Combat Feedback for Update 5.

[SquelchHU]

considering twf looses only about 8% overall dps, yes i am comparing them

What class 'only' loses 8%? It's not Rangers, for sure.

And given that 8% dps is about 4 times more than you get from basic +2 tome to +4 tome, and people grind for months for those even a 'mere' 8% is still cause for concern (read: nerdrage).

Whereas 1 AC is well... one AC. How much does 1 AC matter in Elite CO6? Answer: Somewhat, but not 8%, and while AC helps AC isn't the primary reason for bringing one. Even if the answer is 'very', losing a level 10 with no raid gear is what? One day off work?

Show me how you get a level 20 decked out in raid gear within one day of character creation and you'll have a valid point. Until then, you are wrong.

[Tabun]

I bet the cries of 'omg the lag is fixed' (Assuming the lag fix does work!)

Garth

at least you recognize the promises of the past have not worked ................

[Galacticus]

No, the nerf will not solve lag issues. The nerf was never intended to solve lag issues. This is what some of you are having a hard time understanding after 75 pages.
Ignore the TWF nerf as a means to reduce lag. It is completely separate.

And yes, we are certainly talking about game sweeping changed to many toons, but the changes are needed.
As has been said many times, TWF was unmatched until ESoS showed up. The fact that so many toons now build their entire concept around the idea that they'll one day have it is testament to the fact that it's overpowered.
Remove it from the equation.
That leaves TWF as King again. But it still needs a nerf.

The original idea accomplished that goal. The new numbers, unfortunately, do not.
It's a step in the right direction, but we're far from done.

This change is a good thing, but IMO it isn't good enough. I know I'm in the minority on this one, but I actually preferred the original numbers.

and you don't seem to understand that if you nerf TWF and reduce the DPS output why then would I ever build one again since it cost me 2x ingredients, more feat. to get the most out of it, backpack space, bank space and grind.

You equal TWF and THF it's easier to choose THF if both are the same there's no justification to chose TWF.

[zealous]

Dude, ask Eladrin. It's his quote. "Extremely close". And he should know better than our reversed engineered spread sheets do, don't you think?

Raz, you're swedish so based on that alone I assume you're not only gawdly handsome but also rather smart.

Do you not find a certain lack of critical evaluation on your part?

Does that "extremely close" represent
a average of level 1-20?
ddo population (lvl7ish green f2p)?
theoretical max?
min/maxed 36pt as well as premade path 28pter?
casual/power gamer?
the chars the devs have?

estimated damage output over time for the two styles should be extremely close to each other if we go this route. (Which style is superior ends up being heavily dependent on your character's abilities.)

Notice the bolded part?

There are already level ranges/situations etc. where 2wf and 2h are close, there are level/ranges and situations where 2h is better, there are level ranges/situations where 2wf is better. I don't see anything with the propsed changes suggesting that this would change.

And regarding those spreadsheets, I am quite confident that they are accurate enough.

There was a vast gap between no-twitch 2h and twitch 2h/2wf, with the change the gap will be smaller, this is a good thing.

I get it though, I went on a "oh no they've killed half my min/maxed to death exploit every weakness in the system imba killahs before they even made it from paper and into game...again" nerdrage rampage when I first read about the changes.

Juss sayin, keep it cool, think objectively, take a breather and relax.

[Natashaelle]

What class 'only' loses 8%? It's not Rangers, for sure.

IIRC, the point has been made by ... someone ... that 20% loss of offhand attacks translates to 10% fewer attacks overall -- readjusted to 8% DPS loss as such, factoring in that you have a slightly higher miss chance and do less damage, especially, with your off-hand weapon. Or something along those lines. I *think* that a pocket calculator may have been involved in the proceedings

[Visty]

I thought the established calculation was 10%, as in 20% in the off hand? In any case, as I posted before, with fewer crits from my off hand, that makes 20% fewer radience blinding opportunities, which means more than a 8-10% reduction in DPS for me due to missing the auto-crit numbers for each subsequent swing. I know that's a more limited subset than what's generally been discussed, but it's the entire "other" in Eladrin's little calculation box.

yeah, rogues get the shaft abit but we never know what turbine will bring out to bring them back

[Visty]

What class 'only' loses 8%? It's not Rangers, for sure.

And given that 8% dps is about 4 times more than you get from basic +2 tome to +4 tome, and people grind for months for those even a 'mere' 8% is still cause for concern (read: nerdrage).

Whereas 1 AC is well... one AC. How much does 1 AC matter in Elite CO6? Answer: Somewhat, but not 8%, and while AC helps AC isn't the primary reason for bringing one. Even if the answer is 'very', losing a level 10 with no raid gear is what? One day off work?

Show me how you get a level 20 decked out in raid gear within one day of character creation and you'll have a valid point. Until then, you are wrong.

more ac is more ac. for that reason we see all those monk splashs, to reach some ac to avoiding a few hits

and its more then 1 ac anyway, cause you need 17dex for gtw
the thf will have 8 dex
that alone is a differance of +4ac

what you and alot are also missin: not only twf losses some damage, thf does too. and yet you see only 1 person rambling about that
if twf isnt overpowered yet, then why are 80% of the players using it?

[Razcar]

Juss sayin, keep it cool, think objectively, take a breather and relax.

What ****es me off is their constant picking on, or total negligence off, rogues. Nerd rage, you betcha, classic MMO class-balance nerd rage at that.

[Razcar]

yeah, rogues get the shaft abit but we never know what turbine will bring out to bring them back

2d6 fire damage traps, working like the Symbol spells, set in advance with the trap disable animation. Time for rogues to collectively don the Nike's and join Heaven's Gate.

[Visty]

2d6 fire damage traps, working like the Symbol spells, set in advance with the trap disable animation.

so the balance is still there, why the complaints

[Jastron]

A concern of mine, ignoring any possible effects of folks leaving or changing to THF, is let's say they implement this, it does reduce lag, let's be very optimisitc and say by 40% (as not all lag is caused by combat activity)

But as we then take a little longer to complete raids, longer times beating on bosses, and then the server population goes up by another 40%, won't we be in exactly the same spot for lag if not worse, and then Turbine have to consider further changes? Are we just buying a little bit of time here, or will this change end lag caused by DPS even if server populations were to double?

The code needs to be able to scale in some way, say being able to add combat calculation servers for every so many thousands of subscribers. I know we're not supposed to talk about hardware..but what if we got another 500K players due to an ad blitz? Without new hardware could it even be possible to support that? Making short term fixes for lag that have long-term impacts to characters in the game, may not be the best, if they will only help for a short time, and additonal or upgraded hardware is inevitable anyway...just a thought!

[Swedishchef]

They do mess up Bards aswell wich for me is a BIG issue, i do not like the idea of beeing a backup-healer and a flowersniffer. Unless they change bard songs so it gives full BAB this will be a bad idea for a dualwielding bard.

[SquelchHU]

IIRC, the point has been made by ... someone ... that 20% loss of offhand attacks translates to 10% fewer attacks overall -- readjusted to 8% DPS loss as such, factoring in that you have a slightly higher miss chance and do less damage, especially, with your off-hand weapon. Or something along those lines. I *think* that a pocket calculator may have been involved in the proceedings

Which was probably based on the erroneous assumption you started at 100% when in fact anyone with a speed boost (Fighters, Barbarians, Monks, Rangers, Paladins) start at 110% and Tempests get even higher on the offhand.

So your sarcasm aside, you are probably wrong. But without knowing the exact example it is hard to tell.

more ac is more ac. for that reason we see all those monk splashs, to reach some ac to avoiding a few hits

and its more then 1 ac anyway, cause you need 17dex for gtw
the thf will have 8 dex
that alone is a differance of +4ac

what you and alot are also missin: not only twf losses some damage, thf does too. and yet you see only 1 person rambling about that
if twf isnt overpowered yet, then why are 80% of the players using it?

You see a lot of monk dips for 3 reasons:

1: It gives a lot more than 1 AC. When AC actually mattered, this was meaningful.
2: They're Rangers. Ranger 19 and 20 really doesn't do much for non ranged characters... which is to say it really doesn't do much.
3: It's either that or Fighter 1, and Monk 1 gives more even if you ignore AC.

AC is also an almost boolean stat. There are only 18 numbers that matter. Yes, 18. Not 20. Anything equal to mob to hit + 2 or lower might as well be 0 for all the difference it is making (none) as you will be hit on a 2 regardless. Anything greater than mob to hit + 19 might as well be mob to hit + 20, because the rest isn't helping you to be hit on 20s.

So that's mob to hit + 3-20. Any lower doesn't matter, and any higher doesn't matter. Because of that the fact a THF 'loses' 4 AC is really quite irrelevant, as they've already fallen off the random number generator. The fact they spent those eight build points on Str/Con instead of Dex and those three feats on something else however is extremely relevant.

You don't hear people complaining about THF because... let's see... They lost glancing blows on movement and that's about it? 10% alacrity is identical to 10% double strike when only using one weapon in every way except you swing slower.

And where are these 80% TWFers? Maybe back in the days of WoP, but now? I see a whole lot of two handed weapons and not all of them are black greatswords. Yes, every Ranger and Rogue and Monk will be a TWF, and probably the Paladins too for double smites. But the Fighters, Barbarians, etc that have become really quite common now that Turbine has pushed everyone towards them for several mods? I can't remember the last time I seen a TWF Barb, and TWF Fighters are extremely rare.

[Galacticus]

I'm not going to get into this again, but barring ESoS (which NEEDS a nerf and thus shouldn't be counted in this scenario), and twitching (which was never intended and is also getting a nerf), TWF is superior to THF in most cases.

Do you even play this game?

[Natashaelle]

So your sarcasm aside, you are probably wrong.

erm, it's NOT *my* idea, and it feels wrong to me as well.

Don't squelch the messenger

[Dworkin_of_Amber]

Eladrin,

I admit that I have skimmed this incredibly long thread, and not read all of the posts, but something I saw a few times mentioned caught my eye.

If the overall effort is to reduce lag, then what about turning off Combat Feedback by default. Yes, calculations are more CPU intensive than more text transmissions, and I don't know how much overhead all that Combat Feedback really is, but every little bit can help, right? Add under Option --> UI Options, "Turn on Combat Feedback". That has to give at least a 5% reduction in the data transmitted to the average client, and even more so for TWF or FB THF builds.

A few other thoughts:

I agree with many others: Please do NOT add STWF back into the game. I think it complicates things too much, and really hits the 3/4 BAB classes the hardest.

I am not sure what I think on the whole change thing. I know on paper it sounds like it could be really bad, but I will reserve judgement until I actually play it.

I must have missed a post somewhere, but what is this about nerfing THF to not hit while moving? I know that you must have concerns over twitch-THF, but the attack chain is too slow, and yes, many THF characters have more than sufficient +To Hit to not need the progressive attack bonus. And this does not require all Epic and Crafted gear. My current L11 WF FB I am levelling can twitch-THF most of the time, and rarely miss, and if I do start missing, Ok, I stand still. But Aggro control is such a big deal in this game, and with the way that monster AI, Aggro and Intimidate work, THF non-Fighters NEED a way to pull and keep aggro, and sometimes this means attacking on the run. Need a better example, ok, run those new quests inside the Twelve with the Kobolds (can't remember the name, but the one with the Black Dragon)... run it going THF and try NOT moving when fighting Kobolds, and you will see how current implementations of monster AI will require you to move and attack... or go to almost any quest with archers or other ranged mobs. Please don't hit THF with these changes?!?!?

[Coldin]

A concern of mine, ignoring any possible effects of folks leaving or changing to THF, is let's say they implement this, it does reduce lag, let's be very optimisitc and say by 40% (as not all lag is caused by combat activity)

But as we then take a little longer to complete raids, longer times beating on bosses, and then the server population goes up by another 40%, won't we be in exactly the same spot for lag if not worse, and then Turbine have to consider further changes? Are we just buying a little bit of time here, or will this change end lag caused by DPS even if server populations were to double?

The code needs to be able to scale in some way, say being able to add combat calculation servers for every so many thousands of subscribers. I know we're not supposed to talk about hardware..but what if we got another 500K players due to an ad blitz? Without new hardware could it even be possible to support that? Making short term fixes for lag that have long-term impacts to characters in the game, may not be the best, if they will only help for a short time, and additonal or upgraded hardware is inevitable anyway...just a thought!

That might be an issue if that added 40% of the population were all going and running shrouds.

Just speculation here, but I think the main reason we see DPS lag is because it's a vast amount of information going back and forth between servers and clients all at the same instant. This TWF change seeks to alleviate that problem so the server has less to handle all at once. No matter how powerful the computer is, they can't handle 1000 operations at once, at least not well.

If we just get a simple population increase, then adding more to the server hardware should help compensate. Or better, they'll make new servers for people to play on.

[IronClan]

Eladrin I am a bit on the fence with the Nerf (back and forth), but I see some valid concerns here that are being lost in the flood of "the sky is falling" posts. You made a statement at one point about TWF becoming "about equal" DPS with THF and that... well...

That can't be the goal...

As a primarily THF focused player even I recognize that TWF sacrifice more for their style, they might need at least one more feat (Oversize TWF) if they need it, and they have higher pre-requisites because Dex for AC is meaningless in high end content (currently)... so the higher Dex for TWF req's is purely there to be able to take the feats and absolutely nothing else... unless the player has rogue skills... or ranged were more attractive.... Or AC worked past mid levels...

Well I realize that many min/max TWF are looking at those with typical min/max tunnel vision (only caring about DPS and nothing else) but as I type them out I realize they are getting something for that higher Dex. Just not what they're focused on/want.

That said perhaps this nerf wouldn't hurt so bad if AC in anything but extreme builds was more relevant after mid levels? (Extreme builds like full tanking DTFP + Leviks tower shield + DoS/Stalwart PrE + Dwarf/Fighter armor enhancements + grindy items, OR AC monk splash wis bonus to AC + high Dex + no armor 8 Armor bracers + uber grindy items)

I know my 6th level Battlecleric is looking at a set of RR +5 Mith full plate with the full on realization that it's the best armor he's going to have for the rest of the game until/Unless I grind for Dragontouched full plate and then that's it... Should a 6th level character be looking at something he can CURRENTLY WEAR as the best or second best armor he will ever put on? This is why S&B is broken, giving up DPS to wear a shield that does you no good past Gianthold...

[Galacticus]

Since you clearly stated that the lag issue will NOT be fixed by this TWF nerf and you want to balance things out, why not give THF more DPS ability with a free feat. or something to that effect?

[Visty]

Since you clearly stated that the lag issue will NOT be fixed by this TWF nerf and you want to balance things out, why not give THF more DPS ability with a free feat. or something to that effect?

where would be the difference to the current solution then?
they will both be equal
but the twf nerf doesnt put MORE things onto the server but actually less

thats why just boosting thf isnt reasonable