Important message to Turbine regarding BAB and Module 9

[Borror0]

When the cap level was increased from 14 to 16 in module 6, classes getting full BAB got an extra attack... that lowered DPS. That is, quite honestly, pretty frustrating and illogical. Getting an extra level in your class should not be a penalty. While I understand the point of having a flashy animation, it isn't practical and thus the current animation should be changed. It even lead to a situation where characters with 3/4 BAB were dealing more damage than some characters with full BAB. The cleric versus paladin is a good example of that. Monks are also a funny example of that, as Flurry of Blows ironically lowered your DPS instead of improving it.

However, this issue is going to get worse in module 9 if nothing is done about it.

First of all, there is a possibility of an additional swing at BAB 20 that Turbine has yet to confirm or deny. It is a problem because if there is such a thing, going pure on full BAB classes or splashing full BAB classes becomes a bad idea. It would also severely punish those who multiclassed two levels of a full BAB class and would have to sacrifice the access to the third tier of a PrE in order to avoid getting their DPS cut by another too long animation.

Secondly, there is the greater problem of 3/4 BAB characters. In the case of a rogue, warchanter or battle cleric, it will be a must to multiclass another non-full BAB class in order to avoid getting their DPS cut. That, in itself, is illogical and frustrating. In addition, if they already multiclassed two levels of a full BAB class, they would be cut from getting their third tier PrE because of it on top of the frustration of being forced to multiclass something you didn't really desired.

So, if anyone at Turbine is reading this, please avoid this from happening.

If you could just drop a line saying you will do something about it, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time and hard work,
Borror0

[Desteria]

*EDIT* Note in the followign post where i say words like should thats a should in my opinion, and no disrespect is ment to any one or how they think it should be or how it currently is. *END EDIT*

The reality is HOW BaB SHOULD work is liek this....

Note time pulled out of my but, well it's one round in PnP

bab 0 character takes 6 secodn for his 1 attack
bab 1 character takes 6 seconds for his 2 attacks
bab 5 character takes 6 seconds for his 3 attacks
bab 10 character takes 6 seconds for his 4 attacks
bab 15 character takes 6 seconds for his 5 attacks
Note TWF just adds attack not time.

NOW that is how BaB is sposed to work in D&D, this coudl ALSO work in DDO, at this point it would be a lot of work to remake all teh animations and 6 secodns might be to slow for an action game so a round may nee dto be shorter, and all mobs at all levels would have to be balaced for this new attack rate...

Other changes this would alow, DECRESING BAB like in PnP the incentive to NOT move would be that you get MORE attack in teh same time frame so the escalatin to hit bonuses that have caused all sorts of issues, like making PA/ TWF penalties meaning less etc... with a switch at the same tiem to decresing BaB means mob PH/toughness shoudl not have to be overly changed as suddenly alot fo the extra attacks will MISS!!!! though any fight thats set up to take x time woudl definetly need mroe HP/con though we would never notice the change if it was balaced right as the end result would be fights takign the SAME amount of real time for ones that are sposed to take time liek shroud part 4/5 etc... but a lot of secondary issued fixed and getitng more bab would ALWAYS mean more DPS becasue even if the attack dose not hit often it has not COST.. atm high levle BAB ATTACKS have a COST of time and that makes them lower your DPS as noted by the first poster.

[honkuimushi]

My favored solution would be to somehow speed up the animation of the BAB 15 attack or, if possible redo it. I realize that that will take a lot of resources, but it is something to plan for eventually. If they could make it so greatswords and falchions attack at the same speed as greataxes, that too would be appreciated.

But were are scheduled to get 2 races in the future that will most likely need new animations. I hope turbine designs the animations for Half-Orcs and Half-Elves without either of these problems.

[Borror0]

My favored solution would be to somehow speed up the animation of the BAB 15 attack or, if possible redo it. I realize that that will take a lot of resources, but it is something to plan for eventually. If they could make it so greatswords and falchions attack at the same speed as greataxes, that too would be appreciated.

They will most likely have to design an another one.

While they look fancy, they are overly exaggerated. If they would speed them up, it might look pretty silly. Maybe not, but I doubt it. Especially with all the stacking melee alacrity bonus that are added into the game: Wind Stance, Zeal, Tempest, Haste, Haste Boost.

If they would also make all the two-handed weapons swing the same, that would be awesome too. If they could make the swing speed of two-handed fighting be as fast as the swing speed sword and board, that would awesome too. But that is more fluff. It's less pressing.

[Borror0]

bab 0 character takes 6 secodn for his 1 attack
bab 1 character takes 6 seconds for his 2 attacks
bab 5 character takes 6 seconds for his 3 attacks
bab 10 character takes 6 seconds for his 4 attacks
bab 15 character takes 6 seconds for his 5 attacks

The problem is that 1 attack every 6 seconds is boooooriiiiiiiiing! Heck, 5 attacks within 6 second is still extremely slow.

[Desteria]

The problem is that 1 attack every 6 seconds is boooooriiiiiiiiing! Heck, 5 attacks within 6 second is still extremely slow.

as i said the actuly time was pulle dout of my BUT (a censor prof word for what I sit on) pic a tiem that WORKS for ddo and use it insted of the 6sec i justed used a standard PnP D&D round... though I forgot that tecnicaly the Bab 0 should actuly be faster since it would only be a standard action not a full attack action but pick a tiem that works make it 2 seocnds for all the attacks for all i care.....

I know my brother was sadded when he was playign WAY WAY WAY back when his palyl leveled up to a get an extra attack and liek me back then, aahh the days of being a newbie, commign from PnP wwere expecting our extra atack to happen in the same amont of tiem thus increasign out DPS as we increased our BaB, what more BaB does in PnP, insted he just had a newer lookign swign that really didnt do any thign his old swign didn;t do in the same time so nothign died faster he juts looke d alittle cooler doign it. [i realize that a littel over simplified but the core point remians the same].

[Gennerik]

I am of a like mind about the BAB animations. It really makes very little sense for an "improvement" to actually hurt your character. So, along the same vein as Desteria's post, I was wondering if they could slightly adjust it to be more like the following:

First, combat rounds have been shortened to about 2 seconds, which is roughly the time it takes to complete the current high-level swing animation sequence (It might be 3 seconds, I'm not sure). So, each round should be approximately that long as far as resetting.

Now, in DnD, those attacks represent solid chances to connect, not the speed you swing your weapon, so you could do it at least two ways from this:

Method 1 - Additional chances for the hit to connect
Using method 1, the additional swing animations would only have a chance to actually hit until you finally do (at which point they'd be automatic misses until the next round). That means that if you hit on the first and second swings (essentially two solid hits), you'd essentially be missing for the next 2.3 seconds. However, if you missed one of those first hits missed, you'd have an additional 2.3 seconds of swinging to get both of those attacks to hit (so you'd swing with a chance to hit until you got your two hits in or a new round period started). As you get more attacks, your chance of getting fewer hits (but more chances to get them in) would be replaced with getting more hits (but less time to get all of them to hit) until eventually you're simply swinging with no chance to "redo" any attacks (where getting all of your attacks takes the full time of the round).

Method 2 - Decreased attack bonus on swings in the round
The second method would be similar to the first in the sense that you get a certain number of swings in the shorter round, but after your regular swings (the ones that should have a chance of hitting), your next attack has a -10 from your base attack, and any swings after that in the round get -20 to their roll. This gives you a greatly reduced chance to hit on that one swing after your normal swings, and very little chance after that. As you increase in level, those swings get replaced by your normal attack sequence (and the -10 penalty gets moved to the next swing after your new chain), until eventually you're taking the entire swing sequence to perform hits that have a good chance of hitting.

No matter which method, there should be an artificial pause if you break a sequence by moving, simulating the character setting up for the next sequence, of probably about a second, similar to how switching out weapons prevents you from attacking.

[Borror0]

First, combat rounds have been shortened to about 2 seconds, which is roughly the time it takes to complete the current high-level swing animation sequence (It might be 3 seconds, I'm not sure). So, each round should be approximately that long as far as resetting.

At 16 BAB, a round lasts:

• 3.37 seconds for S&B
• 3.57 to 3.95 seconds for THF
• 3.61 seconds for TWF

At 14 BAB, a round lasts:

• 2.58 seconds for S&B
• 2.61 to 2.86 seconds for THF
• 2.72 seconds for TWF

At 10 BAB, a round lasts:

• 2.64 seconds for S&B
• 2.89 to 2.66 seconds for THF
• 2.64 seconds for TWF

At 9 BAB, a round lasts:

• 1.76 seconds for S&B
• 1.88 to 2.09 seconds for THF
• 1.88 seconds for TWF

At 5 BAB, a round lasts:

• 1.88 seconds for S&B
• 1.94 to 2.20 seconds for THF
• 1.98 seconds for TWF

At 4 BAB, a round lasts:

• 1.20 seconds for S&B
• 1.15 to 1.40 seconds for THF
• 1.10 seconds for TWF

At 1 BAB, a round lasts:

• 1.46 seconds for S&B
• 1.33 to 1.60 seconds for THF
• 1.29 seconds for TWF

At 0 BAB, a round lasts:

• 0.77 seconds for S&B
• 0.72 to 1.00 seconds for THF
• 0.75 seconds for TWF

[Kraldor]

How about instead of a crappy 5th animation, they just speed up the first 4 attacks on the continuous scale like previous levels, and increase the to-hit of the first attack to be +10 instead of +0.

[Gadget2775]

How about instead of a crappy 5th animation, they just speed up the first 4 attacks on the continuous scale like previous levels, and increase the to-hit of the first attack to be +10 instead of +0.

The problem with making the first attack that powerful is people won't use later attacks in the sequence. The Devs ran into this issue back in the beginning. Attack sequences were set to have the negative penalties applied for additional swings so no one used them.

[Borror0]

The problem with making the first attack that powerful is people won't use later attacks in the sequence. The Devs ran into this issue back in the beginning. Attack sequences were set to have the negative penalties applied for additional swings so no one used them.

Not only that, but that would also be the last nail in the coffin of making mobs' AC matter.

[Samadhi]

Agreed, higher BAB making you less effective is absolutely pathetic

[BlackSteel]

can I trade my iterative to hit bonus for additional damage ^^

if my barb did 2x the damage on that last swing I may actually stand still instead of dancing around

[Noctus]

The twich-abort the attack chain combat style should not be prevented by redesigning half the BAB system, but with a small break to attacking afther you moved while in a ttack chain.

If you have to wait half a secound (approximately) while your character refocuses on his combat stance, abort-twitching would become a non-issue. And with it all the issues that currently try to prevent this style could be removed, like "higher BAB lowers attack rate" or "raising instead of falling iterative attack boni".

[Borror0]

The twich-abort the attack chain combat style should not be prevented by redesigning half the BAB system, but with a small break to attacking afther you moved while in a ttack chain.

If you have to wait half a secound while your character refocuses on his combat stance, abort-twitching would become a non-issue.

How would attacking while moving and Spring Attack interact with this?

What about moving targets?

[Lorien_the_First_One]

The twich-abort the attack chain combat style should not be prevented by redesigning half the BAB system, but with a small break to attacking afther you moved while in a ttack chain.

If you have to wait half a secound while your character refocuses on his combat stance, abort-twitching would become a non-issue.

A small ("less than 5 ft") step should not abort the chain and a larger move should stop a swing for a brief moment as you suggest.

[BlackSteel]

on mobs that matter, running from the front to back of them, or even 90 degrees around them is more than five feet, and serves to reset the chain; altho 90 degrees doesnt always pull it off. Personally I love defiance for the slow effect more than the DR simply b/c it makes reseting the attack chain VERY VERY EASY; with defiance proc'd all it takes it a tap to the side to get the chain reset. 1 attack 2 attack 3 attack tap running attack, reset

getting THF up to 140 attacks a minute is fun ^^ personally they would have to change more than just the last 2 attacks to get me to stop the animation disruption, as the above method is faster than regular BaB when THF hits 100 (whatever lvl that occurs at, dont recall atm) and a complete animation overhaul is unlikely.

I'm not defending the slower BaB attacks, I just dont see it being reworked, and even so, unless they're actually faster than the first 3 attacks then theres still no reason to finish it. I dont care for the to hit increase, and the PnP decreasing values would really be discouraging to finishing the chain. The only way to encourage the use of these attacks, for those who care, is to make them do more damage than resetting the chain. Two possible solutions to do this: speed it up, or make them do more damage, trading the attack bonus for a damage bonus.

Forcing people to finish the attack chain is the wrong way to go about it unless the attack chain is made wortwhile to finish. Personally I would be too discouraged to play either of my barbs if forced to endure that horribley slow animation all the time.

[Borror0]

Personally I would be too discouraged to play either of my barbs if forced to endure that horribley slow animation all the time.

That is so true.

I enjoy played my bard most because at least I don't feel like my character is fighting in Jello. The S&B animation looks really odd by the way

[PurdueDave]

IMHO, Turbine just needs to bite the bullet and fix the THF animation. It would also give them a chance to fix falchion & greatsword.

[Vorn]

Very interesting meta-game research. You folks have far too much time on your hands.

I concur that the ratio of attacks for the various animations needs some looking into and adjustment. There is, however, a pragmatic part that asks how important that is in the grand scheme of things. I think the only things my fighter stands and delivers on at the moment are portals and harry (who really ought to be smarter than that, but perhaps he's so angry he can't think straight). Everything else seems to be either moving, or swooshing a great big axe and knocking him around so he has to move back to contact, or dead and so he's moving on to the next critter.