Remove/Replace Fortification.

[gavagai]

A simple reduction in mob damage to achieve the same base dps versus a 0% fort character actually reduces spike damage by far too little to not break many mid hit point builds. Let's say a mob now does 70 damage a swing. If their crit is a *4 on a 20 what would this reduce their base damage to? Something like 62 damage base. So a crit would still do 62*4 = 248 damage. That would be 5% of the time to many toons who just have no hope of reaching the epic AC numbers to matter even with a +20 bonus. So that guy crits for 248 then does a regular 62 in fast order = 300 damage. If the toon was full when it happened no big deal right? What if two crits happened in a row for 496 damage? Single mob percentage of occurance is 0.25% in this case. How about if you have three mobs attacking a single toon? That certainly happens. Right now it is 420 damage for six attacks (2 per mob before healer responds). That is pretty dang harsh, but it happens. The odds of a oh **** crit moment now are way upto ~26% or about a quarter of the time. So one quarter of the time in this case it's 558 damage in short order. That would be insta-death for a good amount of toons. The odds of a double crit in this case are not that bad either...

These are good points about where Epic balance should be.

That said, who knows what's out there. I don't know if there are plenty of 70, 20/x4 crit enemies in Epic. If there are, I am doubtful Turbine would have made those damage profiles if they anticipated players wouldn't have 100%.

If Fort were modified and the 70, 20/x4 trash mobs do exist, those damage profiles would have to be brought in line. As you said, it's deeply unfair to spellcasters.

But in a mundane world of 70 20/x2s, though, it's less terrifying. You're looking at a 5% increase in damage per 20 swings. With a 5% reduction, you're looking at crits of 132.

I'd consider shaving -10% to -15% off Epic damage above and beyond whatever the crits require. The numbers really start looking less absurd, and the spikes kinda start looking even fun; those 800 HP players who would whine about Turbine making an "easy-button" will still have their triple-digit crits to pose a challenge.

Keep in mind the whole system should be designed to make some level of effective Fort possible for most players, most of the time. The extremes having full fort or zero fort shouldn't be the mean.

How would that work? Just ask yourself what conceivable anti-seeker bonus would be "good enough" for minimally effective fort for most players that try without excessive twinking. Pre-Epic, I think +20/+25 would be in the zone; in Epic, you might need an item with +35 or +40 -- or with the direction they are taking Epic to-hits, +50 may turn out to be reasonable.

This would not capture everyone under its umbrella. Turbine will have to design content to be survivable for low fort characters. Barbs have such penalties to AC they probably wouldn't even try for Fort; but human barbs may become a little more popular due to the ability to snag a toughness feat. Meanwhile, a rogue should still be able to dump defense and push HPs to beyond the 500s if it wants, but it will be more difficult to get the same predictable survivability that the rogue would have with a more balanced offense and defense. But a rogue won't get hit as often, so its up to the rogue. Choice is good.

The problem is that some toons will permanently by 0% fort toons in top end content. This is fine IF they also have the large hit point pool to ride through these spikes. However, non barbs or other heavy hit point dumpers need not apply. Arcanes, clerics, bards, and any middle hit point melee who is not AC based already will not be able to ride through these damage spikes even with uber healing. It will raise the minimuim hp bar by a large amount for a majority of toons. This of course will obsolete a lot of builds where it is impossible to reach these hp levels.

I actually think this is a good reason to attempt to rework the current Fort system. At present, easy Heavy Fort disproportionately benefits Barbs and DPS melees. Those classes are designed to soak massive damage with HPs and DR, and Heavy Fort relieves them of the largest share of that damage. They are at the most at-risk of crits, because they take the most hits. But they are crit-immune. Imagine any other level 9 item that increases the effective red bar of the 500+hp melee by anywhere from 5%-30%.

As for casters... I won't get into all the opinions I have about the role casters should play in Epic content design. They lack their best defenses, which traditionally has never been Fort but rather their offensive spells. In the absence of removing mob immunities, having access to damage mitigation is crucial for these casters. Rather than through items, though, I'm a fan of accessing Fort through spells like Iron Body (with Still Spell metamagics, of course) and abilities; that way, these "vulnerable" classes will have effective fort without creating easy-fort items for the melees to hoard.

Having written all this, though, I'm pretty sure the %-debuff system Eladrin spoke of is the wave of the future. Which has its own benefits, but mostly for no-defense, high-HP classes that can absorb the damage. I'll just wait til we hear more about it.

[Artos_Fabril]

And that's part of the brilliance of the change. Matuse involuntarily raised that point in an earlier post by saying "With the change, the player takes [slightly] less damage than before (about half of one percent), but that's not how it will feel to them. They'll feel like the game [is much more challenging than it really is]."

Notice that? The players take (barely) less damage, but it feels more difficult! That's exactly the type of things Meier advocates for!

We've already addressed this:

This Post.

This Post

Please weigh in on that, I'm interested in your take on the discussion, but that can't happen if you ignore it.

The goal, here, is not to kill players by allowing monsters to unload a streak of high damage hits on them. The goal is expose them to hits damaging enough to temporarily modify their behavior but not significantly raise the difficulty level of the quest or encounter.

Perhaps you're thinking that critical hits would still remain high enough to kill players relatively easily like now. If so, you're mistaken. Like as been said previously, an important step of the change would be to revisit monster DPS in order to avoid excessive deadliness and the randomness in check.

Again: All it takes to one-shot a 350HP character is a mob with a troll-type triple attack with a 20/x3 crit profile and 40 base damage, and that assumes the character who eats that attack was topped off. Since this is just a scaled up version of a monster that already exists at pre-fort levels, how unlikely do you think this scenario is?

Let's assume, for a second, that Turbine makes both this change (and add up to +20 anti-seeker bonuses) and give Epic monsters quasi-iterative bonuses of (1d5-3)*5. Then, the range of meaningful Armor Class would more than triple, going from nineteen to fifty nine. That would mean that all AC values from 90 to 31 would be meaningful, for example. That would require two changes - not just one. Neither are enough, on their own, but done together they are.

If the monster has a high critical multiplier (4 or higher), then the monster should have a rather low base damage in order to avoid excessive randomness. To compensate, they should be given higher to-hit so that their overall DPS is not too diminishes but it's imperative that their base damage stays low enough.

So high crit multiplier monsters with high base to-hit and low base damage? In the anti-seeker system you advocate, every +to-hit you give the monster increases the chance of a crit.

It might be also a good idea to avoid high concentration of those in one place, again to avoid excessive deadliness. Meanwhile, if the critical multiplier is low (ie x2), it allows for a much higher base damage (especially if the threat range is also low) because the spikes of damage are not as deadly.

As I'm sure you realize, any time you increase burst damage you emphasize the value of HP. I don't know if that's a bad thing for the game, but it's something that's only been brought up a couple times in the discussion, we should keep that in mind, especially when

you're looking at a difference of 240HP between a max HP WF barb and a max HP WF sorc/wiz (20(14-4)+40) anything that constitutes an "Oh sh##!" moment for the barb is going to be an "eff this!" moment for the sorc/wiz. It only gets worse if you have to account for, say a drow sorc/wiz, who's down another 80HP even if (s)he's also maxed out for HP. Your lowest AC non-barb classes are also your squishiest.

Gavagai, at least addresses this issue:

As for casters... I won't get into all the opinions I have about the role casters should play in Epic content design. They lack their best defenses, which traditionally has never been Fort but rather their offensive spells. In the absence of removing mob immunities, having access to damage mitigation is crucial for these casters. Rather than through items, though, I'm a fan of accessing Fort through spells like Iron Body (with Still Spell metamagics, of course) and abilities; that way, these "vulnerable" classes will have effective fort without creating easy-fort items for the melees to hoard.

The decision of which critical multiplier and base damage to assign to each monster has to be conscious, just like any other monster stats. It should not be surprising or seen as a flaw in the system that tossing numbers randomly without knowing their impact will be a bad idea.

Besides, the odds are that this is mostly a design job only and does not require much programmers' time, as most of the change consists of calculating new values and playtesting them, which means it wouldn't take much away from most things you might want to prefer over this.

And most of the design job wouldn't that hard to do either. Take a monster with too deadly critical hits, calculate his critical power ( (19 + threat_range * (critical_multiplier -1)) / 20*100%) and reduce the monster's base damage by whatever percentage exceeds 95%. (For example, a monster with 19-20/x2 criticals should see a reduction of 10% base damage ((19 + 2 * (2 -1)) / 20*100%). Then you playtest the monster and see if it plays well. Tweak if necessary.

After a few monsters, you'll be able to approximate if a good formula to cover all post-level 12 monsters without needing to playtest them all.

I don't think I'm understanding you. Every monster needs to be individually evaluated and have its base damage, threat range, to-hit, and crit multiplier set at a level which presents a risk to both 600HP builds and 300HP builds, while not being "overly lethal" (which is, in itself, a term open to debate). Yet this will take more design time than coding time, and not impinge excessively on the creation of new content? Maybe it's because I believe that the limiting factor on new content is the time it takes to design, playtest, tune, and balance, rather than the (not insignificant) time it takes to code the original design, and change the code based on balance decisions made as a result of playtesting.

And while we're reworking this whole system to eliminate fort, let's eliminate deathblock too, since it serves essentially the same purpose. In its place we can add a second save stat, or just tool up spell resistance, or make it possible to succeed a save on a 1, that would give characters another avenue to progress and increase the value of another defensive stat that's currently dumped.

[Tarnoc]

so tell me borror how much new content have you played and have ground so much your tired of playing??..........much like the players whode rather see new content then something that you deem as too easy, broken, and such..taking all of turbines time to redo everything fundemental in the game for the last 4 years

please play the game or stop posting on these forums about things that wont affect you and wat you consider FUN(you dont consider playing the game FUN or you would be playing it)

[smatt]

OK, so reading through tthe longwinded posts about how this change would make a wider range of AC's effective, which I disagree with totally... As soon as you make a 50 AC viable end game, an 70 is almost untouchable I can understand that something needs to be done around the AC issue, but I don't think this is it. There's imply to much diversity within the build possibilities int his game to make all the various AC's matter.... As long as you allow AC's to range to high 80's and 90's, than 50's , 60's 70's simply aren't going to matter. Unelss you're going to allow godlike untouchables running around.

This is more aobu the over powering of equipment... Not about to fort or not to fort... IE: Icy Rainments.....

And then moving into what exactly makes a game fun and desirable and what doesn't, what makes a came a challenge and what doesn't.. I still come down onthe side of the fact that one of the reasons the OLD DDO fell flat, was it's complication, the difficulty in attaining the proper equipment and gear to be viable, torealyl have fun throughout the content. This change doesn't address that at all. The move to DDO-EU certainly decreased the difficulty or the possible difficulty of the game, and lends itself to why more people are staying on after trying it as opposse dot the tepid numbers of yesteryear. Why would anybody want to go backwards? And make it HARDER, more complicated..... Yes, there are plenty of thigns aobut DDO-EU I dislike, I liked it being hard, I liked it being time consuming, and unWOW -like... But that' game wasn't successful... So....

I roundly disagree with the idea that changes to fortification, all those discussed in this thread, including Eladrin's would have a postive affect on DDO as a whole, including playability, and player retention, it would have the opposite affect, and would drive more people away than it adds. Making the time spent on development a complete waste of resources.....

How about if the people that are so for something like this get on the live servers and start asking REAL players what they think?

[Vhlad]

Borror0, you shouldn't take parts of what people say and reword the rest to suit your needs. There is a substantial difference between: "They'll feel like the game (and not at all by extension, Turbine) is out to get them." Vs. "They'll feel like the game [is much more challenging than it really is]."

Being critically hit end-game for 100-400 damage when stormreach-bought healing only hits you for 24 is psychologically not fun. It makes players think the game is cheating, like the devs are trying to get them to spend more money on DDOstore healing. If being critically hit happens a bunch of times in a row, resulting in death (or multiple deaths & stacking death penalty), the response will be anger, frustration, and that the game is not being fair. The suggestion you endorse is more likely to drive players away from the game than envoke feelings of challenge resulting in behavior modification.

You can't expect everyone to build and play characters the way you want. AC is currently an optional build choice, requiring targeted character design and massive investment in itemization. Replacing fortification with an anti-seeker bonus will make AC much less optional and more required for all characters, reducing our build choices and greatly limiting our gear choices. You believe this is good. I do not.

It's a matter of fun and perception. To build for AC is very restrictive. To be critically hit because fortification is changed and your build cannot reach a high AC feels like unfair punishment. To be 1-shot because your build cannot survive a crit also feels like unfair punishment. To be randomly critically hit a bunch of times in a row (irrespective of character build) and killed near instantly when you are near victory feels like the game (or the dev) is out to get you.

PS. Are you aware how many new players have under 300hp at level 20? Turbine's own in-game class guides have melee characters with 8 base con and 0 toughness feats (along with no AC). These new players may complain about heavy fort being a requirement now, but the **** will really hit the fan when they start being declined for not having all the named/raid/crafted AC gear & hp.

[Borror0]

Spike damage is what kills characters. Any moderately competent healer, or any character who brings a stack of the leave appropriate self healing (potions, wands, scrolls) can handle steady incoming damage in most situations.

You have to realize that the lack of spike damage makes combat more binary and predictable: either your group has enough survivability to last the whole fight or it doesn't. It's not test of skills, really. It's more a test of character stats. Because of that, you're presented with situations where "[a]ny moderately competent healer, or any character who brings a stack of the [level] appropriate self healing (potions, wands, scrolls) can handle steady incoming damage in most situations."

In other words, the monsters don't require as high DPS to present you with the illusion of a challenge.

Any increase to mob spike damage that is dangerous to fighters or barbs is going to be capable of one-shotting (or one-rounding, for multi-attack mobs) less resilient classes. If that's the goal (and A_D and Borror0, at least, have declared that it is) then why beat around the bush talking about how average damage will be lower and AC will be important to all characters?

Neither I nor Angelus_dead have said that the goal of this change would be to allow Less resilient classes to be oneshotted. Let's make that clear. In fact, both he and I have repeatedly stated that monsters' DPS would be readjusted to avoid situations where players would die too easily or too quickly.

What we have both openly agreed, though, is that less resilient characters will die more frequently than they would do now, would they act recklessly.

While a few stray blows in a row shouldn't kill a spellcaster, if you bite more than you can chew you will die. Let's just say that it wouldn't be a very good idea to jump in the middle of 6-8 aggroed trolls, would Heavy Fortification be nerfed. And that's a good thing. There should be a penalty for having low HP and low AC. The takeout here, though, is not "OMG, I will die too often!!!1111" but rather to be more careful. If you're not built to handle lots of aggro, try to avoid getting aggro.

And don't say that's too hard. If the average World of Warcraft player can handle it, so can you.

Again: All it takes to one-shot a 350HP character is a mob with a troll-type triple attack with a 20/x3 crit profile and 40 base damage, and that assumes the character who eats that attack was topped off. Since this is just a scaled up version of a monster that already exists at pre-fort levels, how unlikely do you think this scenario is?

Temporary solution: Don't give anything greater than a x2 multiplier to monsters with troll-type attacks.
Longterm solution: Fix the bug, that plagues low levels, where a critical hit on a troll-type attack causes all three hits to be critical hits.

It's already a problem at low level, and should be addressed regardless of whether or not Angelus_dead proposal would be implemented. The way those attack works, currently is against D&D so, not only is it poorly gameplay, but it can easily be categorized as a bug. But, if this bug is not fixed by the time they would nerf Heavy Fortification, then the designers could at least give all monsters with a troll-type attack a x2 multiplier until it's fixed.

As I'm sure you realize, any time you increase burst damage you emphasize the value of HP. I don't know if that's a bad thing for the game, but it's something that's only been brought up a couple times in the discussion, we should keep that in mind, especially when "you're looking at a difference of 240HP between a max HP WF barb and a max HP WF sorc/wiz (20(14-4)+40) anything that constitutes an "Oh sh##!" moment for the barb is going to be an "eff this!" moment for the sorc/wiz."

It'll increase the worth of both Armor Class and HP, yes. I'm aware.

However, the situation to describe in your quote does not really exist. A barbarian should not be exposed to the same level of aggro than a sorcerer or a wizard would. Yes, a sorcerer would not be able to handle the same amount of incoming DPS than a barbarian, but that has always been a feature of the class. This does not represent a change, in any shape or form. If you play your sorcerer like a barbarian, you'll die - both now or after this change.

At the frequency of hits that a sorcerer should be expected to have, though, it shouldn't be an issue.

I don't think I'm understanding you. Every monster needs to be individually evaluated and have its base damage, threat range, to-hit, and crit multiplier set at a level which presents a risk to both 600HP builds and 300HP builds, while not being "overly lethal" (which is, in itself, a term open to debate). Yet this will take more design time than coding time, and not impinge excessively on the creation of new content? Maybe it's because I believe that the limiting factor on new content is the time it takes to design, playtest, tune, and balance, rather than the (not insignificant) time it takes to code the original design, and change the code based on balance decisions made as a result of playtesting.

Balancing the game is the job of system designers (Eladrin, MadFloyd, Piloto, etc.). Building new content is the job of content designers (Keeper, FlimsyFirewood, Knockback, etc.). Coding the stuff that goes in the game is the job of programmers like Codog.

In this case, most of the job would require very little amount of programming other than the change to fortification items themselves (ie changing them from a Percentage to an anti-seeker bonus). The rest of the job - the rebalancing - would be took upon by the system team. The content design team wouldn't have a single thing to do with it.

Since it require very little programming, it wouldn't impact Turbine's ability to make more changes. Most modifications could probably be done in a fairly formulaic manner after a bit of playtesting and thus not take -that much- work from the system design team but, even if it does, it would represent simply an opportunity to either implement a long list of changes designed long ago but cut due to time restraints or to do changes that require a lot of programming but little design work.

[smatt]

Balancing the game is the job of system designers (Eladrin, MadFloyd, Piloto, etc.). Building new content is the job of content designers (Keeper, FlimsyFirewood, Knockback, etc.). Coding the stuff that goes in the game is the job of programmers like Codog.

In this case, most of the job would require very little amount of programming other than the change to fortification items themselves (ie changing them from a Percentage to an anti-seeker bonus). The rest of the job - the rebalancing - would be took upon by the system team. The content design team wouldn't have a single thing to do with it.

Since it require very little programming, it wouldn't impact Turbine's ability to make more changes. Most modifications could probably be done in a fairly formulaic manner after a bit of playtesting and thus not take -that much- work from the system design team but, even if it does, it would represent simply an opportunity to either implement a long list of changes designed long ago but cut due to time restraints or to do changes that require a lot of programming but little design work.

Ummm, they do have a total develpoment budget to think about.... You're leaving out the fact that NEW content requires the work of all o fthe above teams.... Removing any of them from THAT is in the long run making new content less likely... Not that new end game content other than rehashed old quests turned into craptastic epic, or new low level quests given craptastic steroids to make them end game...

And I'm not buying your implications that these proposed changes would be that simple to implement.... That is unless you yourself have inside knowledge of the code, and how in intertwines and interacts, you can't say that Bor.... Every change requires 10 more you should know that by now...

[Emili]

Temporary solution: Don't give anything greater than a x2 multiplier to monsters with troll-type attacks.
Longterm solution: Fix the bug, that plagues low levels, where a critical hit on a troll-type attack causes all three hits to be critical hits.

... btw, I am actually confident I know why they have not addressed or fixed that as of yet (a by-product in the design of the mobs combat system in queue respect along with random number generation they're using). and I speculate currently the trolls raged attack may have x0 multiplier on that attack.

At this point I really do not care I prefer the fort be neglectable but I dislike ideas poised to make AC plus fort coupled so tightly... generally loosely coupled attribrutes become flexible while tightly coupled attributes more strignant on design. More troublesome and more prone to errors. In reflecting so the mob adjustments would need to take place and many current attributes in game scrutinized. The value of Icy and chat rings thus grows and DT armour guards and other attributes become less desirable... build types seek less variety in slotting items along with classing to fit.

The overall scope of creating a meaning for fort is a good one yet I still see areas where relating such to something already survivable as less variable not more.

[Borror0]

To build for AC is very restrictive.

Hello, this is one of the issues this change is meant to help addressing.

To be 1-shot because your build cannot survive a crit also feels like unfair punishment.

It has been stated a ridiculous amount of time in this thread that monster DPS would be reevaluated in order to prevent situation where the character would be unable to avoid death, due to incredibly good rolls by the monsters. To talk about one-shotting, this late in the thread, means that you either have poor reading skills or are are making a strawman. Whichever it is, your argument is invalid.

Not only would there be no one-shot kills but being hit by critical hits would be a common occurrence and therefore not "unfair." You know, like it is at lower levels when no one has 100% fortification. It's not unpleasant there so there is no reason for it to be at end game, for as long as monster DPS is recalibrated.

You're leaving out the fact that NEW content requires the work of all o fthe above teams.... Removing any of them from THAT is in the long run making new content less likely...

I kept the creation of new content in mind. Like I said in the post you quoted, the greatest part of the creation of new content is handled by the content design team. The only two parts where the system design team interact with new quests is by setting the monsters' stats and by designing the rewards (XP, favor and items).

The team in charge of the creation of new content would not be affected, in any way.

Then, as also stated in the post you quoted, the programmers would have very little to do with this change beside changing the way non-racial fortification bonuses work. The rest would be work for the system design team. So, the amount of non-content changes would not be affected either.

Now, for the system design team, would this be a lot of work? Perhaps. However, not all changes require equal work from system design and programming. If the system design team have too much work on their hand, they can send the programmers on a bug fixing spree or ask them to work on stuff that take very little time for designers but takes a lot of programming (reincarnations are an example of this kind of change: relatively easy to design, a nightmare to code).

And I'm not buying your implications that these proposed changes would be that simple to implement....

Changing a bunch of numbers in a spreadsheet is not very hard. That's what changing monsters' DPS is.

[smatt]

I kept the creation of new content in mind. Like I said in the post you quoted, the greatest part of the creation of new content is handled by the content design team. The only two parts where the system design team interact with new quests is by setting the monsters' stats and by designing the rewards (XP, favor and items).

The team in charge of the creation of new content would not be affected, in any way.

Your implication here is that they have a limited budget for each team. What I'm saying is that the overall budget is limited. Also, you're implying that they have an unlimited about of hours in the day. It'sn ot liek there aren't a long list of sytems within the game that arent' currently bugged/broken that need MORE attention sooner, at least from the eyes of the PLAYERBASE.

Then, as also stated in the post you quoted, the programmers would have very little to do with this change beside changing the way non-racial fortification bonuses work. The rest would be work for the system design team. So, the amount of non-content changes would not be affected either.

See above, limited overall budget as oppossed to compartmentalized budget..

Now, for the system design team, would this be a lot of work? Perhaps. However, not all changes require equal work from system design and programming. If the system design team have too much work on their hand, they can send the programmers on a bug fixing spree or ask them to work on stuff that take very little time for designers but takes a lot of programming (reincarnations are an example of this kind of change: relatively easy to design, a nightmare to code).

Changing a bunch of numbers in a spreadsheet is not very hard. That's what changing monsters' DPS is.

Yes, but have you considered that there maybe other thigns to change as well as simply the DPS numbers, when you cahnge the DPS numbers what else do you change around that? What's tied into the DPS numbers of Mobs? Do their wepons use the saem code as the players? How are the numbers for the mobs generated in relation the numbers for the players and how would that all work out. All I'm saying is that I see it being far more than you're implying...


Gamewide, playerbase wide.... It would be roundly hated and despised..... I think it will be far worse than say DA, that's for sure.....

[Borror0]

Your implication here is that they have a limited budget for each team. What I'm saying is that the overall budget is limited.

Unless you think they should fire someone and/or hire new employees, the overall budget is the total of the budget for each team. It's rather costly to train someone, it's best to keep your team the same from update to update and just find them something beneficial to do.

In a game of this size and has flawed as DDO, it's not very hard to find highly beneficial changes just waiting to get done - from bug fixes to new features. In fact, you said so yourself: "It'sn ot liek there aren't a long list of sytems within the game that arent' currently bugged/broken that need MORE attention sooner, at least from the eyes of the PLAYERBASE." As a result, there wouldn't be any significant loss in productivity.

Does it cost something? Yes. It would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. But it's not as big as people make it to be.

Also, you're implying that they have an unlimited about of hours in the day.

I have no idea where you got this impression, but you're wrong.

All I'm saying is that I see it being far more than you're implying...

And you could also be wrong, too. I'm assuming that it's been implemented in the most logical and simplest manner possible. If it's done the way you say, it's needlessly complicated. It makes more sense for monsters' DPS to be calculated by a static bonus to damage, a dice of any sort to add some randomness, a critical multiplier and a threat range. If it's done any other way, it would be more complicated than it has to be for no valid reason.

You can assume that it's being coded in an esoteric manner that make no sense, but it's not a very persuasive argument.

[TheDjinnFor]

If B, then:
Critical hits will happen.
Not dying is from them is desirable to (the vast majority of) players.*
Therefore the only desirable (again, to the vast majority of players) builds will be those that can survive crits.

Watch what happens when I take that and apply it to AC:

"If B, then:
Getting hit will happen.
Not dying from physical damage is desirable to (the vast majority of) players.
Therefore the only desirable (again, to the vast majority of players) builds will be those that are impervious to any physical hit."

The baseless assumption you're continuing to make is that critical hits will be dropping characters like flies (which has been addressed over and over and over and over again to be false) and that complete immunity is the only way players will try protecting themselves from them.

Think for a moment: AC offers a massively higher benefit to players than heavy fort will ever offer, because rather than immunity to critical hit damage it immunizes them from all physical damage. And yet AC is clearly not comparable to HP and DPS builds. Why is that? Perhaps because by doing so, you take up HP and DPS slots, and skimping on either of them makes you vulnerable to big hits from magic and increases overall incoming damage because you can't kill enemies fast enough.

It is clear that AC is not even close to worth it against any toon that can't hit the requirements easily. Relaxing those requirements by 20 and severely crippling the actual value of attaining that relaxed value (immunity to critical hits isn't worth anything in a relative sense to immunity to damage) isn't going to make AC the be-all and end-all of a toon without some sort of actual evidence. I've already demonstrated that meeting these obligations are fairly tough but still entirely possible for anyone who wants to do it besides maybe barbarians.

The key thing here is that when you take a mandatory requirement (heavy fort) and associate it with a waste of time and space (AC) there's a good chance you're taking out two birds with one stone. The onus is on you to prove how AC can go from so useless to practically mandatory when the goal is to reduce dependency on heavy fort and increase dependency on AC, especially considering the proposed changes. Keep this in mind: Heavy fort is mandatory because it is cheap and offers great benefit. AC not because it is unbearably expensive and offers an even better benefit. I'm arguing that Heavy Fort will no longer be mandatory once it becomes harder to attain the required AC. What makes you say it still will be, other than "players will die more", which has, again, been addressed.

[Vhlad]

Hello, this is one of the issues this change is meant to help addressing.

Not at all. Building for AC is very restrictive. My 20 ranger has 2 feats, 26 enhancement points, 6 build points, and 7 item slots contributing toward AC, and with haste + barkskin he can reach 54AC. Turning heavy fortification into an anti-seeker bonus will not change these restrictions, and restrictions similar to these, and much worse in the case of class/race combinations where AC is harder to come by, will become mirrored to every build that wants protection against crits if the suggestion you promote is implemented.

It has been stated a ridiculous amount of time in this thread that monster DPS would be reevaluated in order to prevent situation where the character would be unable to avoid death, due to incredibly good rolls by the monsters. To talk about one-shotting, this late in the thread, means that you either have poor reading skills or are are making a strawman. Whichever it is, your argument is invalid.

It was one example of many. You withheld quoting my other examples, and did not address them in your reply. I will restate them for you, in numbered form.

1. To be critically hit because fortification is changed and your build cannot reach a high AC feels like unfair punishment.
2. To be 1-shot because your build cannot survive a crit feels like unfair punishment.
3. To be randomly critically hit a bunch of times in a row (irrespective of character build) and killed near instantly when you are near victory feels like the game (or the dev) is out to get you.
4. To be critically hit end-game for 100-400 damage when stormreach-bought healing only hits you for 24 is psychologically not fun. (It makes players think the game is cheating, like the devs are trying to get them to spend more money on DDOstore healing)

I have accepted sorcs, rogues, bards, rangers, and wizards into my groups end-game at level 20 with under 200hp total. For example: An elf or drow virtuoso of the sword, using Turbines in-game class plan, a melee class with cleave, great cleave, bastard sword, & power attack that is advertised by Turbine as having good solo ability, will be sitting at 120 base hp at level 20. With 150 gianthold favor, 1750 +2 favor tome in con, a greater false life item, and a con 6 item, this build is at 240hp. But when trying to balance your suggestion, you must consider that many new players do not have the +2 tome, the GFL item, or the +6 con item. And this character has no AC to speak of.

If heavy fort is changed to an anti-seeker bonus, can monster DPS really be reevaluated in order to prevent situations where such a character would be unable to avoid death, due to incredibly good rolls by the monsters? Presently, one single monster with a single double-hit crit will 1-shot said player. And the extreme majority of dungeon encounters in this game have players face much more than a single monster at a time.

I never expected you to be so elitist borror0. You're not being very forgiving to new players with this idea.

You know, like it is at lower levels when no one has 100% fortification. It's not unpleasant there so there is no reason for it to be at end game, for as long as monster DPS is recalibrated.

There are many reasons for 0% fortification to be unpleasant end-game. Looking at just the differences between low-level and end-game, we find:

• Player AC at end-game can be extreme, requiring extreme investment. Player AC at low level is not extreme and does not require extreme investment.
• Monster to-hit end-game is extreme, where 80AC feels like paper in epic desert. Monster to-hit is so low at low level that even a 10AC character is not hit 95% of the time.
• Monster attack rate end-game is much higher. Low level monsters do not attack as fast, are not as cunning, and spend time jumping around (i.e. kobolds)
• 25-100% fort can be achieved at level 1 (25%: WF or no ML 25% item. 50%: WF + no ML 25% fort item, 100%: WF /w feat).
• Monster base damage and critical power is much higher end-game relative to player hp totals.
• The addition of heroic durability makes low level characters less squishy. As characters progress in level, the relative benefit of this feat is reduced.
• Stormreach-bought healing is much less sufficient end-game, to the point where a critical hit against a player end-game can be perceived as cheating, when you can only heal yourself for 24. At level 5 you use the same pots to heal yourself as a level 20, but take much less incoming damage. At low level a critical hit does not take you out of combat because you can drink 2 pots and be back swinging, whereas end-game you would be running/jumping in circles for 1 minute or longer chugging these pots after a single critical hit.

[Borror0]

I never expected you to be so elitist borror0. You're not being very forgiving to new players with this idea.

It is not I that is unforgiving to new players, it's Turbine. I have petitioned for them to create smoother progression in terms of Armor Class, HP and the like for literally years. However, Turbine has not taken a single step in that direction for years. Instead, they went in the opposition direction with Icy Raiment, Heightened Awareness IV on green Steel, Exceptional bonuses, Epic Sword of Shadow and many other similar changes that further increases the gap between haves and have-nots.

Additionally, I have petitioned for the removal of old grinds in order to both keep the total amount of grind in check and to make both the game and the leveling process more friendly to new players. Again, Turbine did not listen at all and kept further increasing the total amount of grind in the game.

If you have a problem with their elitism, take it to them. I'm not to blame. I did my part. It's their game, their (poor) decisions.

Not at all. Building for AC is very restrictive. My 20 ranger has 2 feats, 26 enhancement points, 6 build points, and 7 item slots contributing toward AC, and with haste + barkskin he can reach 54AC.

I misunderstood what you meant. I thought you meant that there were only a few builds that could truly spec for meaningful Armor Class, which is the problem this is trying to address. Yes, it that sense, it would be somewhat restrictive.

It's a different problem, and one that I feel that should be addressed whether or not fortification enchantments get changed to an anti-seeker bonus.

DDO's itemization is very poor. The gap between best in slot and second best in slot is often humongous. For example, if one has neither a Chattering Ring nor has a +3 Dodge enchantment on his DT armor, he is short of +3 AC that he cannot obtain any other way. If one is short on Icy Raiment, it's a loss of +4 AC if he's a robe wearer. For many items, there is simply no alternative (nor is it possible for there to be an alternative in the case of Dodge bonuses). Dodge bonuses on items should be replaced by new bonus types (in such a way that no one's AC is nerfed) and new middle of the road items should be added. Items with weaker AC bonuses should be added, for those who don't want to spec for the highest AC total but still want to gain some AC.

All of that would be highly beneficial to DDO and should be, preferably, be done before any change to Fortification is done. But that does not mean the change is bad. Yes, it's not perfect - but what change is? Most of the faults you find are faults that exist in DDO, with or without this change.

Let's put it this way: I think several other beneficial AC-related changes should be done before this one, but I think this one is highly beneficial.

It was one example of many. You withheld quoting my other examples, and did not address them in your reply.

I addressed most of them, I simply didn't quote them. Most of them are guilty of the same problem: they are attacking a straw man.

Take the #4, as an example. You put the range of critical hit damage as "100-400", as if anyone in their right mind would think that 400 damage critical hits made any sense. You'd be insane to think it is, so it's dishonest of you to present it as if that would be something that I endorse. In the case of #2 and #3, you're stating that being "1-shot" or "killed near instantly" would not be fun even though I have repeatedly stated that critical hit damage would be reduced enough to avoid such situations.

Of them all, only #1 one makes a valid point by stating that "To be critically hit because fortification is changed and your build cannot reach a high AC [might feel] like unfair punishment." However, that argument loses a lot of strength when you point out that nothing is unfair in taking more damage because your Armor class is lower.

• Player AC at end-game can be extreme, requiring extreme investment. Player AC at low level is not extreme and does not require extreme investment.
• Monster to-hit end-game is extreme, where 80AC feels like paper in epic desert. Monster to-hit is so low at low level that even a 10AC character is not hit 95% of the time.

Again, this change is meant to help this problem. It's not enough on its own, and will require some help, but no change is enough on its own.

Stormreach-bought healing is much less sufficient end-game, to the point where a critical hit against a player end-game can be perceived as cheating, when you can only heal yourself for 24. At level 5 you use the same pots to heal yourself as a level 20, but take much less incoming damage. At low level a critical hit does not take you out of combat because you can drink 2 pots and be back swinging, whereas end-game you would be running/jumping in circles for 1 minute or longer chugging these pots after a single critical hit.

You won't see me disagreeing. They should make some new options for higher levels. Maximize CSW potions or something. I don't think it has the impact you say it has, in regards to critical hits, but I do agree that better self-healing consumables would improve high levels.

[Artos_Fabril]

Neither I nor Angelus_dead have said that the goal of this change would be to allow Less resilient classes to be oneshotted. Let's make that clear. In fact, both he and I have repeatedly stated that monsters' DPS would be readjusted to avoid situations where players would die too easily or too quickly.

For spellcasters to be less able to reliably survive monster attacks is an intentional benefit of the suggestion.

Again, the proposal entails that players will be hit by critical hits. Otherwise it'd be a waste of time.

Coupled with this: You're looking at a difference of 240HP between a max HP WF barb and a max HP WF sorc/wiz (20(14-4)+40) anything that constitutes an "Oh sh##!" moment for the barb is going to be an "eff this!" moment for the sorc/wiz. It only gets worse if you have to account for, say a drow sorc/wiz, who's down another 80HP even if (s)he's also maxed out for HP. Your lowest AC non-barb classes are also your squishiest.

Invalidates this:

While a few stray blows in a row shouldn't kill a spellcaster, if you bite more than you can chew you will die. Let's just say that it wouldn't be a very good idea to jump in the middle of 6-8 aggroed trolls, would Heavy Fortification be nerfed. And that's a good thing. There should be a penalty for having low HP and low AC. The takeout here, though, is not "OMG, I will die too often!!!1111" but rather to be more careful. If you're not built to handle lots of aggro, try to avoid getting aggro.

Because you don't need to play recklessly in order to get a single attack from a single monster that poses a danger to a 600+ HP barbarian.

And don't say that's too hard. If the average World of Warcraft player can handle it, so can you.

I don't disagree, however the average WoW player also has a double set of tools (in game agro dumps and agro reduction abilities, and UI mods that monitor agro generation) in order to help. Sure you can tell yourself that DDO has uniformly better players, I play DDO, so I'd like to think you're right, but we also lack any of those tools with the exception of a bare few agro reduction abilities (limited to sorcs, wizards, and rogues) and a couple of equipment effects. And even in WoW, all classes have to be able to take a hit, it was a defining feature of a lot of encounters that you needed X HP or you were going to die, no ifs ands or buts, the change you advocate starts DDO down that same path.

Temporary solution: Don't give anything greater than a x2 multiplier to monsters with troll-type attacks.
Longterm solution: Fix the bug, that plagues low levels, where a critical hit on a troll-type attack causes all three hits to be critical hits.

Why not fix the bug before you impose this new system, instead of imposing a new system and then slapping on stopgap measures to deal with the additional problems you've created?

It's already a problem at low level, and should be addressed regardless of whether or not Angelus_dead proposal would be implemented. The way those attack works, currently is against D&D so, not only is it poorly gameplay, but it can easily be categorized as a bug. But, if this bug is not fixed by the time they would nerf Heavy Fortification, then the designers could at least give all monsters with a troll-type attack a x2 multiplier until it's fixed.

But it hasn't been. In 4 years. Just sayin'.

It'll increase the worth of both Armor Class and HP, yes. I'm aware.

However, the situation to describe in your quote does not really exist. A barbarian should not be exposed to the same level of aggro than a sorcerer or a wizard would. Yes, a sorcerer would not be able to handle the same amount of incoming DPS than a barbarian, but that has always been a feature of the class. This does not represent a change, in any shape or form. If you play your sorcerer like a barbarian, you'll die - both now or after this change.

At the frequency of hits that a sorcerer should be expected to have, though, it shouldn't be an issue.

If the sorc doesn't have AC within range to affect crits with a level appropriate anti-seeker item, 95% of swings will hit, and 5% of swings will crit (with a 20 crit threat). Even if the sorc has a enough anti-seeker to be within 5 points of the top of a d20, the sorc will have a small but meaningful chance to eat a crit on any given swing. Again, if crits are in any way dangerous to 600+ HP barbs, you don't have to take many hits, you just have to take one crit and you're down.

In this case, most of the job would require very little amount of programming other than the change to fortification items themselves (ie changing them from a Percentage to an anti-seeker bonus). The rest of the job - the rebalancing - would be took upon by the system team. The content design team wouldn't have a single thing to do with it.

Are you saying that the changes made in re-balancing wouldn't have to be coded? Or that the content design team wouldn't have any part of a content re-design based on a fundamental system change? And if you change all fort items to an anti-seeker bonus, are you just going to do it in a one-pass find&replace, or are you going to expend design and testing resources to determine if the numbers you pulled out of a hat work, if they have the effect you want, if the change introduces some new bug because some other piece of code was tied to the fortification system for whatever unknown reason, or because of the way the system handles the series of rolls that occur on every attack? We already know that some of this is being handled strangely. The triple-critting trolls are a good example.

Since it require very little programming, it wouldn't impact Turbine's ability to make more changes. Most modifications could probably be done in a fairly formulaic manner after a bit of playtesting and thus not take -that much- work from the system design team but, even if it does, it would represent simply an opportunity to either implement a long list of changes designed long ago but cut due to time restraints or to do changes that require a lot of programming but little design work.

If changes could be done in a formulaic manner then how do we get to here:

The decision of which critical multiplier and base damage to assign to each monster has to be conscious, just like any other monster stats. It should not be surprising or seen as a flaw in the system that tossing numbers randomly without knowing their impact will be a bad idea.

[Borror0]

Because you don't need to play recklessly in order to get a single attack from a single monster that poses a danger to a 600+ HP barbarian.

Again, a sorcerer and a barbarian don't have even remotely comparable aggro levels. The barbarian will get aggro far more often and for far more longer, unless the sorcerer is played poorly. Additionally, the barbarian will be in close-range whereas the sorcerer will often be at a distance or at the very least be kiting.

The barbarian will be getting several hits back to back, while the sorcerer will only get a few.

Why not fix the bug[?]

I proposed just that in that post, actually, but I also provided an alternative because "it hasn't been [fixed]. In 4 years. Just sayin'."

Are you saying that the changes made in re-balancing wouldn't have to be coded? Or that the content design team wouldn't have any part of a content re-design based on a fundamental system change?

I'm saying that adjusting numerical values is not the job of the programmer, in all likelihood, and that the content design team builds dungeons and landscape but does not take part in deciding what stats to give each monster - that's the job of the system team.

As for testing, there would be testing to see if all fortification enchantments work and probably a few qualitative pass in unpopular quests that you wouldn't expect Mournlanders to play in just to be sure. Nothing extensive or crazy.

If changes could be done in a formulaic manner then how do we get to here:

A formula is very orderly; it's not "tossing numbers randomly without knowing their impact".

[Artos_Fabril]

Let's put it this way: I think several other beneficial AC-related changes should be done before this one, but I think this one is highly beneficial.

Maybe it would be, if those changes were made first. Why are we talking about this one now instead of those other changes?

If you had stated, in your first post, that you thought the AC system was broken, and that we should be discussing ways to change it before we discuss whether fortification is good or bad for the game, I for one would have whole-heartedly agreed with you. But both of these things are artifacts of the origin of the game in PnP D&D3.5 and the D20 ruleset.

If we're going to change them all, why not just make a new game with new code from scratch? It will probably be easier, and won't be saddled with the expectations that D&D or DDO bring to the table.

Gavagai mentioned something is a post that I ran across again while I was looking for a earlier statement of yours:

Most people have low ACs because they dump it. My first Sorc -- before I learned the game, really -- was sitting at a 32 AC at level 8 in +5 padded armor. I actually spent the AP on the silly ASF enhancements. Even without an anti-seeker bonus I would rarely get crit in level-appropriate content.

The level 8-10 range is about the last time everyone can attain an AC that matters.* Coincidentally, it's also the point at which heavy fort becomes available.

If you want to have a meaningful AC beyond that point, you have to give up offensive capability, saves, or HP. Since you're going to die if you have agro and you aren't a high AC high HP tank, you're probably better off sacrificing offense, since saves and HP are both things you use to protect yourself from dying when you don't have agro. But wait, then we have to re-tune not just monster damage, but also monster HP, saves, and AC.

*This character was sitting close to the max attainable AC with a 32 -- 10 base +6 from armor +16 from protection (3 at level 8 RR), feats (1-2), dex (up to +8, based on MDB, probably closer to 6, with an 18 starting +enhancement bonus), shield spell (4), he could have squeaked out a little more with a tome a barkskin potion, and a twilight mithril chain shirt, and one more for max dex on an elf/drow/halfling. Then a big gap before he can get greensteel, Icy, and chattering ring.

edit: rather than make a new post to address this,

The barbarian will be getting several hits back to back, while the sorcerer will only get a few.

If any hit or linked series of hits is dangerous to a 600 hit point character, it will be lethal to a 300 hit point character. But just for the sake of arguement, replace Sorc with Rogue, and remember that unlike in WoW the rogue has no way of telling where on the agro table he is (unless it's #1) until the monster rounds on him.

[Angelus_dead]

rather than make a new post to address this,If any hit or linked series of hits is dangerous to a 600 hit point character, it will be lethal to a 300 hit point character.

Yes, that's the point.

Eladrin is creating a system whereby characters will lose crit-immunity regardless of their AC, which means it will be brutally dangerous to characters on the lower end of the hitpoint scale. That's why a suggestion was offered so that critical hits can be returned to the game, but allowing AC characters to preemptively avoid it.

[Vhlad]

Yes, that's the point.

Eladrin is creating a system whereby characters will lose crit-immunity regardless of their AC, which means it will be brutally dangerous to characters on the lower end of the hitpoint scale. That's why a suggestion was offered so that critical hits can be returned to the game, but allowing AC characters to preemptively avoid it.

I'll take a chance for a 10% (or X%) reduction in fortification from a sunder type ability, along with an icon in the top right telling me I have it, over a 100% reduction in fortification all the time on 7/9 of my characters, thanks. I think both are bad ideas, but one is more bad (double bad?).

[Artos_Fabril]

Eladrin is creating a system whereby characters will lose crit-immunity regardless of their AC, which means it will be brutally dangerous to characters on the lower end of the hitpoint scale. That's why a suggestion was offered so that critical hits can be returned to the game, but allowing AC characters to preemptively avoid it.

Since AC characters aren't, as a rule, on the lower end of the HP scale, and what you're talking about is not any less dangerous to low HP low AC characters, the only people who are capable of preemptively avoiding instant death aren't at risk in the first place. You're advocating a change that will further restrict the number of viable builds, because fewer builds will be able to survive a single attack.

Since your intent is to one-shot/one-round these characters, your argument is pretty consistent, but no one else really agrees with you, even Borror0. If you can live with that, so can I, and we can agree to disagree.

One of the benefits of the system Eladrin hints at is that in order to be susceptible to crits, you have to take a special attack, and then at least one additional attack which can crit. More if you can push fort high enough that it won't be worn off in a single attack. That means that most characters are not constantly at risk of dying instantly from an unlucky crit, but that those who absorb the bulk of attacks from a monster with a fort-reduction ability are going to fall into a critable fort range at some point, dependent on how much "overfort" they have and how much a single sunder (or other fort reducing special) attack reduces it. And it's more fair, because every class can attain a significant level of fortification, while not every class can attain a significant AC.