Weekly Development Activities (June 18, 2007)

[Gaiking]

I thought right on the ESRB label when you start the game it mentions use of alcohol, violence, animated blood.

They should add drunkenness and alcohol into the game.

They'll never add 'alcoholic' beverages to the game. It's too PC and kiddy friendly for it.

Age of Conan, however, will have alcohol in game and drunken bar fights. The bar fights will only take into account how drunk you are, not level, and sounds hilarious.

[Ciaran]

How about in addition to the weapon slots we get some magic slots? There are a lot of spells I'd like to bind to certain metamagics. Haste should always be extended. Divine favor too. And I never want virtue extended. You'd make a lot of casters happy if we could bind spells to metamagic and not have to toggle.

What a great idea! In PnP I believe a metamagic'd spell is actually one spell level higher, and it has to be prepared. This idea is a good translation of that to DDO, I think. Awesome idea, Spoot.

[EspyLacopa]

What a great idea! In PnP I believe a metamagic'd spell is actually one spell level higher, and it has to be prepared. This idea is a good translation of that to DDO, I think. Awesome idea, Spoot.

Metamagic in PnP is a good deal different from how it works here in DDO.

For example, a Sorcerer/Bard using Metamagic has to make all the standard action spells use up a full round action to cast instead, and they can't use Quicken Spell because of that.

A Wizard/Cleric/Druid must specifically prepare a spell with metamagic, and it takes up a spell slot from 1 to 4 levels higher than the spell would normally take.

Metapsionics, and metamagic in a game using a SP variant, is different too. In those, the base cost of a spell is 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, and 17 for slvl 1-9. The metamagic and metapsionic abilities increase the cost by 2-8 sp/pp depending on the meta. (Empower increases the cost by 4.) In addition, the cost can never be higher than your Caster Level.

[Mad_Bombardier]

What a great idea! In PnP I believe a metamagic'd spell is actually one spell level higher, and it has to be prepared. This idea is a good translation of that to DDO, I think. Awesome idea, Spoot.

If you like the idea, you should check out MysticTheurge's detailed description here: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=108859

[Solik]

For example, a Sorcerer/Bard using Metamagic has to make all the standard action spells use up a full round action to cast instead, and they can't use Quicken Spell because of that.

Sorcerers can give up their familiar to gain the ability to use metamagic without increasing the casting time (Complete Mage). And DDO does not have familiars

[EspyLacopa]

Sorcerers can give up their familiar to gain the ability to use metamagic without increasing the casting time (Complete Mage). And DDO does not have familiars

Sure. 3+Int / day. Limited resource ^_^

[Asal]

In QA
These items are in QA and are scheduled for Update 4.2: Searing Heights.

[*]NEW – The Power Critical feats have been upgraded. All of these feats have been consolidated into one. Once you have this feat, you will get a +4 bonus to confirm critical hits with any type of weapon.

Is this intend to give Melee yet more power? How about casters get spell focus that works for all schools?

[Solik]

Power Critical isn't a very useful feat. This makes it more versatile, but not really more powerful. No problems there.

[Furgulder]

NEW – Prison of the Planes

Cochitlehua has remembered that he has "Teleport Without Error" as an at-will spell-like ability.

too bad he doesnt play by the rules that using his spell like ability provokes an AOO. will he be able to teleport in an antimagic field if that spell is introduced?

*edit*

so i am not a negative nellie.

I like the changes to WF drinks, listen checks, and am pleased with more weapon sets.

[bobbryan2]

Is this intend to give Melee yet more power? How about casters get spell focus that works for all schools?

Because spell focus and power critical are so similar in power and usefulness?

Yeah...

[Gimpster]

Is this intend to give Melee yet more power? How about casters get spell focus that works for all schools?

Power Critical is a weapon feat, not a melee feat. It works on ranged as well; and with this new change, it is actually marginally better for ranged than for melee.

Furthermore, the Power Critical feat is taken from PnP rules where attack bonuses work differently. A level 14 PnP character making a full attack has these sequences:
Melee: +14, +9, +4
Ranged: +14, +9, +4

But a DDO character instead has
Melee: +14, +14, +19, +23
Ranged: +14, +14, +14, ....

With either category of weapon the DDO warrior has a higher bonus accross his multiple attacks, meaning an extra +4 to confirm critical hits is less useful, as he's already very likely to confirm. Broadening Power Critical to work with all kinds of weapons makes it slightly more attractive, but is still not enough to make me at all interested in training it on any of my characters.

[Asal]

By increasing the effectiveness of power critical, melee damage output increases. To claim that critical as not an important part of melee damage output is nonsense, otherwise high crit/large crit range weapons would not sell for the most on AH. The monsters in DDO already have insane hp compared to PnP due to the fact melee damage output is so high. Caster damage output however is the same in DDO as in PnP. Making melee combat increase in effectiveness automatically means that monster hp will continue to increase. Without a corresponding increase in direct damage output, caster will be increasing forced to used to FoD and as direct damage spells have very little effect against the already insane monster hp. The overuse of FoD has caused monster to have a higher protection against such spells in DDO than PnP. The recent content added clearly shows the developers feel a need to make monsters less vulnerable to such spells. By changing spell focus as I suggested caster will be better able to join the player offensive/monster defensive balance race.


My comments about making power critical/ spell focus was really to question the advisability of the annouced change to power criticals in the interest of monster/player balance. Next time I will try to be less subtle.


Is increased damage ouput of melee combat that will be caused by the annouced change to power critical in the best interest of player/monster balance?

Is that a clear enough post?

[Solik]

It's doubtful that melee damage output will increase with this change. Confirming criticals is not a bottleneck faced by melee at this time.

There are other feats that better increase damage output (or at least overall effectiveness) than even this modified power critical feat. Thus, at worst, this makes some slightly below average (relatively speaking) fighter types closer to average.

[MysticTheurge]

The Toughness enhancement lines for dwarves, barbarians, fighters, and paladins have been upgraded. They now give you 5, 10, 15, and 20 additional hit points respectively instead of 5, 5, 5, and 5. They all still have the Toughness feat as a prerequisite.

So just out of curiosity again, do the Devs really have nothing to say for themselves about this absolutely absurd change?

[Gimpster]

By increasing the effectiveness of power critical, melee damage output increases. To claim that critical as not an important part of melee damage output is nonsense, otherwise high crit/large crit range weapons would not sell for the most on AH.

No, it will not change in any substantial way.

In the unlikely event that a melee warrior wants Power Critical to increase his damage, he already has Power Critical Slashing. Criticals from any other kind of weapons are an afterthought for him, and he probably only uses non-slashing weapons against skeletons or other uncritable monsters.

The chance he will use a blunt or pierce melee weapon for a critical hit is low, and the chance he'll need to roll higher than a 1 to confirm those crits is also low. It might happen in some hypothetical 0.05% of cases, but that's meaningless, and is less than the chance a ranged combatant will take it (which is also low)

[Shrazkil]

Forgive me if covered but:

Skills, Feats, & Abilities
Reduced difficulty of detecting traps with Search and Spot, especially at low levels (5 and under).
NEW – The Power Critical feats have been upgraded. All of these feats have been consolidated into one. Once you have this feat, you will get a +4 bonus to confirm critical hits with any type of weapon.

So Does this mean the prerequisit for this will be changing? Will it still require focus in a weapon type? If it does not, this has become a very good choice for barbarians everywhere.

[leafman343]

with the change to the power critical feat, will it mean that the feat stops generating a +90 or more to confirm the critical?

[Bloodmech]

[QUOTE=Olaff;1204800]I think the archery thing is by design... and it's only fair, really. Once an arrow is in the air, if you can see it and react in time, you can dodge it.

oh relly so you wouldnt mind if I had some world champion archer come and shoot at you then??? lol

[query]

"NEW – Players get 3 more weapon set configuration slots, for a total of 7!

Reduced difficulty of detecting traps with Search and Spot, especially at low levels (5 and under)."


As for the reduction in Search and Spot, I hope that includes A Cabal for One, that way I don't have to build a new rogue.

Pffft, Cerulean with a "gimpy" +28 search (forgot to enhance) found it. Disabled it with that range too just to prove a point that people were making an exaggeration on the "impossible" area (on elite of course.) Nice major Nmeumonic he pulled BTW.

PS, to GET to the box to disable, Evasion helps

[Gimpster]

Pffft, Cerulean with a "gimpy" +28 search (forgot to enhance) found it.

That is impossible. There's no way you're finding that thing without 45+ search (and probably more).

Maybe you are confused and thinking about the original release of Module 4, before the Search DC was raised and the trap's area was expanded.