Revise Dungeon Alert System

[Josh]

Spawn of Vulkoor tripped dungeon alert due to scorpion spawning during normal play.

East 3 anyone?

[Pfamily]

Did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? NOOOOOOO!

Don't stop him, he's on a roll...

Heh...It's been much too long since I've seen Animal House.

Regarding how to alter DA, killing it would be best.

[Paragon]

If DA is to be revised but not entirely removed, it should be revised to add fun and challenge to the game rather than employing annoying and universally hated tactics to get back at players for zerging. I would suggest the following solution to solve the issue of zerging causing server lag through ai and pathing as well as zerging becoming "too easy":

Replace DA with an aggro count and an aggro cap. Allow only a certain number of monsters to be aggroed on a single player at a time. Anything beyond that that is aggroed will cause the farthest monster away to drop aggro and go inactive again. Keep a count of the number of monsters that have been aggroed. Whenever a monster is killed or evaded by sneaking, decrement the aggro count. However, when it is simply run past or drops aggro due to the aggro cap, do not decrease the aggro count. Then incremental levels could be set up that buff up monsters, traps, and/or the bosses in a dungeonto be more challenging to defeat.

For example, a certain aggro count would be allowed with no penalties. After aggroing a certain number of monsters you get a green skull to warn you that you're nearing the threshold where things will get tougher if you don't go deal with the monsters you've aggroed. Yellow alert could apply small bonuses to each monster/trap/boss per aggro count, while orange and red could apply moderate and large buffs per monster aggroed.

This way only a certain smaller number of mobs will be aggroed on players at once, increasing server performance, while zerging through a quest with total disregard for what you're running past will have some consequences later on.

It also should not be too hard to implement--aggro count could probably even use the current DA system to set up how the count goes up and down, but apply buffs to monsters rather than debuffs to players. Then all that needs to be done is to implement an aggro cap.

[Arlith]

This isn't nam Smokey, this is DDO, there are rules. You mark that DA a Yellow, and you're entering a world of pain

That was kind of what he was getting at...... nvm.

Yes DA can put you in a world of pain. The problem is, it is supposed to put you in a world of pain for gathering up too many enemies at a time. Meaning you are running through the quest instead of doing what they want - step, kill, step, kill, step, kill. Well, we are getting yellow (and orange, and red) for running the quest EXACTLY AS TURBINE INTENDED. Bastion, Offering, PoP, etc. You go into a room, and do exactly what they want you to do, as they want you to do it and BAM, DA pokes its ugly head out.

What is even worse is they implement a "feature" they KNOW is broken and then when it smahses parts of the game all to hell say, "yeah, go find all those quests we messed up with DA and tell us about it". People HAVE been telling them about it. It is just that no one is listening.

As far as it fixing lag? I call shenanigans there. I see NO DIFFERENCE in lag between DA and non-DA DDO. Meaning the same lag is always there in the same places. it doesn't do what they said it would do. If they flipped the switch on DA and I actually saw some decrease in LAG, I wouldn't be so ****ed. But throwing something that irritating out there, with no apparent improvement, and then saying, "yeah its broke in places, tell us about it."

Bah.

[Gol]

Dungeon Alert going off simply because of a mass-spawn isn't the intended functionality of the system, so sorry about that! Whenever this happens please bug report it so we can adjust it.

Intention of DA: Slow down players
Consequence of instant alert: Slow down players
Result: working as intended

I don't see a problem here, let alone something worth bug reporting. You could argue that the consequence is that is slows down non-zergers, but that's just BS because they're going to take the time to kill it all anyway.

This has been a problem with DA since day 1, and it's been around for months now without being addressed. Bug reports have gone ignored (or at least unaddressed/fixed - this is not debatable) so the only conclusion players can make with even the smallest shred of logic is that the system is working as intended.

Turbine wants to make people play by their rules rather than fix their AI code.

[Letrii]

Dungeon Alert going off simply because of a mass-spawn isn't the intended functionality of the system, so sorry about that! Whenever this happens please bug report it so we can adjust it.

How about just removing it entirely, it against the core of what a game is. A way to entertain ourselves and have fun, DA is the anti-thesis of fun and we are here despite DA, not because of it. I can't say how much longer I will stick around with the un-fun mess that DA makes the game into.

[AllanGreenspan]

Regardless of it's intended purpose or whether or not it can be salvaged into something useful; Dungeon Alert is by far the worst part of this game.

[Ishbel]

It's not really a big deal, but I question whether DA was intended to force players to break/kill everything in a dungeon. While running the Catacombs (forget which part), we decided to not bother breaking every sarcophagus and just move through the quest - not zerging, mind you. We just didn't feel like breaking everything and killing what was inside. Ransack and Conquest are optional bonuses, right? With DA in the Catacombs, apparently not. By the time we got down the first hallway we were at red and harried, and not a mob to be seen. Why? Because they were still in the sarcophagi.

Of course, this was easily fixed by going back and breaking, killing everything, and is not that difficult, and we did it. I just have a difficult time believing that DA was intended to do this. And if it was... wow... way to force people to do a dungeon one way and only one way.

Again, we're not zergers, in fact, quite the opposite, more like flowersniffers, we just had decided not to go for ransack/conquest.

[Vengenance]

I love it when you enter a quest and yuo're already at yellow alert, (Threnal E3). Great job on the implementation of DA Turbine, it really helped with the lag, I mean I just recently ran a shroud and the lag was really improved, NOT! One of the laggiest runs I've ever been on, how about instead of implementing crappy fixes to address lag that do nothing to reduce lag but do enrage the player base you actually look to the root cause of the lag problem or do nothing at all.

I would rather have lag and no dungeon alert than lag and dungeon alert.

[RobbinB]

How about just removing it entirely, it against the core of what a game is. A way to entertain ourselves and have fun, DA is the anti-thesis of fun and we are here despite DA, not because of it. I can't say how much longer I will stick around with the un-fun mess that DA makes the game into.

I can tell you exactly how long I will be around. Basically, it comes down to the combat system/engine/interface (or whatever you want to call it). DDO has an interactive system that requires a certain amount of skill that other MMO's simply don't have. As soon as another MMO introduces a similar system without all the bugs, lack of balance, and myriad of other problems present in DDO I'll be out the door.

[Mockduck]

This isn't nam Smokey, this is DDO, there are rules. You mark that DA a Yellow, and you're entering a world of pain

[DDO_User1]

I started playing after dungeon alert was implemented. I've never had a problem with it.

[Tolero]

While we all know you mean well Tarrant, it's very difficult to take what you say at face value when people have been submitting bug reports about things such as Eastern Threnal 3 since day one of DA, and these reports have seemingly been ignored.

Since we made changes to DA I'm moving this into the Lamannia area...

Is this still happening on Lamannia? We made adjustments to help with Threnal and several other quests borking DA due to the monsters that live in the ground treating allied NPCs/mobs as players, and sensing them from across the entire dungeon all at once.

Basically picture your quest as a stage in a play. There are actors waiting off stage to deliver their lines and make their appearance in the scene. Even though you can't see them, they're there. Well the off-stage actors were able to see the audience from behind their curtain (which they're not supposed to do, they're supposed to wait for their time to get on stage), but also thought the orchestra and the ushers etc were part of the audience, and things got ugly.

So basically any time there was a summoned monster, a charmed monster, a fascinated monster, an NPC who was working with you or who wasn't trying to attack you ... basically anything that wasn't out to get you was being seen by the off stage monsters from waaaay far away and dumping into the DA count. That's not supposed to happen, and we made corrections in update 3 for it.

[Kemoc]

My play-style allows me to ignore DA mostly but when it pops up for no reason it is very annoying. It in itself is not a big deal but part of a very disturbing trend in the programming being done in DDO. Some of the more recent changes have been weird. Not Dungeons and Dragons but some other game. It is the style that bothers me. Instead of DA why not have the monsters keep chasing you till you deal with them. Put in a door that doesn't open till the area is clear or a key drops from the last mob. It kind of reminds me of a trend in the fitness industry that was short lived where they put traffic lights in the circuits and everyone had to get up and move when the green light came on. It is like an automated traffic light system not D&D. Same with Heroic Surge, timer goes off and ding, no more CC now, do something else.

[Philam]

Dungeon Alert going off simply because of a mass-spawn isn't the intended functionality of the system, so sorry about that! Whenever this happens please bug report it so we can adjust it.

Its a busted idea! Best solution is to do away with it-PERIOD!!

Example: Col Cham-LFM-In progress-you are in one part someone else joins and enters quest-DING DA!!

Ph

[Tolero]

Is this STILL happening on Lamannia? I'm particularly interested in East 3 behavior, as Coyle was one of those "NPC's the monsters think is a player" so just setting foot in the entrance of the quest automatically caused the waiting monsters to spaz into DA mode.

[Borror0]

Is this STILL happening on Lamannia? I'm particularly interested in East 3 behavior, as Coyle was one of those "NPC's the monsters think is a player" so just setting foot in the entrance of the quest automatically caused the waiting monsters to spaz into DA mode.

*adds to "reasons to hate Coyle list"*

[NXPlasmid]

Is this STILL happening on Lamannia? I'm particularly interested in East 3 behavior, as Coyle was one of those "NPC's the monsters think is a player" so just setting foot in the entrance of the quest automatically caused the waiting monsters to spaz into DA mode.

Tolero, how do you explain the consistent problem with Bastion of Power, without summoned creatures. my last elite run, had at least 4 instances of going from no DA to Red DA in less than 15 seconds... yet another quest that has be a huge DA problem since day one...

[dv8maker123]

Ahh at least Mock got the reference.

Here's another idea...leave DA in and give us a plethora of new dungeons that are so awesome to experience we don't feel the immediate need to zerg.


"Would you say I have a, plethora?" (Ok, so I have nothing but random movie quotes in my head sometimes, can't be helped_

[bobbryan2]

1. Take away the D.A.S. (My favorite solution).

Didn't you hear 404? Dungeon Alert will be the end of DDO.




Oh, I mean, will be here until the end of DDO.

Or something...