Combat Feedback for Update 5.

[Ollathir]

The biggest problem with testing the changes on Lama, is that Lama never has the same server load as the live servers. There simply is never the large number of people on lama as there is on Sarlona (the live server I play on) or any of the other live servers. As this is also a major factor of the lag. Isn't it?

I know when I do a raid at 10am I get way less lag and way less DPS lag then I do at 10pm.

Bolo I seriously doubt lag will be effected with the changes underway. If it is, I seriously doubt a large portion of player base will raise their hands in the air and rejoice. Oddly enough there are a great many players that manage to complete these quests with hvy lag with little resources and dificulty.
What Im looking for is people that can run their TWH, THF pure or MC builds on Lamania to post feedback, in the Combat feedback forum for update 5, showing one of two things:

Validate what Eladrin showed us by saying the changes to this, are this, and it does balance the game out for the better...or

Show the changes do this and this and result in this which may not be good for the game. Please look to another way to balance TWF because...

[Necron7]

Bolo I seriously doubt lag will be effected with the changes underway. If it is, I seriously doubt a large portion of player base will raise their hands in the air and rejoice. Oddly enough there are a great many players that manage to complete these quests with hvy lag with little resources and dificulty.
What Im looking for is people that can run their TWH, THF pure or MC builds on Lamania to post feedback, in the Combat feedback forum for update 5, showing one of two things:

Validate what Eladrin showed us by saying the changes to this, are this, and it does balance the game out for the better...or

Show the changes do this and this and result in this which may not be good for the game. Please look to another way to balance TWF because...

What your saying here is that this was never about lag issues, but Eladrin posted that this was to solve the lag issues.
"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."

So your telling us Eldarin is changing the game dynamics based on a LIE!?!?

If this is the case then you people are no longer deserving of my money.

[Ollathir]

/snip.

Nah, he didnt lie bud.

These are not the only things we’re currently investigating, and will not solve all of the dps lag issues

The direct effect of changing the phisics calc is the part of the DPS fix. This could be done without reducing the effectiveness of TWF. The changes are geared toward trying to level the playing field as far as melee is concerned.

[bringjoy]

Change will always mean unhappy people. Nerfing power will of course bring about the largest cries from the population -- even when such changes are addressing another thing we are constantly crying about...raid Laaaaaggg.

I am not fond of unnecessary nerfing. Nor am i fond of unnecessary lag. If these changes can bring about a significant reduction in lag issues, then I wish the devs luck in doing so -- even over the screams of "I'm leaving!! How can you do this to my uber fighter?!!??"

Likewise, if melee fighters experience some balancing issues, I am ready to accept that. The point about deconstructing greensteel and myriad other issues are good to bring up. And I imagine we vets as a whole, are much more upset with these proposed lag solutions than new folks who probably find the game *too* fast anyhow

[Necron7]

Nah, he didnt lie bud.


The direct effect of changing the phisics calc is the part of the DPS fix. This could be done without reducing the effectiveness of TWF. The changes are geared toward trying to level the playing field as far as melee is concerned.

If this was just about nerfing TWF to "level" the field then that is what Eladrin should have said. As it is he is linking TWF DPS to lag and that is deceiving people into thinking just that.

And as far as deconstructing GS, if the DEVS allow this then they will have to admit that this nerf trashed all high level TWF builds.

As far as my money is concerned you just lost it "bud".

[REALb0r3d]

Way to bring in your little lapdog Ollathir. If you cant say this to me yourself then dont bring in others or a different account to say it for you.

Ollathir your turning this game into what you are a JOKE..

So sad... I can not reg rep since I do not have enough rep.
-1 for your silliness.

[Ollathir]

Way to bring in your little lapdog Ollathir. If you cant say this to me yourself then dont bring in others or a different account to say it for you.

Ollathir your turning this game into what you are a JOKE..

If your under the impression Im blindly for the changes, read back a bit. If you still cant understand, leave the game and either finish school or go back.

[tasebro]

Sorry, I dont know who you are O, but...

...The direct effect of changing the phisics calc is the part of the DPS fix....

Fine.
So go ahead and alter the physics to accomodate, but dont nerf our DPS or TWF to eliminate viable "speed" builds.

...This could be done without reducing the effectiveness of TWF.....

Good. That sounds like a swell idea to me. Furthermore dont mess with my cross-class speed boosts either....

...The changes are geared toward trying to level the playing field as far as melee is concerned......

Noted.
It's a bad idea, so don't do it.
It's a bad idea because when anything effective is systematically, arbirarily nerfed, then that gives me ("Valued Customer") a clear disincentive to risk investing anything worthwhile (i.e: $$$, time) into any toon build, since we all now know the intent will be to normalize positive results we can achieve by nerfing those results the very next update.
Knowing that, then I ("Valued Customer") now have no reason to waste any more of my money on building custom sub-optimal toons, since the best possible reward is mediocrity, and I am not interested in funding mediocrity.

DnD is NOT about "trying to level the playing field", it IS about getting the most you can with what you have to work with.
Edgy "power builds" are part of that fundamental, and when you normalize that into oblivion, you get DnD v4.0, which is to say a different incarnation of WoW. No thanks.
If DDO is so weakly built that it cannot work with edgy power builds, then that needs to be made clear up front, and not after the fact by pulling the rug out from under those who have the wherewithal to achieve effective build results with our resources.

[Necron7]

If your under the impression Im blindly for the changes, read back a bit. If you still cant understand, leave the game and either finish school or go back.

I have played on the test server; found that the TWF nerf to be just that a nerf, and posted my feedback. Now your telling us that this nerf has little to do with TWF DPS lag, but is actually to "level" the playing field. You are right I dont understand why Eladrin linked the lag to TWF DPS, so could you please clarify what this nerf is supposed to be solving?

With all these people wanting to deconstruct their GS should tell you that no one wants to play their TWF builds if this goes through.

And yes I am leaving the game , but I'm a little lost as to why I need or should go back to school?

[ncarter555]

WoW....I read the first and last page to get a jist. Not sure I am happy about the twf change. However, after having many things change many times in my MMORPG career I am not suprised.

As a team player I will say this. As long as my team that takes 10 minutes to drop Arratreikos now, still takes 10 minutes to drop him after the patch, then I'm ok. If this is by strengthening other classes or decreasing the BOSS stats/hp etc, I don't care. What I don't want to see is the 10 minute fight to turn into 15 because of less overall dps.

[Anthem]

Just wanted to go on the record as in favour. My conditional approval is based only on my observation that the min/maxing for TWF has generated a lot of one build type, and had reduced the variety of builds considered by many as viable.

I do not like the way the news was delivered so closely worded with a lag fix that it was practically camouflaged as one.

[AbsynthMinded]

WoW....I read the first and last page to get a jist. Not sure I am happy about the twf change. However, after having many things change many times in my MMORPG career I am not suprised.

As a team player I will say this. As long as my team that takes 10 minutes to drop Arratreikos now, still takes 10 minutes to drop him after the patch, then I'm ok. If this is by strengthening other classes or decreasing the BOSS stats/hp etc, I don't care. What I don't want to see is the 10 minute fight to turn into 15 because of less overall dps.

Nothing of what they are addressing is going to prevent the lag from returning later.. Nothing that was said has given me any confidence. Even though our opinions and feedback were asked for it does not amount to much. The forums are a microcosm and not truly representative of the player majority, just the vocal minority.

[Ollathir]

Alright this is a basic summary

It's a huge thread and people can't seem to stop asking the same redundant sometimes simplistic questions that have already been asked and answered so here's a summery:

italics are the common question or statement some are actual posts some generic
Dev responses in BOLD yellow
Any comment or opinion I add is in normal text

* FIX/UPGRADE the SERVERS instead of nerfing!!!111ONE1
We've already given DDO major upgrades to servers and datacenter, so continued "upgrade your hardware" comments are not contributing to the discussion in a productive manner.

* You're trying to trick us by hiding a nerf in a lag fix
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.
Obviously they feel that TWF is overpowered a stance on it's face seems true but mostly due to the fact that most Melees benefit more from two weapons than one; due to effects, greensteel enchantments and things like double assassinate and double smite (which actually gets THF Paladins called gimp by some).

* why double strikes and why nerf TWF and fix lag at the same time
[we need to reduce] the number of permanent speed increases in the game that are doing nasty things behind the scenes, [double strike] significantly reduces the overhead in a bunch of the calculations Implicit: TWF and double strike are interrelated Double strike is necessary to replace speed boosts, specifically. But some balancing of TWF is needed or double strikes would be overpowered (and of course the earlier statement that they feel TWF holds "extreme dominance" over everything else.

* I don't see how this is going to reduce lag. You're replacing physics collision calculations with % proc calculations
Some things are very light, performance-wise. "Chance to proc" is one of the lightest calculations available.

*So a year ago you guys introduce Dungeon Alert to get rid of lag, that evidentally didnt work at all.
Dungeon Alert was meant to control one particular source of lag. (Specifically, pathing and perception systems of large numbers of monsters in a small area, since that's an n^2 problem.) It was never expected to banish all of it. Likewise, these changes are not expected to banish all forms of lag, but should help some of them.

AND:
*if this works to lessen the lag, can we finally do away DA
Dungeon Alert actually does help by making it suboptimal to create situations where there are a large number of monsters in a small area. (Dungeons where it automatically triggers through no action of your own need to have their spawns changed.)

* Who cares if lag is reduced if mobs take 50% longer to kill, The sky is falling, DoooOOoooMMMMm etc.
Monsters would take 50% longer to kill only if the off-hand chance was reduced to zero, and a chance to attack under 100% was applied to the main hand as well. (As main hand attacks deal more damage than off-hand, with the exception of the monk.) According to Squelch's numbers TWF DPS will be lower by about 16-17%.

*So basically instead of improving the servers communication to get rid of the dps lag you are just going to take the easy way out and nerf twfing
We're attacking the problem from many directions.


I'll probably repost this every few pages as needed...

My personal opinion, removing speed calcs changes the game feel. Ive gotten used to the lag and if it can be addressed somewhere else I'm all for it. Thats my own personal opinion based on no facts simply because I cant log into lamania.
TWF has its place, so does S&B and THF, I dont see the need to scale down but it looks like its getting changed no matter what. Though I disagree with what the changes are, thats my own personal opinion based on no facts simply because I cant log into lamania.

So...

The post is for Combat feedback, created by Eladrin Im assuming to get feedback. Though I argued quite a bit to the intuitive, that no longer matters. What does matter is getting reliable feedback into the post that can explain why the changes are fine or why they may not be and what they effect. You dont see a title by my name saying "Dev", and I'd like to see them come back to their post but doubt they will if theres nothing valid to point out other than "I'm ****ed off".

[Necron7]

This will be my last post.

It is my belief that the DEVS intended to deceive the players to begin with. I believe that this has all been a pony show to a nerf they were going force on us anyways.

Thanks for finding this Ollathir it answers some of our questions.

With that said I cannot give my money to people who think so little of their customer base that they feel they must mislead them.

Thanks and Goodbye.

[tasebro]

...It is my belief that the DEVS intended to deceive the players to begin with. I believe that this has all been a pony show to a nerf they were going force on us anyways.

Thanks for finding this Ollathir it answers some of our questions.

With that said I cannot give my money to people who think so little of their customer base that they feel they must mislead them....

Perhaps. But frankly I don't see the "deception" here, merely a warning to players as to bad news coming down the pipe. Still better than not telling us at all tho.

I do however see some limited use of "lag solution" as a convenient justification for nerfdate 5 lameness. but what choice to the devs have at this point? It is going to happen sooner rather than later, and damage control measures are in place (i.e.: ignore it maybe the players will shut up after a while).

I don't know but I suspect that when Turbine/DDo was bought out, there was a not-unexpected shift in management to quickly: 1. reduce expenditures and 2. increase profits (to make the "new acquisition" pay for itself, with any surplus going into the new owners pocket); and part of that was a shift moving the cream of the dev staff over to service the new upcoming harry-potter-online game, and "streamlining" what was left of DDO resources to cruise for a while on autopilot (i.e.: on the cheap)--part of that autopilot streamlining was applying expedient fixes to the top three or four known outstanding problem areas to reduce costs and increase short-term "performance" overall via load reduction-- so the executive decision was made, and the task at hand was to nerf speed boosts in particular, and melee DPS in general to solve the biggest offenders (the nail that sticks up gets the pounding). Note that character transfers between live servers also got the axe here--as it was another "waste of resources".

I suspect the devs--or what is left of them after being picked over to staff harry potter--really do care about the game, and are doing the best they can with what they have and the orders they are under from the new owner and the execs.
So now the devs are stuck, they no doubt want to do what they can to help us (hence the warnings to us of what is coming), and they know very well that nerfdate 5 is a bad idea that will have serious negative consequences, but the alternatives are likely much worse, and orders are orders, so they gotta do what the execs say. The execs also know its a bad idea that will trash many players' builds--they just don't care because they will get their bonuses regardless of what happens (worst case, they just liquidate, sell out to blizzardinc, grab the signing bonuses and run off to CA maybe???). The players clearly know its a bad idea, but we are at the mercy of the new ownership/execs, so the only choices we have are: 1. stop paying them for our DDo accounts, or 2. suck it up and live with being screwed over, and keep paying....so they can screw us over yet again come nerfdate 6....

This is what I suspect--I do not know but the suspicion is reasonable.
If this is true, the devs obviously cannot speak about this, since that would be insubordinate.
The execs are not going to take responsibility either, since they are insulated and above any fallout.

I am a pay-as-you-go player ("Valued Customer") since it went f2p--I deliberately chose to NEVER go subscription v.i.p. because I did not want to be bound by that if things went sour (as they now have)--but I have invested a couple hundred bucks in turbine points to buy "long term" content and '"speed" build' upgrades for the long haul (now nerfed to uselessness), and my grievance with nerfdate 5 is that clearly part of the money I sent turbine that was meant to fund my interests is now riding on some Turbine executives hip, instead of funding the specific resources I bought, and I am being effectively screwed out of my current content interface (i.e. my custom builds), not to mention losing ALL sense of "ownership" of said toons and the build choices allocated therein. I am not alone in this either, and that is the downside of buying content from Turbine, since they can (and obviously will) alter it at any time it suits them to do so, even if it categorically trashes players investments in their builds.
So here I am in stuck in limbo, knowing that with nerfdate 5 my main toon--and almost all of my alts--will soon be rendered severely hampered in their intended purpose as my only interface with the content I bought (various DPS "speed" builds), and on top of that, we now have clear indications that marginalization of all power builds is the "new mandate", and since power builds is what I am currently interested in, I now have no motivation to work on any alts since they are all going to be nerfed in the name of "game balance".
I will have to start over from scratch AGAIN since the carrot is now smaller, and on a longer stick.
I do want to play my toons that I have invested so much time and money into tweaking to be the way I built them to be, but I know there is no point since any achievement that resembles effectiveness will likely be nerfed come updates 5/6, so I now have severe reservations about trusting turbine to do-the-right-thing when the powers that be have demonstrated the intention to employ deleterious/lame solutions, then take the money and run.

[mjrepro]

Perhaps. But frankly I don't see the "deception" here, merely a warning to players as to bad news coming down the pipe. Still better than not telling us at all tho.

I do however see some limited use of "lag solution" as a convenient justification for nerfdate 5 lameness. but what choice to the devs have at this point? It is going to happen sooner rather than later, and damage control measures are in place (i.e.: ignore it maybe the players will shut up after a while).

I don't know but I suspect that when Turbine/DDo was bought out, there was a not-unexpected shift in management to quickly: 1. reduce expenditures and 2. increase profits (to make the "new acquisition" pay for itself, with any surplus going into the new owners pocket); and part of that was a shift moving the cream of the dev staff over to service the new upcoming harry-potter-online game, and "streamlining" what was left of DDO resources to cruise for a while on autopilot (i.e.: on the cheap)--part of that autopilot streamlining was applying expedient fixes to the top three or four known outstanding problem areas to reduce costs and increase short-term "performance" overall via load reduction-- so the executive decision was made, and the task at hand was to nerf speed boosts in particular, and melee DPS in general to solve the biggest offenders (the nail that sticks up gets the pounding). Note that character transfers between live servers also got the axe here--as it was another "waste of resources".

I suspect the devs--or what is left of them after being picked over to staff harry potter--really do care about the game, and are doing the best they can with what they have and the orders they are under from the new owner and the execs.
So now the devs are stuck, they no doubt want to do what they can to help us (hence the warnings to us of what is coming), and they know very well that nerfdate 5 is a bad idea that will have serious negative consequences, but the alternatives are likely much worse, and orders are orders, so they gotta do what the execs say. The execs also know its a bad idea that will trash many players' builds--they just don't care because they will get their bonuses regardless of what happens (worst case, they just liquidate, sell out to blizzardinc, grab the signing bonuses and run off to CA maybe???). The players clearly know its a bad idea, but we are at the mercy of the new ownership/execs, so the only choices we have are: 1. stop paying them for our DDo accounts, or 2. suck it up and live with being screwed over, and keep paying....so they can screw us over yet again come nerfdate 6....

This is what I suspect--I do not know but the suspicion is reasonable.
If this is true, the devs obviously cannot speak about this, since that would be insubordinate.
The execs are not going to take responsibility either, since they are insulated and above any fallout.

I am a pay-as-you-go player ("Valued Customer") since it went f2p--I deliberately chose to NEVER go subscription v.i.p. because I did not want to be bound by that if things went sour (as they now have)--but I have invested a couple hundred bucks in turbine points to buy "long term" content and '"speed" build' upgrades for the long haul (now nerfed to uselessness), and my grievance with nerfdate 5 is that clearly part of the money I sent turbine that was meant to fund my interests is now riding on some Turbine executives hip, instead of funding the specific resources I bought, and I am being effectively screwed out of my current content interface (i.e. my custom builds), not to mention losing ALL sense of "ownership" of said toons and the build choices allocated therein. I am not alone in this either, and that is the downside of buying content from Turbine, since they can (and obviously will) alter it at any time it suits them to do so, even if it categorically trashes players investments in their builds.
So here I am in stuck in limbo, knowing that with nerfdate 5 my main toon--and almost all of my alts--will soon be rendered severely hampered in their intended purpose as my only interface with the content I bought (various DPS "speed" builds), and on top of that, we now have clear indications that marginalization of all power builds is the "new mandate", and since power builds is what I am currently interested in, I now have no motivation to work on any alts since they are all going to be nerfed in the name of "game balance".
I will have to start over from scratch AGAIN since the carrot is now smaller, and on a longer stick.
I do want to play my toons that I have invested so much time and money into tweaking to be the way I built them to be, but I know there is no point since any achievement that resembles effectiveness will likely be nerfed come updates 5/6, so I now have severe reservations about trusting turbine to do-the-right-thing when the powers that be have demonstrated the intention to employ deleterious/lame solutions, then take the money and run.

Just wow, talk about some QQ. I remember when playing on WoW (yeah might seem like childs play but it is the most popular MMO with the largest fan base) and they nerfed us Warlocks. Yeah a lot of us screamed, but it did not break the game. This again will not break the game. It is a little slower, but again you are all choosing to kill the child before he is even born. What if new parents thought like you, ( Like OMG! You mean I CAN'T stay out and drink all night with my friends?)

I am a fan of choices in this game. The choice to do TWF or THF. The choice to choose my stances on my monk. The choice to be a melee cleric or a healing cleric (just warn me when you join my parties if you are not a healer). This nerf will put some of the choice back into the game for some, because before this, to do anything meaningful you had to pick 1 route and go down it with minor deviance (I can't wait to drop windstance). Just like addiction, the ones that are most affected by it, would never see that their system is overpowered until after they are taken off it by force. Nerfing is not bad it is meant to bring more balane.

So instead of saying this is a terrible idea, suck it up and deal. Start telling the dev's what you think it should be changed to instead, because they have already changed things around since the start of the thread, so why not offer suggestions instead of just blindly saying the sky is falling and you have to stop it.

My thought is just to bring off hand procs up by 10% on the base so 1 feat nets you 50% and all three 90%. I think the sound of 90% and the actual happening is much nicer then. But that is me, a TWF junky.

[Visty]

i wonder how many of those *****ing that twf is dead now havent read the thread where its proven that twf still rules everything

[crschoen]

Here is a crazy idea. If the true goal is to reduce lag, instead of nerfing DPS players, why not use more creative energy on end-game content? It seems like the Standard Operating Procedure for creating end game monsters is to create a DPS situation. Let’s take epic dungeons for example. What does the SOP say for creating an epic monster?

• Make monster immune to vorpals, stat damagers, paralyzers, etc.

• Make monster immune to debuff or crowd control spells

• Give monster a million hit points

This SOP steers players towards focusing on DPS. So to kill an epic monster the only strategy is to maximize DPS by using firewalls and two-weapon fighting. I used epic monsters as an example but the same is true for the Shroud raid.

So now you’re saying, “High DPS is causing lag, so we will reduce the ability to achieve high DPS.”

Why not look at the other side of the coin which is, “Why does our end game SOP focus on requiring high DPS to win?”

[AbsynthMinded]

Just wow, talk about some QQ. I remember when playing on WoW (yeah might seem like childs play but it is the most popular MMO with the largest fan base) and they nerfed us Warlocks. Yeah a lot of us screamed, but it did not break the game. This again will not break the game. It is a little slower, but again you are all choosing to kill the child before he is even born. What if new parents thought like you, ( Like OMG! You mean I CAN'T stay out and drink all night with my friends?)

I am a fan of choices in this game. The choice to do TWF or THF. The choice to choose my stances on my monk. The choice to be a melee cleric or a healing cleric (just warn me when you join my parties if you are not a healer). This nerf will put some of the choice back into the game for some, because before this, to do anything meaningful you had to pick 1 route and go down it with minor deviance (I can't wait to drop windstance). Just like addiction, the ones that are most affected by it, would never see that their system is overpowered until after they are taken off it by force. Nerfing is not bad it is meant to bring more balane.

So instead of saying this is a terrible idea, suck it up and deal. Start telling the dev's what you think it should be changed to instead, because they have already changed things around since the start of the thread, so why not offer suggestions instead of just blindly saying the sky is falling and you have to stop it.

My thought is just to bring off hand procs up by 10% on the base so 1 feat nets you 50% and all three 90%. I think the sound of 90% and the actual happening is much nicer then. But that is me, a TWF junky.

I would only point out that this 'change' is being cloaked by the 'emergency' of their code systems not keeping pace with their available hardware. It's the number of raids going on at once and the proc's and damage rolls putting too much strain on the systems. The guesstimated end result by this change, which is a severe deviation from the base D20 systems and feedback, will be to reduce strain on the hardware, and thus reduce overall DPS Lag. However, with more and more added content and players reaching 20, this lag is guaranteed to return and if they are not planning for a massive hardware upgrade to all new shiny stuff for all the realms we will reach this point again... soon.. all the tweaks on our base systems which will little by little nudge us away from anything we know now, are only buying time to avoid spending the big money..

or I could be totally wrong and the changes will do everything they say and keep lag down forever yet not appear like a lobotomy of the system we love...

However if we had the best hamsters and wheels, the same could be said that over time we will be here again.. Far be it from me to presume the right business decision. I know in practical terms its cheaper to buy time with code than hardware. It is sentimentality which I believe drives the resistant, but reasonably so. The translation of tabletop to video game is a wonder, and we who are not kidding ourselves know that the numbers and data feedback we get is a paltry representation of the massive number crunching going on which if were played out on tabletop would take a month of Sundays just to pass a room or two of real encounters.

I also would hope the DEVs are paying attention and start going over all the raid encounters and taking readings for how they might also be changed to reflect this new balance.

[Gnash]

From what I am gathering on the new mechanics, with the physics check only happening on the main hand, would a kill strike on first swing null the proc and double attack with the target gone?

The off hand wouldn't have a target since the physics was done on the first swing the proc wouldn't have a target?

Does the double attack have its own new physics check and is there a proc attached to it?