Combat Feedback for Update 5.

[Tharlak]

That's useful feedback as well. We're attacking the lag issues because people often say it's the most important thing for them. If maintaining their DPS is more critical to them than a smoother play experience, that's valuable for us to know, and we'll look at other, less aggressive (or different) options to solve the problems. I'd bet that greensteel weapons would be changing significantly in a future update if we revert these changes.

This statement is a bit odd to me.

If the purpose of this change is to reduce lag, then how does greensteel come into play. Is there a lag difference if you are swinging a Greensteel sword vs a masterwork?

All I am seeing is that this is a DPS adjustment.

You could use the same fix for collision detection that you propose without adjusting the DPS much. Why not start with balancing the off hand procs / double strikes, etc to mirror current DPS. The lag factor should still be addressed, it lag doesn't change then this was not the issue anyway. Why meld the DPS change with the Lag fix?

[grodon9999]

I've known you for a lot of years and I think we both know you'll get over it. Don't be so reactionary, they seem to be honestly trying to feel this out. They may nerf the whole idea or come up with something better.

As a user of special effect weapons in my off hand I don't like the idea of it hitting less, but then again if the only concern is for the high end stuff as people trample over the more balanced content on their lemur run to the grind treadmill from hell, then DPS will be the determining factor in the success of this decision. If there is no other way to succeed than a beat down, anything you do to decrease DPS will be taken as a negative step. Making all classes have a chance to be useful at those levels might be a better approach. Good luck with that.

He's making a great point that was brought up earlier - there's maybe 3 raids where lag is an issue. That's it, drastically changing everything when those three quests are the only issues is ********.

[Jamma]

Proposed Numbers:
A character with no two weapon fighting feats has a base 20% chance to proc off-hand attacks.
The Two Weapon Fighting feat grants a +15% bonus to proc off-hand attacks.
The Improved Two Weapon Fighting feat grants a +10% bonus to proc off-hand attacks.
The Greater Two Weapon Fighting feat grants a +10% bonus to proc off-hand attacks.
[/code]

I understand the need for controlling lag, but why wrap this excuse around a poorly hidden mega nerf.

For damage neutrality, your model of 20%/15%/10%/10% should have been 25%/25%/25%/25%. This is an insane reduction, a 25% decrease in DPS. Is the intent to rile your entire melee user base up, so when you increase these numbers we'll feel better? Or for everyone to buy hearts to switch over to THF classes, and kill off the monk class entirely? Your irresponsible Monty Haul Epic SOS fiasco has already started the THF trend, you really didn't need this shove em off a cliff strategy.

[Timjc86]

I'll post my general reaction/thoughts here and then I'll provide some further thoughts and questions in some following posts, just to keep from making one monolithic post nobody will read.

3 things:

1. Thank you so very much for this post, Eladrin. The fact that you posted this before the changes were implemented and asked for our thoughts in addition to providing such detail is really really awesome. I wish y'all would do this more often.
   
   
2. On lag: I definitely consider lag to be one of the game's biggest problems. All builds, playstyles, and DPS aside, there's nothing that frustrates me more than being unable to actually play the game because of lag. (BTW Tolero, I was under the impression that "The Lag" was not a disease but an immense, hideous, and deadly beast - one to be hunted and fought vigorously at any cost - which it seems like y'all may be trying to do.)
   
   I really appreciate the heads up that you think lag is a big issue and are pursuing multiple options to address it.
   
   
3. On the changes themselves: I'll sacrifice some TWF DPS if it makes a noticeable and significant reduction in DPS lag. Preemptively I'd like to say that all of my main characters are TWFers so I'll definitely feel the brunt of these changes if they're introduced. If it really helps with lag then ok. But I'm a bit concerned that the changes may a bit too much, especially considering the relative cost of TWF over THF as well as the dependencies many classes and builds have on attack speed bonuses.

Concerns: I am a little concerned about the DPS hit TWF may take with these changes. I'm especially concerned that rogues and monks, who were finally starting to see some widespread acceptance as raid DPS, will fall back into their old mantle of stereotypically light DPS. I'm worried that this may especially be the case in epic content where all TWFers were already behind SoS wielding barbs and fighters. I'd really like to see some thorough testing done before these changes are made (and I'll be more than happy to do my fair share.)

I might as well take this time to mention that the ability to dump combat log information into a text file would make testing these changes a lot easier.

[Calebro]

Wow.
Can we please quit it with the trolling and name calling already.
This thread really shouldn't turn into a flame war.

I'm looking at you Khelden and Stazer.

Constructive criticism, please.

[Kambuk]

Not sure if someone has aready suggested this.

Air is becoming a bonus only to TWF

Most 2HF will have higher str and be able to get all tiers of Fire stance.

Fire stance gives 5/10/15 bonus to double strike.

Kambuk

[nanobot1994]

Ill just offer my new-player view on this, i only read the first 4 pages so my apologies if its already been said.

This is almost obviously going to start a whole new rash of '**** you Turbine, Im leaving!' threads. This doesn't affect me as much as some of the long time vets, but unfortuatly Turbine doesn't seem to care about the people who've stuck with them for years, but only about the newer players who represent a larger portion of their income/profit. Of-course I'm a new player as well so...

Lets look at how this affects the community, ill just split it into 2 groups, the newer players and the more experienced ones:

This is just another layer of information for the newer people need to get through before they can build or even play a successful character.

For the 'vets' it destroys a lot of time they've put into building TWF chars, and also the immense amount of time required to gear them.

Plus, theres no real guarantee that this will reduce the lag * noticeably*, who knows even DA could have reduced it, but not enough to justify how annoying it is, even to the newer 'non-zergers'. So this new idea could also reduce the lag but its going to annoy a *large* group of people.

For me, its just time to shelf my TWF dwarf and play my warforged barb....

[dragonofsteel2]

Give use third party damage per second progams. I want to see this great dps gap. If there is such a gap there, lets get a progam test the dps per second then we can all see what needs to be adjusted. Sorry tired of this assuming number game. I want to see the hardcore facts. I want to see if this will work. Give me real info, not this blind trust me what is best. I do not believe you because Trubine will do what best for there own wallet. If changing the power classes ever 6months to get more TR and GR $$$$, might be there goal. Look we going to change the power of dps to this new modul, and we also making easier to change your toon for more $$$$. That is what I get out of it, is it fair. I do not know, but dam this is what I get out of it when you destory my favor toon in two gaint nerf bats.

Does this make him not playable, no. What I mean is it makes him no freaking fun to play anymore, becuase you destoring the reason I made him in the first place.

1. Bring down the lag.
2. Keep TWF a vaible dps model.

[moops]

Wow the more I think about these changes, this is just crazy. . . that you all allowed people to purchase turbine points to LR and GR and TR, when you knew this nerf was coming--you could've at least said something sooner so people could also change to 2hf while adjusting their skills and stats.

As I have Divine Casters classes as my mains, Im really not looking forward to raids with 8 2hF barbs. . .most likely all will be WF too. . .I don't want to be a babysitter. Last night it took 2 healers and one caster to keep our Horoth tank up--which we used even tho there was an AC build who could've kept the agrro. . .just because people already think that 2hf are more powerful than any DPS class end game. . .

[Gercho]

Some reflections after 600 posts:


-Attacking Lag and rebalancing should be two different things, not part of the same mega thread, you could have started attacking lag first, without trying to rebalance the twf at the same time.

-As i said before, people spends months tweaking their chars to get 5% or 10% more dps, and you are nerfing their chars by 25% on average, that will **** a lot of people, and probably many will quit.

-The more resilient ones will try to switch his chars to THF (as most have expressed) which will cost them a lot of effort and real money, and then you later may realize that everyone is using THF and will want to rebalance again and ****ing all the people that respecced once more, more people leaving.

-It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of many players (not only twf users, but everyone that grinds for something) that will think in the future, should i spend so much time grinding to optimize my char? or all that effort will be deemed useless by the next nerf bat? lowering long time commitment to the game for many people.

-Constantly "rebalancing" the game, would be ok only if players could adapt to the changes for free, but right now, besides all the time spent to grind for items, there is the money cost of lr'ing a char, some builds wont be totally fixed even with a lr+3 so the only option left is 4 +5 hearts or tr.

So, attack the lag all you want, if you want to rebalance aswell, well ok, but let people adapt for free, and make it such that is a totally separated thing of lag fixing, those are indpendent things and should be treated independently.

[DropList]

First off let me say I am for reducing lag....second I disagree with how the proposed "reduction " will work.

Without running EXACT numbers one can see the twf will be on average about 15 to 20 % less dps over all. Some builds more ,some less. Eladrin you speak as if THF is not top dps. Take a look at any mildly equiped WF barb...they ARE top dps sustainable, hands down. I mean 80 % of the attacks are getting a glance on a single target. I think if dps needs to be nerfed , it has to be across the board. I dont care if thf doesnt require the physic calculations or not. THF is good and viable, after the change good players will see it will be near the only option. This will decrease what we as a player base stay here for , the versitility and creativity ddo has offered. I have a thf barb and he is my top dps...hands down. If my ac ranger/fighter I have ran near 400 raids and have countless hours in....gets nerfed further to where he can no longer tank(due to less dps) I will probably seek a life in another more polished mmo. That being said...I do think less lag is good....why not make this as simple as it can be....


Lower all swing speed by X amount the board. Them lower mob hp by x amounmt. Quest will take the exact time to do with x amout of less calculations. While people will be upset by a lower "pace" It will not effect how we build our toons....all things will be equal again..no I got this nerf..while this class didnt. I mean seriously raids will have 8 frenzy wf barbs after the change...and I promise this. The game will get boring and static and people WILL leave. Please consider the long term on this change and seek an easier route...such as the one I proposed.

[Timjc86]

As for the wind stance changes, why not make the proc a main hand attack instead of an offhand?

Technically they're the same (except in the one case of kamas) since unarmed gets full strength bonus to offhand attacks and can only equip one set of handwraps at a time. This would make the stance still useful for quarterstaff builds.

[Siskel]

On the collision detection issue. What if your first attack kills the target. Your off hand attack is potentially wasted now. In the past i believe it would do another collision detection with the possibility striking an adjacent target. Or has the attack always been wasted?

[Krag]

I get it. You are going to nerf my character into oblivion.
Can I have a free Heart of Wood and Greensteel deconstruction?

[grodon9999]

I'm betting the hidden speed bonus in the Barbarian capstone stays.

[SquelchHU]

Regardless, do 18/1/1s need any more nerfage at this point? other than THF fighters the status quo is fine.

Well, as I said much easier in the thread, I'm eyeing the door contingent upon what happens here.

It's quite obvious that DPS lag is happening not because of large numbers of attacks, but because of large numbers of calculations per attack. Monks are the worst offenders because of strikes and ToD rings, with other TWFers not far behind. Plain weapons don't trigger many calculations.

So it's clear that the solution is to streamline that calculation somehow so it doesn't lag behind what's happening. This talk of also reducing attack speed is irrelevant, unnecessary, and undermines the reason to play this game - fast combat.

I really hate bringing WoW into these threads, but if anyone wants to auto attack and sammich, they can do it better there. DDO retains its appeal because it's DIFFERENT from the other MMOs. And that difference is speed.

Not to mention that announcing this and selling +5 hearts for a limited time makes anyone who is the slightest bit untrusting of other's motives very suspicious of the timing...

I suspect that if they simply made all the variable kicker effects do average damage each time, the lag would stop.

So a Min 2 Khopesh would look like this: 1d10+5 damage (base), 19-20/x3 crit, 7 good damage vs evil, 3.5 (3 4 3 4 3 4) acid damage, 11 acid damage on a crit, 14 acid damage on a natural 20.

So instead of rolling 4-6 dice per attack, you roll... 2.

And then you throw in the off hand triggers or whatever at the same chance they were before.

Let's see... that's server calculations reduced by a factor of 4-6, without a nerf that will provoke a wave of nerd rage higher and stronger than that produced by many real world natural disasters.

Did I miss anything?

[R0cksteady]

Hey awesome, good thing I just finished making a set of Lit II Kopeshes. Now I get to start all over since TWF is getting nerfed, to make a greatsword!

[Seelowe]

a.
good job acknowledging the lag issue

b.
good job being so open about it and bringing it to the forums.

c.
good idea about the "hit" calculation for the offhand.

d.
scrap the rest of that idea.

e.
if you are determined to really go through with that,
- think about if it will cost more money/man-hours upgrading the SERVERS or losing new/long term paying subscribers over it.
- think about if nerfing one type of dual wielders more/a lot more than other dual wielders is really a good idea as a general development idea.
- think about if introducing a NEW calculation check to make ppl a bit less grumpy is the right thing to do.
- think about if giving ppl the benefit of the fighter captsone/zeal spell on a SINGLE item or song is really the way to keep ppl playing those classes.

[tkneip1874]

while i havent read all of this post one thing im seeing that bugs me is people saying they want to make the dps the same whether twf, thf or s&b. i hate to break it to you but twf is almost always going to do more damage for the simple fact is that you have twice the number of attacks. in pnp this is mitigated by having a chance to miss with off hand ( and main hand ) that is where the penalties come in. where as thf does more damage per swing and not taking the penalties to hit, but not as many swings. if you are always hitting twf will do more dps.

[Timjc86]

Are there any plans to revisit some of the prestige enhancement line prerequisite costs with these changes?

For example: Tempest I costing three feats was acceptable with it front-loading the 10% attack speed boost at the first tier. Will the bonus really be worth that much after these changes?

You could also take this chance to spread out the benefits across the entire prestige line to make the higher tiers comparatively more attractive than the lower ones.

I realize that this may potentially frustrate a number of 6 ranger splash builds (which one of my mains is), but these changes alone will do that already.