New Notations

[elraido]

Ok. I know I am a little behind here but Turbine changed the notation again for the items. It is moving further and further away from D&D and it is confusing me. Take this weapon for example.
http://ddowiki.com/images/Sireth.JPG

What the world does the 2.5 mean in front of the dice notation?

[Goobermans]

2.5 times the number of dice in the []

[elraido]

2.5 times the number of dice in the []

Now they are going into fractions of a dice? :rolleyes: That is what I thought. Sigh. Who thought having half dice was a good idea?

[Asmodeus451]

Now they are going into fractions of a dice? :rolleyes: That is what I thought. Sigh. Who thought having half dice was a good idea?

not quite


from what i've been able to determine, the dice are rolled first, then the result is multiplied by the number indicated

so its actually more like a damage multiplier than how many dice are rolled

[elraido]

not quite


from what i've been able to determine, the dice are rolled first, then the result is multiplied by the number indicated

so its actually more like a damage multiplier than how many dice are rolled

Did Turbine ever release a note on it anywhere?

[Dasthug]

Yes, they did a fairly detailed discussion of how they were changing the damage and notation of epic (in this case, anything 20+) weapons.

[mmitch5]

Hi , where did you get that jewel ?
tks

[TekkenDevil]

not quite


from what i've been able to determine, the dice are rolled first, then the result is multiplied by the number indicated

so its actually more like a damage multiplier than how many dice are rolled

This is like 9th grade Math, guys, sheesh!

[Superspeed_Hi5]

Now they are going into fractions of a dice? :rolleyes: That is what I thought. Sigh. Who thought having half dice was a good idea?

Gary Gygax did. Ever see 1st Edition D&D? You needed a calculater or an abacus just to figure out about 90% of the math in the game.

[Chai]

Naaaa first edition AD&D was percentages for rogue skills and D20 for to-hits and saves. D100 for loot tables.

[Todesnymphe]

He meant D&D, not AD&D.

[Dwarfo]

Hi , where did you get that jewel ?
tks
The new Forgotton Realms raid, Caught in the Web.

You have to have the expansion content and all the quests must be done to become flagged for it.

[Dexxaan]

The farther we are from the non-applicable D20 system... the better.

Do I like the recently implemented "Fraction-Dice"? Not really, but it is doing a much better job at accomodating the game requirements, spells, multipliers, enhancements, etc....


Personally I could give a rats a#($&se that it "no longer is D&D".
It really never was and glad that it has not gravitated to that.

[DarkForte]

The farther we are from the non-applicable D20 system... the better.

Do I like the recently implemented "Fraction-Dice"? Not really, but it is doing a much better job at accomodating the game requirements, spells, multipliers, enhancements, etc....


Personally I could give a rats a#($&se that it "no longer is D&D".
It really never was and glad that it has not gravitated to that.

This.

A 'pure' d20 system doesn't work for an mmo of DDO's caliber. When it was 'closer' to d20, before u14, stuff like the AC/to-hit system were showing serious imbalance on the upper edges.

Plain dice on weapons also made it pretty much impossible to balance effects like the new cleave/deadly weapons to not make higher dice weaponry stupidly overpowering (a la SoS powered by deadly weapons before they put deadly on force damage standby).

[LightBear]

This.

A 'pure' d20 system doesn't work for an mmo of DDO's caliber. When it was 'closer' to d20, before u14, stuff like the AC/to-hit system were showing serious imbalance on the upper edges.

Plain dice on weapons also made it pretty much impossible to balance effects like the new cleave/deadly weapons to not make higher dice weaponry stupidly overpowering (a la SoS powered by deadly weapons before they put deadly on force damage standby).

The edges of the d20 system are intentionally showing imbalance: A natural 20 always hits and a natural 1 always misses. (I know, there are some twists on it here and there.)

And SoS has always been kinda an overpowered weapon, even before deadly weapons it did some insane damage.

[AbyssalMage]

D20 was never the problem :p I love math and D20 allowed anyone 11+ to understand how the game worked. It allowed us, the players, to call out Turbine with empirical facts when something wasn't right.

Can anyone other than a Turbine employee tell us if the new AC/To-Hit is WAI or not? Or how about PRR or the countless other subtle changes that went into U14 (and now U15)?

The D20 system wasn't perfect (very easy to min/max) but it was easy to spot mistakes and figuring out how to fix it was a lot easier than the mess they just heaved onto us. I'm sorry Lightbear you didn't like that a "1" is always a miss and "20" was always a hit. If you think something should be more complex than that go play another genre of MMO because there are plenty.

Maybe if they put more time in fixing scripting (i.e. AI, ladders, stun, ect.), balancing armor (which they partially did w/U14 :) ), and tuning the content they released; the game would feel more like Dungeons & Dragons and not like ever other MMORPG on the internet.

Instead we have buggy scripting that many players take as WAI because its been around so long, AC no longer matters as PRR is the measurement now used, and raids being shut down because of scripting errors. Not to mention a new combat system hardly anyone understands because you can hit things even when you "miss."

I'm tired of people asking for people to "nerf" things just because they feel its the best way for them to get ahead. I've been guilty of it and I freely admit it. I get "caught up in the moment" but please, don't say the D20 system doesn't work. WotC has been very successful with the D20 system for a reason, the system works. It worked before WotC called it the D20 system back when they mixed in percentile dice and some big corporation didn't own D&D. It works because its simple to understand and manipulate. People complain that you only have a small range of numbers to work with, 2-19, because 1 and 20 are considered fail/success. Yes, computers can do the work easier and we could go to a D1,000,000 system but no system works if the developers get sloppy, which is what happened here. People are too used to playing FF and WoW and get upset when they don't see 4, 5, and 6 digit numbers flashing on the screen.

[Todesnymphe]

I dislike the new system because it doesn't allow me to calculate what it does in my head right away.
Any RPG system that requires a pocket calculator to understand how stats are calculated or how combat works, is bad.

Of course, things can get a bit more complex in MMOs because the players dont have to do the calculations themselves and for a computer it really doesnt matter how many digits a stat has or if 3 or 4 steps are required to calculate a result. But for the player it still is intransparent most of the time.

Do I understand how PRR is calculated? Yes, of course I understand the formula.
Can I in my head calculate how much % damage reduces PRR 35 compared to PRR 34? No.

Would I care if I had PRR 34 or PRR 35? No, the difference is 0,37%. So unless the damage is so uber-high that this adds up 1 without being rounded down, it doesnt matter. And when that happens, we're taliking 110 damage. At that point I dont care about 1 HP more or less.

The number one rule for making rules is: keep the basics simple and make exceptions only when it matters for playabillity or plausibility.

D20 works very well. the adjustments required for a real-time MMO pre-U14 were easy to understand, easy to confirm.

Looking at the combat log now, can anyone say if PRR is applied correctly? Can anyone tell what is calculated? Can anyone report and prove if it doesn't? And this will be the tip of the iceberg of things to come. Eventually the rules of this game will be a mystery to almost everyone (and we can only hope the dev's won't be among that number).

Well, I am not going to spell doom, just saying this system will become more and more intransparent. It doesnt mean it won't still be fun to play. So far, I still enjoy playing despite some very serious bugs.

However, it seems Turbine got it in their head to take on the effort of making the game's rules more complex than German tax law. ;)

[Hambo]

I dislike the new system because it doesn't allow me to calculate what it does in my head right away.
Any RPG system that requires a pocket calculator to understand how stats are calculated or how combat works, is bad.

Of course, things can get a bit more complex in MMOs because the players dont have to do the calculations themselves and for a computer it really doesnt matter how many digits a stat has or if 3 or 4 steps are required to calculate a result. But for the player it still is intransparent most of the time.

Do I understand how PRR is calculated? Yes, of course I understand the formula.
Can I in my head calculate how much % damage reduces PRR 35 compared to PRR 34? No.

Would I care if I had PRR 34 or PRR 35? No, the difference is 0,37%. So unless the damage is so uber-high that this adds up 1 without being rounded down, it doesnt matter. And when that happens, we're taliking 110 damage. At that point I dont care about 1 HP more or less.

The number one rule for making rules is: keep the basics simple and make exceptions only when it matters for playabillity or plausibility.

D20 works very well. the adjustments required for a real-time MMO pre-U14 were easy to understand, easy to confirm.

Looking at the combat log now, can anyone say if PRR is applied correctly? Can anyone tell what is calculated? Can anyone report and prove if it doesn't? And this will be the tip of the iceberg of things to come. Eventually the rules of this game will be a mystery to almost everyone (and we can only hope the dev's won't be among that number).

Well, I am not going to spell doom, just saying this system will become more and more intransparent. It doesnt mean it won't still be fun to play. So far, I still enjoy playing despite some very serious bugs.

However, it seems Turbine got it in their head to take on the effort of making the game's rules more complex than German tax law. ;)

At least even they are afraid of American tax code... :D