Combat Feedback for Update 5.

[BlackSteel]

Actually most of the TWFers already are gimps and the rest is very close. Care for the numbers? Squelch and Shade have provided them.

lol numbers + shade????????????????

noone on the forums has shown more disdain for numbers

[Gercho]

And speaking of dirty politics... what I'm doing is not dirty politics, but now that you mention it the thread as a whole is.

They started with a lag fix. Ok, no one has any problem with that.

Then they attached a... I dunno the political term, but it's when you get people to pass stuff they don't want by attaching it to stuff they do. Namely, the DPS nerf which is seperate from the lag fix but released with it, and worded in such a way so many people are getting confused and thinking that the DPS nerf is necessary for the lag fix instead of being unrelated. Then if someone says no to it, you can say 'Wait, you're against [insert positive thing]?' In this case, a lag fix? When in fact they may very well have no problem with a lag fix, but when forced to vote on both it and something undesirable as a single package (DPS nerf) they are likely to vote 'no' to the whole.

It's bullying people into accepting things they don't want.

Just like the not so subtle threat that if DPS isn't nerfed, then Greensteel would be... even though it was called unrelated to the lag fix and yet worded as if the two were inseparable.

I totally agree with this +1

[SquelchHU]

I am ignoring any and all further remarks regarding Calebro. Stop bringing it up again, and stop trolling me for neg rep for it.

I manage to get by most of the time in epics on my wizard with ~300 HP, have completed large sections without taking any damage at all, and have completed many without deaths, including the otherwise fairly fatal DQ 2 without dying, and without Evasion.

In most epics you don't take damage, true. But that is due to certain borked mechanics of those epics, and not because HP are not important.

Even in the few where you are likely to take damage regardless of if you can help it or not (DQ2) you still are not arguing just because you 'get by most of the time with 300 HP' that running around with low HP is fine. It simply means that you did it.

And in any case that was simply an example of where someone could say something that indicated the presence or absence of experience. I wasn't trying to get into another talk about that.

My impression is that the TWF nerf does represent some impact upon addressing DPS lag, though, yes, the way in which this has been presented and worded is somewhat misleading.

That said, it also seems that we may be able to block the nerf in this fashion after testing it on Lama.

Which is not an entirely unreasonable possibility, as GS is clearly very overpowered, and causes problems with the entire loot system, and may, in and of itself, be contributing to lag.

Claims that the DPS nerf fixes the DPS lag are false. Read the original post. He makes it very clear the cause of lag is a seperate check for the offhand, which he intends to fix by making it ride onto the main hand.

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.

This is the cause of DPS lag, and according to the OP making the offhand ride onto the mainhand greatly reduces or eliminates the extra load.

He then goes on to make the chances of triggering an offhand attack lower than they were before.

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.)

Two separate things.

As for Greensteel, no not really. Run the math.

If you can kill a mob in 10 seconds with +5 Holy of Pure Good, you will kill it in 9 with a Mineral 2. 10%. Certainly a significant difference, else people wouldn't grind for it (and be upset when they take a larger than 10% nerf for no particular reason). If you icy burst the aforementioned level 14 generic lootgen weapon, the gap between it and Min 2 drops to about 1%. Literally, 1%. Actually 1.05% but whatever.

But a 1-10% difference is not enough to be called overpowered. You only see so many using greensteel because it's finite grind, because most other named weapons are inferior to lootgen particularly at the time Mod 6 came out, and because a 1-10% improvement is still an improvement.

If you want to stop using the generic greensteel and start using something more focused (like say, Lightning 2) then you compare it to other focused weapons (like Holy/Greater Bane).

I don't feel like running the math on this, but I expect similar results.

'Greensteel is overpowered' is a massive strawman.

[SquelchHU]

Of course it has, for those people that keeps going to the D&D 3.5-well and drone about how happy we should be that TWF is even remotely useful in DDO because in D&D it's like this and like that. How TWF works in D&D is as irrelevant as how e.g. wizards work in D&D, or grazing hits (what?).

Here is the statement that started this discussion:

Yes, there's lot of strangeness in D&D 3.5 that would make this game become unplayable. That system has been so thoroughly raped by PnP powergamers (and by WotC themselves)that without extreme DM supervision and selection it is a joke.

While this is true, it has no relevance to the merits (or lack thereof) of THF and TWF, in D&D or in DDO.

As in while it is true that there is a lot of strangeness in D&D 3.5 that would make the game unplayable, and that powergamers have torn apart D&D 3.5 that has nothing to do with the fact that TWF is terrible in PnP, THF only suffers the generic melee flaws in PnP (as in it would be good if melee was good), but TWF and THF are much closer together in DDO.

Does that clarify things?

[BlackSteel]

'Greensteel is overpowered' is a massive strawman.

agreed, i've said the same thing several times

random loot gen in many instances can be better, just much rarer. The nice thing about greensteel is that they're generally all purpose weapons, and it gets rid of the golf bag backpack of weapons.

[Keridan]

Turbine wants YOU... to play pure THF barbarians. (Pls choose between dwarf male or female - DDO is a game of choices!)

If I hadn't maxed my rep for the last 24 hours, you'd get +1. I was sipping my coffee when I read that sig :P

[SquelchHU]

agreed, i've said the same thing several times

random loot gen in many instances can be better, just much rarer. The nice thing about greensteel is that they're generally all purpose weapons, and it gets rid of the golf bag backpack of weapons.

I'm not even so convinced about the rarer thing. After all just running Shroud enough to get you 24 larges will also get you somewhere in the neighborhood of 200-300 chests, all of which can drop level 14 weapons (such as +5 holy/pg). And this isn't counting what else you do.

Chances are if you check the AH on your server you can get +5 holy of pgs if you have the cash... and unless it's handwraps they won't be that expensive. Certainly cheaper than tier 3 greensteels.

And even when you consider a tier 2 pos/pos (+5 holy burst of pg, upgraded damage die) is about 4%-5% better than a lootgen +5 holy/pg, the blank alone ends up being more expensive even though the smalls and mediums are easy enough to acquire. That and icy burst again.

Greensteel however is finite grind. You can find +5 holy/pg now... or 1,000 chests from now. Or never. If you need 3 scales only, and you find one you know exactly how much closer you are.

It does tend to eliminate the golf bag of weapons, though that tends to be more due to laziness than greensteel actually replacing all lootgen weapons.

And speaking of which, people don't like icy burst either, but it certainly did draw awareness back to random loot.

[Zerkul]

I'll repeat this to nausea: i don't like this new two weapon fighting mechanic (as i didn't like in beta the grazing ht mechanic). This is just another bad joke from programmers which think only about rape the game of its beauty with silly solutions. If this was the first solution you passed by to reduce the lag i suggest you all (DEVs) to apply yourselves a bit more on the matter before jumping at conclusions like this one. Sorry for the strong terms but in my humble opinion this is just ********. That's what i think.


Z.

[IronClan]

And speaking of dirty politics... what I'm doing is not dirty politics, but now that you mention it the thread as a whole is.

They started with a lag fix. Ok, no one has any problem with that.

Then they attached a... I dunno the political term, but it's when you get people to pass stuff they don't want by attaching it to stuff they do. Namely, the DPS nerf which is seperate from the lag fix but released with it, and worded in such a way so many people are getting confused and thinking that the DPS nerf is necessary for the lag fix instead of being unrelated.

IMO you really need to re-read the OP you're making generalizations that are clearly disingenuous and intended to paint a narrative you want to tell, instead of the truth which is there in black and white in the OP and subsequent posts. I wont point it all out to you because i realize this is less about your understanding the OP and more about how you want to portray the developers. But that said the reduction in 10% speed boosts via turning it into double strikes, is clearly an attempt to reduce overall server overhead during combat... Maybe they think it will take the "peak" off of lag spikes or extreme examples of lag like DPS lag. "nerfing" TWF because it's a tad overpowered is in the same discussion because they need to get rid of the 10% haste boost of T1 at the same time they turn all the other haste effects into double strikes...

The nerf will have some small anti-lag synergy with removing the extra CD check (Collision Detection) by reducing the overall number of attacks a small amount, and the "Double strike" kludge will have synergy with both by taking the "peak" off by eliminating several sources of peaky combat speed increase (normalizing combat speed has the net effect of slowing it down overall).

No where has any Dev stated that "nerf has nothing to do with lag at all" or "nerf fixes lag by itself" or "hey look over there it's a LAG FIX!!!!" ----> nerf *whistles*

Maybe surprising but I agree with your basic stance that this Nerf harsh as it stands. a 16% reduction in DPS is too much, IMO maybe 8-10% and then tweak a little if needed would be better. And I agree with your previous post that PART of the reason TWF is so popular is that so many classes are directed towards it (Paladins getting two smites per use when TWF for example instead of one per with THF) I mean Paladins are the classic S&B and THF class... why pigeon hole them towards TWF? Probably that second smite was a bug that turned into a feature. Anyway I just think you're catalyzing and polarizing the issue unnecessarily by adding mischaracterizations, and hyperbole.

[smatt]

IMO you really need to re-read the OP you're making generalizations that are clearly disingenuous and intended to paint a narrative you want to tell, instead of the truth which is there in black and white in the OP and subsequent posts. I wont point it all out to you because i realize this is less about your understanding the OP and more about how you want to portray the developers. But that said the reduction in 10% speed boosts via turning it into double strikes, is clearly an attempt to reduce overall server overhead during combat... Maybe they think it will take the "peak" off of lag spikes or extreme examples of lag like DPS lag. "nerfing" TWF because it's a tad overpowered is in the same discussion because they need to get rid of the 10% haste boost of T1 at the same time they turn all the other haste effects into double strikes...

The nerf will have some small anti-lag synergy with removing the extra CD check (Collision Detection) by reducing the overall number of attacks a small amount, and the "Double strike" kludge will have synergy with both by taking the "peak" off by eliminating several sources of peaky combat speed increase (normalizing combat speed has the net effect of slowing it down overall).

No where has any Dev stated that "nerf has nothing to do with lag at all" or "nerf fixes lag by itself" or "hey look over there it's a LAG FIX!!!!" ----> nerf *whistles*

Maybe surprising but I agree with your basic stance that this Nerf harsh as it stands. a 16% reduction in DPS is too much, IMO maybe 8-10% and then tweak a little if needed would be better. And I agree with your previous post that PART of the reason TWF is so popular is that so many classes are directed towards it (Paladins getting two smites per use when TWF for example instead of one per with THF) I mean Paladins are the classic S&B and THF class... why pigeon hole them towards TWF? Probably that second smite was a bug that turned into a feature. Anyway I just think you're catalyzing and polarizing the issue unnecessarily by adding mischaracterizations, and hyperbole.

Nice post...

[Visty]

Fixed that for you.

nop, you didnt fix it , you made it wrong

tempest I DOES help twf
also twf DOES more dmg then thf

[Gercho]

IMO you really need to re-read the OP you're making generalizations that are clearly disingenuous and intended to paint a narrative you want to tell, instead of the truth which is there in black and white in the OP and subsequent posts. I wont point it all out to you because i realize this is less about your understanding the OP and more about how you want to portray the developers. But that said the reduction in 10% speed boosts via turning it into double strikes, is clearly an attempt to reduce overall server overhead during combat... Maybe they think it will take the "peak" off of lag spikes or extreme examples of lag like DPS lag. "nerfing" TWF because it's a tad overpowered is in the same discussion because they need to get rid of the 10% haste boost of T1 at the same time they turn all the other haste effects into double strikes...

The nerf will have some small anti-lag synergy with removing the extra CD check (Collision Detection) by reducing the overall number of attacks a small amount, and the "Double strike" kludge will have synergy with both by taking the "peak" off by eliminating several sources of peaky combat speed increase (normalizing combat speed has the net effect of slowing it down overall).

No where has any Dev stated that "nerf has nothing to do with lag at all" or "nerf fixes lag by itself" or "hey look over there it's a LAG FIX!!!!" ----> nerf *whistles*

The fact is that if the devs had wanted to be 100% clear, they should have made two different posts, one about how to attack lag, and the double collision, and maybe double strike (applied to both hands) so it wouldnt mean any nerf at all. And another one totally different and independant about lowering the % of triggering off hand attacks whose purpose was to find the right balance between twf and thf, from the moment they mixed both things, it opens for intepretations as the one squelch made and i have to agree with.

Eladrin said that the main thing they expect to help with the lag is the removal from collision detection for off hand attacks, the actual damage and hit calculation wasnt the real problem. Double strike would eliminate some extra collision detection aswell, nerfing twf should have been a totally different post.

[Terdfergeson]

Does glancing blows add much to the lag during the calculations? Seems like a miss would cause less if it were simply a miss, without having to determine if any damage is actually dealt.

[Ollathir]

Thatr's cool. If he will "examine" the gains of TWF, he should of course examine the costs as well. If its one thing I've noticed, the costs have been marginalized. Least thats what I gather from post 1.

After this nerf I expect that for every one-handed GS weapon you craft, you get another for free. Make TWF have the same ability pre-requisite as THF = none. Make kopesh a martial weapon. And make TWF give no minus to hit. Since he wants them to have the same DPS, they should have the same costs. Then it will only be cosmetic.

Or how about this, make THF much cheaper than TWF but grant higher DPS against multiple opponents and lower against a single target. Oh, that is how it is working now. My bad.

Sorry, cant give anymore rep.

Correct, just like pushing in DA (which didn't fix the lag), this nerf to DPS isn't going to do anything to fix the lag. Pathing, yes was fixed by default, spawn rate and telporting, not everywhere.

I wonder if the monthly subscription rate/turbine point costs will rise at some point 'to fix the lag'? I also hear generating epic tokens creates lag, so we're going to fragments <---

Are you saying that TWFers will be gimp because you have actually done the math and compared it to THF, or are you simply saying that any decrease in DPS is unacceptable to you no matter what? Personally I would find it more enjoyable to run end game content with less DPS. Maybe one less Vorpal going in my offhand for some quests. I find it hard to enjoy myself as it is if the healer/casters dont waste resources.


Yeah, if only someone had created a thread detailing the changes they are considering... Agreed, really wish they would have laid that out for us.

This will be the big hoochie mama of the DDO nerfs though.

A day which will live forever in infamy, when the very foundations of Stormreach shook from the dissonance of 10 000 kopeshes collectively crying out in pain! (Am I spreading it on a little too thick maybe?)

Nah. Ultimatly if the average gamer has a choice between TWF and THF melee, they will take the path of least resistance to maximum output. And if they can't figure it out, I'm sure someone will throw them a bone.
The experienced gamer will evaluate the new rule set, (if implimented) and create something that someone sooner or later will be crying foul about. ...So...we got that goin for us.

As an aside, Eladrin's last post on Friday evening was back on page 43.

This thread is now at page 119...

I don't envy your job this morning, El

Have the fealing there will be some maintenance on Tue that may effect some posts made over the last couple days.

[Ollathir]

/snip.

wow. Nicely played.

[Aashrym]

Does glancing blows add much to the lag during the calculations? Seems like a miss would cause less if it were simply a miss, without having to determine if any damage is actually dealt.

I would imagine a glancing blow would require a collision detection at some point too. If collision detection contributes to the DPS lag then I would guess yes.

[Consumer]

nop, you didnt fix it , you made it wrong

tempest I DOES help twf
also twf DOES more dmg then thf

No idea who you play with lol.

Its pretty clear an epic sos destroys lit II khopeshes atm and will continue to do so after this update in the hands of a Fighter.

Tempest I will only benefit Tempest rangers and tempests rogues after the update, even then the feat cost is awful. All builds that splashed for the 10% speed will be now better off removing the splash and taking STWF.

[Kevlar]

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.

Since you've asked (and thank you very much for doing so) I'm against these changes to solve the DPS lag problem and would ask you to pursue some of those other "many angles".

[BlackSteel]

No idea who you play with lol.

Its pretty clear an epic sos destroys lit II khopeshes atm and will continue to do so after this update in the hands of a Fighter.

Tempest I will only benefit Tempest rangers and tempests rogues after the update, even then the feat cost is awful. All builds that splashed for the 10% speed will be now better off removing the splash and taking STWF.

not a fair comparison now or after the update. Compare a lit 2 greataxe to lit 2 khopeshes.

or compare dual chaosblades on a pure pally versus the esos on a pure pally.

its a very bad argument when you're relying on one sole weapon that cant be used in 100% of content. unlike shroud weapons, which when released replaced nearly everything, and a single min 2 or lit2 was applicable in nearly every encounter (and still is)

[Ollathir]

Since you've asked (and thank you very much for doing so) I'm against these changes to solve the DPS lag problem and would ask you to pursue some of those other "many angles".

lol. Seems it is and isnt connected. The TWF nerf is because some think,feel believe or confirmed TWF is grossly overpowered compared to THF, taking into consideration or not taking into consideration the cost of creating an effective grossly overpowered TWF. Add in the elimination of the speed boosts, Ie Tempest I, Monk wind stance I-IV, Fighter Capstone needing to be removed.

Edit: speed boosts that stack with haste.