Devs: Recommended Upgrades for U12

[Sweet_Bud]

I'm a player who has played the game for over a year and has done a lot of pnp over the years, so my complaints can be consolidated into three simple points:

1) On watery slopes in sewers, please make enemies (that don't hover) slip as much as PC's. This can be very annoying, especially in places like Invaders or even something as simple as the Korthos quests. Also, it makes little sense.

2) Make enemies LOSE targeting when you go out of sight, such that one can go invisible/sneaky and still bypass them. This happens when you die, release, and return but for "thank God you're in our party" characters like bards that can save people's bacon's after a wipe, this gets very annoying. Especially in places where you can't run away like the Crucible maze.

3) Fix the AC issue for monsters. While anyone can specialize in armor easily, especially fighter types, and easily get in the 45-55 range by L14 if they try, most other characters top out around 25-35 with buffs. At the same time, attack bonuses are much easier to get: a second-string L12 DPS will have a +20 easily (8 BAB, 4 weapon, 3 strength, 1 Rage, 4 Greater Heroism) and a good DPS of the same level will have a +25-35 (more strength, more BAB).

Yet, when anyone goes into Gianthold around L13 or so they monsters are hitting with +35-45 depending on the mob. I realize this is in part to allow AC tanks to actually get hit, but for everyone else it completely invalidates armor from L12 onward, and means that any AC tank must hit 55-80 (don't ask me how, but I've seen it) to actually be useful near endgame. It's even worse in Epic. A little correction here would be nice.

I apologize if you've already fixed the last issue there, but if you haven't PLEASE get on it asap. It would be an easy fix and would feel fair to face ogres with +20, maybe +30 at most, to hit.

[whitehawk74]

1: Kobolds and other creates have webbed feet so they dont slip around that much.
2: I agree.

.. and to add to the list, please have pets at the lowest level of priority for selecting... it gets so hard when they get in the way when casting (and probably melee)

[oradafu]

1) I agree with Whitehawk about Kobolds and Troglodytes shouldn't have as much trouble as players in the watery slopes. However, it seems to me that Hobgoblins should be having as much trouble as players on the slopes. I'm sure there are other mobs in sewers that should be having trouble on slopes, but Hobgoblins seem like the most prolific of the non-webbed-feet mobs in the sewers.

2) I agree.

[scottmike0]

I'm a player who has played the game for over a year and has done a lot of pnp over the years, so my complaints can be consolidated into three simple points:

1) On watery slopes in sewers, please make enemies (that don't hover) slip as much as PC's. This can be very annoying, especially in places like Invaders or even something as simple as the Korthos quests. Also, it makes little sense.

2) Make enemies LOSE targeting when you go out of sight, such that one can go invisible/sneaky and still bypass them. This happens when you die, release, and return but for "thank God you're in our party" characters like bards that can save people's bacon's after a wipe, this gets very annoying. Especially in places where you can't run away like the Crucible maze.

3) Fix the AC issue for monsters. While anyone can specialize in armor easily, especially fighter types, and easily get in the 45-55 range by L14 if they try, most other characters top out around 25-35 with buffs. At the same time, attack bonuses are much easier to get: a second-string L12 DPS will have a +20 easily (8 BAB, 4 weapon, 3 strength, 1 Rage, 4 Greater Heroism) and a good DPS of the same level will have a +25-35 (more strength, more BAB).

Yet, when anyone goes into Gianthold around L13 or so they monsters are hitting with +30-45 depending on the mob. I realize this is in part to allow AC tanks to actually get hit, but for everyone else it completely invalidates armor from L12 onward, and means that any AC tank must hit 55-80 (don't ask me how, but I've seen it) to actually be useful near endgame. It's even worse in Epic. A little correction here would be nice.

I apologize if you've already fixed the last issue there, but if you haven't PLEASE get on it asap. It would be an easy fix and would feel fair to face ogres with +20, maybe +30 at most, to hit.

i agree although when i went to gianthold i never did have problems hitting it was usually the saves for elite crucible since i was doing it and at level 12 i was dang even with 30+ saves i still fail on the traps. oh and I'm almost reaching my record for ac :) adding a haste + recitation = 91 :) and then adding more ac gear would probably do the trick reaching my 100 + ac :) Yet as soon as i do i'm going to tr and gain 40 hp more ac in wind and 80hp more in dps mode :) then using litany + my staff of +7 dex = 94
http://i55.tinypic.com/a3crqo.jpg

[Razcar]

3) Fix the AC issue for monsters. While anyone can specialize in armor easily, especially fighter types, and easily get in the 45-55 range by L14 if they try, most other characters top out around 25-35 with buffs. At the same time, attack bonuses are much easier to get: a second-string L12 DPS will have a +20 easily (8 BAB, 4 weapon, 3 strength, 1 Rage, 4 Greater Heroism) and a good DPS of the same level will have a +25-35 (more strength, more BAB).
AC has been one of the biggest and most ignored problems in DDO for years. The only thing the devs have done was to introduce Grazing Hits, which made AC even less useful, when it instead needed a big revision.

The loot developers are deadly afraid to introduce stacking AC-boosting items in the game while at the same time the majority of players totally ignore AC. Talk about a divide between the actual realities on the production servers and what the devs think the players are doing. And to cement that producer Glin said in a (refreshingly pointed) interview a while back - think it was TenTonHammer - that they think AC is fine and dandy in DDO and a 50 AC was helpful in end game. Right.

[Mrmorphling]

1 & 2 agreed

3 is a tricky matter as it is quite hard to 'balance' AC where end game "ac tanks" will vary from 60 (clueless beginner) to 105+ (hardcore full buffed); you can't make the first semiusefull w/o giving something too close to immunity to the latter.

I do agree AC needs an overhaul but honestly i don't have a good suggestion; for sure i won't lower +attack of GH as reaching 50ish AC by lvl 12-14 is very obtainable w/o special gear, just optimizing the build and with few key items

[Sweet_Bud]

mr. morphling: Yes you can get +50 if you really try, but takes up a few feats, spells, and many equipment slots to get to 50 AC so you can't do anything else that well. Other characters specialize in other things and as such can't get anywhere near that AC. What good do Icy Rainments do when AC is irrelevant by the time you can wear them, aside from saves?

For Pen & Paper D&D, getting over a 40 AC was the real deal. The 48 AC tank mounted on a steed, taunting (through class skills) all foes to attack him was the real deal. Even in that format, however, 3.x and above went overboard in attack bonuses, figuring that shorter fights are better than longer ones. People who do stats in real life have actually revised attack numbers down for P&P so that they scale better with available AC bonuses. Heck, in 4th Ed the armor scales at the same rate as to-hit, creating a +/- 4 variance from the standard attack for that level at any given time.

There are worse things than allowing AC pimps to go unhurt in the endgame. Dev's, please make AC relevant for the rest of us past L10.

For the record, my own tracking of how AC can go way up would be the following:
Base AC: 10
+5 Full Plate: +13
+5 Tower Shield: +9
Deflection bonus (from spell or Protection item): +5
Barkskin / natural armor bonus: +5
Combat Expertise: +5
Haste: +1
Other buffs (prayer, etc): +?
Paladin/Fighter Shield blocking enhancements: +2-5 (?)
Actively blocking: +2-4 (?)
Dodge Bonus: +1-3
Dexterity Bonus: +1-4 (for some fighter builds)

By my count that puts the total to between 54 and 61, though finding the natural armor boost isn't the easiest thing in the world (i.e., rangers only) so 49 - 56 is probably more rational for a good, prepped party. Still not sure how this number could ever go above the ~60 mark.

[MadFloyd]

AC is high on our to-do list.

[Scraap]

AC is high on our to-do list.

Care to share any of the considered proposals thus-far? There have been so very many approaches suggested.

[Musouka]

AC is high on our to-do list.

Good stuff there. I'm making a stalwart defender, and with the gear I have so far, I will achieve a good 80ish before cleric buffs and bard buffs.

[Thrudh]

mr. morphling: Yes you can get +50 if you really try, but takes up a few feats, spells, and many equipment slots to get to 50 AC so you can't do anything else that well. Other characters specialize in other things and as such can't get anywhere near that AC. What good do Icy Rainments do when AC is irrelevant by the time you can wear them, aside from saves?

For Pen & Paper D&D, getting over a 40 AC was the real deal. The 48 AC tank mounted on a steed, taunting (through class skills) all foes to attack him was the real deal. Even in that format, however, 3.x and above went overboard in attack bonuses, figuring that shorter fights are better than longer ones. People who do stats in real life have actually revised attack numbers down for P&P so that they scale better with available AC bonuses. Heck, in 4th Ed the armor scales at the same rate as to-hit, creating a +/- 4 variance from the standard attack for that level at any given time.

There are worse things than allowing AC pimps to go unhurt in the endgame. Dev's, please make AC relevant for the rest of us past L10.

For the record, my own tracking of how AC can go way up would be the following:
Base AC: 10
+5 Full Plate: +13
+5 Tower Shield: +9
Deflection bonus (from spell or Protection item): +5
Barkskin / natural armor bonus: +5
Combat Expertise: +5
Haste: +1
Other buffs (prayer, etc): +?
Paladin/Fighter Shield blocking enhancements: +2-5 (?)
Actively blocking: +2-4 (?)
Dodge Bonus: +1-3
Dexterity Bonus: +1-4 (for some fighter builds)

By my count that puts the total to between 54 and 61, though finding the natural armor boost isn't the easiest thing in the world (i.e., rangers only) so 49 - 56 is probably more rational for a good, prepped party. Still not sure how this number could ever go above the ~60 mark.

There are better armors than plain +5 plate... Dragontouched armor for instance... +3 barkskin potions can be bought from a vendor in House J...

Here's a fighter build with very little gear that can achieve a useful self-buffed AC. The +4 Insight bonus (made on Shroud gear or Alchemical gear) is the only thing that you have to work for.

10 base
15 DragonTouched Armor
4 Dex
9 Tower Shield
2 Alchemical bonus on armor and shield
5 Protection
3 Barkskin potion
4 Insight Bonus
1 Haste
3 Airship buffs
5 Combat Expertise
3 Stalwart Defender
4 Stalwart Stance
1 Dodge Feat

= 69 AC

Add in a +2 Dodge item,a bard song (+4), a ranger barkskin (+2), paladin aura (+2-+6) and you're hitting 80 AC.

And that's with very little gear... get some epic gear or a chattering ring, and you can add in another +3 dodge, and +3 profane AC from Abashi set.

Of course, DPS is much lower when using a tower shield... so that's the trade-off.

Monks and monk splashes with high Dex and Wisdom also achieve high AC numbers. That's how rogues and rangers can get good AC as well.

[dkyle]

AC is high on our to-do list.

This is the sort of thing where player feedback would be a very good thing to seek out before setting it into stone.

For my part, I say don't be afraid leave the d20.

For example, a Logistic curve (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_curve) on the difference between AC and attack bonus might make sense. Tune it so that at AC -10 = attack bonus, there's a 50/50 chance of hitting, and a +/- attack bonus gives about 5% +/- hit chance. But give diminishing returns/gains in each direction. End result would be that every point of AC and attack bonus would count for something, just very little once you get far enough in either direction.

In addition, you might abandon "hitting and missing" entirely, and scale all damage by the "miss-chance" instead, if you want to avoid the "missing isn't fun" problem. If this is done, I'd like to see probabilistic rounding introduced to the game, to avoid wonkiness like "Force Damage ritual" being pointless against even 1% damage reduction.

[Thalmor]

AC is high on our to-do list.

I've been thinking about AC for quote some time, and how everyone saying it basically borked.

With all the different bonuses avaliable to modify "to hit" and "AC" I think that DDO have evolved past a D20 being affective as the roll die for attacks. Maybe DDO needs to evolve to having a D100 being the standard for attacks, with everyone getting a base AC of 50. ( As everyone gets a base AC of 10 [ 50% of 20 ] as it stands).

Obviously critical misses, critical hits would have to be scaled accordingly.

This would then get a better range for AC to be hopefully some what affect, while still allowing those with high attack modifiers to beable to hit morefrequently than those with lower attack modifiers.

* Say for instance an existing level 10 character has a 50 AC, new AC would be 90, Say you go aganist Velah Attack on Normal of ~60. So basically on an existing character Velah only misses on a critical miss, (5% miss chance). So with the new AC Velah would miss on any roll <30 ( 29% miss chance). I know it not great but it better then it was before.

Yes I know the number are simplified, but it just an example. This is my idea for a solution to the AC problem, to start some discussion on finding a solution.

[dunklezhan]

I dont' know what the solution is, but anythign to help AC woudl be appreciated.

I just got my S&B up to L13. His AC standing without ship buffs is 46, with ship buffs thats up to 49. This has only been possible (for me) with cannith crafting (as I can make prot, dodge and nat armour items)

I've done a bit of calculating and without banking on a bunch of tomes, rare gear such as the chattering ring and so on, i can squeeze out maybe another 3 or four AC before I level off and make no gains until I can get a full DT armour set. I could LR and pick up Dodge, but at the moment my DPS is actually half decent - its not great, but its no dex rogue vs 100% fort mob, either.

I already feel like I've sacrificed a reasonable amount of DPS and I'm going to have to sacrifice some more, because I'm either going to have to drop bashing off my shield for imp parrying, or puregood off my bastard sword for the same (so yeah, I'll be dropping the bashing :) ). But once that's done, I've no more to give!

Currently in GH - on normal, which was the only thing that was ever my goal - the AC is working more than 50% of the time, which was also my goal. However when I finally hit Vale, if the scuttlebut is correct, the only reason to be stalwart S&B would be for DR and hitpoints - but if you still need as much healing as the barbarian next to you, you'd **** well better be putting out the same damage, which of course I won't be. So in a couple of levels all the gear I've made/looted for myself I may as well scrap and switch to a pajama wearing kensai and load up a 2 hander.

DT with all the options would give me about +6AC on where I am now which would put me back in my current position in Vale, but of course I wont' get to reavers till I'm done with Vale by which time presumably the giants of reavers will make a further mockery of all the effort I put in.

I've never had to try so hard to be effective with a build. Even my Str dumpstat Dex rogue is 100% effective at what they do at least 75% of the time and I really haven't had to try that hard. Random loot with the occasional purchase to make sure I have the best +skill gear I can get has been more than enough. Ditto my ranged - ranged - ranger, earth savant and horribly undergeared light monk are all effective at what they do. If I put in the sort of work I've put in on my S&B fighter just to get him to L13, those other characters wouldn't be effective, they'd be awesome.

So yeah. AC as a build choice needs some work.

[redspecter23]

AC is high on our to-do list.

I know that I should be happy that AC is getting some attention but for some reason it scares the crud out of me too. Just hoping that any changes to AC don't somehow invalidate the work I've already done to get 80+ on my monk. In the content that works in, he makes great use of it. I'd hate to have the tradeoff of getting hit slightly less in epics but having that same 80 ac getting me hit much more in lower content.

People strive for the "hittable only on a 20" AC mark. If that becomes even harder to reach that point, or even impossible, I can see any changes having the opposite effect and players just ignoring AC even more than they currently do.

[Thrudh]

DT with all the options would give me about +6AC on where I am now which would put me back in my current position in Vale, but of course I wont' get to reavers till I'm done with Vale by which time presumably the giants of reavers will make a further mockery of all the effort I put in.


So yeah. AC as a build choice needs some work.

I think the problem is that NEW players have a real problem with AC... Like you said, you can't get Dragontouched armor or a Shroud Insight weapon BEFORE running the Vale...

But us TRs can... So when I hit the Vale on my second and third lives, I'm sporting a 60 AC, and I see AC as being very useful....

AC is NOT broken from 1-14. If you concentrate on AC, you can attain an AC that helps at lot.

AC is also NOT broken on 14-20 quests for TRs (assuming you grind a little for the AC gear before TRing)...

It IS broken in 14-20 quests for first-time players.... but I'm not sure how one can fix that without making it too easy for TRs.

And it IS broken in epics for everyone.

[Thalmor]

For my part, I say don't be afraid leave the d20.

Yes I agree fully, ( as much as it hurts me to say this )I beleive we are long past the point of the D20 system being affective in DDO



For example, a Logistic curve (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_curve) on the difference between AC and attack bonus might make sense. Tune it so that at AC -10 = attack bonus, there's a 50/50 chance of hitting, and a +/- attack bonus gives about 5% +/- hit chance. But give diminishing returns/gains in each direction. End result would be that every point of AC and attack bonus would count for something, just very little once you get far enough in either direction.

This sounds very intriguing, however not sure how easily this would be to implement.



In addition, you might abandon "hitting and missing" entirely, and scale all damage by the "miss-chance" instead, if you want to avoid the "missing isn't fun" problem. If this is done, I'd like to see probabilistic rounding introduced to the game, to avoid wonkiness like "Force Damage ritual" being pointless against even 1% damage reduction.

While I agree that "missing isn't fun" the whole hit-miss chance is an intergral part of the game. Getting some damage even when I am suppose to miss really isn't fun either. There still has to be some challange.

[djl]

Please make epic raids more fair. Either reverse the changes you made to HP and damage in U11 or increase the drop rates of scrolls, seals, and shards to compensate. The overwhelming majority opinion is that this update was unnecessary and made things too difficult for players who aren't long-time veterans. Almost every PUG fails at epic raids now because unless you are already geared, you can't do enough DPS.

Also, hoping that the rumors are true regarding tome's carrying over to TRs.

[eterna1_drag0n]

You can push 54 unbuffed at lvl 11 with the twinkest gear in the game, on a halfling rogue/monk splash dex/wis build with No feats used:

10 base
+12 dex (32=20 base, +2 rogue enhance, +2 tome, +6 item Crafted, +2 wind stance)
+8 wis (26=18 base, +1 monk enhance, +2 tome, +5 item Crafted)
+5 armor (+5 armor on sirens belt)
+3 natural (Crafted +3 natural Crafted)
+5 defection (+5 protection item Crafted)
+6 dodge (+3 chattering ring, +2 chaosgarde, +1 alchemical on armor)
+2 misc (incite from sirens set)
+1 centered (monkness)
+1 dodge Crafted item
+1 racial (hairyfeet)

Solo Buffed well...
+5 ship ( +1+2 dex, +1+2 wis, +3 stacking naturals)
+4 shield (1, 5, or 10 mins with wand and umd)
+2 defensive stance

So 65 for easily sustained self

For a grand total of 54 unbuffed, 65 self buffed


So Max sustained is 65 + a couple if feats are used. For reference +6 is only feat taken was dodge repeatedly.

Could splash 2 fighter for another 2 dodges I guess, total sustainable, in game, Solo, sub lvl 12, with the Best AC gear and a mid lvl guild ship:

73 AC sustainable on a dex/wis rogue/monk/fighter with no group/outside buffs!!

Personally I think anything over 40 at this lvl should only be hit on a rolled 20
This is just a reference for what is the MAX AC sub LVL 12 can be

[Yan_PL]

everyone quotes +5 protection as highest deflection bonus... but true neutral character can get superior stability 4 levels earlier than +5 prot, which is +6 deflection bonus AND +6 resistance to saves.

[Bodic]

AC is high on our to-do list.

Say bye bye to grazing hits for all, and I will be so happy. or adjust the mobs grazing hit factor into the same range as players at the very least.

lets example a CR4 mob and give them:

10 BAB
6 weapon
2 situational
2 from a spell enhancer
19 non crit

That is +39, so not within 10.

Now I know I can get hit with a +50 AC with DR/10, and I am using crazy +2hit bonus for a CR4 MOB. Its amater that grazing hits from higher content are +50 damage from mobs, and from a player side they are so much smaller.

Its a matter that you need 70+ to sustain minimal damage, and the effect of 50 AC in higher content is meaningless. DR is the only true AC currently in game of which is granted to 1 race w/dilettante, and 3 classes. Yes there are items for this aswell as blocking DR from shields.

With the changes to intimidate shield blocking is less than effective for aggrression control. I can say that if I take a rogue into any quest without subtle backstabbing stance active the rogeu will have the aggression. I understand why it is a stance, and do not wish it to be like the spell casting verison as there are times in which I want the aggression.

[redspecter23]

everyone quotes +5 protection as highest deflection bonus... but true neutral character can get superior stability 4 levels earlier than +5 prot, which is +6 deflection bonus AND +6 resistance to saves.

That's true for your typical S&B tank type, but any monk splash build will not be able to be true neutral so their calculation will list +5 as the typical highest. Epic Ring of the Silver Concord though can punch it up to a +6 deflection bonus, but it's not really ideal for the slot.

[marcosoneghett]

This is the sort of thing where player feedback would be a very good thing to seek out before setting it into stone.

For my part, I say don't be afraid leave the d20.

For example, a Logistic curve (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_curve) on the difference between AC and attack bonus might make sense. Tune it so that at AC -10 = attack bonus, there's a 50/50 chance of hitting, and a +/- attack bonus gives about 5% +/- hit chance. But give diminishing returns/gains in each direction. End result would be that every point of AC and attack bonus would count for something, just very little once you get far enough in either direction.

In addition, you might abandon "hitting and missing" entirely, and scale all damage by the "miss-chance" instead, if you want to avoid the "missing isn't fun" problem. If this is done, I'd like to see probabilistic rounding introduced to the game, to avoid wonkiness like "Force Damage ritual" being pointless against even 1% damage reduction.

I like that Suggestion, but I'd add to the principle to Tune it to AC -7 = attack bonus on hard and AC - 5 = attack bonus on Elite; so to add more challenge and scaling.

[dkyle]

I like that Suggestion, but I'd add to the principle to Tune it to AC -7 = attack bonus on hard and AC - 5 = attack bonus on Elite; so to add more challenge and scaling.

Attack bonus and AC of the mobs usually scale, anyway, since the CR of mobs scale, so this sort of thing shouldn't be necessary. I think it would just muddle things. Keeping it at AC -10 = Attack -> 50% to-hit makes it easy to remember.

I generally don't like it when the game mechanics change according to difficulty level. It makes more sense to me for the enemies (and traps, etc.) change. Technically, there's not real difference. But it just feels cleaner.

[Ralmeth]

AC is high on our to-do list.

Awesome! Thanks for the heads up MadFloyd:) That's great to know this is being looked at.

As for my own 2CPs regarding AC as a long-time Pally tank:
-It is frustrating to build for AC, which takes a lot of time and dedication, only to get hit all the time in Epics. Your AC should be meaningful in epics and everywhere else. Having a high AC means you should be able to battle away and do well while fighting multiple mobs.
-Getting to the point where you are only getting hit on a 20 is awesome as an AC tank, and is a real goal.

So having said that, I think that AC should have a cap based on the level that you're at. That way the developers can develop or modify the + to hit for the monsters in the quest based on this cap to obtain the challenge level they want. Also I don't think that the cap should include every single piece of gear and every single buff that's available out there. To reach cap should require some hard to acquire gear, but not every single piece of it. Once you reach cap your goal would be to free up item slots, feats, etc by getting the best AC gear out there. That way you could do away with things like a dodge +1 item or the dodge feat, etc. So long as the + to hits are adjusted so you are only getting hit on a 20 I personally don't see a problem with having the max attainable AC brought down some. For anyone that's ground lots of time to get that AC, they'll then have the option of freeing up something else in their build for other things such as DPS items.

[Infiltraitor]

I think you guys might be jumping the gun.

AC is high on our to-do list.

That statement implies that AC is not on the top of the to-do list.

Being on a to-do list also means it is not being worked on, simply noted in order to be started on at a future date.

[winsom]

One of the first easy-steps should be to allow the Defensive Fighting to be used at the same time as Combat Expertise feat. Power Attack should be usable at the same time as well.

the official D&D rules allow this. I do not see any reason why DDO should not.

It used to be a limitation with how DDO allows toggles. But I've been told this has long since been fixed.

The next step, and not so-easy, is to give monsters a small random attack roll penalty, to simulate how D&D monsters are not equally accurate on all of their attacks.

I also recommend that all dodge bonuses from items be reduced to +1, with stacking allowed, so there are not huge AC bonuses based on having or not having elite dodge gear. Current items with greater than +1 could be augmented in other ways, such as stacking 5% concealment or DR -/-

[redspecter23]

Awesome! Thanks for the heads up MadFloyd:) That's great to know this is being looked at.

As for my own 2CPs regarding AC as a long-time Pally tank:
-It is frustrating to build for AC, which takes a lot of time and dedication, only to get hit all the time in Epics. Your AC should be meaningful in epics and everywhere else. Having a high AC means you should be able to battle away and do well while fighting multiple mobs.
-Getting to the point where you are only getting hit on a 20 is awesome as an AC tank, and is a real goal.

So having said that, I think that AC should have a cap based on the level that you're at. That way the developers can develop or modify the + to hit for the monsters in the quest based on this cap to obtain the challenge level they want. Also I don't think that the cap should include every single piece of gear and every single buff that's available out there. To reach cap should require some hard to acquire gear, but not every single piece of it. Once you reach cap your goal would be to free up item slots, feats, etc by getting the best AC gear out there. That way you could do away with things like a dodge +1 item or the dodge feat, etc. So long as the + to hits are adjusted so you are only getting hit on a 20 I personally don't see a problem with having the max attainable AC brought down some. For anyone that's ground lots of time to get that AC, they'll then have the option of freeing up something else in their build for other things such as DPS items.

The idea of a cap is good at first glance, but examine it a bit closer. Say at level 20 the ac cap is 80 for instance. You can't get any higher than 80 AC so if you want "unhittable" AC, then the mobs can't have any more than a +61 attack. The devs can simply add mobs with +70ish to hit and make your work meaningless again. It really isn't much different than what we have now except that build ideas become more stifled because of a cap. The devs have put epic mobs to hit at a point that essentially surpasses our cap. Because of that, nobody bothers with AC. So adding a cap seems like a good idea, but really the same problems could be there if the devs wanted them to be. The issue is that we would have little control over our own defences other than to hope the mob hit bonuses get lowered if we feel they are too high.

[Inkblack]

This is the sort of thing where player feedback would be a very good thing to seek out before setting it into stone.

For my part, I say don't be afraid leave the d20.

For example, a Logistic curve (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_curve) on the difference between AC and attack bonus might make sense. Tune it so that at AC -10 = attack bonus, there's a 50/50 chance of hitting, and a +/- attack bonus gives about 5% +/- hit chance. But give diminishing returns/gains in each direction. End result would be that every point of AC and attack bonus would count for something, just very little once you get far enough in either direction.

In addition, you might abandon "hitting and missing" entirely, and scale all damage by the "miss-chance" instead, if you want to avoid the "missing isn't fun" problem. If this is done, I'd like to see probabilistic rounding introduced to the game, to avoid wonkiness like "Force Damage ritual" being pointless against even 1% damage reduction.
This is actually relatively easy to do. I've posted on it a few times before, but the core 3.5 ruleset allows you to replace the base 10 (the 10 that gets added to AC) with a d20 roll. That way you get a pretty nice version of your logistic curve, and the useful AC range increases to ~38 from ~19. I'll see if I can find a link of the graphs.

This rule is practically never used in pen and paper because it needlessly complicates the game. However, with Turbine's server doing the rolling it would be pretty well hidden in the background.

EDIT: Here's the graph I think, it's blocked at work so I can't see it.
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r287/InkblackDDO/HitProbability3.jpg

Ink

[Munkenmo]

DR is the only true AC currently in game of which is granted to 1 race w/dilettante, and 3 classes. Yes there are items for this aswell as blocking DR from shields.


last i checked i have a w/f fighter with adamantine body 3dr / adamantine

all w/f can get 3 dr / adamantine from enhancements

and w/f can choose a feat to grant an additional 1 dr / adamantine per time chosen.

here (http://my.ddo.com/character/sarlona/fightenmo/) is a toon that by your description shouldn't have any DR at all given the gear he's wearing. (ignore how gimp he is, it's a flavor build i grew bored of)

[TekkenDevil]

1. Fix pet skins resetting to standard upon deployment.
2. Just take everything you have done to hirelings in 11.1 and set it back to the way it was before it, at the very least.
3. Fix things without breaking other things. (Impossible, I know, but you could at least try...)

[Bodic]

last i checked i have a w/f fighter with adamantine body 3dr / adamantine

all w/f can get 3 dr / adamantine from enhancements

and w/f can choose a feat to grant an additional 1 dr / adamantine per time chosen.

here (http://my.ddo.com/character/sarlona/fightenmo/) is a toon that by your description shouldn't have any DR at all given the gear he's wearing. (ignore how gimp he is, it's a flavor build i grew bored of)

oops your right I forgot about wasting a feat for DR, and reduced heals.

[smutpuppy]

Something needs to be done with regards to AC.

I have a screenshot at 112ac

I can maintain 100+ AC

LOB never misses

Therefore AC is irrelevant, its all DR and HPS at present.

My point is if you have Epic AC, (100+ sustainable) it should be hard to hit you, not impossible but difficult.

Instead of making 1100 - 1200 hp tanks where there AC is basically irrelevant, have normal tanks where a high AC actually matters. Throwing an extra 20% hps on doesnt really fix the issue, it just throws a bandaid on it.

[Munkenmo]

oops your right I forgot about wasting a feat for DR, and reduced heals.

body feats doesn't reduce your heals any further than it would a composite warforged.

improved damage reduction also do not drop your healing amp.

you're probably thinking of improved fortification. (removes all access to divine healing for 100% fortification)

[sirgog]

AC is high on our to-do list.

Good to hear.

IMO Lord of Blades Elite is about where Epic bosses should be (To-Hit wise): a baseline to-hit in the low 90s, debuffable to the low 80s if multiple players work together to land Cursespewing, Crushing Despair and Symbol of Pain.

That said, a nonstandard dice system (like the effective +2d20 granted to mobs with Minion) would work better again.

[stripe1001]

I would say to take the highest + to hit that any mob in the game has and balance that off of the Highest possible AC that a player can get with a +10 lean towards AC giving a 50/50 chance of hitting on the d20 roll. Then do the vice versa and match Mob ac to player +hit. Now go to the bottom range and do the same thing. This will give you your range (say 10 to 110 in either direction for easy numbers). Now for each level increases the max attainable in all 4 parts should be equal (best vs best, worst vs worst) which with the example numbers would give a per level increase of max ac and + to hit of 5. This max would of course require the best avail gear and spell buffs, also the correct build/feats/classes. This way if you max out epic gear you have a 50% chance of being missed on ever swing best the best boss in the game, making even the biggest baddest still a challenge but allowing for Max ac to count for something and be a worthwile endevor.

[Riggs]

AC is high on our to-do list.

That is good news.

Hopefully some of the many threads by players are taken into consideration as well, or some kind of pre-discussion with ideas before big changes get set into stone.

[karl_k0ch]

nevermind.

[sirgog]

I would say to take the highest + to hit that any mob in the game has and balance that off of the Highest possible AC that a player can get with a +10 lean towards AC giving a 50/50 chance of hitting on the d20 roll. Then do the vice versa and match Mob ac to player +hit. Now go to the bottom range and do the same thing. This will give you your range (say 10 to 110 in either direction for easy numbers). Now for each level increases the max attainable in all 4 parts should be equal (best vs best, worst vs worst) which with the example numbers would give a per level increase of max ac and + to hit of 5. This max would of course require the best avail gear and spell buffs, also the correct build/feats/classes. This way if you max out epic gear you have a 50% chance of being missed on ever swing best the best boss in the game, making even the biggest baddest still a challenge but allowing for Max ac to count for something and be a worthwile endevor.

Problem with that is that the actual max possible AC (on a totally gimped build that sacrifices everything for AC) is in the 120-130 range (or may even be higher). But that character will be no fun to play at all - they'd be a dual-kama wielding base 6 Str monk with so little DPS that they probably couldn't kill a Waterworks kobold before the sun explodes in five billion years.

Epic mob To-Hits are already balanced around these degenerate ACs.

IMO Epic boss To-Hit should be balanced around giving a max-Str Stalwart Defender in max Epic gear around 50-60% damage mitigation. Then, if the degenerate AC builds turn out to be overpowered, nerf them somehow.

[DarkieUK]

AC is high on our to-do list.

Finaly about time

this is so easy to fix imunity AC is not the problem as otheres have said

AC on a EVASHIOn toon is this is what braoke the ac system in the 1st place resions below

a AC fighter is imune to melay damage at the cost of a drop in dps thats fine the casteres can still own his back side thats whate intelagent people call balance

a high ac monk range or multy class toon lets think what these people normaly do 2wf ,evashion ,AC is this so hard to see the problem some DPS so can kill mobs ok, evashion out the window gose 2/3 of the spell list because of imunity big ac bonuses from dex and wisdome that is more than a fullplate+dexbonus cap

THE FIX stop evashion working with shieleds and add the Sword of Shadows equivalant to a shieled e.g

double the shieled bonuses eg Large from +2 to +4, tower form +4 to +8

+10 ehansment
2d12 Base damage
1d6 Bashing
1d6force damage
Sup Parry
Insight 20%
10dr base
25dr Blocking when mobs are hitting me for over 100 this isent over powered

max mob + to attack as +90

this wouldent be over powered as if any one uses the shieled thay will be vonrible to caster damage even if thay are imune to melay damage and evashion people will have vonribility to melay damage cos there imune to caster damage so balance.

quick to implement with a small amount of time to develiperes
dosent leave loopholes for multyclasses to abuse
creats opitunitys for people to choose play styles as the only one is DPS HP EVASHION at cap at minit as a tank

[waterboytkd]

I think you guys might be jumping the gun.

AC is high on our to-do list.

That statement implies that AC is not on the top of the to-do list.

Being on a to-do list also means it is not being worked on, simply noted in order to be started on at a future date.

Sadly, this. But, just in case it's so high on their to-do list that we can expect something as early as U13, I'll throw my thoughts into the mix.


The idea of a cap is good at first glance, but examine it a bit closer. Say at level 20 the ac cap is 80 for instance. You can't get any higher than 80 AC so if you want "unhittable" AC, then the mobs can't have any more than a +61 attack. The devs can simply add mobs with +70ish to hit and make your work meaningless again. It really isn't much different than what we have now except that build ideas become more stifled because of a cap. The devs have put epic mobs to hit at a point that essentially surpasses our cap. Because of that, nobody bothers with AC. So adding a cap seems like a good idea, but really the same problems could be there if the devs wanted them to be. The issue is that we would have little control over our own defences other than to hope the mob hit bonuses get lowered if we feel they are too high.

The green portion is why just adding an AC cap doesn't do a whole lot. If you could get the cap, you do it, and it's worth it. If you can't get the cap, you don't bother with AC at all. Because a mob to-hit of +61 basically makes worthless any AC less than, oh, 70? I mean, obviously 63 is the worthless number, and anything above it does something for you, but the value may not be worth the effort. It's still just such a small range of viable ACs.

The red portion is not a real reason for why an AC cap wouldn't work. If the devs wanted there to be AC problems for us, AC wouldn't be "high on our to-do list." Though you could argue it stifles character builds, the fact is it allows them to control our AC, and they don't have to worry about an AC arms race, as Genasi put it. We could never win it. Thus, it would let them add more kinds of AC items, which in turn allows more builds to reach the AC cap, which one could think actually enables, not stifles, our build options.


This is actually relatively easy to do. I've posted on it a few times before, but the core 3.5 ruleset allows you to replace the base 10 (the 10 that gets added to AC) with a d20 roll. That way you get a pretty nice version of your logistic curve, and the useful AC range increases to ~38 from ~19. I'll see if I can find a link of the graphs.

This rule is practically never used in pen and paper because it needlessly complicates the game. However, with Turbine's server doing the rolling it would be pretty well hidden in the background.

[snipped graph]

Ink

I think if you combine this with an AC cap, you can seriously salvage AC. Although, I think for clarity's sake, I wouldn't give players a variable AC. You still have the base 10. Instead, when bad guys attack you, they roll two d20s, subtracting the value of the second roll from the first. This effectively gives them a 39 point range they can roll in (-19 to 19), and it gives them a bell curve on their hit chance, too, instead of being linear for a % to hit.

First, some values for you. This is the chances of rolling an individual number (shown first in possible combinations out of the 400 possible combinations that you can get on 2d20, then the % chance), and the chances of rolling that number or higher. I'm only doing 16-19, just to show you the pattern.

19 1/400 (.25%) .25%
18 2/400 (.50%) .75%
17 3/400 (.75%) 1.5%
16 4/400 (1.0%) 2.5%

So, given the difference between the target's AC and the attacker's to-hit is x (where -19<=x<=19), the chance of rolling a hit is: the summation of .25%(20-|n|) where n=x to n=19. Thus, if the target had an 80 AC, and the attacker had a +61 to-hit, x = 19, and the chance to hit is .25%. If the attacker, though, had a +80 to-hit, whereas right now it'd have a 95% chance to hit (miss only on a natural 1), under this system it'd have a 52.5% chance to hit. The only possible problem here is that if x>19, you have a 0% chance to land a strike, and if x<-19, you have a 0% chance to miss a strike (if 0% hit or miss is even considered a problem).

If you leave automatic hits whenever a natural 20 is rolled on the first die and automatic misses when a natural 1 is rolled on the first die, it requires some tweaking to the formula to determine to-hit percentages. The chance to hit becomes 5% + the summation of .25%(19-|n|) where n=x to n=18 (for values of 1<=x<=18). If x>18, then you just have a 5% chance to hit (can only ever hit if you roll a 20 on your first die). If x<1, then you have to adjust the formula to account for automatic misses on a natural roll of 1 (turns out, you can't roll a 1 on the first die and still hit if 1<=x): 5% + (the summation of .25%(19-|n|)) - .25%, where n=x to n=18 (for values of -18<=x<=0). If x<=-18, then you just have a 95% chance to hit (can only ever miss if you roll a 1 on your first die). NOTE: that -.25% is to account for the fact that there are only 18 ways to roll a 0 with 1d20-1d20 that don't involve rolling a natural 1 or 20 on the first die.

The reason I think this should be combined with an AC cap is simple, though: if you don't, then the problem with ACs over 100 still exists (they'll only ever get hit 5% of the time), unless you set mob to-hits so that they're reasonable for that AC, but if they are, then any AC less than the mid 80s might as well be null, which means most characters simply dump AC.

If the cap is set to, say, 80, then the devs could set a mob's to-hit at a value where they want to hit a capped AC some % of the time. For example, using the second system with auto-hits and -misses on 20s and 1s respectively, let's say in Shavarath, the devs want their trash tieflings to only hit a capped AC 5% of the time on normal. All they have to do is set its to-hit at anything below a +62 (a +62 would yield a 5.5% chance to hit). But, they want to hit a non-capped AC more often than 5% of the time, so they can't set the to-hit below a 79-18, or a +61 (a +61 hits a 79 AC 5.5% of the time). So, they give it a +61 to hit. Now, consider this: in the current system, they'd hit a 79 AC 15% of the time, and a 63 AC 95% of the time. But in this proposed system, they'd still only hit a 79 AC 5.5% of the time (not much more than an 80 at 5% of the time), but a 63 AC they'd only hit 43.25% of the time. An AC of 61 (a value equal to the attack value) they'd hit 52.25% of the time, and an AC of 55 (something normally hit 95% of the time) they'd hit 75.5% of the time. A mob with a +61 to hit wouldn't get the 95% hit rate until it attacked a target with a 43 AC--a 44 AC would be a 94.75% chance to hit.

So instead of a 95% hit rate for ACs 63 and lower, it has a 95% hit rate for ACs 43 and lower, a full 20 point drop. That's 20 more AC values that can actually mean something. And if you consider a 50 AC, which would be 30 points below the proposed cap, the bad guy would only have a 88% chance to hit. 30 points below cap, and the enemy still has a 12% miss chance!

Of course, tougher mobs can have higher to-hits, thus varying effective AC ranges and what-not. And if the devs wanted a more accessible AC cap than 80, 75 isn't bad, and a 70 is pretty easy to get to with moderate effort (meaning good gear and a feat choice or two). A 65 AC is attainable with just gear, so that would be pretty low. Of course, some classes do this a lot better than others (eg monk vs. barbarian).

But, I do firmly believe that an AC cap is about the only way to salvage AC in this game without implementing a massive mechanics change. By itself, though, I don't think an AC cap will make enough ACs matter. That's why I think you combine a cap with the +1d20-1d20 approach to mob attack rolls with an AC cap, and the devs can then place monster to-hit bonuses at whatever values they want to achieve whatever % chance to-hit that they want the mob to have against a capped AC. It gets rid of the "AC arms race", and, for those toons that already maxed out their AC into the 90s or even 100s, they can now free up gear slots, feat slots, AP, whatever, to increase their dps, while still being at a max AC.

PS If any of my math seems blatantly wrong, let me know.

[eterna1_drag0n]

For the sake of my last post...

Highest to-hit in the game, sub lvl 12, best gear, self buffed:

Hafling Fighter with a throwing weapon, lolz


11 bab
+11 31 Str(18 base, +6 item,+ 3 fighter enhancemets, +2 tome, +2 lvl ups)
+4 Accuracy item crafted
+2 Sora Kell or Raven's Eye set bonus
+2 anger wrath set bonus
+2 racial weapon bonus enhancements
+5 +5 weapon
+1 racial

10 Feats; 4 base, +6 extra Fighter feats

+9 9 Weapon Focus (repeatable +1 each)
+4 Precision (half damage ouch)

52 Unbuffed

+4 GH
+2 dummy ship buff
+1 +2 Str ship buff

59 self buffed sustainable

then add a d20...



Just a side note elf and dwarf races are the same as these totals with their better racial weapons (-1 here +1 there) just though halfling thrower would get more laughs being on top.

[SteeleTrueheart]

... I think that DDO have evolved past a D20 being affective as the roll die for attacks. Maybe DDO needs to evolve to having a D100 being the standard for attacks, ...

Highly unlikely that DDO will move away from such a fundamental game aspect. D20 is here to stay with DnD3.5 rules.


... in 4th Ed the armor scales at the same rate as to-hit, creating a +/- 4 variance from the standard attack for that level at any given time....

This is how I suspect they will handle it. Each class will get an AC bonus based on level.

[Thalmor]

Highly unlikely that DDO will move away from such a fundamental game aspect. D20 is here to stay with DnD3.5 rules.

While I would normally agree on this point, there are varient rules in PNP that allow modifications to this, so I think this is one of the things that they should look at, but by no means the only thing they should look at. As with everything that is being look at they will have to evaluate how this affects the balance within the game.


Heck, in 4th Ed the armor scales at the same rate as to-hit, creating a +/- 4 variance from the standard attack for that level at any given time.




This is how I suspect they will handle it. Each class will get an AC bonus based on level.

While I agree, that this might be high probabilty to be implemented, remember that what ever you give the players for AC you have to give to the MOBs to try to balance everything. Which will probably require some tweeking of other game mechanics to ensure balance in the game.

What we need is the simplest possible solution that requires minimal tweeking of other game mechanics, because everytime you change something there is usually some unintended consequences that affect other parts of the game.

PS. I must commend everyone in this thread, as it appears for the most part, that people are generally maintaining a civial discussion.

[BOgre]

Then, if the degenerate AC builds turn out to be overpowered, nerf them somehow.

I agree with your entire AC proposal from all the other threads on the topic. They need to implement it pretty much exactly like you propose.

As to the above quote, why even bother nerfing them? These builds are nothing but a novelty, and only really work in the character planner. They'd be completely useless in a party. Couldn't draw agro, couldn't contribute to damage... useless. So they can be ignored as a factor in game balance I'd think. Who would even bother to try to level such a build?

[Kibosh123]

Is it too much trouble to boost feats/enancements which are tank specific to a point when they become more in tune with the insanely +hit on mobs.

maybe CE can become -5 hit/+10 to AC or tank pre's can be +3/+6/+10 given how far you go

but i am glad its high on the list.

[sephiroth1084]

AC is high on our to-do list.
Good to know, but...

Care to share any of the considered proposals thus-far? There have been so very many approaches suggested.
This.


Mind feeding the community some info for perusal? I know that it's a rather daunting task to approach the problems with AC, and getting more eyes on your intended/considered solution(s) would probably help some.

I feel like this has to happen soon, as a lot of the positive changes you guys (the devs) have made to things like the Defender PrEs, monk stances and loot end up being somewhat pointless when AC doesn't serve a purpose in endgame content.

[sephiroth1084]

Double post

[Dagolar]

I know that I should be happy that AC is getting some attention but for some reason it scares the crud out of me too. Just hoping that any changes to AC don't somehow invalidate the work I've already done to get 80+ on my monk. In the content that works in, he makes great use of it. I'd hate to have the tradeoff of getting hit slightly less in epics but having that same 80 ac getting me hit much more in lower content.

People strive for the "hittable only on a 20" AC mark. If that becomes even harder to reach that point, or even impossible, I can see any changes having the opposite effect and players just ignoring AC even more than they currently do.

Aye.

[Dirichlet]

Why must a mobs attacks all use the same attack bonus? Give them an attack sequence with different values and you can tailor it so medium AC characters get mitigation on some but not all swings.

For instance, say a mob has a +79 attack bonus. Toons with 70 AC and 50 AC both have the same minimum 5% mitigation, while a 90 AC full blown tank gets 50% mitigation on every swing. Instead, give the mob a sequence of bonuses rotating through +79/+59/+39.

90 AC gets (50 + 95 + 95)/3 = 80% average mitigation.

70 AC gets (5 + 50 + 95)/3 = 50% average mitigation.

50 AC gets (5 + 5 + 50)/3 = 20% average mitigation.

Your effective AC range is now 42-99 from 82-99.

If you want to avoid the arms race for maximum mitigation, simply mix reachable and unreachable values together. For instance if a mobs sequence is +200/+59/+39 then obviously the +200 figure is unreachable. Effective AC is capped at 79 for this encounter, and applies to only two of three swings. The 90 AC tank thus has (5 + 95 + 95)/3 = 65% mitigation as the maximum possible. The 70 AC and 50 AC characters would be unchanged.

[winsom]

Why must a mobs attacks all use the same attack bonus? Give them an attack sequence with different values and you can tailor it so medium AC characters get mitigation on some but not all swings..

Yes. This is the solution.

It is interesting to note that D&D rules books specifically state that these mechanics are in place on monsters for this reason.

In DDO we enjoy the standing-still attack bonuses of +5 and +10, etc. This allows for less accurate characters to hit a monster every now and then. My wizard used to swing a vorpal sword and sever heads!

If DDO monsters attack rolls had varying or random attack values our characters with less than stellar AC would occasionally recognize the value of having some AC.