Combat Feedback for Update 5.

[grodon9999]

Everyone is concentrating on DPS... but I think what this really hurts is off-hand weapons like paraylzers or stat-damagers or vorpals or smiters, etc..

I've always thought that THF should be king of DAMAGE.... but TWF should be king of effects...

Think about the rogue with 2 radiance II rapiers... That second rapier is only being used 55% of the time now? Ouch...

What he said.

[Stamp3de]

Based on what I've seen in well over 2000 raids, I would say maybe 5-10% of the end-game playerbase uses THF twitch properly and frequently.

That's because you play on Thelanis. :P

[grodon9999]

The only reason of the unbalance is a sword called kopesh!

Agreed. As a Khopesh-using cheese-monkey I'd MUCH rather you nerf that that the proposed changes.

[dameron]

So Turbine's "solution" to end DPS lag is to nerf DPS.

This seems like an awfully big change to do something that might help.

[Boldrin]

I'm ok with it, my monkey ranger would proc 90%, so it's cool to me

[Visty]

If you reduce the off-hand weapon proc rate to the levels you have described you will be reducing most (perhaps not top end) character's using 2wf to below any 2-handed. You appear to not be taking into account the -2 to hit for using two weapons.

Example:

+5 weapons, +6 str damage, +6 damage from other sources. Chance to hit AC of target 90%.

Greatsword 2D6 + 5 + 9 + 6 = 27 x .9 = 24.3 average damage (not including any glancing blows)

vs

(with TWF feat)

Longword 1D8 + 5 + 6 + 6 = 21.5 x .8 (-2 to hit for two weapons) = 17.2

Shortswrd 1D6 + 5 + 3 + 6 = 17.5 x .8 x .35 = 4.9

Total twf damage = 22.1 average damage.

So with these numbers the two-handed weapon user does more damage (and not even including glancing blows) and didn't even use a feat. Not balanced at mid to low level range end at all (where most users will be). Also without the extra damage (+6 bard?) twf falls even further behind. Sure adding a khopesh (extra feat) would increase the main hand damage up but players using more feats on damage should do more damage overall.

most melees have more then 22str
dont know which style it favors but you should at least go with a +11 str bonus

[Tolero]

How about crediting purchased Turbine Points? Take into account how many turbine points everyone has purchased since the game went f2p (including those purchased during the lamannia beta test) and transfer those points to the lamannia store?

Or at least Give me the ~10000 TP I have stored in my account currently on lamannia.

I mean if anyone REALLY really needs points for previewing that strongly I'm not going to leave them in the dust. We have the twitterbot, we have some in-game vehicles, and several of us make ourselves available in Lamannia to bestow points for folks. I'm always for helping out eager previewers/feedbackers

[SirAppleheart]

This is a huge thread already, containing many great posts from people who are better at this stuff then me, so I will try to keep my opinions on the matter brief.

THF is currently greatly inferior to TWF (Epic SoS not included), so bringing the two closer together sounds fair. TWF does require a much bigger investment from the char/player though, in terms of stats and gear, and as such SHOULD be better for DPS, but perhaps not by as big a margin as it currently is. So sure, change the mechanics to reduce calculations for the server and reduce lag, but just make sure that the overall nerf to TWF isn't too great. TWF should still be top DPS, but by a smaller margin.

Fortunately this is what testing is for, so hopefully numbers from actual testing on Lam will let the numbers be balanced in such a way that the different options available end up being as fair as possible, relative to the investment required for them.

So all in all, I like the lag fix attempt, I don't mind the theory of mechanic changes, I do not like the possible excessive DPS nerf on TWF though.

[s1gmach198]

As a relatively new player who is really into playing a single toon (I'm the same way in P&P D&D)..and that toon happens to be a TWF DPS Paladin, I'm definitely interested in the direction this takes. I have experienced some really bad lag in higher end content that has caused party wipes - which really sucks. I'd love to see changes made that would prevent that from happening.

That being said, I'm a bit apprehensive about the proposed changes...recognizing that my playstyle is to really invest A LOT of time and energy developing my one character and grinding out greensteel & high-end content to get the best gear for the DPS playstyle I love (TWF). I've put a lot of time & effort into building up my beloved Paladin into a TWF build for the benefits it currently has DPS-wise. Nerfing my TWF abilities would really be frustrating...so I have to say that my gut reaction is to be opposed to this approach.

I know that I'm not offering up any better solution (which I always try to do in the real world when I don't agree with a particular approach), but that's because I'll be the first to admit that I don't understand all of the technical stuff behind the scenes. I just hate to see my playstyle become less effective in the game (which would make it less fun for me to play) and all of the TWF gear that I've ground out thus become devalued (which would make me upset because of all the time it took to acquire).

[Aerendil]

By the way, I'm curious how double attack will impact the classes.

Given that Eladrin has already mentioned Bard Warchanter's will probably be getting a DA song in tier II or III; and that items would be looked at and possibly changed to DA bonus instead of haste bonus; eventually ALL melee classes will be getting some form of DA in the end, even if it's only +5-10%. Fighters and Paladins will simply have more than everyone else.

But DA seems as though it would naturally benefit the harder hitters more?
My dual rapier Bard that dbl attacks will not put out nearly the same amount of dps that a death frenzied raged Barb with eSoS will if he double attacks...


Also, as was pointed out above, this may be a good time to review Madstone.

[zarious]

You're pretty cynical... Sad, really...



or you could look at heroic surge and see the opposite example...

I know you are fairly new to the game so you probably believe what you are saying, but you are wrong. Changes in game mechanics have been made after feedback requests just like this one. Oh they probably won't completely abandon the idea, but they have a history of being open to making changes in the new mechanic to make it work better. The changes between the test and live versions of the new death penalty are one of the more clear examples of that, but there have been others.

You mention DA as one of your proofs, and while they left DA in, if you had been there to test DA you would know that what we have is substantially better than what was first put on the test servers.

I think it's wrong to believe that some type of forum outcry changed this. While I can see out cry on the forums changing something like the Favor Wall (or whatever that was called) I doubt very seriously that people posting on the forums had anything at all to do with DA being changed to what it wound up being or heroic surge being changed/dropped. What I do find likely is that the group who actually tested these changes and who's opinions actually matter, recommended these changes. The fact that the posting community mostly agreed was only coincidental.

Thinking that Turbine would make any decision based entirely or even in a very great part on the input from such a small fraction of it's users (the people who post in the forums) is absurd. I am firmly of the belief that feedback posted on these forums is read, but that they are ultimately inconsequential or almost so, to the final decisions made. I'm not exactly upset over this fact, Turbine has to consider the affects of any decision it makes on all of its many players, of which once again we are a very small (and very vocal granted) minority. But (even tho I do post feed back, even in this very thread) to think that your or my opinion on an individual level is considered or matters or that even the collective opinion of all the posters in this thread matter against the huge numbers of ppl who actually play this game is ridiculous.

So there again, this is only my opinion, but I really believe that while it makes everyone feel better to ask for their opinion, pretty much nothing you say here will matter. Feel free to yell at the sky when it rains tho

[Monkey_Archer]

Thanks! Do it again if we use 20% for each TWF feat, instead of 15%, 10%, 10%.

[and to clarify, THF twitch gets nerfed 15%, not so much THF in general ]

using 20% each (80% offhand with GTWF) would be a ~9% dps nerf.

The thing is, for most builds/classes TWF is around 20% ahead of an equivalent THF using autoattack... twitching currently closes that gap.
So reducing the TWF nerf to only 9% would mean THF twitch shouldnt be nerfed at all...

or this

I won’t hide that these proposed changes do reduce the effectiveness of off-hand attacks, which reduces the two weapon fighting style’s extreme dominance over two handed fighting.

wouldn't make much sense

[dj.kickz]

is there any particular reason you decided to nerf fighters and palys much more then monks and rangers in order to fix dps lag?

[SquelchHU]

So I ran some direct calculations using characters that I actually have or planned to make.

In short, -25% DPS to the Ranger. Now, Rangers were already mid tier DPS in that they were good but not amazing. -25% puts them barely over what a freakin' BARD brings to the table. Hint: People bring Bards for the songs, their melee damage is secondary, and Rangers have no such primary feature to take the place of DPS even if they were to go that route.

-12.5% DPS to the Monk. Actually a smaller change, but Monks were already borderline on the relevant DPS scale (and even then, require more effort to get that far) so shaving off an eighth of that is a death knell still.

~-20% DPS to the Bard. Since Bard DPS was really secondary already, this is a why bother moment.

I'd keep going but there's no point.

I will only say this.

Eladrin, or whoever is in charge of this, do you plan on giving GS deconstruction, free LR +20s, and free Epic SoSs to every character affected on every server? Because that's clearly the only valid option left if this goes live.

[Cyr]

My proposal.

* Implement the removal of off hand physics checks.
* Remove ALL haste boosts/alacrity boosts and replace with equal double strike procs AND off hand hook chances to maintain equal dps output as before.
* Keep all off hand hook chances at a percentage to maintain current in game dps.
* Throw out this any ideas about using this lag fix to implement other 'balance' changes.

IF non physics calculations are also an issue do the following...
** Optimize code. There is some seriously poorly performing code if this is a real problem.
** Hitch hike one to hit number with the others from the same physics chain. If you hit with your main attack any off hand hooks and double strikes also hit.
** If dps lag starts to kick in an instance stop rolling random damage numbers and use averaged roll numbers instead to reduce computational overhead. Since dps lag happens when many attacks are coming in at once this averaging over time will not signifigantly alter these combat situations.

[Khelden]

This is a huge thread already, containing many great posts from people who are better at this stuff then me, so I will try to keep my opinions on the matter brief.

THF is currently greatly inferior to TWF (Epic SoS not included), so bringing the two closer together sounds fair. TWF does require a much bigger investment from the char/player though, in terms of stats and gear, and as such SHOULD be better for DPS, but perhaps not by as big a margin as it currently is. So sure, change the mechanics to reduce calculations for the server and reduce lag, but just make sure that the overall nerf to TWF isn't too great. TWF should still be top DPS, but by a smaller margin.

Fortunately this is what testing is for, so hopefully numbers from actual testing on Lam will let the numbers be balanced in such a way that the different options available end up being as fair as possible, relative to the investment required for them.

So all in all, I like the lag fix attempt, I don't mind the theory of mechanic changes, I do not like the possible excessive DPS nerf on TWF though.

I don't see why TWF SHOULD outDPS THF. TWF has the benefit of higher effect proc rate, that's where they should shine. Also, I'd even go and say a THF requires much more work than any TWF due to how weak they are compared to TWF. To be on par with a TWF using Greensteel, one must have epic sos. To be competitive against someone using dual chaosblade, one must create a new weapon in the game.

Like Eladrin said in his 1st post, both should be balanced out, making one style better than the other only because of the character, not the game mechanics.

[Velexia]

One of the major issues that we’ve been working on is the dps lag problem in high level content (especially raid content). We’re attacking this problem from many angles, and since some of the changes we’re considering will have significant impact on many characters, we’re interested in your feedback before it goes to Lamannia or live. We're trying to aggressively attack the issues that cause these lag problems and are interested in feedback regarding how aggressively we should be attempting to tackle them.

My post is a bit more technical than I normally write for public consumption, but I want to make the issues and the reasons we’re considering these changes extremely clear.

Some people may have noticed that problems occur most often when there are many monks or two weapon fighting characters that are loaded with many on-hit effects attacking en masse. These characters currently perform many attacks very quickly, and each attack is pretty heavy performance-wise. Rather than attack the problem by changing common heavy-load equipment, we’ve already taken some steps to optimize the way we perform attacks, and are considering the following changes to reduce overall performance loads:

Currently a single two weapon fighting attack makes a physics detection check with your main hand, followed by a second detection check for your off hand (roughly 0.15 seconds after the first one). Instead of making multiple physics checks, all two weapon fighting attacks (weapons or unarmed) would now make a single check for your main hand attack, and would “piggyback” on that detection check and have a chance to proc (trigger) an off-hand attack based on the number of two weapon fighting feats (or related enhancements) you possess. Off-hand attacks would have a chance to proc on any main hand attack now, instead of being predetermined on certain attacks. Having more TWF feats increases the % chance of proccing an off-hand attack.

We would now assume that if your opponent was within range for your first attack, it will still be in range 0.15 seconds later. We also go about determining whether or not a particular swing gets an off-hand attack in a much cleaner manner than before.

We’re also considering introducing a new mechanic to replace some speed bonus effects, called double strike:

A character with a double strike chance has a chance to make an additional attack roll with their main hand weapon any time they make a main hand attack, on the target of the first attack. (Note that two handed weapons count as “in the main hand” for these purposes.)

The Fighter Alacrity capstone, and the Paladin spell Zeal would be changed to a +10% bonuses to double strike.
A TWF Paladin that Smites something under the effect of Zeal would attack with the main hand, have a 10% chance to attack with the main hand again, and would have a chance (based on TWF feats) to attack with the off hand in one sequence. Level 20 Fighters with the capstone would simply always hit twice 10% of the time with their main hands. For a future update, we’re considering revisiting some old items (such as Jorgundal’s Collar, which currently doesn’t stack with Haste) and replacing the effects with a double strike effect.

For those that are interested in the “how does that help? You’re still making 11 attacks in 10 swings” – double strikes, like the proposed off-hand attacks, would bypass the additional physics detects and secondary characteristics of normal attacks such as glancing blows, while still providing an increase to overall damage over time. It would have the advantage over speed boosts of sometimes proccing on special attacks, and opens up a new itemization and enhancement pathway. (Warchanters, for instance, are likely to end up with a double strike song in a future update.)

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.
Monk Air stances now grant a +5%/+10%/+15%/+20% insight bonus to the chance to proc off-hand attacks instead of an insight bonus to attack speed. (Enhancement bonus to attack speed remains.)
Ranger Tempest now grants a +10%/+20%/+30% bonus to the chance to proc off-hand attacks when dual wielding instead of a bonus to attack speed or granting additional off-hand attacks.
Monk Air Stance and Ranger Tempest now stack with each other for these purposes.
Attacks with two handed weapons while moving no longer perform Glancing Blows.

Fighter Alacrity (capstone) now grants a +10% bonus to double attack with the main hand instead of a 10% speed increase.
The Paladin spell Zeal now grants a +10% Sacred bonus to double attack with the main hand instead of a 10% speed increase.

Things like the Shield Bonus and to-hit penalty reductions that Tempest grants when wielding two weapons, or the enhancement bonuses to speed from Wind Stance remain unchanged.

For example, a Ranger 18 (Tempest III) / Monk 2 in Wind Stance I would have a 90% chance to proc off-hand attacks per swing, while a completely unskilled character would only generate off-hand attacks 20% of the time. A Monk 20 in Wind Stance IV would have a 75% chance to trigger off-hand attack hooks.

I won’t hide that these proposed changes do reduce the effectiveness of off-hand attacks, which reduces the two weapon fighting style’s extreme dominance over two handed fighting. Skipping the extreme outlier of the Epic Sword of Shadows (we got a little carried away there, didn’t we?), 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.)

It’s likely that we’ll change Glancing Blows to operate in a similar manner in the future as well (chance to proc based on feats/enhancements rather than guaranteed on swing X), but right now I have to stay pretty focused on TWF and monk unarmed combat.

These are not the only things we’re currently investigating, and will not solve all of the dps lag issues - it’s one of many steps we’re taking to pursue them. I also highly recommend reading this post and thread - especially the part about intra-DAT fragmentation[step 3] if your install is a year or more old - if you’re suffering serious problems, it may help with some client-side issues.

We wanted to get your reactions and comments to this now though, before (and after) it hits Lamannia.

---

Some sample attack percentages with this system (assuming you took all possible available feats and enhancements) would be:

Build                Main-hand    Off-hand
20 Ranger (Tempest 3)        100%        85%
20 Monk (Wind Stance 4)        100%        75%
20 Fighter (Alacrity)        110%        55%
20 Paladin (Zeal)        110%        55%
20 [Other]            100%        55%
12 Ftr/6 Rng/2 Mnk        100%        70%
15 Pal/3 Mnk/2 [Any] (unarmed)    110%        60%
14 Pal/6 Rng            110%        65%
18 Rgr/2 Mnk            100%        90%

So does this mean that my 30-36 strength dual khopesh weilding Rogue gets the shaft...? Where's the love?

[tihocan]

To be competitive against someone using dual chaosblade, one must create a new weapon in the game.

Uh? Since when is chaosblade so great? Mine has been collecting dust in bank for most of its life.

Edit: Note that I don't have the Epic version. But the epic version is mostly a great Vorpal, but not a great DPS weapon.

[dragonofsteel2]

Let use see you decide that TWF is the main cause lag now.. What was last one running throug dungeon that is right. But lets go back to comments find the real reason you added dungeon alerts. If my memory is good it was right around the time epic come out. I am Pretty sure you guys did not want everyone just running to the end looting.(Taking advantage of dumb A.I. to kill the quest fast) Thinking we dont want them able just run and loot dungeons in under 10 min. we better add a way to slow them down. Though would not want to make known this was the main reason, so lets use its a lag fix. Has lag been fix?, Has lag gotten worse? Now we want to adjust stated before THF and TWF, but we don't add more damage to THF, because we already got major issue to dps lag. Ok lets solve this with TWF seems to cause lag in the raids, so lets make this a fixing lag nerf. Hmmm seem to rember doing a all SOS high level run, guess what the lag was just as bad if not worse then any raid I have been in. See I not trying to yell foul, but when I look things done and anlazye it, that is what I see. Does this mean I 100% correct, hell no. Though if your going to nerf my guy for this reason give me real test results. Not we think this might help lag.

Oh yeah if TWF is so much better why do lot min 2 great barbs get agro and keep it before this. It might been why bettter method before, but since changes it is only little bit. Will my post change there mind, who knows, but hell it better then sitting in the corner doing nothing. All really ask is test it, before you launch it. See if really going to help that much. Second with no weapons for TWF builds seem bad time to nerf there damage even more.

[Cyr]

But DA seems as though it would naturally benefit the harder hitters more?
My dual rapier Bard that dbl attacks will not put out nearly the same amount of dps that a death frenzied raged Barb with eSoS will if he double attacks...

Yes, the math strongly favors THF and high single hit damage toons with double attack. This is a huge flaw if it is to be used widely without also applying off hand hook chance as each new effect of this sort added will further shift THF into pre-eminance and TWF into gimpage.