Combat Feedback for Update 5.

[Quijonsith]

It will also be a buff to S&B with double strike possibilities.

[Erekose]

Oh good, we need ANOTHER thread instead of including discussion in the thread that the devs are actually reading.

Considering all the forum infraction points I have accumulated over the years, I am VERY confident, the devs will read my post.

Furthermore, after 40+ pages on the other thread, I doubt my voice would be heard over the overwhelming chorus of dissent.

But thanks for giving this post a bump Lorien. AT least you have been good for something :P

[jcdy10101010]

would rather you just leave the raid lag as is. It is the only chalange left in this game soild players can short man all raids or compinsate for lag. new players oh well they need to learn to be screwed over

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Considering all the forum infraction points I have accumulated over the years, I am VERY confident, the devs will read my post.

Furthermore, after 40+ pages on the other thread, I doubt my voice would be heared over the overwhelming chorus of dissent.

But thanks for giving this post a bump Lorien. AT least you have been good for something :P

People who are jerks are read by the mods.

Mods don't code.

The people that code are reading the other thread, probably not so much the whiney threads.

[Razcar]

People, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

You can, if it is made of undigestable material

[Erekose]

People who are jerks are read by the mods.

Mods don't code.

The people that code are reading the other thread, probably not so much the whiney threads.

ALL Cl ass. Gold star for you.

[tokenghost]

Adds a little in Pile A, lowers it in Pile B. If the amount that Pile B goes down is more than the amount that Pile A goes up, all is slightly better in the world.

[If this is true, why change 2wf at all? just change the physics to lower the ammount in Pile B and Pile A doesn't go up at all?]

[...]

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.

[If we say don't change our dps... you'll change greensteel to what... lower our dps? heh. Oh, and "less agressive" changes ... might that mean less offensive? less agrivating? less gameplay changing? Is that why you had to throw in the GS threat? So the majority of us will shut up and not ask about those other options?]

[...]

Momentary insanity.

[If ESoS is unchanged... are you still living in the moment?]


I can pretty much guarantee that it won't solve every instance. We've got a bunch of people investigating from other angles.

[Do their investigations all have Nerf as their main goal with "lag fix" wrapping? Or are they the ones that are actually looking at fixing the lag while this change gets the credit so you can say the changes were necessary?]

We're open to making adjustments.

[... really? Sounds like you are open to making adjustments to some of the numbers on the system you have already decided is the fix... Oh, and from what I'm getting here... it only occurs in a few select places, but you are going to change the entire combat mechanic for the entire game... how about ... "We're open to letting you complain about the changes that we are going to make anyway."?]

I'm hitting submit now because I'm deathly afraid of someone stepping on my power switch. To be continued!

[LOL - that really increased my confidence in you guys at a point where it may be at it's lowest.]

IMO - this is just a PR distraction so that they can say "we listened" when what we say doesn't make any real change to what they are going to do anyway. I can't say that it'll make me quit... but it may severely reduce the addiction, and I don't have an uber 2wf.

I've seen that the current course of this discussion is about balancing the proposed changes to 2wf rather than dealing with lag. As Eladrin pointed out above, "We're attacking the lag issues because people often say it's the most important thing for them," and the thread is no longer really about the lag so...

If you guys are all about being open and honest about fixing the lag... Give us another thread that details the other options that you are looking into to fix lag... Give us the list, and let us vote on which one to try first. If you aren't open to doing anything other than the 2wf nerf(with a possible lag fixing ribbons), then say "this isn't about lag, it is about nerfing 2wf." And then send out another survey so you can see how to make your next revenue grab look like something we asked for.

[Samadhi]

First perspective thoughts; subject to later reconsideration:

1) Removing glancing blows while moving while THFing seems like a far more extreme nerf than many of the other things listed. Not sure why this was included but this seems a bit much. Mobs in this game move A LOT and we have to move if we want to hit them. Except for (some) raid boss fights this change is essentially removing glancing blows from the game; and any value in THF feat chain.

3) Overall, I think the method of dealing with the alacrity increases (for zeal, fighter capstone, etc) is acceptable.

4) There is one thing I dislike about the changes specifically to TWF, in the collision analysis seemingly being dropped entirely from the offhand. I typically (and realistically) will fight with my main hand hitting 1 mob and my left hand hitting a 2nd mob to the left. It seems like this will be completely eradicated with these changes. This is both unrealistic and kind of lame.

5) My biggest concern is that a significant amount of content will need to be rebalanced to address these reductions to overall DPS. I can get behind ANY CHANGE that will make the lag in this game as playable as it was a year ago; but the amount of changes has the potential for significant variations that have me advocating caution as much as possible.

Still seems pretty valid. I am kind of surprised that there hasn't been more said about the huge THF nerf presented in point 1 TBH. Not getting glancing blows while moving completely destroys 90% of the non-raid glancing blows that ever happen. Seems like a pretty extreme nerf as well as completely not addressing the problem as stated.

[Calebro]

You can, if it is made of undigestable material

Hahaa! Actually, when you put it that way, I think after thirtysomething years I finally figured out what that figure of speech means!

[Borror0]

Changing how collisions are detected is to deal with lag.

While they were at it, slowing down TWF was a deliberate TWF nerf that they just conviniently did at the same time.

Reducing the attack rate does reduce lag. If you attack 10% slower, that is 10% less detection checks.

Frankly if they were smart they would have fixed the physics checks...and not attempted to merge it with a nerf.

If they had to nerf for balance, they could have done that later, and the mechanic would already be in place. As it is people are just confused and coming up with suggestions that don't help at all becuase they don't understand there are two seperate things happenning.

Exactly.

[moorewr]

That does not make sense. You evidently do not know what BAB does in this game.

Giving Warchanters a Song of BAB would be a minor bonus that other players hardly ever care about, because those characters with meaningful melee weapons probably already have a way to get all the attack bonus they need. A BAB Buff song would be mostly a flavor addition.

There's very few ways to raise your BAB - tensor's and DP, and that's how it should be. Even if it wasn't so easy (edit: to get you to hit high enough) in this game that the to-hit penalties for oversized off-hand weapons and manyshot are simply not factors in anyone's thinking.

I wish to use an illustrating example.. a guild-mate pulled a +5 vorpal khopesh the other night, and after some debate it was agreed to save it for a future battle caster, because none of the melees cared about the hit bonus.

[mjrepro]

I apologize, as I do not have the time to read back through all 75 pages of information, but is there a listing of what attacks of a monks are made with the offhand?

Is the regular 4 attack sequence chain all main hand? and just the TWF attacks offhand, or is it every other attack is an offhand? I am a bit confused there, and would just like one of you intelligent people to help me if you can

[Erekose]

The examples used are all based on pure builds.

"The Fighter Alacrity capstone, and the Paladin spell Zeal would be changed to a +10% bonuses to double strike. "

What about 18/2 splash Barbarian/rogue builds?

The ONLY class to benefit from the proposed change is a Ranger. No surprises here.

I suggest that the proposed changes will polarize the choices players are left to make concerning the optimization of DPS.

Meaning, in order to get the MOST DPS on a melee, players will naturally change classes to ranger builds.

It is far cheaper, time-wise, to true re-incarnate a GTWF Barbarian as a STWF ranger than farm ingredients AGAIN to equip a melee's with GTHF. All classes who cannot access STWF will be the one's affected by the proposed changes.

In effect, your suggested DPS-lag solution will polarize the game into Ranger only DPS builds and marginalize ALL other classes as sub standard DPS builds. Will this fix lag? I am sincerely doubtful. Your track record has been an epic failure, therefore one can only be pessimistic that such a change will accomplish nothing but hedge players to play rangers and in doing so, continue your lag problem.

This wouldn't be a problem if you had not given mobs a huge amount of hit points and granting mobs blanket immunities to arcane spell effects.

So now we see the developers chasing their own tails as a result of pushing the pendulum towards non-arcane, pro-melee game play.

The suggested changes, kicks sand in the faces of ALL players who have spent irreplaceable time and energy farming shroud ingredients in order to equip Barbarians, Fighters, Monks and Rogues with two weapon fighting shroud gear.

Tread very carefully Turbine. The problems YOU have created may come back to bite you again if your subscribers leave en-masse. Perhaps it would be better to invest time and money into your combat engine and upgrade it in order to meet the environment you have created, rather than punish the dedicated players for your oversight.

Concerned.

Juslim

[Samadhi]

and also, any major changes (such as an addition of STWF to the game) should come with an exceptional feat-change shard delivered to every character for free. Because I'm just going to be honest here, these shards drop so freakin rarely in game, that I am more likely to shelve a character than spend the absurd RL cost per freakin character to make them all updated to the new system. The more characters shelved, the less likely I am to continue to play.

[Halock]

Has this been addressed by chance?

Currently with a twf monk/pally ( classes i have experience with ) i can time my ki strikes/smites/trips/whatever attacks to ensure that i get them to double dip, i can do this because i KNOW that on x iteration i will have 2 attacks, with the new TWF system offhand attacks will be random procs, so you will basically be fireing off specials hopeing for a proc, which plain sucks when some stuff have limited uses, long cooldowns etc. This is also more prevalent in the lower levels where that double smite really can make a difference, it added a nice layer to the combat imo, especially while leveling and not every attack was a double.

Another thing, the change seems to large, speaking as someone who was in SWG right up to the NGE, i can tell you that players really, really do not like grand sweeping changes ( mind you, this proposed change is minor compared to that fiasco, but still in the same category )

I would strongly suggest and even request that you go through with the proximity changes for next update, but leave the TWF stuff alone on lam for a while in testing, you can see from the growth in this thread ( 90% of it is over the TWF changes ) it has the potential to upset alot of people, and as sony can tell you, that is very bad for business.

Also, it makes no sense to remove glancing blows from THF, logically or for game reasons, the whole point of glancing blows i always thought was to help out in AOE situations, i realize you are probably trying to attack twitch fighting without outright calling it a bug, but i feel there are better ways to go about it, adjust the combat animations so they get the same number of attacks twitching by standing still, conversely, adjust the animations so that they lose attacks twitching. The proposed change just feels, clunky ( picture a THF happily twitch fighting 1 guy surrounded by a bunch of hypno'd mobs, thanks to no more glancings while moving )

More i read about these changes the more i see just how bad rogues, monks pallies and tempests to a lesser extent will be affected. Also, wasnt it proved in shades dp thing that THF is > TWF? i really do not see the need to nerf TWF, hell, most TOD tanks i'v run with have been THF barbs....the people who usually pull agro are also THF barbs with a few exceptions.

[Borror0]

successfully Bluffing an opponent could add a 5% DS bonus... and Improved Feint could make that +10% for 6 sec

If you want to head down that road, I think it would be best to add Opportunist as a rogue feat granting a 10% Double Strike bonus and then just fix Bluff and Improve Feint. It would accomplish pretty much the same but would be more targeted (ie rogue only), easier to respec for, and would make it easier for rogues to solo.

[Souless]

As even Eladrin admitted to in the OP, YES, this is a nerf. But it's a good one. People are crying that their builds should now be scrapped, and that just isn't the case.
The difference will barely be noticeable in most cases after the numbers were changed.


Yes, you certainly are.

How is it good?

That hasn't been explained at all...just comments about the change....This nerf isn't going to solve lag issues, period.

All it will do is nerf my twf builds that I've ground out ingreds for...and whatever even if it's magionally...we are talking about game sweeping changes to MANY toons for the raid boss lag....to explain it thus is an insult.

The Bytcher~
and whats so wrong about calling the dev's into question....Or Bytchin when I am unfairly cheated.

[Philam]

Funny how I question, with sarcasm, the devs and I loose 50 rep!

Ph

[Aashrym]

If the BAB requirement is accurate, which is not btw confirmed, then at level 18 when you would get your final feat, your maximum BAB would be +14, so that the only way to get the feat would be to take Fighter 4 as your last level at level 20, and to *hope* that STWF is included in the bonus Feats you can take.

This is not a very attractive scenario, because with only 4 Fighter levels you'll get no PrE, and meanwhile you will lose a fair amount from your main class.

I'd prefer to see a minimum level requirement rather than this BAB silliness anyway, except in the case that Turbine have a new level cap increase in the works that they're not talking about...

For clarification, the BAB is not confirmed, as stated in this post (thank you).

It is under discussion even to include the feat. The last post i saw from turbine was that they did not need to include it, but if they do I do not see an issue making the requirements high.

And yes, splashing the fighter at lvl 20 would be required on the 16/4 theoretical build. As far as a fair amount of your main class.... well if anyone really thinks that +20% offhand proc rate is so special they absolutely need it to increase average dps over time on their off hand attacks that they need to debate how much more special fighters/rangers are for that bonus they are welcome to get that bonus for that sacrifice.

That gets back to we all need to make build choices.

It might be better to leave it out, it might be nice to add it as an option for some builds. The bottom line is it's not here now and no matter how it gets implemented some players are demonstrating concern their class won't have access to it and other classes will. When things get added that happens and builds do change. Adding STWF doesn't take away something another class doesn't already have. It's the perceived notion their builds won't be as good as other builds.

I think that's an argument to make the requirements high. So that the cost makes it worth taking a lot of time to consider. This prevents cookie-cutting if it can be used by some and not others because there is legitimate value to either decision. That also turns into a juggling act. Too high and no one will do it, too low and everyone will.

I like having more options available to diversify builds and keep the diversification useful. So far it sounds like I'm in the minority with the 'top tier melee feats should be hard to get for non-full BAB classes'. Personally I think other classes do get something (some classes more than others) for that 3/4 BAB already. Lowering the BAB requirement and having a reasonable high Dex requirement might work as well. I can live with that (yeah Aashrym's personal endorsement means sooooo much ).

[Angelus_dead]

So if warchanters are possibly getting a song to boost the groups double strikes where does that leave spell singers and virtuosos?

I considered that new Warchanter song earlier and recommended against it. It would widen the melee DPS gap between Warchanter and non-Warchanter groups too much. Imagine if today the Haste cast by a Warchanter gave 10% more attack speed than other Hastes... that would be excessive, right? But that's rather what a Doublestrike song could do.

Here's a bit of elaboration on it. The naive way to make a Song of Doublestrike is for it to work like a regular bardsong with the same 3-6 minute duration, and for it to give a +10% increase to Doublestrike. That'll mean 10% more DPS from THF/S&B guys, 5% for STWF guys, and in between for other types of TWF builds. That could be similar results to a stacking +8 damage song, which is clearly very powerful and would have to be the primary benefit of Warchanter 2 or 3. But if they reduce the Doublestrike bonus to 5% or something then the song doesn't seem fun anymore, because players rarely ever notice it triggering.

So a better approach is to make it a bigger doublestrike bonus, but with a lower uptime (duration/cooldown ratio). That means that whenever the Warchanter uses it everyone can see the power boost, but he can't keep it going enough to be really imbalancing. Maybe something like this:

Urgent Shout: cost 30 sp, duration 8 sec, cooldown 60 sec, casting time very fast. Nearby allies gain a temporary +30% doublestrike. (Metamagic cannot apply)

That version has 13% uptime, so the total effective mainhand boost is 4%. It would be only one of several new effects Warchanters get, so it doesn't need to be the main attraction.

As for virtuosos I honestly don't know enough about them to make a suggestion but I do believe they need some love.

Sure, all three bard specialties need help. The ones not related to melee attacks would be pretty offtopic here.