List of "easy" things to "fix"

[Hipparan]

I say "easy" in the loosest terms possible. I'm not a developer so I can't say for sure how easy or difficult things would be to fix. I just wanted to list some things I think are fairly simple to fix.

• Heat Death DC from Fire Savant is based on Constitution instead of Charisma.
  
• Earthgrab DC from Earth Savant is based on Constitution instead of Charisma.
  
• Icy Prison DC from Water Savant is based on Constitution instead of Charisma.
  
• Mass Frog DC states 20 + Wis mod DC although testing shows 30 + Wis mod DC. Personally, I think it should be changed to 20 + 1/2 Character level + Wis mod to scale better with Legendary content. Maybe even higher depending on how well it scales. Also, the spell penetration is wonky and doesn't seem to scale with items or other various effects (see here).
  
• Forced Escape does not remove CC effects from you. Could this effect be copied over from the Harper Pins?

Here are a couple of probably harder things just for the sake of it:
(Note: The underlined links are to videos)

• Dragonborn males (maybe females) wearing robes have a missing portion of their neck. Could the art effect of the neck from other armor be copied over?
  
• Cosmetic Mauls show over Greatswords and Cosmetic Greatswords show over Mauls. However, Mauls and Greataxes do not show over one another even though the PDK/Half-Orc animations are the same. There's also some wonky behavior with Crossbow cosmetics.
  
• On some characters, certain armor will discolor the neck and also change the appearance of certain helms such as Boundless.

[SpartanKiller13]

Cosmetic Mauls show over Greatswords and Cosmetic Greatswords show over Mauls. However, Mauls and Greataxes do not show over one another even though the PDK/Half-Orc animations are the same.

Greataxes have a different overall animation set than Greatswords/Mauls, so they can't share a cosmetic (AFAIK the animations wouldn't line up). Anything with the same set of animations can share cosmetics, which is already far less limiting than the description implies.

They might match for PDK/Half-Orc but now you're trying to add racial-specific cosmetic modifiers, which seems like a huge mess of coding that could break easily. An easier fix would be to limit cosmetic weapons to only their weapon type, but nobody wants that

[Morroiel]

I believe sorcerers are next on the devs agenda (possibly after they finish the cleric pass - if they intend to revamp their trees). I'm sure they'll make adjustments to those abilities.

One thing to note is that all DC abilities really need to scale as 10 + X (spell level) + school bonus + stat bonus or (class level)/2 + X (spell level) + school bonus + stat bonus. Right now we have abilities that scale in all the following ways:

DC C, where C is a constant number (e.g. stormrage, fury made placid)- This obviously fails to scale at all. As mobs saves increase, these abilities become worthless. On the flip side, sometimes these abilities can be OP at certain level ranges.

DC C + R*Character Level + stat mod, where C is a constant number and R is 1, 0, or .5 (e.g. tsunami, energy burst, mass frog, create thrall) - This scales with ability stat but fails to scale with school bonus, which means that at levels where the school bonus is below the benefit of higher base constant number and the character level scaling (vs spell level, 15 vs 9) the ability is better than normal, but in most cases the ability falls off due to school bonuses becoming ridiculously high. We are talking about more than a 20 point DC swing, which represents two extremes of DC casting (no fail except when enemy rolls 20 vs always fail except when enemy rolls 1).

DC 10 + spell level + stat mod + school bonus (e.g. heroic spellcasting) - This scales with all available item boosts. As item power creep as been introduced, these have run away with scaling vs all the other abilities listed here. When epic destinies first came out, energy burst had a higher number than typical spells befitting of epic abilities vs heroic abilities, but now its not the case. Item power creep has made it so heroic spells, which scale properly, will just increasingly pull away as the best DC abilities available.

Of note, the devs for whatever reason keep on introducing abilities that scale like the first two, improperly. U26 was not too long ago but already warlock class based abilities (hurl through hell and create thrall) have DCs well behind their heroic spells (while this is a good thing for create thrall, it has caused issues with fiend warlocks power level vs rest of warlocks - as hurl is a vast majority of the pact's power allocation). Additionally we see it with items, the lgs sets had DCs locked behind their unique effects. The new staff from the upcoming U39 quest has a DC for its freeze effect which will be useless on the vast majority of casting builds (though some like druids playing in low skulls might make use of the item).

This game desperately needs a consolidation of DC effects and a general QoL pass. Every DC ability needs to scale with all relevant item boosts, and every DC ability (including melee tactics) needs to show your DC in the tooltip. The devs made some effort with the dragonborn pass (they touched up dragon breathe in the epic destiny draconic incarnation), which tells us that they are aware of the issues, which currently plague non heroic spells; however, the lack of followthrough tells us that they either don't think its important, or they are only willing to expend the resources to do it when it suits them (e.g. dragonborn was new race which synergized with draconic incarnation meaning it was financially incentivized in some manner of speak).

[cpw_acc]

I can't speak for the other sorcerer SLAs, but I'm pretty sure the damage from Icy Prison doesn't scale and isn't affected by metamagics in any way either.

Even if you ignore the easily-saveable-based-off-secondary-stat freezing effect, 500 points damage is nothing by the time you get to higher levels and do hundreds of points of damage (and much more in epics) with a 2sp Ice Ray SLA.

Makes this enhancement amusingly pointless in every way.

[Steelstar]

I say "easy" in the loosest terms possible. I'm not a developer so I can't say for sure how easy or difficult things would be to fix. I just wanted to list some things I think are fairly simple to fix.

• Heat Death DC from Fire Savant is based on Constitution instead of Charisma.
• Earthgrab DC from Earth Savant is based on Constitution instead of Charisma.
• Icy Prison DC from Water Savant is based on Constitution instead of Charisma.

Going to take a look at these, hopefully before U39 releases.

• Mass Frog DC states 20 + Wis mod DC although testing shows 30 + Wis mod DC. Personally, I think it should be changed to 20 + 1/2 Character level + Wis mod to scale better with Legendary content. Maybe even higher depending on how well it scales. Also, the spell penetration is wonky and doesn't seem to scale with items or other various effects (see here).

Mass Frog (and Epic Destiny Feats that are also Spells with DCs in general) is hampered by how code handles Class feats. Doesn't fall under the banner of "easy", sadly, and our previous attempts at fixing it ultimately didn't work well enough to make it to live. It's something we'd like to fix, but it's larger than the average bugfix; we need to re-write parts of spellcasting code to fix it.

• Forced Escape does not remove CC effects from you. Could this effect be copied over from the Harper Pins?

Have you tried it since U38 went Live?

• Effects which dispel Crowd Control effects now affect a wider variety of Crowd Control effects.

The issue wasn't with Forced Escape, it was with the effects that Forced Escape should have, theoretically, been able to dispel; a lot of them were set up wrong. A much larger number of effects should work with it now; if you see specific effects that don't now that this fix is in, let us know which ones.

• Dragonborn males (maybe females) wearing robes have a missing portion of their neck. Could the art effect of the neck from other armor be copied over?

I know the art team's aware of this one. Not sure of its present status.

• Cosmetic Mauls show over Greatswords and Cosmetic Greatswords show over Mauls. However, Mauls and Greataxes do not show over one another even though the PDK/Half-Orc animations are the same. There's also some wonky behavior with Crossbow cosmetics.

• On some characters, certain armor will discolor the neck and also change the appearance of certain helms such as Boundless.

The Maul/Greataxe divide on cosmetics is intentional.

The weirdness in Crossbow cosmetics is something we can look at; we might be able to relax the restrictions on that, but we'll have to check on it.

The neck coloration/color shifting is something art is aware of, but I'm also not sure if its present status.

[Hipparan]

Greataxes have a different overall animation set than Greatswords/Mauls, so they can't share a cosmetic (AFAIK the animations wouldn't line up). Anything with the same set of animations can share cosmetics, which is already far less limiting than the description implies.

They might match for PDK/Half-Orc but now you're trying to add racial-specific cosmetic modifiers, which seems like a huge mess of coding that could break easily. An easier fix would be to limit cosmetic weapons to only their weapon type, but nobody wants that

I thought Greataxes had the same animations as Mauls. The character's hands line up the same way on both, but are closer together on Greatswords. You can see this in the video I linked. That video was made before Aasimar, but it's worth noting that Aasimar hold Greataxes and Mauls the same way and Greatswords/Falchions over their shoulder. By no means do I want a racial-specific cosmetic fix for the reasons you mentioned.

[Hipparan]

*snip*

Thanks for the response.

Good to know some of these are are on the table. I didn't know about the Greataxe/Maul divide, and haven't had a character with Forced Escape since U38. I generally pay attention to the release notes, but I guess I was more focused on the Druid/Artificer changes.

[edrein]

What about the status of certain vampirism effects/abilities working with PM shrouds?

• The Blood is the Life from Blood of Vol doesn't apply the vampirism to undead PCs even if they are equipping daggers.
• Blood Strength also doesn't work, nor does One Spirit or Accelerated Metabolism. Nothing explicitly requires these heals to be positive energy only, and thematically any of them could fit undead.
• At the moment Ameliorating Strike doesn't work with undead, but given my time on the PC this was supposedly being looked into? Not sure if it's changed yet.
• Dark Disciple spells still won't center on the caster which prohibits cross play with Palemaster.
• I'd argue Sustaining Song could heal undead, but that's debatable.
• Fast Healing, both the past life and the Fury of the Wild ability also don't work with undead. As a form of regeneration they really should be compatible with the players racial healing type. This includes Warforged as well.
• Fury Made Placid; same reason as the Barbarian T5s, it's got nothing preventing it from being compatible.
• Item vampirism could really reuse the Scion of Shadowfell's coding to give undead builds the ability to use normal vampirism.
• Scion of Shadowfell could use scaling on the vampirism or revamp Shadowfell into being a caster feat fully and create a Scion of Mabar feat for the vampirism portion with appropriate bonuses there.

Lastly; I'm curious how feasible it'd be to make the Dirge ability from Fatesinger apply the negative energy portion to PM characters. It'd give a nice epic level rapid regeneration/heal effect for PMs.

[SirValentine]

...and every DC ability (including melee tactics) needs to show your DC in the tooltip.

/signed

[Xanthrawl]

Mass Frog (and Epic Destiny Feats that are also Spells with DCs in general) is hampered by how code handles Class feats. Doesn't fall under the banner of "easy", sadly, and our previous attempts at fixing it ultimately didn't work well enough to make it to live. It's something we'd like to fix, but it's larger than the average bugfix; we need to re-write parts of spellcasting code to fix it.

Can we just change the tooltip to the way it actually works? Perhaps with a disclaimer that it is a known issue and will be changed/fixed at some point down the road?

Continuity is key between tooltips and in-game practice. Even if it gets changed down the road, there's no reason it shouldn't match now.

[HungarianRhapsody]

I'd love to see Necro 1-3 stay flagged once you're flagged for the end quest in each of those packs. It would be really nice to stay flagged for the rest of that life once you finish all four of the flagging quests.

[RAFAR]

When I TR-ed my PDK druid into a half-orc, I felt really disappointed about the smaller size of the beast forms... even though a half-orc, in humanoid form, is slightly larger than a PDK.
Hopefully, this is really easy to fix (changing the size modifier, or the wild shape version?), and I hope to see it on live after the next update.
I know that half-orcs are considered medium sized creatures, like elves, humans, and the like, but if it is WAI, then what size category does the PDK fall in? Monstrous humanoid?

Here's a mixture of scrshots, comparing them to a potential prey...

[C-Dog]

Pure world cosmetic rather than game play...

Have some intern cut-n-paste an existing door graphic onto the Hs. Kundarak Crafting Hall entrance. That blank maw has been a blight since before I started playing (tho' iirc, it used to be a featureless white, which was even worse than the current black hole, so thanks for that at least).

That should(?) be easy enough.

[Xanthrawl]

Have some intern cut-n-paste an existing mushroom graphic onto the Hs. Kundarak Crafting Hall entrance.

Fixed it for ya! :-)

[glmfw1]

When I TR-ed my PDK druid into a half-orc, I felt really disappointed about the smaller size of the beast forms... even though a half-orc, in humanoid form, is slightly larger than a PDK.
Hopefully, this is really easy to fix (changing the size modifier, or the wild shape version?), and I hope to see it on live after the next update.
I know that half-orcs are considered medium sized creatures, like elves, humans, and the like, but if it is WAI, then what size category does the PDK fall in? Monstrous humanoid?

Here's a mixture of scrshots, comparing them to a potential prey...

PDKs need to have massive beast forms to give the players of PDKs something nice to look at by way of apology for making them put up with looking at the PDK model the rest of the time.
Noone quite knows what race DDO PDKs are, but DDO Half Orcs are half orc and half PDK, with all their positive features coming from the Orc side of the family.

I wonder if it would be an "easy fix" to wipe the PDK character model from DDO and allow them to use the human model?

[Nimdeadlee]

Mass Frog (and Epic Destiny Feats that are also Spells with DCs in general) is hampered by how code handles Class feats. Doesn't fall under the banner of "easy", sadly, and our previous attempts at fixing it ultimately didn't work well enough to make it to live. It's something we'd like to fix, but it's larger than the average bugfix; we need to re-write parts of spellcasting code to fix it.

Which Mass Frog issue are you referring to here? The DC or the Spell Pen?

[nokowi]

Fix tremorsense so tremorsense is not a shared attribute with non-tremorsense mobs.

Such a simple fix to support stealth outside of reaper., and causing 90%+ of the complaints.

[Odysseus2011]

Allow casters to view their spell penetration like they would for their DCs.

[Niminae]

Fix tremorsense so tremorsense is not a shared attribute with non-tremorsense mobs.

Such a simple fix to support stealth outside of reaper., and causing 90%+ of the complaints.

I don't think that issue is with tremorsense, per se. It is aggro in general being shared. So a tremorsense critter picks up aggro because they detect you via tremorsense, and then they share it with everything around them as per normal aggro coding.

[nokowi]

I don't think that issue is with tremorsense, per se. It is aggro in general being shared. So a tremorsense critter picks up aggro because they detect you via tremorsense, and then they share it with everything around them as per normal aggro coding.

I think we agree. When mobs without tremorsense are able to spot you without a spot check, they have the same ability as tremorsense.

It is true that the auto-sharing of agro with non tremorsense mobs is the issue.

Prior to agro changes, tremorsense mobs had to remove you from stealth for non tremorsense mobs to instantly see you. This was a many many many times better implementation, with the end result that you had much more interesting gameplay, and more complex decisions to make.

Cordovan assured us they were supporting stealth outside of reaper, but I have not seen an effort to address the actual issues players have expressed outside of reaper.