Combat Feedback for Update 5.

[TiranBlade]

You know at first I was like yes this might be a good idea, then I started to think about it again with the reintroduction of STWF, but you know, if they can figure out how to benefit anyone who gets over say 100% Off Hand Chance, I would actually accept this and move on, seriously it is starting to sound like a good idea in the end for me, it starts becoming more realistic and only the end game people truely need the highest chance to hit.

I say this because as and MMO, it might be a greats system, but it still drives to mind that this is also Dungeons & Dragons and it does take away from how the game relates to the Pen and Paper version of the game.

As much as I would like to give this a chance, I think I might actually be against it, I am really torn about weither to not this should be done at all.

Thanks for listening one more time,
TiranBlade

[Chai]

Why do you keep saying that? Where did that idea come from?

The fact that people have been making "fix the lag" rant threads since 2007 when the shroud came out. This landed us DA, and now this.

And just about everyone who spun this tale made it sound so epic.

[SisAmethyst]

Only noob programmers (or pedantic pedagogues) would ever take a square root to compare distance. x*x>y*y implies sqrt(x*x)>sqrt(y*y)

I know that too but I used this example to make it more visible that a simple roll is less calculation then the physics check

[eonfreon]

I just hope we can get deconstruct...that will heal alot of wounds.

And free respecs.

[Calebro]

Well I know that I could swap STWF with Extend that is why I said nearly impossible, but then it is still unclear if STWF would need DEX 19 which is unlikely on a Paladin. Also it reduce one of my major damage Buff like Zeal as the Mana resources of a paladin are still limited which is the reason for using Extend.

But even for other Classes except for Fighters STWF is difficult to get.

The more I think about it, the more I like STWF being implemented. Rangers essentially get it for free, making them King of TWF (as it should be).
Others now have the option if they devote enough resources (build points and stat raises) to get it.

Few are likely to do this, but the option is there. So Rangers are still TWF kings in most cases, but the extremely rare exception may occur.

[Newtons_Apple]

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:

INVALID CHART FOLLOWS:
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%

---

Edit:
Thanks for the massive amount of feedback all.

We're currently thinking of adjusting the numbers to:

	Doublestrike	Bonus	Main hand	Off hand
No feats	0	20%	100%		20%
TWF		0	+20%	100%		40%
ITWF		0	+20%	100%		60%
GTWF		0	+20%	100%		80%
STWF		0	+20%	100%		100%
Tempest I	0	+10%	100%		90%
Tempest II	0	+10%	100%		100% 
Tempest III	+5%*	0	105%		100%
Wind IV		+10%	0	110%		80%
Zeal		+10%	0	110%		80%
Alacrity	+10%	0	110%		80%

* Only when wielding two weapons.

This set switches Wind Stance and Tempest III to doublestrike bonuses, increases the benefits of the TWF feat chain, and adds an additional feat for high BAB characters.

All of the bottom rows assume that the person has GTWF, except for the STWF row.

This change as a whole leaves a sour taste in my mouth. You're changing a fundamental aspect of a loved combat style. There is nothing cooler to me than watching Fozzie tear through things at mind numbing speeds.

So just how slowly will we swing now? Here is my point: people expect their Monks and other TWF's to swing fast - it's what they're supposed to do. So now what - will I be sounding out the bionic man sound effect in my head everytime I swing? A monk or a Ranger swinging slowly would just feel wrong.


Yes, TWF causes DPS lag. But removing the cause of a problem doesn't solve the problem, it merely masks it. There will be some unknown addition in the future for TWF'rs, and I guarantee the "problem" will rear it's ugly head down the road at some point, mark my words.


Others have also made the point that this problem only occurs in Raids. I agree with this - I can't think of a time when I've had DPS lag in a 6 man quest. There are only 9 raids right now. Compare that with somewhere over 200 quests. (Granted most people run raids at end game - I get that too.) It would seem a lot simpler to me to alter those raids to stop the "swarm the boss" method that is really causing this lag. (I really likes one posters idea of changing the spawn rate of gnolls in part 4 of Shroud - that was very innovative.)

Another good idea I've heard is to bump raids down to 10 man groups - dungeon scaling would by default handle in a fair manner the necessary drop in difficulty, so why not?


I would like to see this tested on Lammannia first. I've even posted a thread on the Lammannia forum to put together (another) Shroud DPS Lag test. My suggestion is roll out each change on a step by step basis. Change the physics first, and allow us to test it. Maybe it will be enough.

[k1ngp1n]

Only noob programmers (or pedantic pedagogues) would ever take a square root to compare distance. x*x>y*y implies sqrt(x*x)>sqrt(y*y)

Unfortunately, to calculate the actual distance, you need to sqrt. This would occur, say, to find out if a target is next to another.

[Angelus_dead]

The fact that people have been making "fix the lag" rant threads since 2007 when the shroud came out.

That's not a logical conclusion.

The thing people are complaining about here is not that DPS lag is being addressed, but that TWF characters are having their relative number of attacks reduced unless they buy it back with a new STWF feat.

The reason the developer is making that change is not based on DPS lag or complaints about DPS lag. As explained in the first post, it is because he considers TWF to be too powerful compared to THF, and wanted them to have similar damage.

[Chai]

That's not a logical conclusion.

The thing people are complaining about here is not that DPS lag is being addressed, but that TWF characters are having their relative number of attacks reduced unless they buy it back with a new STWF feat.

The reason the developer is making that change is not based on DPS lag or complaints about DPS lag. As explained in the first post, it is because he considers TWF to be too powerful compared to THF, and wanted them to have similar damage.

No but they are SAYING its due to DPS lag.

Also read: Dungeon Alert.

These kinds of things tend to repeat themselves until we break the chain.

[lord_of_rage]

Well I know that I could swap STWF with Extend that is why I said nearly impossible, but then it is still unclear if STWF would need DEX 19 which is unlikely on a Paladin. Also it reduce one of my major damage Buff like Zeal as the Mana resources of a paladin are still limited which is the reason for using Extend.

But even for other Classes except for Fighters STWF is difficult to get.

You just need to get used to throwing it twice as often. I have 3 paladins. I really dont feel extend is an essential feat. The reason for using extend is a two min buff lasts four min but costs more. All extend does is make zeal easier to keep up.

[Galacticus]

This change as a whole leaves a sour taste in my mouth. You're changing a fundamental aspect of a loved combat style. There is nothing cooler to me than watching Fozzie tear through things at mind numbing speeds.

So just how slowly will we swing now? Here is my point: people expect their Monks and other TWF's to swing fast - it's what they're supposed to do. So now what - will I be sounding out the bionic man sound effect in my head everytime I swing? A monk or a Ranger swinging slowly would just feel wrong.


Yes, TWF causes DPS lag. But removing the cause of a problem doesn't solve the problem, it merely masks it. There will be some unknown addition in the future for TWF'rs, and I guarantee the "problem" will rear it's ugly head down the road at some point, mark my words.


Others have also made the point that this problem only occurs in Raids. I agree with this - I can't think of a time when I've had DPS lag in a 6 man quest. There are only 9 raids right now. Compare that with somewhere over 200 quests. (Granted most people run raids at end game - I get that too.) It would seem a lot simpler to me to alter those raids to stop the "swarm the boss" method that is really causing this lag. (I really likes one posters idea of changing the spawn rate of gnolls in part 4 of Shroud - that was very innovative.)

Another good idea I've heard is to bump raids down to 10 man groups - dungeon scaling would by default handle in a fair manner the necessary drop in difficulty, so why not?


I would like to see this tested on Lammannia first. I've even posted a thread on the Lammannia forum to put together (another) Shroud DPS Lag test. My suggestion is roll out each change on a step by step basis. Change the physics first, and allow us to test it. Maybe it will be enough.

/signed

[eonfreon]

That's not a logical conclusion.

The thing people are complaining about here is not that DPS lag is being addressed, but that TWF characters are having their relative number of attacks reduced unless they buy it back with a new STWF feat.

The reason the developer is making that change is not based on DPS lag or complaints about DPS lag. As explained in the first post, it is because he considers TWF to be too powerful compared to THF, and wanted them to have similar damage.

Exactly. And the only way to buy it back is with an additional Feat that has not been defined in Prereq costs.
It's bad enough that it costs a Feat.
But if it costs further build points or requires +4 Tomes or BAB requirements that some classes or class splits cannot acquire, then it really adds to the "pain".

[Daehawk]

And that's a buff to THF builds, who did not previously have a way to get two Smites simultaneously. That's in addition to them not being nerfed like TWFs are...

Yup they weren't able to get 2. But TWF Paladins with Exalted Smite now have the ability to get 3 smites from 1 smite. So it's a +1 more smite chance to both TWF and THF.

[Angelus_dead]

Unfortunately, to calculate the actual distance, you need to sqrt. This would occur, say, to find out if a target is next to another.

As already explained, you don't need to actually calculate the distance to compare it to the weapon reach. Instead of comparing (distance<weapon_reach) you can do (distance*distance<weapon_reach*weapon_reach). The latter choice is easier on the server because a sqrt is much slower than a multiply.

[Hecore]

Count me among the ranks of TWF that dislike the proposed change. Monks would be the heaviest hit; full str to off-hand wraps and quick attacks is the only thing that keeps them competitive w/ other dps. It'd also make wind stance the ~only~ stance worth using, unless you give a lot more love to fire, water, and earth.

This also kills a lot of multi-class builds. I realize Turbine has tried to make pure-classing much more attractive with capstones and 80% of all players seem to single-class anyway at this point, so please stop trying to erase the last few percent.

Couldn't you just make TWF hits deal 2x damage and be done with it if too many calculations is the concern? Damage dice would get rolled once and doubled, and special effects (Deception, trip chances, etc) get rolled twice? I just don't think the damage gap is quite as large as you make it out to be, especially considering that TWF requires 17 dex and two weapons.

[Creeper]

Don't forget that you said this several pages ago Chai:

I am reserving my judgement for when this is tested. Maybe I will have the same opinion as you, and maybe I will not. Until then, heres your nerfed TWF.

It hasn't been tested yet, so...

[Newtons_Apple]

So, translating the actual attacks to the new system, you have now

Build				Main-hand	Off-hand
20 Ranger (Tempest 3)		110%		110%
20 Monk (Wind Stance 4)	dont really know
20 Fighter (Alacrity)		110%		110%
20 Paladin (Zeal)		110%		110%
20 [Other]			100%		100%

And you will have in the future with your proposed changes

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%

So you are effectively nerfing all the twf, and paladins and fighters get the biggest hits... (well, and tempest 1 too)
You really nerf paladins even more cause for paladins smites and sacrifices allways went twice, now they will got half the time... [/QUOTE]



Very good point on the Paladin Smite proc rate - I hadn't thought of that.

[Sirslapemsack]

What would then be the difference if yo had say, 2 healers 1 bard and 1 caster in a shroud along with 8 rangers?? They would still be attacking just as fast as they do NOW. How does this fix lag again? by making ppl spend extra feats to do the SAME thing they do now???

[Cetus]

That's not a logical conclusion.

The thing people are complaining about here is not that DPS lag is being addressed, but that TWF characters are having their relative number of attacks reduced unless they buy it back with a new STWF feat.

The reason the developer is making that change is not based on DPS lag or complaints about DPS lag. As explained in the first post, it is because he considers TWF to be too powerful compared to THF, and wanted them to have similar damage.

Perhaps I had difficulty understanding the real motivation behind this change, was that the real reason for this? That TWF is so much more powerful than THF? Yet the OP states they kinda overdid it with the ESOS.

I don't know what to make of this, all I do know is that it was explicitly stated that attack speed bonuses are altered for the worse and glancing blows no longer apply while in motion and thats enough for me to freak out.

[Aashrym]

Okay, it took a while to catch up on this thread

A_D has a great idea with his "opportunist" idea for rogues to and doublestrike. I like it.

STWF is in no way a nerf to anyone. It's bonus to builds that get it. IE. Rangers if it's free and fighters who have the feats, and splash fighter who get some extra feats. Fighters and Rangers should have benefits over other classes with TWF styles IMO

The percentages to proc offhand and doublestrike can still be adjusted and the Turbine has shown they are listening to feedback and willing to do so. I appreciate that.

I would like to add a suggestion. Dex bonuses to offhand proc and to doublestrike proc. I'm pretty sure I saw Aesop and A_D both mention it with the offhand attack but I think it's viable to add DPS to any build using extra dex.