Combat Feedback for Update 5.

[Aesop]

oh wait I got one...


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


that would be a benefit for Rogues and other Bluff masters (bardsI guess) and actually make Bluff useful for a change

[Razcar]

Yeah, rogues are really getting kicked in the nuts on this one. So much so that I'd argue something like Acrobat and Assassin should give them something equatable to zeal, tempest, and alacrity (and not just with one weapon type).

Well, Mechanics are getting repeating crossbows for free! I guess that is symptomatic with the rogue capstone. We are supposed to range trashmobs in adventure zones and run the solo quest Raiding the Giants Vault while other classes raid and run Epic.

Because why would anyone pick a rogue, *now coming with freshly lowered DPS!* over a THF barb in his group anymore? So thanks devs, you drove away Sableshadow, one of the best rogue players in the game with your rogue hate - let's see how many you manage to drive away with this stunt.

[Aspenor]

Regarding STWF, the prereqs need to be lower. The feat, as written, is meant for EPIC characters. This means not available till level 21. It is much more viable for an epic character to have the necessary BAB and DEX requirements, due to simple progression of levels and wealth (availability of +5 dex tomes).

I say eliminate the 19 dex and BAB requirement. In fact, I personally prefer it to be a feat naturally granted to any character with GTWF and BAB 15. If it must be made purchaseable, these pre-reqs must be toned down or eliminated.

[stockwizard5]

I might have mentioned this like 100 times already but ...

1. Fix the combat log issue - a well designed log should not induce lag
2. Reduce the number of damage types (e.g. Force Ritual --> +1 Base, etc)

Analyze the impact of changes like this first before restructuring the core game mechanics.

Note: If the development team can't accurately calculate DPS, then efforts to balance this change is hopeless and will lead to allot of anger. Figure out haste, alacrity, stances, stacking, round length, attacks, etc in REALITY, fix the rates and descriptions - and then propose changes when you can accurately calculate the impact.

[Wizzly_Bear]

I haven't seen a Dev mention it not working, if you look, Eladrin or Tolero(can't remember which) said that it fixed a type of lag not all lag(and yes many things can cause lag and different types of lag). This is another route they are taking to decrease lag of another sort.

Of course you haven't seen them mention it not working. They haven't said its not working because it is working - just not in the manner they say. Its primary effect is as an anti-zerg, not as an anti-lag. Lag did not decrease after dungeon alert.

NO, you run too fast and it causes lag...



...and you attack too fast and it causes lag.

Can't wait for the next race after half-orcs....snails.

I want to play hard and fast.

/sings "and baby when its DDO if it aint rough it isnt fun"


and "on topic" Turbine....get your chit together. Constant nerfing sucks. You know this. Stop creating the necessity for it by breaking your game in the first place. Playtest with all skill level of players. I don't play or care for melees much so this particular one doesn't hurt me much, but 10-20% dps loss is just ridiculous for those who do.

[Aspenor]

oh wait I got one...


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


that would be a benefit for Rogues and other Bluff masters (bardsI guess) and actually make Bluff useful for a change

First, they'd have to make bluffing more accessible. Giving a boost to bluff while it is essentially useless in the first place won't fix it. The lost damage from actually using the skill will outstrip the gains, by a long shot. It needs to be made into a clickable attack, a'la Smite Evil, and not freeze your attack chain.

[arminius]

All you who are posting that the only thing paladins will lose out on is the Extend feat slot to get STWF--have you seriously thought about what it would take for a paladin to get a natural 19 dex? A starting Dex of 15 with ASSUMING a +2 tome to get to 17, from the Store if nowhere else, is quite onerous enough, almost gimping, especially to Con and total HP.

Starting Dex of 17 would be insane, and thoroughly gimping. That means you have no choice but 1. wait for a +4 Dex tome (ha ha) or 2. use the level up points you would have put into Str or Chr.

So, don't be surprised when you see coming soon to the DDO Store: +4 Dex Tome 8500 points.

[Tarnoc]

so i am curious as to who on here will admit that thier fully geared uber THF barb gets out DPSed by TWF.....

the only time i ever steal agro from a barb tanking is

1 they get chained or slowed..
2 they are new and actually dont have all the gear that my elder TWF has
3 thier INT based lol
4 i get lucky and way out crit the barb who cant roll above a 1...and that shouldnt be considered out dpsing as that just bad rolling vs my good rolling

So tell me shade do the TWF in your group steal your agro in normal conditions?

im guesssing not and all the TWF cryign for balance just see an opurtunity to be on top without any really uber gear......

and btw this was this way before epic SOS so i only see that weapon as taking it even further to THf favour......guess ill have to get an epic SOS on my ranger hmm coupled with favoured enemys it might be uber dps

P.S.the dps lag is mostly a factor of GS procs this is widely known.....so why not loose the procs nerf GS which you will do anyways...make it ona crit and lower damages from 500+lightning strike to say 20 points.....this would stop the whole calculate 1% to 5% thing everyswing......this is the true solution and as much as you think nerfing our attacks is the lesser of two evils it is not.....i own 7 GS weapons on my TWF alone and im in favour of toning them down over nerfing my speed period to only have it not address the issue of LAG

[Angelus_dead]

The spam glitch had virtually no drawbacks

Exactly untrue. Using it reduced both your attack bonus and critical threat range.

[Aesop]

First, they'd have to make bluffing more accessible. Giving a boost to bluff while it is essentially useless in the first place won't fix it. The lost damage from actually using the skill will outstrip the gains, by a long shot. It needs to be made into a clickable attack, a'la Smite Evil, and not freeze your attack chain.

or just make it fast acting like Intimidate and Diplomacy (ie faster enacting)

[Aspenor]

or just make it fast acting like Intimidate and Diplomacy (ie faster enacting)

Even if they did that, you would still probably have been better off just swinging. This is why it needs to not interrupt your attack chain.

[Iambeastx]

Just to agree with others on the ability for requirements for STWF
19 dex is nuts for my main - IF you do that, i'll need base 20 cha AND base 19 dex, not mention needing str just to hit AND a decent con score to survive.

Outside of this i'm still very unsure of these changes, they seem to be more inline with reducing dps than streamlining data flow.

[Razcar]

First, they'd have to make bluffing more accessible. Giving a boost to bluff while it is essentially useless in the first place won't fix it. The lost damage from actually using the skill will outstrip the gains, by a long shot. It needs to be made into a clickable attack, a'la Smite Evil, and not freeze your attack chain.

No - first they should make sneak attacks work regardless of enemy fortification - kind of like it does in D&D 4.0.
And yes that would make rogues more powerful. And yes, that would make rogues more popular. And getting more popular is what the class needs. It is easily the weakest and most neglected class in the game (yes ranged builds are even worse, but that is a build not a class).

[Beethoven]

It's been said, but probably can't be said often enough: thanks Eladrin for opening the lines of communication and explaining the issue so thoroughly. Also, the solution of having off-hand attacks piggy-pack on main-hand is ingenious. Finally, probs Tolero for coming up with the disease analogy. It really should make it clear how complicated it is to address "lag" in a general sense.

The second table looks far better than the first one: 100% / 80% is far less a bitter pill to swallow than 100% / 55%. It still hurts compared to current numbers and I do not envy you guys for the decision you have to make.

Lots of people want dps lag addressed and anything improving the situation is going to be welcome by a large amount of the playerbase.
Lots of people like the combat/melee system the way it is. Twf is incredibly popular and players will not like it being messed with, especially if the change does not work in their favor.

What I feel is important for us (the players) to understand is how much the developers are between a rock and a hard place here. They wouldn't care, they wouldn't go through the trouble of creating a thread like this and then sit there shifting through 60+ pages in less than a day.

As for the numbers specifically, for me it's relative hard to say; I understand what the change does in principle and the fact that it will result in a decrease of off-hand attacks. However, I find how drastic this change will be is a little bit hard to determine without raw numbers (ie: actually testing of toons before and after, attacking the same target and comparing the damage per minute).

Stwf: I'm with bbqzor on this one and think it will do more harm than good.
* many people will fill obligated to take the feat to not fall behind alone for knowing it exists (and assuming everyone else took it).
* it's not going to be easy to fit it into Paladin builds for feat and dexterity requirements and potentially create a lot of frustration there.
* it's going to be nigh impossible to fit it into rogue, bard and caster builds (including splashes) making them fall even further behind than they already are.
* it'd create a unique situation where taking a feat basically duplicates the primary benefit of an entire PrE. I am reading the table right, a fighter with Stwf and Alacricity gets 10% Doublestrike, 110% Mainhand and 100% offhand - whereas the Tempest prestige line grants: 5% Doublestrike, 105% mainhand and 100% offhand. The fighter also gets his own PrE (ie: Kensai) on top of it while Tempest has the added limitation of only getting the benefits when wielding two weapons. That's hardly balanced. As for the argument that rangers get other nice things like spells; we are talking about PrE's and the Tempest PrE does not add a single spell or other benefit that does not have to do with two-weapon fighting.

So, in conclusion - my initial thoughts on the matter are either:
1. remove the unnecessary collision check and simply have off-hand attacks piggy-pack on main-hand attacks at the same rate as they are now.
2. use Eladrin's second table, but take out stwf.

In case of option two, I do want to point out that "versatility" is not necessarily a good reason; while it is true that twf allows more versatility by wielding different combination of weapons, thf allows for more versatility in feat distribution (it's not quite as critical to purchase all 3 thf feats) and distribution of attribute points (you do not need an as high dexterity, thus can put more points into other stats). Having more "slots" for crafting (ie: epic) is most likely not going to be much a long term benefit. The more epic content we get and the more people start running it, the more epic gear toons will eventually have and there is only so much useful stuff you can put into those augment slots.

[Zenako]

Gonna toss out a couple of thoughts on this. (I have not read much of the overnight posting...had to do that semi optional thing called sleep....)

Stepping back from the details a bit.

IF the net effect of all the changes to TWF and THF are to reduce the overall DPS rate of top end builds, then that gives the developers an opportunity to do some other tweaks in the game on the Mob side of things.

For example, the shear number of HP of many mobs has been driven up and up by the incredible levels of dps we can achieve in game. Having huge HP piles reduces the tactical and strategic options for killing them (fewer spells work, etc). Keep in mind that while the effects are most pronounced at cap, they also extend thruout the game.

If the overall DPS peak is lowered say 20% then it would be reasonalbe to drop the HP of the mobs 20% or so to keep the level of challenge somewhat simialar. A two minute fight is still a two minute fight (or a 5 second fight is still a 5 second fight). Direct Damage spells or those based on mob HP would become more viable.

As an overall tweak to the game, this might make the overall gameplay more robust and engaging.

Just a thought... hard to keep up on a thread that grows almost faster than you can read it.

[jstroud]

So I'm sure more will come to light after playtesting on Lamannia, but from what I have read thus far my general assumptions are:

My Tempest I/Kensai II TWF Fighter will be slightly nerfed, but not enough to break his DPS.

My TWF Paladin will now be gimped and will probably need to do several feat exchanges and/or a reincarnation in order to pick up THF instead.

This sucks, but not enough to make me stop playing...although it does take away from my original concept of the builds it's not going to irreversably destroy them.

The only real gamebreaking issue I see is now I'll have useless weapons, especially on the Paladin.

Perhaps if it is not feasable to provide a way to deconstruct exsisting Greensteel, why not change them from Bound to Character to Bound to Account, at least until deconstruction is available. That way I could at least trade all the Scimitars I will have and will no longer be using over to another one of my characters that could actually use them after this nerf.

I can stomach the proposed changes to the combat system, and I can stomach running the Vale and Shroud to farm ingredients to make Falchions for my former TWF/now THF toons. What I can't stomach is all the hours spent making weapons for a build that is now gimped due to a game update being wasted.

[Galacticus]

Another note on lag...

I haven't run ToD, DQ, SoS, Titan so I can't comment on those.
I have done VoN and I don't expierence lag.
I have done VoD and I don't expierence lag.
I have done Hound and I don't expierence lag.
I have done Revers Fate and I don't expierence lag.
I don't expierence lag on regular 6 man quests at any level or difficulty.

I have done Tempest spine and I get lag when fighting all those trash mobs but not when we fight Sorjek.

Shroud, now that quest is full of lag but not just when fighting.
Part 1, I get lots of lag when we are going to the chests after beating all the portals but not when we are beating on the portals.
Part 2, I get lag when everything is dead and the crystal is broken and we are heading to the chests and also when we are beating down the trash mobs.
Part 3, I don't get lag.
Part 4, well that is just a lag fest when the blades come in but I don't have much trouble with beating on Harry before the blades so much. Was recently on a run where part 4 was a 3 rounder and we still had a lot of lag. Another recent run we had a wipe on part 4 where the clerics were lagging and heals didn't get through. Even if we had survived, part 4 would have been a 2 rounder. I'm fairly sure that the lag in these 2 runs was not from DPS.
Part 5 I usually don't have a lag problem until Harry dies then things get a little laggy.
I will expierence lag with either my Bard which gets in the melee but also with my Wizard which stays out of the gank pile.
I tend to expierence way more lag in the afternoon to around midnight so my lag expierence will vary.

I have had some fairly lag free(none in part 1 and little in part 2) Shroud runs but those tend to be during midnight to mid-morning EST. That time frame also tends to have less people on at once.

This is exactly what everyone else experiences. The change MIGHT only affect 1-2 quest, but since we get no lag in other 200+ quest you're willing to change the TWF combat style for just those 2

Stop nerfing and solve the problem. The lag problem is not US(toons) it's the quest itself.

[Aspenor]

Eladrin, couldn't you just remove the off-hand physics checks and call it a day, as well? If these make up the larger portion of the load......

[Syntax42]

[Possible Physics detection solution?]

It looks like what you are doing is checking each weapon and calculating if it touches the monster or not (hence physics detection).If this is right then I think this is redundant. Divide your TWF character in half (from top of the head to the feet) and from left to right. The Main hand is the only one doing any collision detection, whenever an attack is made with it, it detects if any collision occured across the line from left to right. If detection occurs the system checks if it occured left of the (head to feet) line which then triggers the lefthand attack toward whatever is in the left or if the right of the line then right hand attack. So, there is ONE physics check but the point it was "breached" (left or right of line is factored in) is used for the main hand attack and "remembered" for the off-hand attack.

I highly doubt they are doing anything that complex. If they are, they are making more work for themselves and probably causing lag with their complex calculations. Something like this is about as simple as it can get:

Monster is in range if: Weapon Reach ≥ Range from center of player to center of monster (there's a simple equation for that) - monster radius (aka size) - player radius

Calculating individual arm lengths and weapon sizes and which hand the weapon came from is too detailed for an online game like this. Nobody would notice the difference.



I like the new proposed changes better than the old ones, but that's like saying I like getting punched in the face better than I like getting stabbed.

[Aesop]

Even if they did that, you would still probably have been better off just swinging. This is why it needs to not interrupt your attack chain.

I'm ok with that... the not interruptin the combat chain. as long as it lasts 6+ sec it should give benefit over time. Maybe not every time but it would make it a viable option instead of just downright silly option

Aesop