Fix Wall of Fire already, or at least the AI associated with it.

As a high lvl caster in DDO, there is one spell. Wall of Fire. Empowered, Maximized, Extended, or whichever combo of these suits your fancy, all content in the game can be completed using the tried and true "drag everything to the campfire" snorefest.

It eliminates parity between differently enhancement specc'd casters, due to an "acid specialist" being a rediculous choice, nm force and repair, and all the crowd control and instant death spells in the game cant amount to a fraction of the kills raked in with the Firewall-wielding-Fire-Specced Jump back-and-forth cookie-cutter clone. Feel free to disagree with me here, however I cannot be held responsible by anyone else's demonstrations of ignorance to the basic tennets of DDO and how it stand now as it pertains to casters.

What irks me about all this is that "Wall of Fire" as DnD intends is as a barrier between PCs and Mobs. In ANY PnP encounter worth the dice the DM is rolling, a DM might allow the odd courageous or foolish monster to attempt a crossing of a wall of fiery death perhaps once, perhaps not, thinking a ranged approach or a waiting out of the Inferno to be a more sound strategy. In DDO, time and again, mobs mindlessly waddle around in a critting inferno or triple digits, oblivious to their self-inflicted lunacy, vainly spamming their death throw commentary.

All the improvements to Mob AI amount to nothing in comparison to this glaring tidbit of Monster Idiocy and inability to deal with basic combat variables. Why it has lasted this long is beyond me.

Please DEVs...PLEASE teach these mobs to stop committing fiery suicide in every quest in DDO. It would increase combat variety, caster variety and player enjoyment across the board. I know AI is a tricky beast to code, but if you cant teach someone to pull their hand away when they touch a burning element, any other sort of education seems pointless right out of the gate.

That is fine if the mobs were smart enought to not stand in firewals swinging wildly until they die, but I don't want the devs to make changes to firewall or cast blanket immunities on mobs.

Which the second, is the more likely outcome following the devs trend to toward fast fixes.

It's probably a safe bet that Wall of Fire is at least one of the "area of effect spells" mentioned in the WDA for mod 6

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Monsters now have a better understanding of the world around them know what to do around doors and some area of effect spells

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Originally Posted by Cordelia

As a high lvl caster in DDO, there is one spell. Wall of Fire. Empowered, Maximized, Extended, or whichever combo of these suits your fancy, all content in the game can be completed using the tried and true "drag everything to the campfire" snorefest.

It eliminates parity between differently enhancement specc'd casters, due to an "acid specialist" being a rediculous choice, nm force and repair, and all the crowd control and instant death spells in the game cant amount to a fraction of the kills raked in with the Firewall-wielding-Fire-Specced Jump back-and-forth cookie-cutter clone. Feel free to disagree with me here, however I cannot be held responsible by anyone else's demonstrations of ignorance to the basic tennets of DDO and how it stand now as it pertains to casters.

What irks me about all this is that "Wall of Fire" as DnD intends is as a barrier between PCs and Mobs. In ANY PnP encounter worth the dice the DM is rolling, a DM might allow the odd courageous or foolish monster to attempt a crossing of a wall of fiery death perhaps once, perhaps not, thinking a ranged approach or a waiting out of the Inferno to be a more sound strategy. In DDO, time and again, mobs mindlessly waddle around in a critting inferno or triple digits, oblivious to their self-inflicted lunacy, vainly spamming their death throw commentary.

All the improvements to Mob AI amount to nothing in comparison to this glaring tidbit of Monster Idiocy and inability to deal with basic combat variables. Why it has lasted this long is beyond me.

Please DEVs...PLEASE teach these mobs to stop committing fiery suicide in every quest in DDO. It would increase combat variety, caster variety and player enjoyment across the board. I know AI is a tricky beast to code, but if you cant teach someone to pull their hand away when they touch a burning element, any other sort of education seems pointless right out of the gate.

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Psh i just started coding and it took me forever to figure out how to just get the mobs to attack back and move :eek: then again my bro helped me and he's been coding since he was 11 lol

~Kire

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Originally Posted by jjflanigan

It's probably a safe bet that Wall of Fire is at least one of the "area of effect spells" mentioned in the WDA for mod 6

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We can only hope JJ....

:)

And I agree with the OP.

go play pen and paper if you dont like the way ddo handles things.this is not pen and paper.a solution to your problem is dont cast firewall and dont run with those who do

LOL. Lovely suggestion. Thanks for that little gem. I'll get right on that. I'll run every quest without anything in my hands too, forcing the the rest of my party to do the same.

Well gee, Problem solved.

Thanks again,
Cord

I believe the Dev's mentioned that they would be working on the AI to recognize when something hurts. Saying that the enemy would try to avoid it a bit. Maybe this was directed at firewall. I agree that it does not play at all like PnP, but at this point in DDO's exsistance we all (should) realize that the game is far from the PnP version.

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Originally Posted by Kalanth

I believe the Dev's mentioned that they would be working on the AI to recognize when something hurts. Saying that the enemy would try to avoid it a bit. Maybe this was directed at firewall. I agree that it does not play at all like PnP, but at this point in DDO's exsistance we all (should) realize that the game is far from the PnP version.

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In regards to current dev attention, I certainly hope you're right K. As for PnP, I'm not one of those purests, romantically harking on direct translations as the salvation to every problem with DDO. I'm pointing out an overpowered tactic that by adjusting, would open up many other offensive spells and builds as a viable caster options.

Again, here's hoping :)

I'm interested to see what they do with AI changes in Mod 6.

Personally, I have a hard time seeing how you can make any kind of "Don't stand in damaging AoE spells" AI work so long as there's no friendly fire. (As I've said many times on these boards.) But who knows, maybe it'll work.

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Originally Posted by Gleep Wurp

go play pen and paper if you dont like the way ddo handles things.this is not pen and paper.a solution to your problem is dont cast firewall and dont run with those who do

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Hmmm I am wondering if this was perhaps someone that used to load cloudkill all the time? Just a guess.....

I am in complete agreement with the OP. As others have said, we'll see what happens come Mod 6...

I think the monsters should be about as smart as your average player and behave as such.

Orc 1: Is that our wall of fire?
Orc 2: I don't know. Hey Boneboiler .. did you load wall of fire?
Orc 3: That's not my wall of fire.
Orc 1: Not our wall of fire?
Orc 2: Holy **** that's not our wall of fire!
Orc 1: Well, this PC is almost dead .. I'll just keep swinging away and hope someone heals me.

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Originally Posted by GeneralDiomedes

I think the monsters should be about as smart as your average player and behave as such.

Orc 1: Is that our wall of fire?
Orc 2: I don't know. Hey Boneboiler .. did you load wall of fire?
Orc 3: That's not my wall of fire.
Orc 1: Not our wall of fire?
Orc 2: Not our wall of fire!
Orc 1: Well, this PC is almost dead .. I'll just keep swinging away and hope someone heals me.

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Quoted for both truth and superb humor content. :D

You win the Internet! :D

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Originally Posted by GeneralDiomedes

I think the monsters should be about as smart as your average player and behave as such.

Orc 1: Is that our wall of fire?
Orc 2: I don't know. Hey Boneboiler .. did you load wall of fire?
Orc 3: That's not my wall of fire.
Orc 1: Not our wall of fire?
Orc 2: Holy **** that's not our wall of fire!
Orc 1: Well, this PC is almost dead .. I'll just keep swinging away and hope someone heals me.

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Originally Posted by Cordelia

As a high lvl caster in DDO, there is one spell. Wall of Fire. Empowered, Maximized, Extended, or whichever combo of these suits your fancy, all content in the game can be completed using the tried and true "drag everything to the campfire" snorefest.

It eliminates parity between differently enhancement specc'd casters, due to an "acid specialist" being a rediculous choice, nm force and repair, and all the crowd control and instant death spells in the game cant amount to a fraction of the kills raked in with the Firewall-wielding-Fire-Specced Jump back-and-forth cookie-cutter clone. Feel free to disagree with me here, however I cannot be held responsible by anyone else's demonstrations of ignorance to the basic tennets of DDO and how it stand now as it pertains to casters.

What irks me about all this is that "Wall of Fire" as DnD intends is as a barrier between PCs and Mobs. In ANY PnP encounter worth the dice the DM is rolling, a DM might allow the odd courageous or foolish monster to attempt a crossing of a wall of fiery death perhaps once, perhaps not, thinking a ranged approach or a waiting out of the Inferno to be a more sound strategy. In DDO, time and again, mobs mindlessly waddle around in a critting inferno or triple digits, oblivious to their self-inflicted lunacy, vainly spamming their death throw commentary.

All the improvements to Mob AI amount to nothing in comparison to this glaring tidbit of Monster Idiocy and inability to deal with basic combat variables. Why it has lasted this long is beyond me.

Please DEVs...PLEASE teach these mobs to stop committing fiery suicide in every quest in DDO. It would increase combat variety, caster variety and player enjoyment across the board. I know AI is a tricky beast to code, but if you cant teach someone to pull their hand away when they touch a burning element, any other sort of education seems pointless right out of the gate.

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from what i understand, next mod the mobs will address this issue. And so goes your fire nuker asting spell mana.
I think firewall is okay but not too into it...I like to just throw one or two control spells, get my lot, and skeedaddle..thats just me though.

Well the 2 best fix's imo are:

Fix the stacking - only allow 1 wall of fire active per monster, as this can lead to insane DPS if you get a boss type mob to stand still. Also fix the initial effect - if you cast it directly on a monster, both the "entering the wall of fire, and the "inside the wall of fire" dmg will hit them at the same time.. Only the main dmg should hit them.

And ofcourse AI update to get them to make at least some attempt to move out of the wall of fire. (cant be perfect as monsters still need to attack players who will always stand inside of it for safety)

I have a high level caster and I like to use Firewall, guilty as charged. As far a Cord's suggestions, I agree with them so long as the devs make the monster's AI better and not nerf firewall or give blanket immunities. If monsters hit the firewall and then backed off from it then that's a positive change, you'd have a good defensive barrier that you can use to attack mobs from.

I thought about suggesting having multiple walls expand instead of stacking, but of course this is exploitable (like a free Expand feat and more).

Mobs with ranged weapons should run out and go to ranged weapons if they can't engage someone.

Mobs without should try to get as far out of the wall as they can while swinging, and flee out of the wall if they can't path to a player.

In Maze of Madness, once they see they can't get through the door to the player they are aggroed on they should flee out of the cloud. Alternatively they could switch aggro to the first player they can path to. At least then the mobs wouldn't ignore the puller standing next to them in the cloud.

PS: yes, I am a serious Wall of Fire addict. :)

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Originally Posted by Shade

Well the 2 best fix's imo are:

Fix the stacking - only allow 1 wall of fire active per monster, as this can lead to insane DPS if you get a boss type mob to stand still. Also fix the initial effect - if you cast it directly on a monster, both the "entering the wall of fire, and the "inside the wall of fire" dmg will hit them at the same time.. Only the main dmg should hit them.

And ofcourse AI update to get them to make at least some attempt to move out of the wall of fire. (cant be perfect as monsters still need to attack players who will always stand inside of it for safety)

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see also: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=127458

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Originally Posted by Shade

Fix the stacking - only allow 1 wall of fire active per monster, as this can lead to insane DPS if you get a boss type mob to stand still. Also fix the initial effect - if you cast it directly on a monster, both the "entering the wall of fire, and the "inside the wall of fire" dmg will hit them at the same time.. Only the main dmg should hit them.

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I haven't tested it, but I'm pretty sure you can get "crossing the wall" damage just by having things stand in it. To align the spell with the D&D rules, I've previously suggested that they change wall of fire to work like this:

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The red barrier is a plane and only does damage if an enemy crosses it (just like Blade Barrier currently works). Crossing that plane deals 2d6 + 1/caster level damage. Standing in the orange part of the wall deals 2d4 damage per tic. Standing in the yellow part of the wall deals 1d4 damage per tic. The energy (and therefore the damage) only radiates from one side of the wall.

Combine this with improved AI, and only the worst damage from any number of different walls applies and you'd take some of the excessiveness out of the spell. It would still be useful, especially in the right situations, but it would be toned back a bit to be more reasonable.