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

[MysticTheurge]

Well, having a dozen or more monsters shooting projectiles at a given time at this rate is a little different than having hundreds of players in the game shooting at this rate.

Codog, I'm a little baffled by this response. Both in a given instance and throughout the game as a whole it seems like there are probably far more monsters shooting projectiles than players shooting projectiles at any given time. I mean, I try to figure out how it could be any other way, but I just can't. There are, overall, more monsters than players at any given time. Plus, monsters are far more likely than players to actually be using ranged weapons.

I mean, heck, just having one group running Delera's means there's probably more NPC archers in that instance than there are PC archers throughout the game.

But seriously... I guess I'm just not understanding this. Am I missing something here?

[Borror0]

Codog passes out.

hehe... oops?

Guys...? I think I messed up and you're not going to like it...

===============================================

Honestly, I'm going to send a few questions to Eladrin soon. See what I'll get as an answer.

Just trying to figure out a few things by muself, but after that I'm done. There are things we know nothnig at alll... like what the heall does the Two-handed fighting feats do!??!

EDIT: Eladrin, if you think it's waste of time and you're reading this, just tell me. You'll do me some sort of favor by at least saving me the effort.

[MrCow]

I mean, heck, just having one group running Delera's means there's probably more NPC archers in that instance than there are PC archers throughout the game.

I agree that you can have a lot of NPC archers in an instance firing to the point of absurity for a server. The second part of Delera's tomb was a classic example of how to make the DDO servers wracked with pain. Any group that decided to run by the skeleton archers rather than killing them would cause the instance to lag to the point where everything was 5-10 seconds apart from what was really happening. With the more recent AI changes this has been remedied though, but is still a good history lesson that projectiles cause issues in DDO.

[TEK]

Codog, I'm a little baffled by this response. Both in a given instance and throughout the game as a whole it seems like there are probably far more monsters shooting projectiles than players shooting projectiles at any given time. I mean, I try to figure out how it could be any other way, but I just can't. There are, overall, more monsters than players at any given time. Plus, monsters are far more likely than players to actually be using ranged weapons.

I mean, heck, just having one group running Delera's means there's probably more NPC archers in that instance than there are PC archers throughout the game.

But seriously... I guess I'm just not understanding this. Am I missing something here?

there might be more monsters but that doesnt necessarily mean they're more archers i mean most if not all of the harbor quests involves kobolds throwing alchemical fire, while being backed by melee and caster kobolds. In fact, a large portion of the low to mid level mobs are mostly made up of melee and caster with very little ranged.

and whats funny is that alot of casters and archers would range u with arrows and spells until they're within melee range and then try to physically swing at you lol (you gotta love the universal AI).

so no i cant really agree with you on the more monster thing.

[Codog]

Codog, I'm a little baffled by this response. Both in a given instance and throughout the game as a whole it seems like there are probably far more monsters shooting projectiles than players shooting projectiles at any given time. I mean, I try to figure out how it could be any other way, but I just can't. There are, overall, more monsters than players at any given time. Plus, monsters are far more likely than players to actually be using ranged weapons.

I mean, heck, just having one group running Delera's means there's probably more NPC archers in that instance than there are PC archers throughout the game.

But seriously... I guess I'm just not understanding this. Am I missing something here?

If performance becomes a serious issue with entity creation, we can nerf a million monsters and they won't complain and not show up for the game the next evening because they are angry.

Heh. Anyway, a huge majority of our monsters are melee monsters in the game. The designated archer monsters are turreted in place most of the time so that we can prevent greater density of archers from being in one place at one time. I know... there are contrary examples in our game and some rooms that are just plain ridiculously filled with archers (and therefore perform badly).

One consideration relates to monsters having more computational complexity related to their "awareness monitors". They have to consider every entity entering their monitor for filtration. Players shooting missiles at monsters is more expensive than the converse. We also can't ignore many shot... that feat turns one archer into 3 from a server perspective at higher levels. Monster projectiles have a lot of information baked into them and creating them is a little less complex. So I guess I should amend my earlier statement that more or less it is the same. Right now entity creation is in the top ten of performance eaters. However, AI scripts are much higher at the moment and are a bigger worry.

An important systems design reason can be summarized as we're only at level 14 right now. There is a long way to go yet and we do want ROF and DPS to increased for ranged combat as we push up level limits. It would be really irresponsible of us to push up the ROF now to a point where performance IS the only limiting factor because we have many more levels to go yet.

An inconvenient truth is there are content reasons for ranged combat not keeping pace with melee. When our rate of fire was higher and ranged DPS was roughly 65% of melee DPS during a few weeks during beta, almost every fight was a ranged fight. Players would find a great perch where monsters couldn't hammer on them directly and they would lead their victim there and plink away at them until they were dead (which is much more effective at that ROF). Most of our monsters are not primary ranged combat monsters. Most of the melee fighters resort to it when they can't find a path to you. When ranged combat is a lot more effective, everybody starts perching and even the melee monsters become missile attackers.

Let's pretend for a moment that a combat encounter of 12 melee bad guys and 6 archer bad guys vs 6 players erupted. Now currently, we're probably talking about 7 or 8 total missile combatants. With an elevated ROF on missile fire in my desperately ridiculous worst case scenario, you're talking about 24 missile combatants.

All that being said, this doesn't mean that we shouldn't revisit melee vs missile balance (especially for classes and players that are optimizing for ranged attacks). For the hardcore twitch player, it seems like a fair balance as we have it. For the more casual gamer, the numbers feel unacceptable. This deviation within our player base is very hard for our systems designers to reconcile.

I hope this helps answer your question.

Best regards,

Codog

[Lillitheris]

This discussion in itself isn't very important to me, but I must tip my hat to Codog. Now THAT is 'interacting with the community'

[Cordelia]

This discussion in itself isn't very important to me, but I must tip my hat to Codog. Now THAT is 'interacting with the community'

Agreed. Thanks so much Codog, your candor, accessibility and informative posts do Turbine proud.

Cord

[Spookydodger]

Rapid shot and rapid reload do stack.
Rapid shot and quickdraw stack as well.

Codog

This doesn't quite clarifying anything to me, though, unfortunately.

Rapid shot and Rapid reload do stack, but as far as I have seen thus far, they don't affect the same equipment.

Rapid shot and quickdraw stacking would only mean anything, as far as I understand their uses, in thrown weapons.

Is it possible for someone to enlighten me as to what the combined effect of these feats would be?

[EinarMal]

An inconvenient truth is there are content reasons for ranged combat not keeping pace with melee. When our rate of fire was higher and ranged DPS was roughly 65% of melee DPS during a few weeks during beta, almost every fight was a ranged fight. Players would find a great perch where monsters couldn't hammer on them directly and they would lead their victim there and plink away at them until they were dead (which is much more effective at that ROF). Most of our monsters are not primary ranged combat monsters. Most of the melee fighters resort to it when they can't find a path to you. When ranged combat is a lot more effective, everybody starts perching and even the melee monsters become missile attackers.

Players may have played that way during beta but that is not how most groups play now. With much better equipment and builds most parties would not bother with the strategy you outlined above if the DPS is <50% as it is now or 65% that you state. The game has changed greatly since BETA perhaps it is time to revisit things.

You could do the same strategy today, so it just takes 10 seconds longer now. To me that is a silly arguement that really doesn't make a lot of sense. A raging 46 strength barbarian is not going to take out a bow, and neither are a lot of other melee built characters that can already wreck through mobs.

What uping damage would do though is somewhat un-gimp all the players that insist on using a bow 24/7 and contributing very little to parties outside of special effects like curse or paralyze.

You also talk about FPS and twitch players with a bow, well just an FYI that is considered by most groups to be THE most annoying party memeber you can have. Having someone kiting mobs around take 2-3 times longer to kill one mob while the rest of the party wrecks the other 9 in 2 seconds. There are only a handful of cases where that kind of FPS bow fighting really shines. You are designing the entire ranged combat system to take into account a player that most groups don't like in their group anyway.

[MysticTheurge]

If performance becomes a serious issue with entity creation, we can nerf a million monsters and they won't complain and not show up for the game the next evening because they are angry.

That, I suppose, is a good point.

You could do the same strategy today, so it just takes 10 seconds longer now.

More accurately, when you do the same strategy today it involves firewalls, and perhaps a blade barrier or two. Any ranged fighting is just a little bit of fluff on top of that excessive amount of DPS.

[Missing_Minds]

One consideration relates to monsters having more computational complexity related to their "awareness monitors". They have to consider every entity entering their monitor for filtration.

This is something that still confuses the heck out of me. Their monitor just, well, frankly, seem to be very stupid.

Why is it a melee can run up and smack something and run away before the NPC ever becomes active, while a caster, not even in the same room as spawn, was never in the room, and the spawns only NOW pop up are immediately agroed on them instead of any body/thing that was in the room when they popped up. The NPCs in the later instance do not even have line of sight to the casters, I'd say they are 45 feet away minimum.

I don't expect any answer on this one, Codog, (as i think this would be more of Eladrin's area) it is just one of those things in the game that bugs me by how it is working. I really do appreciate all of the feedback you have been giving us also.

[EinarMal]

More accurately, when you do the same strategy today it involves firewalls, and perhaps a blade barrier or two. Any ranged fighting is just a little bit of fluff on top of that excessive amount of DPS.

Heh yeah when I solo with my melee characters at low levels I will range things like this, but yeah otherwise casters are of course the only valid DPS ranged characters in the game. If you use a bow you have to be content to be <50% damage of melee so you don't unbalance the game

If you cannot get ROF up higher due to game engine issues, then you should consider adding feats that further increase the critical range or some super awesome bows to the game (way better than the new bow I saw for the current new MOD). Otherwise ranged combat will remain a situtional style, that for most cases is not worth investing in if you want to min/max your character. When level 14 Rangers with most bow feats in the game are to the point where they barely use a bow you might think something isn't quite right.

[Hendrik]

This discussion in itself isn't very important to me, but I must tip my hat to Codog. Now THAT is 'interacting with the community'

I agree.

Thank you Codog for the posts!

[Dane_McArdy]

This discussion in itself isn't very important to me, but I must tip my hat to Codog. Now THAT is 'interacting with the community'

But everyone should remember, he's doing this on his own time, it seems, as well as working on the issue on his own time.

[VonBek]

But everyone should remember, he's doing this on his own time, it seems, as well as working on the issue on his own time.

Just tell me where to send the beer/coffee/apple juice/mineral water etc....

[Codog]

Players may have played that way during beta but that is not how most groups play now. With much better equipment and builds most parties would not bother with the strategy you outlined above if the DPS is <50% as it is now or 65% that you state. The game has changed greatly since BETA perhaps it is time to revisit things.

You could do the same strategy today, so it just takes 10 seconds longer now. To me that is a silly arguement that really doesn't make a lot of sense. A raging 46 strength barbarian is not going to take out a bow, and neither are a lot of other melee built characters that can already wreck through mobs.

What uping damage would do though is somewhat un-gimp all the players that insist on using a bow 24/7 and contributing very little to parties outside of special effects like curse or paralyze.

You also talk about FPS and twitch players with a bow, well just an FYI that is considered by most groups to be THE most annoying party memeber you can have. Having someone kiting mobs around take 2-3 times longer to kill one mob while the rest of the party wrecks the other 9 in 2 seconds. There are only a handful of cases where that kind of FPS bow fighting really shines. You are designing the entire ranged combat system to take into account a player that most groups don't like in their group anyway.

Points well taken. The game has changed a lot since beta indeed! The net result of this feedback is that the game systems team willl be evaluating ranged combat with a focus on ranged builds. In the game systems team, I'm senior game systems engineer. I help create the technology that design requires for the game. I do have a voice that carries in our meetings, and I will express your concerns. If we have a concrete plan that can be communicated, I'll be sure that it gets expressed by Quarion in the dev notes or otherwise I'll announce it to you in a new more appropriate thread.

I need to head off to the development cave again for a while. I hope to be a little more active a little more often with you all on these forums. Thanks for being respectful and for your patience. I will follow this thread through the week and may find time to respond after work hours.

Best regards,

Codog

PS. I will respond for sure on the rapid reload issue with repeaters as soon as I get an answer from design.

[Qzipoun]

I need to head off to the development cave again for a while. I hope to be a little more active a little more often with you all on these forums. Thanks for being respectful and for your patience. I will follow this thread through the week and may find time to respond after work hours.

Once again, thank you.

[Theboz]

THis has been the best(thread) info. I have seen with a Dev. and I have to thank-you for talking to us CoDog.

A ranger has become my Main and is my fav. to play I mostly use TWF, and depending on the fight I will switch to bow only for Manyshot, Disuption, Para, Curse, or if the mobs do stat damage or hard to fight, or the times when staying alive without any hitpoint damage is important(like soloing).

It would be nice if us rangers could get better DPS with bows, then I could go back to using bows more often.

[Kisaragi]

One thing that was briefly touched on and I think should be considered is the value of ranged. Many times my paladin/wizard like breaking out the crossbows to range things with paralyzing/banishing/disrupting.

However, the only +5 bolts (the really nice ones) are chest drops. I wish house D stocked general ones that were non-returning (and returning as well).

One of the hobgoblins hurls a javelin, it hurts. I shoot a bolt, plink. Archers in Chains of Flame can rip entire parties apart with arrows, even if a raid group all had ranged, we're not doing the sort of damage they are.

Look at the Eternal Archers, they have arrows that rip through good characters as if they were paper.

To balance that, and make it interesting, I think we should have spell arrows/bolts, where when you fire it, it fires a spell like fireball. Or at the very least exploding ammunition. Somewhere where if you fire it, it goes boom and may affect 3 closeknit enemies.

Kobolds have long had exploding ammunition, no reason why we can't.

[DSL]

If performance becomes a serious issue with entity creation, we can nerf a million monsters and they won't complain and not show up for the game the next evening because they are angry.

Ahhh, this makes me think of (and miss) The Magical Pony.



Otherwise, a great big thanks to Codog for all the info/feedback here. I think we all apreciate the time and thought you have put into this for us, and that your explanations in no way "talk down" to us, nor show any sign of merely saying what we want to hear.