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

[Mad_Bombardier]

Now THAT is a Dev response. If only all of them were that concise or forthcoming in such a straight forward manner. Thanks Codog.

Hear, hear! Codog gets my vote for Post of the Week (instead of Thread of the Week). And, I think everyone would be fine and dandy with PotW going to a Dev.

[Beherit_Baphomar]

When we do, drinks will be on me in the Anvil Fire Inn on Argonesson. Unfortunately, it will be vials of blue liquid and cool yummy milk because of our teen rating.

Let me know the time Codod....I'll bring along Plook.

And do you have access to who made those gem/collectable bags? Any chance they could throw a quivver out to us?

Hot dang C-dawg, you must know how many arrows ya gotta carry with ya...I havent reach my House D favour yet...mebbe that makes a big difference....

C-dawg on Agronnessen.....sweet...

[Kerr]

PARTYMAKER! (and everybody else that is interested in this issue)

I really don't like encouraging people to rant by responding to sarcastic and angry posts. However, today I think I encouraged this particular rant by not sharing some more information in the release notes about some work I've been doing to try to alleviate this. So fair enough, you called me out. I'm here and reading and responding to this thread. And no... I don't have time to respond to everybody who yells at me in their posts which I'm sure will erupt after this response.

I have to say this is an amazing response from a developer. I hope that the other developers can look at this and use this as a model to respond to user concerns on occassion on issues we are having to deal with. Not every little issue, but a significant issue affecting a large portion of the player base.

Well done.

[Codog]

By the way...

There are Codog imposters running around on the servers pretending to be me. Rest assured, I'll _never_ be playing with a character named that on any server. And to you silly people pretending to be me... I'm trying to talk customer service into letting Kargon be PvP enabled everywhere he goes so he can find you and enforce justamus for all!

Kargon for President 2008!

--Codog

[Kisaragi]

Then you would have to give everyone else who's not PvP enabled in town, a fighting chance and allow us to throw Kargon's Tasty Ham at people, in which they enjoy the effects of it.

[LongshotBro]

well first off, let me say i am no expert on all the technical terminology used throughout this thread like precise reload times, etc.
i started playing DDO last december with a short summer break, and i have tried out a number of toons. the last one i made, though, i have stuck with, and he is a ranged combat specialist. in fact, i have never even put a melee weapon in his hand, relying exclusively on the longbow.
he started off as a ranger, and i took this to level 2 for all the free bow feats. then i switched him to a fighter for more feats. i threw a couple of rogue levels in there because i wanted to add some sneak attack damage, and then went back to fighter for more feats.
i have played in a lot of PUGs and also a lot of solo play, and i have never had any problems. in fact it is the most fun toon i've used. my strategy usually involved sneaking around until i spot a mob/monster (invested a lot in spot so he can see pretty far). i target the most dangerous creature, hit auto attack, and start running backwards. true, a little cowardly, but i've backtracked sometimes all the way to the entrance. maybe doubling back if they're not all dead yet. more short kiting if they're weaker or i'm with a party. with enough jump and dodging you can avoid hits pretty easily.
i think maybe the problem is diversification, which will ultimately make your ranged not as good. in general with this game, focusing on one aspect and maxing it is preferable to "a little of this, a little of that" building. my sniping toon is just that - he can't do much of anything else but attack with a bow. there are times i wish he could do more, but when it comes down to it i love ranged combat and he is no slouch. damage output is nice; switching to manyshot is nuts when you have some decent bows like fire, enfeebling, or my favorite curse-spewing. auto-attack and the tab button turns mobs into spineless jellyfish.
i don't always use auto-attack, though, as sometimes the manual aim and fire is handy as well, but 90% of the time it's full auto. you must stock up on arrows - i go through about 1000 each quest between mobs, misses, and breakables.
if you're interested in specifics of my build lemme know and i'll post.
for all your ranged lovers out there - there is a way to have a great ranged build just go with it and throw everything you have towards it. you will not be disappointed and you will keep up with everyone else in terms of damage and even kill count (especially when you cycle through baddies and pick off weakened ones).
viva la range!

[Codog]

I hope Graal, the treasure designer, doesn't go and make Kargon's Tasty Ham a thrown weapon now! I can't imagine the sound that sucker would make flying through the air. Any votes on whether Kargon would take bribes and show mercy in exchange for tasty ham? Maybe I need to rethink this whole thing...

Off to the bug hunting grounds,

Codog

[Beherit_Baphomar]

viva la range!

Yup,

This is my first ranger, and he's almost to level 6 now...and man, am I havin some fun with him.

Kiting is awesome, might **** off the tanks in the group, but who cares...its fun....kite to far, double back and kite summore!

I like to do one hit on the caster, pulls their aggro offa the party, and kite away...or whatever the most dangerous NPC is in the battle....ranger speed boost, good AC, fast reaction times....means you get hit very seldom.

I built this guy because I found some very nice weapons on my other two capped guys....seems every time I find something nice it gives me an idea for a build....just cant wait to get Plook to level 10 to start using the good stuff.

Rangers ftw!

Bee.

[geoffhanna]

Any chance of a change back to the old pre-mod3 days of the reload animation?

It made sense that I would have to reload before I could re-fire my weapon. It does not make sense that I have to reload before I can swap out my weapon.

[Vorn]

Yup,

Kiting is awesome, might **** off the tanks in the group, but who cares...its fun....kite to far, double back and kite summore!

Nah, doesn't make us mad, I just don't bother chasing...you'll catch up someday.

[Zenako]

Codog, thats for repsonding to some of the issues raised in this thread. It is clear from the nature of your post that you have some degree of ownership of the issue on how design decisions actually get implemented in the game experience. Thanks for the insight into what has been done and is being done to address some of those implementation issues.

As I mentioned in my first post on this thread, I do not see some of the same issues, but that is probably largely related to never using autoattack for my Ranger.

What often gets overlooked from my perspective by some posters is game balance. Right now there is a certain overall balance between melee/ranged and risk/resouces used. In ranged combat with most mobs, there is often 0 risk of incoming damage until the mob actually closes with the archer. Once within melee range, both sides have chances to hurt and be hurt by their opponent. The chances might not be great, but they exist. Whenever you are hurt, resources get expended (be they Spell Points, or Potions or X/times per rest abilities. Something gets used up to fix the damage.

Yup, currently 24/7 ranged attacks will do less damage 24/7 than melee attacks (assuming both parties are using comparable weapons at the time) and are reasonably speced for that style of fighting. For brief bursts, melee can hype up their attacks using Action Boosts. For brief bursts Rangers can activate Manyshot and REALLY hype up their attacks and DPS.

Where many players see the falling out, is how these abilities continue to scale or not scale as the levels progress when compared to the monsters hit dice and hit points. I personally am not focused on rate of fire, that seems ok to me. What I would like to see along the ways of future tweaks is some way for the ranged attacker to achieve greater damage output that keeps the same relative relationship to melee that exists in the low to mid levels.

They could be changes such as a simple "granted feat" at some level that increases Crit Chance (on top of the Current Feat Improved Critical: weapon type.) Or create some options within the Enhancement system (which given the currently existing ability to restructure makes it the easiest to do with a minimum of harsh feedback and "I got screwed" posts and flames if it was a level/class based feature.) Another "simple" thing would be to create a new House D favor Arrow that was 100% returning. One slot of ammo forever.

Another major part of the problem is not inherent game design, but player choice bias. A great number of players are just not patient enough to let many characters actually take advantage of the skills and abilities they have. Witness the tons of who needs rogues, just run through the traps and fix things up later. Ok, you can do that, but that takes a lot more in game resouces than having the rogue disable that trap(s). That is not the question. Same thing with ranged combat. I have seen many times where parties were in a position to kill mobs using ranged attacks, but some of the players were too impatient and just jumped down to start meleeing the mobs and kill the quicker (and get hurt in the process and either expect to get healed or use up a bunch of healing resouces of their own.) What is driving this mindset is the currency of Time, and more importantly in their minds, "My available Playtime". Those players want to be active and central to the action at all times and to quite often...zerg thru quests just so they can repeat and zerg thru them again in an attempt to get loot or EXP as fast as they can and then be in a position to complain that there is nothing left to do anymore, since they have already been thru everything, albeit at breakneck speed. That is a player playstyle choice and is very hard if not impossible to change within the confines of game and still keep the game enjoyable for everyone. (I mean you could put timers on some doors/portals. They only open AFTER 10 minutes have passed once you kill XYZ, so you have to figure out something to do (like explore the rest of the dungeon level) until the mystic portal opens. Man would that drive zergers nuts and probably earn that quest a HUGE thumbs down from all the speed monkeys, even it is was otherwise a fun quest to play in.)

[Klattuu]

I hope Graal, the treasure designer, doesn't go and make Kargon's Tasty Ham a thrown weapon now! I can't imagine the sound that sucker would make flying through the air. Any votes on whether Kargon would take bribes and show mercy in exchange for tasty ham? Maybe I need to rethink this whole thing...

Off to the bug hunting grounds,

Codog

I can't imaging Kargon ever condoning the throwing of ham at any time.

[EazyWeazy]

Thanks for the update. I've been curious about the state of this and I'm happy to see it being addressed.

[SneakThief]

I hope Graal, the treasure designer, doesn't go and make Kargon's Tasty Ham a thrown weapon now! I can't imagine the sound that sucker would make flying through the air. Any votes on whether Kargon would take bribes and show mercy in exchange for tasty ham? Maybe I need to rethink this whole thing...

Off to the bug hunting grounds,

Codog

ROFLMAO!!!

That has to be the single funniest thing I have read on the forum in months. Thanks man! That mental image will keep me laughing for weeks!

[Wulf_Ratbane]

I hope Graal, the treasure designer, doesn't go and make Kargon's Tasty Ham a thrown weapon now! I can't imagine the sound that sucker would make flying through the air.

Doesn't matter, since Mod5, it sounds like the smashing sarcophagus.

[MysticTheurge]

There are still some open design problems related to "should your autoattack aim predict and shoot at the position the target might be?" and DPS as level cap increases. Is this your primary issue or the DPS balance?

I haven't read the whole thread (and I'm not likely to) but I wanted to comment on this.

It's my opinion that targeted shots from PCs should be just as intelligent as the NPCs targeting. That is, if someone's moving, it should predict that movement in that direction.

This doesn't stop you from missing things that are rapidly shifting course and trajectory. But it will allow you to simple target and fire at something moving at a steady speed in a straight line (other than directly towards you).

[Kargon]

By the way...

There are Codog imposters running around on the servers pretending to be me. Rest assured, I'll _never_ be playing with a character named that on any server. And to you silly people pretending to be me... I'm trying to talk customer service into letting Kargon be PvP enabled everywhere he goes so he can find you and enforce justamus for all!

Kargon for President 2008!

--Codog

Best part of kargon for presimadent... Kargon work for tasty hams!

[Mad_Bombardier]

I haven't read the whole thread (and I'm not likely to) but I wanted to comment on this.

It's my opinion that targeted shots from PCs should be just as intelligent as the NPCs targeting. That is, if someone's moving, it should predict that movement in that direction.

This doesn't stop you from missing things that are rapidly shifting course and trajectory. But it will allow you to simple target and fire at something moving at a steady speed in a straight line (other than directly towards you).

Agreed. With bows at half rate of attack of melee (after the missing shots fix), you don't have to worry about Ranged attacks being overpowered. Mobs can track and "lead fire"; players should be able to, as well. I'm not asking for heatseeking arrows versus human-controlled, twitch-skill players in PvP. But, being able to hit a Kobold moving perpendicular with my LOS is a must.

[Kargon]

I hope Graal, the treasure designer, doesn't go and make Kargon's Tasty Ham a thrown weapon now! I can't imagine the sound that sucker would make flying through the air. Any votes on whether Kargon would take bribes and show mercy in exchange for tasty ham? Maybe I need to rethink this whole thing...

Off to the bug hunting grounds,

Codog

BLASPHEMAMAMY!! Evermabody know the only ham kargon allow be wastamed by be thrown are Smoke Cured Ham, work like smoke bomb with horrimable chokaming poisiminious smoke on impamact!

[Kalanth]

My one ranged character is not traditional. I have seen the missing shot bug in the past, and did not pay attention since then.

I use a Warforged Fighter 4 / Wizard 10 with Weapon Focus: Ranged, Weapon Specialization: Ranged, Improved Critical: Ranged, Point Blank Shot, Dodge, Mobility, Shot on the Run, and Rapid Shot.

My biggest concern is that, with this build, I can't run around without the monster targeted. If I was to do that I would miss with the spells that I throw out there. To add in the leading of a target would be a boon for a character like this as I would not need to worry if the target was moving in order to strike them.

In addition, in the time that I have played him, I have noticed that there are ways to forceably break the animation of the shot (such as tumbling) but this does not really decrease the time before I can cast a spell after firing a shot. It is this type of character alone that makes me ask if there is a way to place a break into the animation? A point where the animation continues, but can be interupted so one could cast a spell (i.e. immediately after the arrow is loosed on the target). Because of the unbreakable animation (which can be noticed to a lesser degree with melee) I have held back on making a Ranger / Cleric that I would love to use. I don't want the party wiping out because I could not cast a spell because I fired an arrow just before needing to cast a spell.