Crowd Control/Heroic Surge Feedback

[Xyfiel]

I'm not sure why you think it's preferable to the current version of Heroic Surge. While on the plus side it does require more active thinking to use, it's a much greater "easy button" than Heroic Surge would represent (and you took issue with that).

In terms of usability, it fails in that the casual players has to know of its existence and use it appropriately. In that sense, it's an added level of complexity at the early levels of the game when the contrary should be happening (ie the learning curve would be improved by being less abrupt). It also fails if the situation occur more often than once per 5 minutes, though that is probably a minor point compared to the previous two.

So change it to auto apply at certain hp threshold. In fact, IWD II had the following feat:

HEROIC INSPIRATION:
When things look grim, your character rises to the occasion.
Prerequisite: At least one level of barbarian, bard or paladin
Benefit: When the character drops below 50% hit points, he or she gains a +1 bonus to hit, damage, and saving throws.

So apply heroic surge when reaching below (20hps+5*level) and for 15 seconds after gaining hps over the threshold. At lower levels, you will be constantly protected from CC, resulting in new players very seldomly being effected, and once they get hit once or twice, becoming immune. At level 20, it will kick in once under 120 hps, enough to normally take care of the cause. The hps threshold is low enough to be effective yet not be exploitive that someone would stay at 100hps to constantly be immune to CC.

Tweak numbers as needed of course, just my rough draft.

[Aashrym]

The after immunity is pretty necessary; its still way cheaper to re-fts a mob than it is to kill it and the 10 more like it that will respawn if it dies for the rest of the fight. CC is a means of preventing damage and making the mobs easier to kill; its not supposed to be a means of pretending the monster wasn't even placed into the quest in the first place.

Increasing the cool-down timer might be an option. Cool-down is a method of controlling spamming that's already in the game. I might need to give that some thought. It might not be a better idea, just a thought.

Front load the durations for some of the spells with lower per-level duration increase as we are seeing, set the heroic surge effect with some randomness so they don't all break at once.

I think pretending a monster wasn't placed in the instance in the first place is a viable strategy. It's not that different from insta-kill except for some instances where it prevents respawning and spoils the intent of the respawn.

Cast a spell mob dies vs cast a spell mob is ineffective is not that great a distinction IMO.

[Junts]

No matter how we phrase it or look at it we're not the devs and don't have factual knowledge of what they wanted to accomplish outside of making it easier on locked down players.

Lower duration on CC doesn't lead to asking myself what to cast more frequently. I'm limited in spell selection and SP. And I already do plan which spells to use. Sound Burst and Hold Monster are obviously much shorter in duration than Suggestion or Hypnotism.

Read the spell changes again. Those changes were made to diminish effects against players in most cases, not mobs. IE, not nerfed by changing the spell effects, only by the heroic surge effect given to mobs.

That would still imply to me that the intent was not to impact CC players as much as heroic surge does. It simply might not be the intended goal to impact players' abilities to lock down mobs regardless of our discussion on why it would or would not be a good idea.

There is too much inference and biased opinions without a dev simply telling us there were other goals involved in the heroic surge mechanic and why it was given to mobs. When I see the changes to spells it does appear to me that heroic surge may be counter productive to the goals. They look contradictory.

Look at more of Junts posts. When I read those I see facts and examples that make sense. Saying, 'most players like such and such,' or, 'most designer know such and such' is not a strong debating tool.

Junts is not telling us what the devs or players want. Junts is telling us why cutting back on CC in specific cases makes sense without comments that are circular and contradictory at times.

At this point heroic surge is not going live. I'm glad the devs are making that decision for now. I can agree in some cases our ability to CC can have a strong effect on the difficulty of the instance. Particularly anything spammed with Enervation or Energy Drain to lock in a bad saving throw.

I don't agree this is always the case and should affect my style of game play all the time. The bottom line is still at a place where adding heroic surge or not will have any effect on your game play style. You can always build a party without it and play like you want. Adding heroic surge does affect my game play style.

If it is added at some point there should be changes made.

I hope Junts does not mind being singled out. I did appreciate the way his (her?) points were made. I can edit them out of this post on request.

His.

Its worth noting that I by and large agree with Borr but since he's chosen to make those points I don't feel the need to repeat them.

I am a pretty hardcore DDO power gamer and min-maxer. I run with a group of people who try to do first time elites and epics and that sort of thing and we tend to do pretty well at that. As that kind of player, I am keenly aware of and spend a lot of time looking for the most effective and often encounter-breaking ways to nullify parts of a difficult instance. I wasn't the first person in my group to suggest flesh to stoning the Tower Orthons when we did the first elite american completion of the raid, but I certainly approved and used the tactic in every run of the raid I did until they made the mobs auto-die, because it trivialized one of the most significant scaling challenges of the final encounter. On normal, there is little need to control those mobs in that fashion. On elite, they are a serious danger and problem. Except for us, where they were pretty statues.

As a forum poster, I would prefer to give the DDO designers feedback that lead to them nerfing some of the most overpowered of my techniques, because its almost always the same 3-4 that work in every situation, over and over, and I'm getting very bored of using the same few tactics to conquer any significant challenge. I would be a much happier player with some of these problematic abilities more controlled, and consequently with the game balanced not just for them but to allow all the spells which look cool and which I roll my eyes at and say 'yeah, but it doesn't work in any situation where I'd actually care to cast it' to become functional and useful spells. This produces a more engaging form of play that is a more direct and interactive test of skill. At the present, high-end play is primarily a test of knowledge, in terms of knowing which of the 3-4 most devastating tactics will work in each situation, and then repeating that tactic ad nauseum until you've completed the challenge with a minimum of expense, frustration and difficulty.

If flesh to stone, suggestion, fascinate, wall of fire, and other such abilities are not so powerful, the dev team is free to buff up abilities like dominate monster, cone of cold, chain lightning, meteor swarm, and otto's sphere of dancing to the point where they are actually effective tactics. This opens the door to many, many more builds being useful in cutting edge play instead of serving primarily as flavor gimmicks that are primarily devastating in content that's quite a bit older.

In this line I agree pretty wholeheartedly with Borr; the game is really boring when only these few tactics work, and they are powerful and effective in part because they feature limited interactivity. For example, the change to the tower orthons did not make them cure from flesh to stone, but rather die so more could spawn. And this is actually better, becuase if they had lived they would continue to retain the considerable amount of negative levels I pumped int othem to ensure that I would not fail to re-cast (and so that they'd have a considerable challenge hitting, well, anymore with even 40 armor class). By making the mobs die, they doubled-tripled the amount of sp I need to use to control those monsters (depending on difficulty) and turned flesh to stone into a slightly superior tactic to outright killing (since they do persist for 30-45 seconds before keeling over) at similar mana cost to edrain+kill.

I'd agree that the clear purpose of this change was to help players out vs spammable cc (like say, the guy in Tharashk Arena who spams irresistable dance, making the quest nearly unsoloable for a melee iwthout gigantic armor class). However, simply working it onto mobs at all suggests to me that they know that in doing so they can somewhat control the most devastating of player long-duration abilities, which have a tendancy to break things and require their individual intervention.

To point at tower again, imagine if we had heroic surge, and instead of dying and needing more sp, those mobs were just immune to re-control for 30 seconds .. the entire 'one caster can control a dozen mobs that are supposed to menace the healers in a fight where someone dying heals the boss for 15% of his life' dynamic is destroyed and those mobs become a true threat again that must actually be disposed of or tanked, which I'm sure is the quest design. My life in tower is dramatically easier due to the mobs falling over, since it allows an arcane to continue to control them with no real assistance whatsoever, which means that something that was probably intended to consume the primary attention of 3-5 raiders is only consuming the attention of one. And often, only half the attention of that one. Before, it was the attention of that one for 30 seconds, and then no one. That leads to more healing on the tank, more dps available to beat on Horoth, and generally a much, much faster fight than I'm sure the quest designer had intended when they designed the fight.

And as a player, I will always seek ways to do that to their encounters, because thats the key to doing them before other people. But I expect them to fix my tactics as I find the really absurd of them, and to generally demand that I play very, very well and behave in a way that is very, very ingenious to continue to play at that level. That's not the case here, where the very same few tactics have been endgame dominant on DDO since, more or less, the release of the Shroud.

[Junts]

Increasing the cool-down timer might be an option. Cool-down is a method of controlling spamming that's already in the game. I might need to give that some thought. It might not be a better idea, just a thought.

Front load the durations for some of the spells with lower per-level duration increase as we are seeing, set the heroic surge effect with some randomness so they don't all break at once.

I think pretending a monster wasn't placed in the instance in the first place is a viable strategy. It's not that different from insta-kill except for some instances where it prevents respawning and spoils the intent of the respawn.

Cast a spell mob dies vs cast a spell mob is ineffective is not that great a distinction IMO.

The carry-over of debuffs and respawn issue (since pretty much everything at the endgame has respawning mob situations these days) make the distinction pretty large, IMO. If fts worked at all on epic, I would use it constantly in quests like offering of blood, which are primarily difficult because -everything- respawns on a short timer.

Cast a spell and mob is incapacitated opens the door for all sorts of ways to keep that mob less-effective, instead of having to re-apply those effects, since the debuffs are long-lasting and in some cases permanent. This is a considerable control on SP use, and a huge boon to the worser arcane class (wizard) which both has less sp and more flexibility to acquire just the right spells to control a situation in that fashion.

[Aashrym]

The carry-over of debuffs and respawn issue (since pretty much everything at the endgame has respawning mob situations these days) make the distinction pretty large, IMO. If fts worked at all on epic, I would use it constantly in quests like offering of blood, which are primarily difficult because -everything- respawns on a short timer.

Cast a spell and mob is incapacitated opens the door for all sorts of ways to keep that mob less-effective, instead of having to re-apply those effects, since the debuffs are long-lasting and in some cases permanent. This is a considerable control on SP use, and a huge boon to the worser arcane class (wizard) which both has less sp and more flexibility to acquire just the right spells to control a situation in that fashion.

Which is, of course, why I like playing wizzie. More efficient use of SP through better CC by spell selection.

[Junts]

Which is, of course, why I like playing wizzie. More efficient use of SP through better CC by spell selection.

As someone leveling their sorc as a tr wizard my response is 'god, its boring, and since hte same 4 spells are almost always the answer, who needs extra spell selection?'

I think I've swapped spells a grand total of 3 times leveling up to 11. There's just so little need. Then again, at the moment most quests are done in such a fashion that the only spell I ever cast that affects a mob is wall of fire, but -that- is entirely a different issue.

[Xyfiel]

As someone leveling their sorc as a tr wizard my response is 'god, its boring, and since hte same 4 spells are almost always the answer, who needs extra spell selection?'

I think I've swapped spells a grand total of 3 times leveling up to 11. There's just so little need. Then again, at the moment most quests are done in such a fashion that the only spell I ever cast that affects a mob is wall of fire, but -that- is entirely a different issue.

But what is the cause and effect that lead us here?
Use wall of fire, wail, and fts because they are efficient.
They are efficient in different situations because mob immunities or high hps
Mob inflation and immunities because nuking/insta kill was too effective
Nuking/insta kill effective because other spells are weak

So lower mob saves, lower mob hps, lower duration on charms and lasting aoe, and make raid mobs red named as needed. It isn't that I don't understand the big problem, it is how does what they suggested fix this?

If we lower CC duration, and lower saves/hps, won't we all just become instakillers? Why CC when you can just kill with wail or DBF. I don't see this as making CC more useful longterm, I see it becoming a less used option because better options exist.

Suggestion, charm, fascinate I can see, but dominate and enthrall should last longer. But, if you are going to make charms not last as long, you should make the other mob changes (saves/hps) in the same update. Don't just implement a partial fix, fix it all in one go.

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

Are you boys done arguing with [insert picture here] yet?

[Junts]

But what is the cause and effect that lead us here?
Use wall of fire, wail, and fts because they are efficient.
They are efficient in different situations because mob immunities or high hps
Mob inflation and immunities because nuking/insta kill was too effective
Nuking/insta kill effective because other spells are weak

So lower mob saves, lower mob hps, lower duration on charms and lasting aoe, and make raid mobs red named as needed. It isn't that I don't understand the big problem, it is how does what they suggested fix this?

If we lower CC duration, and lower saves/hps, won't we all just become instakillers? Why CC when you can just kill with wail or DBF. I don't see this as making CC more useful longterm, I see it becoming a less used option because better options exist.

Suggestion, charm, fascinate I can see, but dominate and enthrall should last longer. But, if you are going to make charms not last as long, you should make the other mob changes (saves/hps) in the same update. Don't just implement a partial fix, fix it all in one go.

The decision between wail (or single-target instant death) and cc is typically made on other bases, such as:

Which mob save is worse (primarily will vs primarily fort)
More cc effects are aoe, and some are persistant aoe. All the aoe are targettable at range, whereas wail is PBAoE.
Respawning (a common issue now)
Many forms of CC also provide dps and/or mob damage absorption (charmed mobs do damage, and take damage that need not be healed).
Wail takes mobs permanently off dungeon alert; cc either does not, or only temporarily removes them (which may or may not be enough)


The duration of CC has a very minimal impact on that set of circumstances.

There is no need for the response that suggests that shorter CC will be nerfed and unwanted cc: in practice, most cc is unwanted now for entirely different reasons, and when used is -rarely- used for the durations we're talking about here. When it is used for those durations, its usually breaking the quest.

[Favis]

I would much rather see content type fixes for this type of situation. Why not add casters to the mob that have the capabililty of casting stone to flesh or freedom of movement to aid their comrades. Heal shouldn't be the only assist type spell in the mobs casters spell lists.

Good alternative solusion.

[Xyfiel]

Bah whatever, I had a retort but don't really care anymore.

End result, casters burn mana faster, need more mana, buy mana pots. Mark my words, that is the end goal. It is what is driving the game at this point, and in time, you will be a store user or you will be a gimp. How many people did a TR with the epic item?
Welcome to DnD for sale, you can have the best of everything, for a price...
You too can be a uber wizard by buying mana pots in stacks of 100, why cast one CC spell when you can cast 3 to have the same effect! Because we want you to have more brain activity so it is funner, and a smaller wallet...

[Favis]

As for your comment about Flesh to Stone, it's not limited to Flesh to Stone. Fascinate is another CC ability with a very long duration that can manage pretty much the same effect. That is, stopping mob generators while taking no damage.

I can understand that CC is a problem for mob generators based on adding more monster ones the old is killed.
But as I see it the mecanism of the mob generators is the problem not the CC.

[Favis]

The biggest problem is that that HS would basically eliminate an style of play option, one that is inherent to DnD.

Agree.

Also agree with calvinklien post earlier that it would be intresting to now the real issue the devs have.

[Borror0]

/snip

I fail to see in which aspect this would be preferable to Heroic Surge.

[Chaosprism]

Spell durations are badly designed in D&D i'd have to say so when they get ported to DDO unchanged they remain badly designed.


Having a level 1 spell last X time and the same spell cast by a level 5 caster last 5 times longer is the problem.

They made a change to persistant spell effects front loading them to static durations which improved things a little, rather than cloudkills that lasted an hour, but the front loading times are TOO short for the lower level spells, they arent at a USABLE minimum. The extended time is better but they should be USABLE without extend.
Obscuring mist lasts 14 seconds, takes about 3 seconds to cast (which I think is included in the duration) the extended time is 28 seconds. Which is about how long the non-extended time should be. 30 seconds , and 1 minute for the extended sort.
the other way is to have (20 + caster level - seconds) which does ramp the duration based on caster but in a way that doesnt skew it heavily towards higher level casters.


The times for summoning are being normalised soon which is a good thing also.

The difference in a level 1 summon spell and a level 8 summon spell should be in the quality/abilities of the summon, not how long it lasts for. So this is a great change.
Extend should be allowed to affect summon spells though so that you can make it last longer for the extra mana spent.

[Borror0]

Spell durations are badly designed in D&D

C'mon! What's wrong about a 40 minutes Solid Fog? Oh, wait...

[Chaosprism]

Web IS an incredibly powerful spell, almost too much so, even with the disadvantages of not working on oozes, spiders, fire creatures and being burnt up by fire effects of all kinds.
It's a conjuration, so it works against golems that are immune to nearly all other magic. Except specific spells like disintergrate.


The spell has NO effect on friendlies, it should slow down their movement in there at least as they take care not to get stuck in the webs. ( this should also affect monsters casting web's on players, their allies should get slowed ground movement wise trying to move through it)


I'm actually in favor of ALL area of effect spells having some temporary debuff on friendlies that get caught in the effect.

Walking into a friendly wall of fire or bladebarrier might give you temporary -4 dex from the pain even if you take no damage. etc
Anyone fighting in a solid fog or acid fog should get -2 to hit, even if only enemies are slowed.

[redoubt]

I am concerned that this is another sideways nerf to our casting classes.

I agree that something needs to be done to counter air elementals and spam casts of the same spells. I do not think that this full answer.

I like the brief immunity to the same spell. 1-2 seconds to run and hide or drop a quick buff is a decent idea. Not getting the timer reapplied while under the mez seems okay too.

I do not like changing the permanent spells to be timers. The game requires you to visit or bring a healer along to fix certain ailments. (Or at least a clickie or scroll.) I like that. Just like auto healing ability damage and negative levels, I feel this is pushing toward an "easy button".

This also makes many of our casters spells less effective. We've already seen large nerfs to the enchantment school via immunites and now stoneskin is getting hit as well. Sure it is annoying when a low save character is turned to stone and can't seem to make the save. Eventually a 20 will be rolled, you just have to wait... or... have someone through buffs on the person to increase their save or hit them with break enchantment etc.

In short: glad to see you are working to fix the "I've been knocked down and can't get up" problem. I'm concerned about the spell changes.

thanks for your time.

[Aesop]

I am concerned that this is another sideways nerf to our casting classes.

I agree that something needs to be done to counter air elementals and spam casts of the same spells. I do not think that this full answer.

I like the brief immunity to the same spell. 1-2 seconds to run and hide or drop a quick buff is a decent idea. Not getting the timer reapplied while under the mez seems okay too.

I do not like changing the permanent spells to be timers. The game requires you to visit or bring a healer along to fix certain ailments. (Or at least a clickie or scroll.) I like that. Just like auto healing ability damage and negative levels, I feel this is pushing toward an "easy button".

This also makes many of our casters spells less effective. We've already seen large nerfs to the enchantment school via immunites and now stoneskin is getting hit as well. Sure it is annoying when a low save character is turned to stone and can't seem to make the save. Eventually a 20 will be rolled, you just have to wait... or... have someone through buffs on the person to increase their save or hit them with break enchantment etc.

In short: glad to see you are working to fix the "I've been knocked down and can't get up" problem. I'm concerned about the spell changes.

thanks for your time.

yeah I'm pretty much in agreement with this overall.

Aesop

[Chaosprism]

Well turn to stone used to have no repeating saves..

at least you can turn back eventually.


I agree it shouldnt be put on a time limit, the repeating saves is fair enough.

Stoneskin should be permanent duration since it's ablative, you cant extend it's duration thats true because it's supposed to be permanent. It should be permanent like pact. Until it's protection is gone.

Same with the protection from energy spells, permanent duration till absorption has been depleted.