Combat Feedback for Update 5.

[chubbs99]

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned, or brought up recently.
But what about doing a larger fix to the system in general to even everything out.

by the time you hit level 20, hell even maybe 15, everything is 100% hit able all the time on a non gimped character. Because of this, we see mobs with blanket immunities and HP values rivaling Apple's Stock value.

Rather then decreasing combat speed, why not increase Monsters AC while Reducing HP. Make it so "standard" (used loosely, not looking at someone in full Raid/Epic/Greensteel) gear would be hitting trash 90~100% of the time, Red name bosses 80~90% of the time. and Purple raid bosses 70~80% of the time. If the scales are re-balanced properly I would think that because mobs are receiving less blows the system wouldn't lag to the swarm of numbers flying at it, while at the same time combat takes just as long (due to reduced HP values), and combat speed remains the same keeping people happy.

Granted, since THF get less attacks per min, maybe throw them a bone and leave them with double strike, or extra str bonus or something. So that when they hit they hit HARD where was the TWF people are just the flurry of smaller blows. And S&B.... Alot more has to be reworked for S&B to work in combat

[krud]

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned, or brought up recently.
But what about doing a larger fix to the system in general to even everything out.

by the time you hit level 20, hell even maybe 15, everything is 100% hit able all the time on a non gimped character. Because of this, we see mobs with blanket immunities and HP values rivaling Apple's Stock value.

Rather then decreasing combat speed, why not increase Monsters AC while Reducing HP. Make it so "standard" (used loosely, not looking at someone in full Raid/Epic/Greensteel) gear would be hitting trash 90~100% of the time, Red name bosses 80~90% of the time. and Purple raid bosses 70~80% of the time. If the scales are re-balanced properly I would think that because mobs are receiving less blows the system wouldn't lag to the swarm of numbers flying at it, while at the same time combat takes just as long (due to reduced HP values), and combat speed remains the same keeping people happy.

Granted, since THF get less attacks per min, maybe throw them a bone and leave them with double strike, or extra str bonus or something. So that when they hit they hit HARD where was the TWF people are just the flurry of smaller blows. And S&B.... Alot more has to be reworked for S&B to work in combat

Not possible given the d20 system. With the values you suggested everyone else with slightly better than "standard" gear will pretty much be auto-hitting. GH alone will cover the gap. Add in bard songs and other buffs and half of the d20 is already covered.

[chubbs99]

Not possible given the d20 system. With the values you suggested everyone else with slightly better than "standard" gear will pretty much be auto-hitting. GH alone will cover the gap. Add in bard songs and other buffs and half of the d20 is already covered.

Thats not necessarily true if they do it right. A good minimum to hit by level 20 is what (assuming full DPS class),

BAB 20
Str +7
GH +4
Bard +4-+8 (so, say +6)
Monk Walk on the sun +1
Rage spell +1
Haste +1
+5 Weapon +5

giving you a chain of 45/45/50/55/55. Plus the d20 roll.

What I'm saying is, then increase trash mob AC to around 47. So you have to roll a 3 or better which comes up 90% of the time.

Red name bosses around 52 AC. Meaning unless you crit on your first 2 hits they will miss, and then a 90% chance on your third attack, and 2 auto hits (assuming no 1's). giving an over all. This would also bring usefulness to confirm critical. As the feat power critial alone is +4, this would give you an confirmation roll of 49, meaning a 4 or better is needed to confirm, or 80% chance.

For Purple Raid bosses, AC should be about 57. Again No hits with first 2 swings, but a 60% chance to confirm crit (with Power Crit), a 65% chance to hit with your third attack, and a 90% chance with your last 2 attacks.

As I said, when Raising the Mob AC, an HP reduction should follow suit, This way battle should take just as long, and just as many resources are used keeping the fight the same difficulty. Logically then, there is no real loss in loosing a few hits every attack sequence since those few won't matter in the long run. This should also slow down the long flood of numbers the server has to calculate reducing the chance to see DPS lag.

[Emili]

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned, or brought up recently.
But what about doing a larger fix to the system in general to even everything out.

by the time you hit level 20, hell even maybe 15, everything is 100% hit able all the time on a non gimped character. Because of this, we see mobs with blanket immunities and HP values rivaling Apple's Stock value.

Rather then decreasing combat speed, why not increase Monsters AC while Reducing HP. Make it so "standard" (used loosely, not looking at someone in full Raid/Epic/Greensteel) gear would be hitting trash 90~100% of the time, Red name bosses 80~90% of the time. and Purple raid bosses 70~80% of the time. If the scales are re-balanced properly I would think that because mobs are receiving less blows the system wouldn't lag to the swarm of numbers flying at it, while at the same time combat takes just as long (due to reduced HP values), and combat speed remains the same keeping people happy.

Granted, since THF get less attacks per min, maybe throw them a bone and leave them with double strike, or extra str bonus or something. So that when they hit they hit HARD where was the TWF people are just the flurry of smaller blows. And S&B.... Alot more has to be reworked for S&B to work in combat

Twitched THF in practice produces near the same number of attacks as GTWF only the ranger or haste boosted full bab (either via madstone or actual bab) have a few more attacks in. Top this off that glancing (an AoE) procs consitantly now and I'd wager you have to play a TWF much harder to equate to the DPS you get from a THF within a quest. The only places where TWF dps really shows is upon the stationary boss ... here the THF is hitting A and D keys consistantly breaking chain for pull out 130 attacks a min (plus glance procs on a single target too) while the TWF gets 132.

[sephiroth1084]

Eladrin, or other devs, there have been alternative proposals in this thread for ways in which to address the lag issue without nerfing TWF and attack speed effects in the way being proposed, but I haven't seen a comment from you on any of these. Would it be possible to work up a few (or several) potential fixes, set to run separately on Lama in order to test for yourselves, and for us to experience and give feedback on, in order to reach a solution that has the greatest impact on reducing lag while also providing the smallest impact upon the way the game currently functions?

One proposal I read 40+ pages back was to wrap all similar die rolls on an attack into a single roll. That is, rather than rolling 1d6 (rapier) +1d6+1d6 (Holy) +1d6 (Pure Good) +1d6 (Frost) +1d6+1d6+1d6+1d6+1d6+1d6+1d6+1d6+1d6+1d6 (Sneak Attack) for each hit, couldn't you do a calculation where the number of similar die rolls is determined and then that number is multiplied by the result on a single d6 (15*d6 in my example)? How much would that reduce lag along with the collision change?


On the subject of balancing TWF a little better, couldn't you simply slow down the animation speed by a small amount in order to generate a X% loss in DPS, instead of completely rewriting the combat mechanics for DDO? After all, the system isn't quite balanced after years of fine-tuning and rebalancing; how long will it take to strike a real balance after running a complete overhaul?


Also, there was a comment by Eladrin about approaching greensteel items in an attempt to address the lag issue (and possibly as part of a TWF nerf). What were you thinking about in that case? What sort of changes? I know that some people would be quite upset about GS being nerfed, but there are also quite a few people who would welcome a change that isn't too drastic in order to restore some semblance of sanity to DDO's loot system. Perhaps if we had an idea as to what sort of alterations you would have in mind for GS weapons, we might be able to give some feedback, possibly revealing greater acceptance of a change there over the proposed change to TWF and attack speed modifiers.

[Angelus_dead]

One proposal I read 40+ pages back was to wrap all similar die rolls on an attack into a single roll. That is, rather than rolling 1d6 (rapier) +1d6+1d6 (Holy) +1d6 (Pure Good) +1d6 (Frost) +1d6+1d6+1d6+1d6+1d6+1d6+1d6+1d6+1d6+1d6 (Sneak Attack) for each hit, couldn't you do a calculation where the number of similar die rolls is determined and then that number is multiplied by the result on a single d6 (15*d6 in my example)? How much would that reduce lag along with the collision change?

I really doubt that would help at all, if it even worked. A common random system such as Mersenne Twister makes the cost pretty trivial. If there are inefficiencies in DDO's combat math software, they can probably be resolved without making changes that are externally evident. (I'd imagine the inefficiencies would be more in the area of table lookups for stats or growing the size of data structures)

Note that the suggestion you just gave would change the sample 15d6 strike from producing around 53 damage on almost every hit to having an equal chance to be 15, 45, or 90. That can be a bit bursty and change the outcome of combat when creatures suddenly die.

Also, there was a comment by Eladrin about approaching greensteel items in an attempt to address the lag issue (and possibly as part of a TWF nerf). What were you thinking about in that case? What sort of changes?

That's an amazing mystery! I'll make a guess that it involves changing the effect of properties like Lightning Strike to have different trigger rates depending on the handedness of the weapon.

[Emili]

I really doubt that would help at all, if it even worked. A common random system such as Mersenne Twister makes the cost pretty trivial. If there are inefficiencies in DDO's combat math software, they can probably be resolved without making changes that are externally evident. (I'd imagine the inefficiencies would be more in the area of table lookups for stats or growing the size of data structures)

Note that the suggestion you just gave would change the sample 15d6 strike from producing around 53 damage on almost every hit to having an equal chance to be 15, 45, or 90. That can be a bit bursty and change the outcome of combat when creatures suddenly die.


That's an amazing mystery! I'll make a guess that it involves changing the effect of properties like Lightning Strike to have different trigger rates depending on the handedness of the weapon.

I really suspect the lag has more to do with each die getting it's own packet message back to the client ... which is why they're going after the procs. You swing you hit the clacs are rolled but each and every die roll is tcp/ip packet returing to the client ... one event and ten packets sent in return.

[EKKM]

People keep saying that 2WF is so much better than 2HF, when the truth is at end game this is no longer true. EPIC groups and TOD raids are much more likely to turn down rogues and rangers and take barbarians and 2HF kensai. You can't swing a dead halfling at end game without hitting a WF barbarian. 2HF is only slightly less DPS than 2WF when you don't consider ESOS. With ESOS, 2HF is now superior. Shade's DPS challenge has demonstrated that 2HF is superior v. 100% fort mobs with unbypassable DR. The various methods of boosting strength and critical damage have pushed 2HF to a near balanced level with 2WF, even though 2WF requires more grinding for gear, more DEX, and more feats (I would consider Oversized 2WF feat a necessity). Please stop with the misdirection that somehow 2HF is so far behind 2WF.

THF is supposed to be better than TWF in high fort and/or high DR encounters. The fact that is only equal to twf in that situation is a problem. Against the rest of the mobs in the game, TWF is superior, as it should be.

TWF currently does better DPS than THF against most mobs in the game, and it will continue to so under the proposed rules (although I would prefer a less hasch reduction). TWF also have 50% more effects based strikes under the proposed rules (2 vorpals, 2 paras, 2 radiance). While not dominating THF like it does now, I don't think they are gimping TWF with this adjustment even considering the cost to TWF vs THF.

I don't think he's referring to the powergamer's endgame in those comments, but to the overall balance between 2WF and 2HF including among the more casual gamers...

+1 rep for thinking of the other 75% of the playerbase.

[redgod]

why mess with the dps one being better than the other is just opionion and wholey dependant on gear and build and playstyle

if you want to eleminate the multiple physics checks and piggyback the offhand blow go ahead

why the % nerf just piggy back it and leave it at 100/100

change your trouplesome speed bonuses to your double attack persentage and youve done what you set out to do fix the lag

bonus it wont anger the mob dps remains intact and lag is hindered if you want to get builds closer to the middle make quests that require a more ballanced charector and discourage min max exploit driven toons

with encintive the masses change, with violence (read nerfs) they become entrenched.

[Therilith]

why mess with the dps one being better than the other is just opionion and wholey dependant on gear and build and playstyle

Yes, it's the opinion of the devs, the people responsible for keeping the game balanced.

[Halock]

Just curious, but shade has a dps competition going on here, this thread

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=200183

that shows THF in the lead, is that thread and all of the things said in it about THF vs TWF all bull-****?

Again, i'm curious, because that thread was defended time and time again as being as close to a true dps comparison as possible, and it shows THF ahead