C'mon CODOG... say or do something!

[Solstyse]

Well if we throw all logic out the window then you should be able to fire as fast as someone swings, acurately. It should be balanced , but balance doesn't work out so well most the time.
I actualy do bow hunt pretty effectively. So I do know how it all works. And unless you shoot me in the head, with enough force behind your shot to actualy go through my skull your not going to win the bow/bat fight of 2007.
Now yes Rangers are suposed to be experts at bow fighting, but on the same hand a Fighter is a master at weapon fighting in general, so that makes that argument pretty null and void.
Now all I am saying is I am not so sure its bugged, or if it just needs to be tweaked a bit so it can be on par with weapon fighting. Maybe a little less but closer than it is.
Oh well I feel bad for posting at all cause I am not against a change, I just wanted too see the logic behind it and I think I do now.
I think I am going to go make a Ranger and bow hunt some Kobolds to death. And then when things get to close to me I can whip out my 2handed weapons.

I have a quick question for all the Rangers out there, would you give up the free 2HW feat, for viable ranged DPS?

[Missing_Minds]

I think I am going to go make a Ranger and bow hunt some Kobolds to death. And then when things get to close to me I can whip out my 2handed weapons.

I have a quick question for all the Rangers out there, would you give up the free 2HW feat, for viable ranged DPS?

*laughs* But I'm not laughing at your wanting to go two handed. I'm laughing because you think you'll be able to switch your weapon. When you try to switch your weapon when kobolds are about 20 feet from you, and you have ANY attack left in your bow que, you will NOT switch your weapon. Those kobolds are going to get about 2 FREE hits on you before you'll change, IF you change weapons. And if you think you waited long enough but the weapon didn't actually change, and then you hit the attack button, guess what. You just shot another arrow so you have to go through that entire delay again.

Melees have this issue as well, but it is a lot more hidden due to the fact their attack que runs through SOOOO much faster.

edit: oh yeah, you want logic in a world of magic?

[Solstyse]

Adimitingly I have never used a bow in game, but I do make a habit of pulling mobs with my throwing weapons, and I usualy get you good throws off before switching weapons, yes the mob might get a swing or 2 on me, but thats the price I pay for not charging in, but to me its all about enjoying my character, I know throwing is basiclay worthless but I enjoy doing it so I do it.
Even fantasty worlds have logic applied to them, magic or not, cause as long as the magic stays true to the rules of the world then they still fall into the whole logical train of thought.

Now what about my question I posed?

[llevenbaxx]

Well if we throw all logic out the window then you should be able to fire as fast as someone swings, acurately. It should be balanced , but balance doesn't work out so well most the time.
I actualy do bow hunt pretty effectively. So I do know how it all works. And unless you shoot me in the head, with enough force behind your shot to actualy go through my skull your not going to win the bow/bat fight of 2007.
Now yes Rangers are suposed to be experts at bow fighting, but on the same hand a Fighter is a master at weapon fighting in general, so that makes that argument pretty null and void.
Now all I am saying is I am not so sure its bugged, or if it just needs to be tweaked a bit so it can be on par with weapon fighting. Maybe a little less but closer than it is.
Oh well I feel bad for posting at all cause I am not against a change, I just wanted too see the logic behind it and I think I do now.
I think I am going to go make a Ranger and bow hunt some Kobolds to death. And then when things get to close to me I can whip out my 2handed weapons.

I have a quick question for all the Rangers out there, would you give up the free 2HW feat, for viable ranged DPS?

Hunting is NOT combat. You do not practice reloading because you dont get a second shot.

You can't take an arrow in the throat/heart/organ/vital artery?

Sorry youre just wrong with that regards. Its perfectly logical. Yes I know its a game, but the idea is to emulate real combat in a fantasy setting.

From range, there is no immediate threat, only continuous methodical fire and reload. As opposed to melee, who are in constant threat and must cautious. Null and void? Nae.

[Missing_Minds]

You know whats happening? The mobs moving out the way....the mobs are stepping out of your line of fire, THATS where the bug is....if you have a mob targetted and he's moving yer gonna miss him....but its not showing a roll because its not anywhere near him.....Now, if it was implemented correctly, we would follow the mob and fire where we thought he was gonna be when my arrow was there....arent rangers supermen of the bow and arrow? We're supposed to be deadly, quick, nimble woodsmen....trained for years with the bow, hunted etc etc...we should know where the mob is going to be, not shoot behind him...

Thats where the problem is OP, not a borked range combat system with arrows disappearing, the mobs are moving.

Seriously, tell me how many phantom arrows you get while hitting slimes....zero.

In a word, Beher you are absolutely 100% WRONG!

Attack shots are being lost between client and server.

Mob running straight line right at me, and I don't get a roll. Right. How about I go one further.
Mob is HELD via "hold person" or "hold monster", several seconds into the spell so there is no more "sliding" around, and I still don't get rolls on it even when I'm standing still as well?

No, This is the stuff the OP is talking about that is upsetting a lot of players.

I have found that I can get less miss chances if I do not auto attack. Do not spam my attack button, such that my archer completely draws the arrow back to her ear and takes aim.

And I do agree also, you'd think our characters would know how to lead shots like the Mobs do, but nope.. we have to be nerfed and they get to be uber beyond freaking belief.

As for our shots not hitting because the mob moves out of line. I have to call bull dung on that as well. But not against you, but against the game. I have lost track of how many arrow shots I have seen go way over my characters head, off to the right or left of them yet I'm still hit. I've seen the shots be 10 feet from me and I'm still taking damage from it. (This is at least understandable from anti cheating code. Aka the same code that will throw you BACK into the giants 30+ feet reach when they smack you even though you've been running away and have a 50+ foot lead on them.)

[EinarMal]

Now what about my question I posed?

In PnP you do have to pick whether you want bow or TWF feats. The way the game currently is *most* Rangers would choose TWF unless you just really really like archery.

However, the Ranger class is also missing some key things from PnP that have to be made up for somewhat. They for example don't get their animal companions and most of their outdoor and animal abilities are useless in a mostly indoor dungeon designed game.

So, I am not sure, even if Ranged combat were improved, if it would be totally fair to make them choose one or the other given some of the class abilities are missing or don't work in DDO.

If they did make them choose you could still take the TWF feats for example as your normal feats (as long as you met the dex requirement) like everyone else.

If you liked archery and if it were improved, a good solution would be to pick archery as a Ranger then take power attack and IC slashing and just use a two hander for melee.

[Missing_Minds]

Adimitingly I have never used a bow in game, but I do make a habit of pulling mobs with my throwing weapons, and I usualy get you good throws off before switching weapons, yes the mob might get a swing or 2 on me, but thats the price I pay for not charging in, but to me its all about enjoying my character, I know throwing is basiclay worthless but I enjoy doing it so I do it.
Even fantasty worlds have logic applied to them, magic or not, cause as long as the magic stays true to the rules of the world then they still fall into the whole logical train of thought.

Now what about my question I posed?

You are asking logic from the same people that have stated that red named or better can not be tripped. Remember that whole fantasy = not completely logical thing. Yeah, it is in full swing here. I'd give it up honestly. Saves you a lot of grief.

As for your 2HF vs ranged DPS. *shrugs* DPS style is all a matter of play ablity, style, and equipment. If you've got the gear and the feats, dps is dps. Does it really matter where it comes from? 2HF is great for large number of mobs at once. Ranged is better for the 2-3 mobs that you can target from a distance that don't spawn in right on top of you.

Because of this, I really can't answer your question. My best answer for it is which would be more fun for you and stick with that. Try it, see if you like it. If you don't you don't, if you do you do.

[EinarMal]

Hunting is NOT combat. You do not practice reloading because you dont get a second shot.

You can take an arrow in the throat/heart/organ/vital artery?

Sorry youre just wrong with that regards. Its perfectly logical. Yes I know its a game, but the idea is to emulate real combat.

From range, there is no immediate threat, only continuous methodical fire and reload. As opposed to melee, who are in constant threat.

Yes, people highly trained in archery and trick shooting can fire a bow very fast.

[llevenbaxx]

Yes, people highly trained in archery and trick shooting can fire a bow very fast.

The last part was the most relavent but...

Where you have a little bow experience, I have a little hand to hand experience(only bamboo weapons but..). Im actually speaking from a balance perspective more anyway. To put it simple, from PnP they jacked melee up and slowed range down. This from a supposedly prebalanced(yes arguably, not really with regards to this subject though) source. Stack this with the other mentioned problems and ranged combat is in a very sorry state of affairs. Yes?

[Zenako]

Couple of quick points.

High SPOT values really help seeing mobs at great distances outside. I would routinely notice mobs before anyone else in the party could see them with my Elven Ranger/Rogue.

I never use auto attack (except in special LONG duration situations like a certain demon queen some time ago....) so I do not experience the situation many are claiming affects them. I notice a difference in how often I get hit with return fire if I stand still versus move about some, so I assume the same holds true for moving mobs.

I noticed other funky things with dice rolls last night when fighting some incorporeal undead. When swinging and missing them due to them being incorporeal at the time, I was seeing d20 rolls all over the place, with numbers like 38 + 0 MISS, I am a level 14 using nice gear and do not get to a +0 boost even on the worst days, but it would be interesting to roll a 38 on D20. Then when they were in phase, numbers like 14+26 would show up = hit. So perhaps the code just goes black hole like on us when you get an impossible situation. When that Umbral Gargoyle is out of phase, it just CANNOT be hit, but you might be swinging in the XYZ coordinates where the out of phase critters sits, so the calculation occurs, with a null result and random numbers being generated for the display. Purely guesses here, but perhaps some of this underlies some of the range issues observed. And Rangers being the observant types they are, pick up on this kind of thing.


As for ways to boost Ranger Ranged Attack DPS. One simple way would be to grant them a CLASS Feat at some level of Improved Crit: Ranged, or if they already have that, GReater Improved Crit: Ranged which again increases the Crit Range.

Normal Silver Bow Crits 19-20
Improved Crit Silver Bow 17-20
Greater Improved Crit 15-20

Nice boost, probably not unbalancing but it would seriously help the dps cries.

[Mad_Bombardier]

Possibly true for Cathy_n QA (Last Activity: 07-23-2007 06:34 PM), but Codog was here earlier this week (Last Activity: 09-23-2007 11:35 PM)

Makes me very sad. Cathy_n_QA was always so professional in responses and actually followed up with players.

[Partymaker]

No matter the reasons... range sucks and this is their fault!

Bbbbbbbbbuuuuuummmmmmmmppppppppp

[salmag]

At the risk of sounding like a broken record - I have been arguing the range over melee debate many, many, many, many times. Logically, it makes NO sense whatsoever to think that melee is more effective than range. DDO does not follow logic. In their infinite wisdom, someone said melee should out class ranged attacks. So, the Devs thought they were fixing the problem when they nerfed ranged combat. In their minds, the problem IS fixed. The ROF being lower than it should, the Manyshot timer only being 20 seconds (with a 2 minute cool down) instead of a toggle, Improved Precise Shot not being a toggle, firing a couple of times at breakables before the thing breaks, etc... The Devs thinks that all this is NORMAL and good for the BALANCE (or lack thereof) in the game. The devs choose to ignore the fact that ranged combat is broken. We, that play ranged combatants, know that this is not the case in any way shape or form. NOW, it is UNBALANCED in the favor of melee. I will say this again: "This makes NO sense whatsoever." But the Devs feel that they already FIXED the problem. If this is not the case, Devs please respond.

I have been with this game since the second beta (I applied for alpha, and the first beta but I guess because I am not too vocal about anything and I don't post everyday they chose not to let me test it - I am OK with that), and I am a founder on the forums. While I don't post everyday, I do read the forums everyday. I love this game and play it constantly, I just wish for them to lower the Manyshot cooldown timer to 30 seconds. This would AID the re-balancing.

I will still play because the game IS fun and I enjoy it. Just for the record, I have played melee characters and I wind up deleting them in favor of ranged characters, and casters. PLEASE LOOK INTO RANGED COMBAT AGAIN, DEVS; PLEASE.

[Xyfiel]

I point everyone to this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iofGLgqss68

As it seems for rl relation, archery is bout right, it is melee that is too fast.
Done to make the action fast paced and please the zergers I guess. Now with casters coming into their own, I don't know if melee can be slowed down and be fun to play still.

[Racolus]

/signed

IIRC codog has been saying that he/she is doing 'something', but this was like 2 mod b4.

This ranged combat bug is, perhaps like greater teleport, never gonna be fixed.

[Serpent]

Real life vs DDO is silly. We have walking and talking robots so i think reflections on real life is out. The devs have to know that there is something wrong with ranged combat. So do something about it already, at least adress the situation or give up some info about it.

When auto-attacking with either a returner or bow many of the shots miss, when attacking a mob close by many of the attacks miss, some info has be getting lost between shot fired and mob movement, the rate that a mob moves based upon how fast an arrow travels is wrong, arrows move much faster.

The animation is slowed to give us more feel so I say jsut speed up the animation to mimic the actual speed of a fired arrow. Who knows i may just be wrong.

And casters coming into their own, what was wronf with them before did I miss something.

[Sleepy]

Real life vs DDO is silly. We have walking and talking robots so i think reflections on real life is out.

We have walking and talking robots in rl. Granted, they aren't near the level of warforged but they're getting there.

Rangers need ranged attacks, its really what they should be about...its kinda in the name....

I don't think theyre that kind of ranger. Think Texas Rangers (only in name though).

[Emili]

Y'know, I just rolled a ranger....he's a freakin blast btw....and yeah, when you fight things like kobolds and hobgoblins, you miss.

But try to get your no-rolls when fighting slimes that ya miss on a 1.

You know whats happening? The mobs moving out the way....the mobs are stepping out of your line of fire, THATS where the bug is....if you have a mob targetted and he's moving yer gonna miss him....but its not showing a roll because its not anywhere near him.....Now, if it was implemented correctly, we would follow the mob and fire where we thought he was gonna be when my arrow was there....arent rangers supermen of the bow and arrow? We're supposed to be deadly, quick, nimble woodsmen....trained for years with the bow, hunted etc etc...we should know where the mob is going to be, not shoot behind him...

Thats where the problem is OP, not a borked range combat system with arrows disappearing, the mobs are moving.

Seriously, tell me how many phantom arrows you get while hitting slimes....zero.

This poster is exactly correct... I have two high level ranged spec'd characters and a bard who can effectively ranger well. In fact my melee have very good dex and use ranged attack half decently. One thing you notice up front. Auto-attack is useless, not only for ranged but for melee as well. When you're missing the target via auto-attack on ranged it is because the path of the mob has changed. When you're missing a mob with auto-attack (and tab target) on melee is because the mob moved slightly out of your arc of swing(or attack). Is the same thing... the mob shifted and the miss occurs. You probably never noticed it while meleeing even but I sure did on day one, and it's shown up in ranged attack back then because they're utilizing the same mechanic for the moving mob. Plus ask any Barb what happens when they chase a mob chasing a caster in a straight line while swinging on that mob the whole time? ;-) You know what? it's no roll.

Auto-attack is not as efficient and doing it manually - is just how it is, and that's for ranged or melee.

While we're on the subject of archer and ranged weapons DDO is actually quite more forgiving in terms of it's use. The English longbow was the backbone of Englands military strength 800 years ago but in close quarters was a cumbersome weapon. The english copied it from the Welsh - being a Brit and half-Welsh always felt it poorly named;-) Longbows were often built to be as tall as the archer and a well made bow could shoot well in excess of 275 meters using flight arrows. A highly skilled longbow archer could shoot up to 12 arrows per minute compared to a crossbow man (100 year war) could only fire up to three. Now then tell me how many shots DDO lets fly in a minute? I'd wager it's quite bit more.

[Hvymetal]

Dare I ask what step #4 is?

It's kinda like the panty gnomes...

[CDevil]

Y'know, I just rolled a ranger....he's a freakin blast btw....and yeah, when you fight things like kobolds and hobgoblins, you miss.

But try to get your no-rolls when fighting slimes that ya miss on a 1.

You know whats happening? The mobs moving out the way....the mobs are stepping out of your line of fire, THATS where the bug is....if you have a mob targetted and he's moving yer gonna miss him....but its not showing a roll because its not anywhere near him.....Now, if it was implemented correctly, we would follow the mob and fire where we thought he was gonna be when my arrow was there....arent rangers supermen of the bow and arrow? We're supposed to be deadly, quick, nimble woodsmen....trained for years with the bow, hunted etc etc...we should know where the mob is going to be, not shoot behind him...

Thats where the problem is OP, not a borked range combat system with arrows disappearing, the mobs are moving.

Seriously, tell me how many phantom arrows you get while hitting slimes....zero.

Even allowing that this is true (and I don't believe it is), you can see the same error happen in situations where your target can't move anywhere. For instance, I have a WF fighter with a returning throwing axe. Whenever I use it to attack a creature on a ledge (say, in the spider cave on the path to the hobgoblin chief) EVERY OTHER ATTACK REGISTERS NOTHING!!! No die roll/hit/miss/damage, nothing! The animation will still trigger and show the throw, but that's it. It's the same in other areas where I use it to attack casters or archer types that just stand there and try to preforate my hide with magic missiles or arrows; every other attack effectively does not exist.

And YES, I do indeed get phantom strikes when I try using it on slimes, too.

The problem is, indeed, something in the combat system.