off hand procs. This will put them just 10% behind the two situations that should be 100% IMO.

[Ganolyn]

I'd still like to know why they think decreasing lower level character's chances to hit with two weapons will help anything. They already take a To Hit loss especially if not taking OTWF and now they will have two chances to miss completely with their off hand, with one pretty much guaranteed unless you focus every feat and enhancement towards it right out of the gate.

[Darksolar]

Make DDO more in line with 3.5 Changes to the game

-Drop stupid Gear like Epic SoS (make more in line with real loot)
-Tone down greensteel crafting to make it more logical up to +10 bonus on a weapon max
-Make feats cost what they should eg. Greater Two Weapon Fighting 19dex
-Drop Glancing blows from 2HF
-two weapon fighting to follow:
---no feat 10% twf 25% itwf 50% gtwf 75% to proc off MH attack (twf wasn't full base attack with off hand was always 1 less then mh)
---so tempest 1 is 10% increase to attack speed with 75% proc will go off more due to speed increase
---tempest 2&3 could be 5% bonus proc and 10% bonus proc for 90% chance
---Zeal/Alacrity is 10% speed increase but now OH just has chance to proc off MH attacks
-Put monsters more inline with actual rules stats to hit bonus's (if gear is logical for us no need to pump monsters to stupid hit/dmg (still pump hp due to twitch vrs round dmg values maybe not so high)
-make AC matter once again but no Wis to AC if uncentered for monk splash
-if 2hf and 2wf are changed this way S&B will be more accepted esp if AC can mean something again
-put in a greensteel monks necklace requires unarmed and monk only that can be enchanted as a greensteel weapon applying the effects to your fist ie transmuting
-make halfling use the small rules where they have to wield small weapons ie light weapons or say a longsword 2 handed then give them an enhancement line to let them wield real 1 handed weapons like longsword one handed but do not let them wield real 2 handed weapons, also drop their unarmed damage 1 step.
-drop healers friend from warforged make there be a real negative to playing the race
- greensteel weapon/armor/item enchanting to be up to +10 bonus(as outlined in store improvements)*maybe someone wants a +5 bashing mithril tower shield with holy and flaming*

Store Improvements (Make More Money Turbine)
-still can get better items in game(so this isn't end game gear but a good start for new people)
-Make your own weapons (not greensteel and only up to +7 bonus)
--Cost 25+1 50+2 100+3 200+4 300+5 500+6 750+7 (50-100 more depending on metal steel = free)
--ie Bust is +2 and of pg is +1 so already a +4 weapon
--ie Holy Burst +3 of Greater Bane +3 and +1 weapon is Max
--ie +1 holy longsword of acid and fire is a +5 weapon(yes holy fire and acid)
--Drop the whole only 1 prefix and suffix from items in game also
-Make your own armor/shields follows same rules as above (shields -10-100 cost and half metal cost)
--Cost 25+1 50+2 75+3 100+4 150+5 250+6 400+7 (100 mith 75adam and +50-100 for selecting look and color

Other:
-add in duergar should be as easy as drow was to implement darker skin tones different enhancements some misc new things like a rangers rams might +2str +2dmg buff enlarge 30sec base +6 per level 1/day


For those that say 19 dex for gtwf is so hard to reach well it was made that way for a reason also you get a good set of build points 32 it a high powered game in 3.5 rules as well when I played 3.5 tomes were not as available as they are here how many builds do you see based only on 1 or 2 tomes almost none.
Being able to buy a +1 all stats at level 3 and a +2 all stats at level 7 it makes feat reqs 2 lower so you only need 17 real dex so you have to sacrifice a few points in strength making your dps a little lower oh no, maybe weapon finesse isn't as much of a joke then?

I am sure this goes well out of the scope of this thread and I am sure it will either get ignored or flamed but who cares.

As for current gear in game I am sure they can make a fix to say Epic SoS that would make it less powerful but still make it one of the best weapons in the game. *maybe give it some hidden negative it is a sword of SHADOW after all...curses?*

[Chai]

4 Fighter levels and 16 Bard/rogue/monk/cleric/favored soul meets the 16 bab requirement and adds the bonus feats to do it. TWF might turn into a splash build or fighter/ranger build for the most part. I do see rogues and monks needing the feat more than bards, clerics, or favored souls. But it really is the same basic idea: 16 bab minimum requirement is designed to open up the feat to certain classes. That is how the game works.

I don't like it all the time and other ppl don't like it all the time and those aren't always the same times ;). If enough people do want the access turbine may or may not just "house rule" the dex requirement and ignore the bab requirement. I don't like that idea but would accept it if that is how things play out. I recommend against it in defense of rangers and fighters but I can accept it, just like other players will need to accept some things too. ;)

I have a sudden urge to discuss cookies (thanks the doctor) but I said I'd be good ;)

Right, all those classes now have to take 4 levels of a 1/1 BAB class just to gain the feat, and sacrifice alot in doing so.

Rogues are circumstantially supposed to be near the top in DPS, that circumstance of course being when sneak attack is applicable. With this, it will not be the case. Right now my rogue can compete. Instinctively I doubt he will be able to if this goes live and they dont build something into the pure rogue class that bumps the offhand proc chance. This makes sense because rogues are the_dex_kings in most cases, and only sharing that throne with dex rangers.

If they dont put something in for pure rogues, I see alot more multiclassing in the future where rogue levels will be taken minimally to gain their skills as class skills. This is already an issue, but will become alot more extreme. And all this, after they put capstones in to encourage pure class builds.

[Alintalkin]

Seems like this was buried in the amount of posts but what will be the requirements for STWF there was a time, long ago when a dev said that it would be 15 BaB and 19 dex, and throughout the thread people say 16 BAB and 19 dex, was there a post by a dev saying that it was 16 BAB that is more recent then that (relatively old as that was back at the time when the first wanted to put in STWF) post? Or is it just due to the fact that people are reading source books and getting that 16 BAB from there? As I see it if the 15 BAB is true all 3/4 BAB builds have to due is multiclass fighter at lvl 20 for the additional feat, being STWF.

[Gobbothegreen]

I disagree. Compare the above to the new system: to infinitely more double strikes (5% to 0%), 5% more main-hand strikes, and 25% more off-hand strikes.

Edit: Plus, assuming they make the mistake of introducing STWF, the ranger has the BAB to buy STWF, and the rogue doesn't.



How would stwf help rangers when they already got 100% offhand proc?

And it isnt infite its average 5% so total rangers loose ALOT compared to now

[hcarr]

What is great about this game is no one build is a must as nd any well built char will work. This change has the potential to do this. As a twf rouge player this change will devastate his dps through loss of attacks. It was hard to make it seem worth it to play a rogue for dps as it was with poor dps pre enhancments compared to other melee classes.

It just figues anyway i finally got my rogue up and going at cap. So gut fealing about this is *&=%$#$%=&*()(*&=%$4#&=%$#%=&*(*&=%

[cpito]

It's good to find someone else who's not nearly as freaked out by this proposal as some are.

Even ignoring the lag issues, something needed to be done about twf. A big issue I have is that twf is hard to do effectively. If it were easy, humanity's history would be full of them and not archers and knights and foot soldiers with shields.

I may be mistaken but even in PnP, it was difficult to get twf and a prerequisite for it was ambidexterity.

There is no way that someone who dabbles in twf (think splash build) should be able to hit with the off hand weapon as well as someone who spends thier life studying that style of fighting. Not even a rogue, who has to spend a good amount of time training his thieving skills, leaving much less time available to study twf.

[Chai]

Seems like this was buried in the amount of posts but what will be the requirements for STWF there was a time, long ago when a dev said that it would be 15 BaB and 19 dex, and throughout the thread people say 16 BAB and 19 dex, was there a post by a dev saying that it was 16 BAB that is more recent then that (relatively old as that was back at the time when the first wanted to put in STWF) post? Or is it just due to the fact that people are reading source books and getting that 16 BAB from there? As I see it if the 15 BAB is true all 3/4 BAB builds have to due is multiclass fighter at lvl 20 for the additional feat, being STWF.

And lose an entire level of rogue skills. No.

Any rogue who multi into fighter in a planned way usually do so early, like level 2, so they can get all their class skills back up to max ranks.

Since 20 is not a feat level, and rogues BAB doesnt hit 15 until level 20, rogues will not be able to be anywhere near pure and still get this feat. This also goes for the other 3/4 BAB classes - bard, monk, cleric, FvS. yeah monk gets flurry, but this doesnt qualify them for feats. they are still a 3/4 BAB class in that respect.

Didnt they just make an update not too long ago that gave you capstones encouraging you to be pure. Didnt they also announce the rogue will have another capstone and they are adding a +2 dex to the current one? How many cap pure rogues do you think there will be after this?

I see alot of 6 ranger 12 rogue 2 fighter and 12 fighter 6 ranger 2 rogue in the future. This will be your "rogue" character. My rogue can compete with these builds right now for DPS. When the change happens, unless they give rogues a bump here and there for staying pure, I doubt it will still be so.

[Baahb3]

Rogues are circumstantially supposed to be near the top in DPS, that circumstance of course being when sneak attack is applicable. With this, it will not be the case. Right now my rogue can compete. Instinctively I doubt he will be able to if this goes live and they dont build something into the pure rogue class that bumps the offhand proc chance. This makes sense because rogues are the_dex_kings in most cases, and only sharing that throne with dex rangers.



I agree that this change will affect TWFing rogues and battle clerics/bards the most and agree that they should try to find a way to work in something for them, I think it should be in the form of double strike and not off hand proc chance.

I don't really have a problem with these classes having a 20% less chance for off hand procs due to not getting STWF or Tempest III, these two critera should be top tier(i.e. 100%), Wind IV monks as 2nd tier, then all with GTWF 3rd tier, which is the way Eladrin's new chart looks like.

Having said that I would like to see say the assassain PrE give a small percent to each tier (maybe 1.5% or something) or make a capstone that gives 5% double strike chance.

[Brother_Solar]

How will these proposed changes affect Ki regeneration?

Let's find out.

A level 20 monk without Haste and without Wind IV will attack approximately 96 times per minute with the main hand.

A level 20 monk with Haste (or just the 15% Enhancement portion of Wind IV) will attack approximately 115 times per minute with the main hand.


Current level 20 monk in Wind IV:
128 attack rolls per minute with main hand + 128 attack rolls per minute with off hand = 256 attack rolls per minute

Proposed (110% main hand + 80% off hand) level 20 monk in Wind IV:
1.1*115 main hand attack rolls per minute + 0.8*115 off hand attack rolls per minute = 218 attack rolls per minute

Assuming a 5% chance to miss, a 10% chance to critically hit, and the use of the Henshin Mystic necklace...

Current Ki generation in a minute:
256*(2*0.85+3*0.1) = 512

Proposed Ki generation in a minute:
218*(2*0.85+3*0.1) = 436

So, the proposed ki generation with the stated build/gear will be around 85% of what it is currently (due to the lower number of attacks).

[moorewr]

How would stwf help rangers when they already got 100% offhand proc?

That is incorrect - Tempest III rangers already have 100% off-hand procs, not all rangers. Thus an arcane archer could potentially be a far better melee than a melee-spec GTWF rogue (given an interesting mix of feats).

Just like a Tempest taking the archer capstone essentially for free and thus being a better archer than any other class, this makes no sense.

[Baahb3]

What is great about this game is no one build is a must as nd any well built char will work. This change has the potential to do this. As a twf rouge player this change will devastate his dps through loss of attacks. It was hard to make it seem worth it to play a rogue for dps as it was with poor dps pre enhancments compared to other melee classes.

It just figues anyway i finally got my rogue up and going at cap. So gut fealing about this is *&=%$#$%=&*()(*&=%$4#&=%$#%=&*(*&=%

I have seen a good combat rogue pull agro from a raging barbarian and a dual weilding fighter, do you really think this is the way it should be?

Rogues are a DPS class, I whole-heartilly agree, but they should be behind the DPS of true TWFers with STWF or Tempest III.

I think the word devistate is a strong word, with an item or two to get their double strike up to 10% (Eladrin hinted that items with attack speed boost will get changed to this) they will be just fine in the DPS department.

[IronClan]

well my feelings on this BIG TWF NERF...

is that they look at is as a way to generate more cash from the older player base...through TRs LRs and GRs

Of course you do, because you don't like being nerfed (understandable no one does) but you're willing to throw around tin foil hat rationalization to try and paint Turbine as greedy mean, user base hating bad guys... And cast FUD on the nerf to raise the level of "rabble rabble rabble" already going on in this thread. Instead of recognizing what everyone knows (even TWF min maxers who aren't lying to themselves) that TWF is overly dominant and even this nerf will still leave them ahead of THF.

[wolfy42]

I propose you change THF instead. Nerfing is a bad idea always and that is pretty much what is happening here.


I suggest increasing the damage of THF (which I think is fine already but obviously you don't) by adding an additional damage bonus from the THF tiers. There are a bunch of ways to add the damage bonus by I suggest the following.

THF gives the current bonuses AND adds 2 damage per attack while using power attack.

ITHF gives the current bonuses AND adds 4 damage per attack while using power attack.

GTHF gives the current bonuses and adds 6 damage per attack while using power attack.

All of that is before crits etc, it's a bonus to base damage.

It makes sense that having greater skill with two handed weapons would improve how much you get out of power attack.

It would boost the average DPS of THF slightly without being to insane but would not increase calculations at all.

As far as TWF leave it alone and find other ways to reduce lag (Such as making more people likely to use THF). Boost player strength do not nerf it. If the game is too easy players can always run quests on high difficulty levels with fewer players. Don't increase difficulty, don't reduce players current strength or abilities.

Doing so can ruin the game for players easily. You build a character that is slowly increasing in power (well slowly for new players at least) and then suddenly your character is changed so you will never get back to the point you were before no matter how long you play. That is not fun for anyone.

Making changes like this is bad enough for older players who know how the game works and can roll with it. For new players it can be game breaking.

Don't nerf players.

Find a way to make changes that solve problems while giving bonuses to current builds and players.

TWF causes to many calculations? Fine, make it so if the first hand lands the second automatically does as well, reducing the number of to hit rolls by 25%.

Right now you roll to hit for each primary and secondary attack.

With the change you roll to hit with your primary and if you hit both your primary and offhand attack lands. If you miss the offhand attack rolls to hit as as well.

That would reduce lag drastically and increase TWF damage in the process (although honestly not by much at higher levels since most players hit most of the time anyway.

There are many ways to fix the lag problem without thrashing TWF combat.

There are many POSITIVE ways to fix the TWF/THF balance issues as well.

Don't make negative changes.

[Chai]

How would stwf help rangers when they already got 100% offhand proc?

And it isnt infite its average 5% so total rangers loose ALOT compared to now

They wont have to be tempest to out dps other classes for free now. You can go AA, pick up the STWF feat (or get it free) and still out alot of other TWF toons dps due to offhand procs. Then you have a many shot that hoses down everything in the room, and powerful enough melee to clean up the scraps.

[uhgungawa]

Eladrin has already stated they that they feel that TWF is overly dominant and needs to be nerfed... would people stop acting like they're trying to pull the wool over their eyes?

The problem with "democracy" and player feedback is that the average person only cares about his own self interest and will rabidly fight anything that threatens it.

Turbine might have to make some hard decisions here... there are obviously an overwhelming number of players here who are against this, for turbine it's a made your bed now lay in it problem... to fix the large disparity between S&B and TWF/THF they need to knock both of them down a little (very little in the case of THF) to make any buffs to S&B not be so drastic... TWF is still more uber than THF with this nerf (as it should be due to the possible need for an extra feat for OTWF) unless you're one of the teeny tinny few who have an Epic Sword of Shadows... In other words unless you're among a handfull of players. This nerf does not make TWF inferior to THF; and the game can not be balanced for a handful of extreme outlier players who are a minority even among the minority who grind epic content...

The game must be balanced for the majority... and the majority will never even SEE an Epic SoS in action let alone grind for one... If ESoS is such a problem then they'll need to put in something equally as epic (and rare) for dual wielders and make it exclusive, Epic TWF Khopesh in main hand and GS in the other...

For the record I hate the double strike idea, it's a klunker. But i recognize that it's a bone thrown in to try and lessen the pain of a needed adjustment to the TWF style... And also slow combat down a little. The actual TWF nerf is really not that bad... 10-15% is a small thing... except to those who are most self centered, most "min maxed" and play the game thinking they and everyone that dares join their party, MUST be optimal... or they are the scum of the earth "gimps" "short bus" players, etc....

Sadly the nerf that DDO most needs, is a nerf of Munchkins...

Some people seem to be overly dramatic LOL. You blow-up at a post poking a bit of fun at all this nerfing talk?

And for the record S&B should be about defense not offence. So that would be getting AC back in line, and not trying to bring it up to snuf with TWF and THF.

So the message of the day would be Lighten up buttercup :rolleyes:

[Chai]

There are many POSITIVE ways to fix the TWF/THF balance issues as well.

Don't make negative changes.

But this doesnt "fix the lag".

[Baahb3]

I propose you change THF instead. Nerfing is a bad idea always and that is pretty much what is happening here.


I suggest increasing the damage of THF (which I think is fine already but obviously you don't) by adding an additional damage bonus from the THF tiers. There are a bunch of ways to add the damage bonus by I suggest the following.

THF gives the current bonuses AND adds 2 damage per attack while using power attack.

ITHF gives the current bonuses AND adds 4 damage per attack while using power attack.

GTHF gives the current bonuses and adds 6 damage per attack while using power attack.

All of that is before crits etc, it's a bonus to base damage.

It makes sense that having greater skill with two handed weapons would improve how much you get out of power attack.

It would boost the average DPS of THF slightly without being to insane but would not increase calculations at all.

As far as TWF leave it alone and find other ways to reduce lag (Such as making more people likely to use THF). Boost player strength do not nerf it. If the game is too easy players can always run quests on high difficulty levels with fewer players. Don't increase difficulty, don't reduce players current strength or abilities.

Doing so can ruin the game for players easily. You build a character that is slowly increasing in power (well slowly for new players at least) and then suddenly your character is changed so you will never get back to the point you were before no matter how long you play. That is not fun for anyone.

Making changes like this is bad enough for older players who know how the game works and can roll with it. For new players it can be game breaking.

Don't nerf players.

Find a way to make changes that solve problems while giving bonuses to current builds and players.

TWF causes to many calculations? Fine, make it so if the first hand lands the second automatically does as well, reducing the number of to hit rolls by 25%.

Right now you roll to hit for each primary and secondary attack.

With the change you roll to hit with your primary and if you hit both your primary and offhand attack lands. If you miss the offhand attack rolls to hit as as well.

That would reduce lag drastically and increase TWF damage in the process (although honestly not by much at higher levels since most players hit most of the time anyway.

There are many ways to fix the lag problem without thrashing TWF combat.

There are many POSITIVE ways to fix the TWF/THF balance issues as well.

Don't make negative changes.

/not signed

The power creep in this game is getting out of hand. Every time they make a mistake and release something that is over the top (i.e. ESoS) everyone says, just increase the other stuff to match, this needs to stop.

Sometimes you need to take a step back to make progress going forward.

[k1ngp1n]

My sole concern is this double strike mechanism. It completely skewers any future 'double strike' rates of increase to favor THF massively. Not only is this a massive step away from DnD, but it creates a new system for power creep, this time in the hands of the THFers. Before the power creep was in crit rates and in static bonuses (which favored TWF). So we're just trading one for the other.

If Turbine were to absolutely freeze damage mods where they're at, then this mechanism will be fine. If not, well, we're screwed.

[Aashrym]

Right, all those classes now have to take 4 levels of a 1/1 BAB class just to gain the feat, and sacrifice alot in doing so.

Rogues are circumstantially supposed to be near the top in DPS, that circumstance of course being when sneak attack is applicable. With this, it will not be the case. Right now my rogue can compete. Instinctively I doubt he will be able to if this goes live and they dont build something into the pure rogue class that bumps the offhand proc chance. This makes sense because rogues are the_dex_kings in most cases, and only sharing that throne with dex rangers.

If they dont put something in for pure rogues, I see alot more multiclassing in the future where rogue levels will be taken minimally to gain their skills as class skills. This is already an issue, but will become alot more extreme. And all this, after they put capstones in to encourage pure class builds.
Perhaps that can be entered into the enhancement lines to increase the proc rate or something.

I don't agree that rogues should have access to the feat just because it's there and fighters/rangers can get it, but I do agree rogues need some love somewhere. ;)

[Boromirs]

Probably the most important question that hasnt been asked thus far,

Eladrin-

If you are going to implement this, WHEN is this all happening? AND will you announce it to everyone when it does?

[nessguy]

:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:


Why do i feel like EVERYTHING i invest to gets NERFED????

so not only is my 14barb/6ranger SUPREMELY FUBARD by my Crit Rage enhancements locking most feats and enhancements forever. but now i will be also getting nerfed in the Alacrity bonus that TEMPEST RANGERS SHOULD GET and also by reducing the number of offhand attacks i get..

Firewall
Wounding puncturing weapons
Critical Rage I, II
Concordant Opposition's
and now TWF

Seems like another clear case of TURBINE making mistakes, and then taking away from us to fix he problem that they introduced.

Instead, i propose TURBINE upgrade the servers and equipment they use to push our DDO experience to a higher level.

But they would just rather put money for upgrades in their pockets!
and continue to shaft us any way they can by making our gaming time invested into future NERFS!

its like job security for them. at least until the majority of us get fed up and quit flat out.


:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

[Baahb3]

My sole concern is this double strike mechanism. It completely skewers any future 'double strike' rates of increase to favor THF massively. Not only is this a massive step away from DnD, but it creates a new system for power creep, this time in the hands of the THFers. Before the power creep was in crit rates and in static bonuses (which favored TWF). So we're just trading one for the other.

If Turbine were to absolutely freeze damage mods where they're at, then this mechanism will be fine. If not, well, we're screwed.

Possibly, they could institute regulations to help this out though, like double strike percentages are halved for THF, or double strike percentages are capped at a lower percent for THFers.

There are several things that could be put into place to help balance and regulate the double strike mechanic.

[IronClan]

Why would you choose to believe something that's not true.

Eladrin has specifically stated that the TWF nerf is because he considers TWF to have an "extreme dominance over two handed fighting".




The lag fix was the piggybacking of the offhand attack to the main hand attack.

Had they tried to sell the TWF nerf as fair because now there is no collision check for the offhand, they would have been called outright liars. Because anyone who plays the game can see that the offhand collision check is superfluous and unnecessary. How often have the monsters moved away fast enough that you didn't get in the offhand attack?
Especially Raid Bosses who stand there and attack.

I believe they did consider selling it as part of the "fix" but thought better of it. Hence the "I won't hide the fact...." line.
Because until that point in the post there was no mention that the two were really unrelated.

As far as Eladrin's later comment that "sometimes you have an opportunity to attack with the offhand and sometimes you don't" as an attempt to justify the "missing" attack when you are clearly in range but the % dice roll says the second hand doesn't have a chance to attack, all I can say is that is attempt to say that it's fair because now that there is no offhand collision check that we will hit the monsters more often, which I mentioned above.

The attack roll determines if you have a chance or not. It's always been understood by long time D&D players of all types that "hitting" is not always an actual hit. Sometimes it is just that, opening up an opportunity for a true strike.

Just as hit points are not a full picture of the health of the character but also his ability to "survive" combat. That's why "resting" recovers some hit points, because he's getting his wind back, regaining his stamina, etc.

So the to-hit roll is what determines if you have an "opportunity to hit" just as much as an actual hit. And the damage done determines if it's a full hit, a scratch, or just enough to "open" the monster for another attack.

This, people who never Played P&P D&D need to read this and even some who did play but didn't pay attention to the justifications for various rules and abstractions...

[moorewr]

Perhaps that can be entered into the enhancement lines to increase the proc rate or something.

I don't agree that rogues should have access to the feat just because it's there and fighters/rangers can get it, but I do agree rogues need some love somewhere. ;)

This is why they shouldn't invent things that entirely do not exist in the source game. if we're going to have imbalances, let them be inherited imbalances.

In the source game, a rogue can qualify for Tempest as their prestige class almost as easily as a ranger or fighter can. In the source game, there's no business with alacrity (just BAB as an advantage for the number of strikes). In the source game there's no STWF at all.

[rezo]

So........ over all you would say that it's bring the TWF more balance in the dpsing??? I kind of like it. In someway it's better then trying to speed up s&b and THF to make them faster dpsing, lol.

[Baahb3]

:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:


Why do i feel like EVERYTHING i invest to gets NERFED????

so not only is my 14barb/6ranger SUPREMELY FUBARD by my Crit Rage enhancements locking most feats and enhancements forever. but now i will be also getting nerfed in the Alacrity bonus that TEMPEST RANGERS SHOULD GET and also by reducing the number of offhand attacks i get..

Firewall
Wounding puncturing weapons
Critical Rage I, II
Concordant Opposition's
and now TWF

Seems like another clear case of TURBINE making mistakes, and then taking away from us to fix he problem that they introduced.

Instead, i propose TURBINE upgrade the servers and equipment they use to push our DDO experience to a higher level.

But they would just rather put money for upgrades in their pockets!
and continue to shaft us any way they can by making our gaming time invested into future NERFS!


:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:


Wow, I don't want to make you even more angry but mistakes happen man, that is just life.

Some things just cannot be solved by 'upgrade servers and equipment'. These things need to be changed through code and other processing behaviors.

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

Firewall
Wounding puncturing weapons
Critical Rage I, II
Concordant Opposition's
and now TWF

Seems like another clear case of TURBINE making mistakes, and then taking away from us to fix he problem that they introduced.


It's natural for players to try and identify the weaknesses in game balance and try to exploit them as much as possible.

It's also natural for the devs to try and fix these faults, and for players to get upset as a result.

MMOs are about change and adapting to change. If you want a static game, then go play Dragon Age.

Garth

[Boromirs]

As a new player to DDO/very old (Ultima Online) MMO player. This is the first time I have ever seen such a expansive change to a combat system before in the middle of a game's life cycle. This is pretty nuts, and although I don't have much time invested in DDO as of yet am VERY VERY WORRIED that a SUDDEN CHANGE may occur ON ANY BUILD I create in the future.

[Visty]

currently its twf > thf (twitching) > thf >> s&b
with the change it will be [thf (twitching) >]* twf ~ thf >> s&b

(*as twitching gets a small nerf too it shouldnt be there actually, but i put it there to show the point)

with the changes thf and twf will be alot better balanced then it is currently. thats also why glancing blows while mocing got removed

[Visty]

currently its twf > thf (twitching) > thf >> s&b
with the change it will be [thf (twitching) >]* twf ~ thf >> s&b

(*as twitching gets a small nerf too it shouldnt be there actually, but i put it there to show the point)

with the changes thf and twf will be alot better balanced then it is currently. thats also why glancing blows while mocing got removed

its not a nerf, its a overall game balance

[IronClan]

All other things equal it is, in fact, not cool that one style of combat outclasses another to such an embarrassing degree.


The TWF nerf isn't about reducing lag, it's about nerfing TWF. Don't feel bad though, I only know that because I'm part of a secretive and elite group of people who actually read the OP.

Thank you +1 rep... could everyone who believes/is about to post that this is a nerf hidden in a lag fix please re-read the OP and stop cluttering the thread.

[uhgungawa]

As a new player to DDO/very old (Ultima Online) MMO player. This is the first time I have ever seen such a expansive change to a combat system before in the middle of a game's life cycle. This is pretty nuts, and although I don't have much time invested in DDO as of yet am VERY VERY WORRIED that a SUDDEN CHANGE may occur ON ANY BUILD I create in the future.

LOL, get use to it. In the 4 years this game has been live it's happened alot and will continue to do so.

[k1ngp1n]

Possibly, they could institute regulations to help this out though, like double strike percentages are halved for THF, or double strike percentages are capped at a lower percent for THFers.

There are several things that could be put into place to help balance and regulate the double strike mechanic.

I hope they do. It strikes me though that there is no such plan to regulate this and limit it. The actual nerf is not so much to the offhand attack rates - but rather that buffs that used to apply to both hands will now apply only to the mainhand. Every time a new double strike boost comes into play, something will need to be done to counterbalance TWF. I don't see this going well in the future...

Also, my cleric is crying out at the loss of DPS. Not only will those dump-con rogues not have dr bypassers, but they're nerfed in the dps too! Ahhh! If this goes through as is, I won't be puggin' her at all until I see that playerbase has changed.

[Baahb3]

In the source game, there's no business with alacrity (just BAB as an advantage for the number of strikes). In the source game there's no STWF at all.

That is not entirely true.

Haste provides an extra attack at your highest attack, as do certain magical properties such as Speed on your weapon, armor, or bracers.

There are also class features and feats that give you an additional attack at your highest attack bonus, such as Rapid Shot/Strike, Flurry of Blows and Heroic Surge.

There are lots of ways to get extra attacks in PnP, they are all just limited usually to 1 or 2, this is what Turbine is trying to do, limit the amount of 'extra attacks' out there and it turn decreasing combat lag.

[Devonian]

I agree, I come from a pen and paper background and was something of a power gamer then, but the way Two weapon fighting is now, seeing rolls that traditionally would never touch it invoking it like a talisman, is deeply concerning. I mean I love my monk but if this is the start of a game closer to pen and paper late on, I welcome it.

AC should mean something, THF should be the general damage path, TWFing was only really valid where you had damage per attack, but the mess of ACs, attack rate and the Bab/iterative attacks turns all that on its head.

In either case I'm willing to see how it plays out.

[Yagi]

Aaaah they are changing how some mobs jump around? Dammit, I actually enjoyed having to deal with that =/

[DoctorWhofan]

THey just need to stop worrying and learn to love the bomb.


:p

[Devonian]

Aaaah they are changing how some mobs jump around? Dammit, I actually enjoyed having to deal with that =/

Hate to break it to you but on wasd+number keys, I hated it, just not enough fingers to stay in meele range and use ki powers.

[k1ngp1n]

That is not entirely true.

Haste provides an extra attack at your highest attack, as do certain magical properties such as Speed on your weapon, armor, or bracers.

There are also class features and feats that give you an additional attack at your highest attack bonus, such as Rapid Shot/Strike, Flurry of Blows and Heroic Surge.

There are lots of ways to get extra attacks in PnP, they are all just limited usually to 1 or 2, this is what Turbine is trying to do, limit the amount of 'extra attacks' out there and it turn decreasing combat lag.

Negative. Reducing TWF dps and the lag reductions are separate.

[Quijonsith]

So if warchanters are possibly getting a song to boost the groups double strikes where does that leave spell singers and virtuosos?

Given spell singers already get a spell point reduction song maybe we can stick with that theme and have a later song that has a chance to proc a spell point reduction (kind of a reverse double strike for spells). Something like a 5% chance per spell cast to grant 50% spell point reduction for that spell.

As for virtuosos I honestly don't know enough about them to make a suggestion but I do believe they need some love. As it is now I see about a 60/40 split (estimation based on personal observation) between warchanters and spell singers and I've never seen a virtuoso beyond maybe level 5, and before level 5 in my time I might have seen one.

[Baahb3]

Hate to break it to you but on wasd+number keys, I hated it, just not enough fingers to stay in meele range and use ki powers.

Seven Fingered Gloves help with this I hear.:)

To the OP, well put.

[Iambeastx]

Didn't they implement a game changing mechanic like this in Age of Conan that caused a mass exodus of players?

[moorewr]

That is not entirely true.

Haste provides an extra attack at your highest attack, as do certain magical properties such as Speed on your weapon, armor, or bracers.

There are also class features and feats that give you an additional attack at your highest attack bonus, such as Rapid Shot/Strike, Flurry of Blows and Heroic Surge.

There are lots of ways to get extra attacks in PnP, they are all just limited usually to 1 or 2, this is what Turbine is trying to do, limit the amount of 'extra attacks' out there and it turn decreasing combat lag.

I'm certainly aware of haste and the other examples you mention. I do not see an example in PnP, other than monks and unarmed combat (?) of one class having access to a major change to the combat chain and another not having access. GTWF rogue is equivalent to a GTWF ranger except for their BABs, and both can access the same PrCs given the right feat and skill choices. The only advantages a ranger has when seeking Tempest as their Prestige Class are a) full BAB, and b) TWF-spec rangers have a free feat (TWF).

[Baahb3]

Negative. Reducing TWF dps and the lag reductions are separate.

Ok, fine you can say they are seperate things (and I agree), but you have to agree that reducing DPS will reduce combat lag as well, yes? Might not be the best way to do it, but it is a way.

[rezo]

currently its twf > thf (twitching) > thf >> s&b
with the change it will be [thf (twitching) >]* twf ~ thf >> s&b

math bad, me no like it!!! hehehe

[Strik3r]

i only read the edited OP and some posts..so if my info is wrong, mind me..

so now u have to get stwf to get 100% off hand attcks??..well pally twf builds are already feat starved and now we got to take another twf feat to bring to full effectiveness??...i think dats unfair and i am lvling up a new pally with twf build jus for the advantages they have and now its nerfed?? ****..:(

[Baahb3]

I'm certainly aware of haste and the other examples you mention. I do not see an example in PnP, other than monks and unarmed combat (?) of one class having access to a major change to the combat chain and another not having access. GTWF rogue is equivalent to a GTWF ranger except for their BABs, and both can access the same PrCs given the right feat and skill choices. The only advantages a ranger has when seeking Tempest as their Prestige Class are a) full BAB, and b) TWF-spec rangers have a free feat (TWF).

Very true, and I wish they would have made the PrE more like PnP as well. I see no reason that a class should be denied a PrC if they are willing to qualify for it.

I was just pointing out that I see the 'bonus attack' mechanisms of PnP as the 'alacrity' bonus of DDO.

[k1ngp1n]

Ok, fine you can say they are seperate things (and I agree), but you have to agree that reducing DPS will reduce combat lag as well, yes? Might not be the best way to do it, but it is a way.

Depends how its done. In this case whether or not the offhand procs 100% or 80% really isn't going to change DPS lag at all. However, shifting it to a chance to proc vs an attack sequence WILL.

[IronClan]

have you had a lvl 20 toon?and i dotn know wat content you play but almost all barbs i know and alot of uber dps wf fvs i know have epic SOS....funny how you can make blanket statements yet your highest toon is lvl 6.......

This is called anecdotal evidence and... Almost all my friends are hawt females... this must mean the world is almost exclusively populated by hawties right?.

Let's let a Developer answer your question:
"Skipping the extreme outlier of the Epic Sword of Shadows (we got a little carried away there, didn’t we?)"

Extreme outlier means it's wielded by a statistically small number of the player base, inside of what everyone acknowledges is a small subset of players who actually play epic. let alone grind them enough to get an ESoS.

So your anecdotal "almost all barbs I know" is obviously a fluke of who you run with and I'm being generous not doubting that "almost every" barb you know isn't A) an exaggeration B) only 2 actual barbs.

In any case I can't imagine how Effed up this game would be if they balanced everything around players who are to the right of a decimal place in the overall percentage of server population.

[Baahb3]

i only read the edited OP and some posts..so if my info is wrong, mind me..

so now u have to get stwf to get 100% off hand attcks??..well pally twf builds are already feat starved and now we got to take another twf feat to bring to full effectiveness??...i think dats unfair and i am lvling up a new pally with twf build jus for the advantages they have and now its nerfed?? ****..:(

/start sarcasm

Well as a TWFing fighter I think it is unfair that you have self healing, great saves, immunity to disease and fear and can cast spells.

/end sarcasm

It is a choice, TWF paladins will still have the option to take STWF, they just have to make the choice to drop Extend Spell, or OTWF or any other feat. It is about the choice.

[Calebro]

to fix the large disparity between S&B and TWF/THF they need to knock both of them down a little (very little in the case of THF) to make any buffs to S&B not be so drastic...
Wow, that sounds familiar. ;)


The rogue will be closer to the ranger attack speed if this update goes through as it looks now. As now the ranger get 10% increase to all attack speed and 1 extra offhand (basicly 110% main hand and 135% offhand).

Increasing off hand attacks beyond 100% is meaningless. The exatr percentages in the OP are for Dounle Strike, which only occurs in the main hand. If the off hand gets attcks 100% of the time, adding to that does zero good.

It is all very well to give a % boost to Tempest, as it does now, but here we are talking about an insurmountable difference between an STWF Tempest III and a GTWF rogue. The rogue will simply have no chance to compete with th off-hand and double-strike chances built into the new system. That's far inferior to the situation with alacrity now.


I think you're being overly dramatic. While Rogues do get the short end of the stick on this one.... slightly.... their main source of damage is sneak attack. One less SA out of 5 is going to be noticed, but it will hardly be game breaking.

I'd still like to know why they think decreasing lower level character's chances to hit with two weapons will help anything

They're NOT lowering the chances to hit for lower levels. That's what is happening at higher levels. At lower levels, they actually have MORE chances to hit with this system.

It was hard to make it seem worth it to play a rogue for dps as it was with poor dps pre enhancments compared to other melee classes.

Rogues never had low DPS. If you see a Rogue that does, something is terribly wrong.


So, the proposed ki generation with the stated build/gear will be around 85% of what it is currently (due to the lower number of attacks).

My intial assessment (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?p=2991954#post2991954) of ~90% was an estimate, and by the numbers it would seem that I was close. But as you didn't add Double Strikes in, it will be slightly higher.
So as I stated before, low level monks will regain Ki faster, while high level minks will regain Ki slightly slower. But at high levels Monks have zero problems building Ki anyway, so it's a moot point.

I propose you change THF instead. Nerfing is a bad idea always and that is pretty much what is happening here.

This is most certainly not true. The fact is that in non-PvP oriented games, almost all nerfs are for the betterment of the game. Just because we don't initially like the idea doesn't mean it's bad for the game.

/not signed

The power creep in this game is getting out of hand. Every time they make a mistake and release something that is over the top (i.e. ESoS) everyone says, just increase the other stuff to match, this needs to stop.

Sometimes you need to take a step back to make progress going forward.
^THIS^

currently its twf > thf (twitching) > thf >> s&b
with the change it will be [thf (twitching) >]* twf ~ thf >> s&b

(*as twitching gets a small nerf too it shouldnt be there actually, but i put it there to show the point)

with the changes thf and twf will be alot better balanced then it is currently. thats also why glancing blows while mocing got removed

its not a nerf, its a overall game balance

Well said Visty. ;)

[tomfar72]

I am a DDO God!! I am uber!! I do more damage than anyone!!!! Wait, you are nerfing me?? You mean my TWF uberness is going to come down to the lvls of scrubby THF?? There is no room for balance in this game I say!! I'm gonna fight this. I'm gonna kick and scream and cry!!! I am gonna nerdrage until the heavens quake and the Gods fear my wrath!! I'm gonna...well...screw it, I'm gonna adapt.

[Tarnoc]

This is called anecdotal evidence and... Almost all my friends are hawt females... this must mean the world is almost exclusively populated by hawties right?.

Let's let a Developer answer your question:
"Skipping the extreme outlier of the Epic Sword of Shadows (we got a little carried away there, didn’t we?)"

Extreme outlier means it's wielded by a statistically small number of the player base, inside of what everyone acknowledges is a small subset of players who actually play epic. let alone grind them enough to get an ESoS.

So your anecdotal "almost all barbs I know" is obviously a fluke of who you run with and I'm being generous not doubting that "almost every" barb you know isn't A) an exaggeration B) only 2 actual barbs.

In any case I can't imagine how Effed up this game would be if they balanced everything around players who are to the right of a decimal place in the overall percentage of server population.

yes sorry my bad your 90% of the population is lvl 6 and wouldnt have an epic SOS and its alot more then 2 barbs or said fvs

the epic SOS isnt that hard to grind for btw....i know a few people grinding for their second already.....and if i had a THF i would have one as we speak but alas i wasnt into THF

now put in 12 more items in the kundarak listing s and youde have a similar epic grind that the epic chaos blade has

[sirdanile]

I'm gonna...well...screw it, I'm gonna adapt.

Exactly! though I don't think much adapting needs to be done, just play how you want to play!

[Natashaelle]

4 Fighter levels and 16 Bard/rogue/monk/cleric/favored soul meets the 16 bab requirement and adds the bonus feats to do it.

If the BAB requirement is accurate, which is not btw confirmed, then at level 18 when you would get your final feat, your maximum BAB would be +14, so that the only way to get the feat would be to take Fighter 4 as your last level at level 20, and to *hope* that STWF is included in the bonus Feats you can take.

This is not a very attractive scenario, because with only 4 Fighter levels you'll get no PrE, and meanwhile you will lose a fair amount from your main class.

I'd prefer to see a minimum level requirement rather than this BAB silliness anyway, except in the case that Turbine have a new level cap increase in the works that they're not talking about...

[MrWizard]

or you can go to LOTRO...ask for taank from xoriat.... :)

[Quijonsith]

My intial assessment (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?p=2991954#post2991954) of ~90% was an estimate, and by the numbers it would seem that I was close. But as you didn't add Double Strikes in, it will be slightly higher.
So as I stated before, low level monks will regain Ki faster, while high level minks will regain Ki slightly slower. But at high levels Monks have zero problems building Ki anyway, so it's a moot point.


Actually he did include double strikes. That's the 110% main hand part of his math.

[tomfar72]

Exactly! though I don't think much adapting needs to be done, just play how you want to play!

No way!! Haven't you read that the sky is fallling?? It's all over the forums and the forums are on the internet so it must be true...DoOoOoOoOoOoOoOom!!!

[redgod]

hay devs got an idea barbarians are causing lots of lag running arround with 10+ guards going off in addition to wepon dps slows us down to much how about you limit guard items to 1 effect per attack think about all the saved calculations

instead of 6 items tripping 3-4 effects for god knows how many different die rolls and auras every time they get hit,,, each item effect has a roll and 1 effect from 1 piece of gear goes off each piece having an equal chance this will bring those gear heavy dps barbs in line with everybody else and not put such a strain on the calculations when you have several well geared barbs in a raid

obviosly anyone with lots of greensteele is causing all this lag

[Calebro]

Actually he did include double strikes. That's the 110% main hand part of his math.

Maybe I missed that part skimming through 6 pages or so. Either way, his point is valid.

[Boromirs]

Reason why Eladrin hasn't replied recently is because it's the memorial day weekend and he doesn't need the extreme stress of a rampaging hoard of very angry gamers flooding the forums. He'll probably be back tuesday to reply and give us the run down on what the devs think.

[sephiroth1084]

This is why they shouldn't invent things that entirely do not exist in the source game. if we're going to have imbalances, let them be inherited imbalances.

In the source game, a rogue can qualify for Tempest as their prestige class almost as easily as a ranger or fighter can. In the source game, there's no business with alacrity (just BAB as an advantage for the number of strikes). In the source game there's no STWF at all.
I think that this is a poor argument. DDO, which functions in a way that is fundamentally different than PnP, must create its own rules in order for it to function at all.

That being said, I do agree that some things that were changed shouldn't have been changed, and that some of the problems we have now stem from those issues.

/start sarcasm

Well as a TWFing fighter I think it is unfair that you have self healing, great saves, immunity to disease and fear and can cast spells.

/end sarcasm

It is a choice, TWF paladins will still have the option to take STWF, they just have to make the choice to drop Extend Spell, or OTWF or any other feat. It is about the choice.
The problem is that we aren't simply talking about adding a feat that expands character power laterally, such as by giving more options, but about something that necessarily raises the power level of a character directly. What's more, this new feat would be necessary for regaining ground lost to an unforeseeable game change, and would be incredibly difficult to qualify for and fit into most character builds.

At some point it has to be acknowledged that some number of feats required to merely perform a particular task is too many. Most classes gain only 7 feats, 3 of which are currently devoted to one of the two DPS feat chains. How many should be prescribed? I honestly don't think we need more necessary combat feats, as that shrinks the reasonable variety of characters in DDO.

[Razcar]

A bit of a meta-question: has any other topic on these boards ever generated a faster growing thread? This does seem to create more posts than even the Wall did.

[Brother_Solar]

My intial assessment (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?p=2991954#post2991954) of ~90% was an estimate, and by the numbers it would seem that I was close. But as you didn't add Double Strikes in, it will be slightly higher.
So as I stated before, low level monks will regain Ki faster, while high level minks will regain Ki slightly slower. But at high levels Monks have zero problems building Ki anyway, so it's a moot point.
I did add in Double Strikes. That was the 1.1*115 for the main hand attack (i.e., 110% the number of main hand attacks).

I wasn't complaining, btw, just addressing an earlier question for my own satisfaction. I don't think there will be problems with ki generation either.

Edit: Bah, it was already pointed out. Oh well. That's what I get for not keeping up.

[die]

No way!! Haven't you read that the sky is fallling?? It's all over the forums and the forums are on the internet so it must be true...DoOoOoOoOoOoOoOom!!!

you called?.. what i thinkis funny is they say thier doing this too beat lag... lol 1 place were it lags shroud 4 and 5 a total of 2 min, and thier going too change all this , sorry but that does not add up i smell smoke

[Gobbothegreen]

They wont have to be tempest to out dps other classes for free now. You can go AA, pick up the STWF feat (or get it free) and still out alot of other TWF toons dps due to offhand procs. Then you have a many shot that hoses down everything in the room, and powerful enough melee to clean up the scraps.



Yeah, but it still kills the tempest ranger. and tempest is hardly free you have to spend 4 feats to get it (is there any other pre that needs this much?) and now the only benefit you will get is 5% dual strikeWhich is quite ridicolous.
Also no they will be quite far behind twf fighters as they wont have anything to compare with the crit range increase they get and they will have less attacks. Not only them all the monsters, ravagers etc become alot worse.

From how i see it the only twf that will still be worthwhile is pure fighters and pallies(who i still see as solid and probably better than thf becuase of the twitch glancing blow nerf). Now rangers will be doomed to being quite far behind dps wise (oh you can do good dps 20 seconds every 120 min but all the other time you will be outdpsd by all other but monks(sometimes even them).

[Souless]

I have now slept on this nerf and tried to look at it from another perspective.

The problem is: there isn't. THIS IS A NERF plain and simple

I've also been doing some thinking about how sussesful Turbine has been in fixing lag. Thus far I've gotta say your track record isn't good.

The people at Turbine have implemented a number of changes in the form of the lag fix. Since lag seems to be this major concern, so far I've gotta say all of them have failed. DA systemFailed. Slow down combatFailed. Decrease hasteFailed. Improve moster pathing (on may occasions)Failed.

So this change I feel isn't going to solve the lag issue. Which makes all this disscussion about the nerf.

And we are making these game sweeping changes for 3 raid bosses?!?!?!?!?!?! You've gotta be kidding me.

So does this mean when more ppl are playing the game and the servers have to talk to more machines this fix will enevitably fail....I mean assuming I'm still here to see it.

The Bytcher~

[sirdanile]

[QUOTE=tomfar72;2992932Haven't you read that the sky is fallling?? [/QUOTE]


A quote i've been using for the past 30 minutes...

If you're gonna die, die with your boots on.
If you're gonna try, well stick around,
Gonna cry, just move along,
If you're gonna die, you're gonna die.