Combat Feedback for Update 5.

[Tharlak]

I've been playing for a while and haven't felt the need to post as I have been enjoying the game for the most part. Update 5 has changed this. I understand the need to reduce the load on the server, however there was no need purposefully hamstring existing characters to do it. If you feel you need to continue on your current path you might consider increasing the base percentages so you can approximate pre-update 5 conditions. Since I actually pay for the game I figure I should voice my opinion when you head in a direction I do not agree with and takes away from my enjoyment of the game.

Good first post.

+1

[shablala]

u 5 combat changes sucks . These nerfs are ****. Big ****. Monster builds and any combos with 6 ranger lvls are dead. Paladin dps now sucks a lot with new zeal. My ranger 18 monk 2 attacks in slow motion and my light 2 rapiers proc 50% less than before.. My dps now sucks. Casters are now overpowered. Epic quests are only for casters now.
This is not more challenge or more fun. This is ****

I give you an A on the dramatic and heartbreaking delivery. But still an epic F for the gross exaggeration.

FYI 6ranger is STILL the best 6lvl splash after U5. If you dont agree, then maybe you do need to just play a caster.

[shablala]

I've been playing for a while and haven't felt the need to post as I have been enjoying the game for the most part. Update 5 has changed this. I understand the need to reduce the load on the server, however there was no need purposefully hamstring existing characters to do it. If you feel you need to continue on your current path you might consider increasing the base percentages so you can approximate pre-update 5 conditions. Since I actually pay for the game I figure I should voice my opinion when you head in a direction I do not agree with and takes away from my enjoyment of the game.

So you are saying that your enjoyment of the game is tied to how much DPS you can do with your toon? So in theory, if the change of U5 was to have doubled your dps instead, you would have thought it was the best thing since sliced bread.
You're right about one thing though, you do have the right to voice your opinion.

And just to repeat something that was said only a few hundred times...the change was "NOT" just to reduce lag, it was for balance.

[shablala]

Time is money Meetch, and you are mighty liberal with *other* peoples' time/money.
Think about that for a sec, and what it says about you.

You apparently want this to be all about YOU, meetch, but its NOT, never will be, so you might be so kind as to stop and consider that your bellicose attitude is precisely the attitude that causes ppl to find something else to do, so be careful what you wish for, you just might get it--along with the unintended consequences.
No offense man, but frankly speaking if you were running a PnP game as GM, judging from what I see here, I can't say I would go out of my way to sit at your gaming table, or maybe you just enjoy being a shill, baiting ppl for fun?

Hope you like playing WoW, cuz that is where you are headed.

You know I am really glad the likes of you (which by the way IS a small minority) are ****ed off at U5. With all your unfounded statements, BS math, speculated and exaggerated remarks, I would be very happy if Turbine went another step into that direction to hopefully turn you off completely at playing the game. Because honestly all that you're really doing is taking space on the forums.

[AbsynthMinded]

You know I am really glad the likes of you (which by the way IS a small minority) are ****ed off at U5. With all your unfounded statements, BS math, speculated and exaggerated remarks, I would be very happy if Turbine went another step into that direction to hopefully turn you off completely at playing the game. Because honestly all that you're really doing is taking space on the forums.

And you're the righteous one for believing in Turbine as the victim of unfounded character assassinations? So much that you call down more nerfdom and core code alteration to further alienate a part of the player base?

Hmm.. On the social and forum front I'd say you smell suspiciously troll like.

[GoRinNoSho]

The reports of melee misses have the feel of tuning mob AC to me. As long as the HPs are adjusted down to match, then I guess that's fair - my L7 rogue didn't seem to have any more difficulty hitting things than before (and when getting SA damage seemed to be doing a lot better), but that was 1-handed.

To add a bit more specifics Lv 15 thief, Gianthold slayer storms heart, Hill Giant Sargeant, normally +21 to hit but +4 additional due to backstab bonus since the giant was focused on another party member. The references to strikes refer to actual rising text on the opponent.

The missiles generated out of rendering view does not stop at missiles actually. I just associated the concepts together just now, but when running sands and hunting down Ozann, if I am a reasonable distance from Ozann when he spawns (party member taking him down while I check on General Tanakh), and I approach before he is defeated then he is not rendered. This has happened at least twice that I can recall. At first I thought that was a driver issue since there was an a driver version (for an NVidia card while I had one in) that cause fire elementals and air elementals not to render; however, since I can see the eles and see ozann if I spawn him then that slightly isn't the issue.

[azrael4h]

Finally got a chance to play my Ranger, and was horribly disappointed. I literally felt like I was in an entirely different game. She went from a fast-paced, fun character to play with, to something similar to the Ranger in Shaiya. In other words, unbearably slow and boring.

THF doesn't seem to have suffered as much in normal play. The THF feats are completely useless; I LR'd my Paladin with some of the last TP I'll have, dropped them, and picked up Improved Crit: Slashing, and saw a net increase of damage output. Also boosted my UMD.

Tarrant, Tolero, this was supposed to fix lag? I have had the worst day ever in DDO for lag. It went from annoying to nearly unplayable this afternoon. Things were fine Sunday when I played. No lag, even though we had two arcanes nuking everything in sight. Today it was me, at a relatively low-server population time, soloing with a Paladin, Ranger, and then Cleric. I doubt I could successfully play my Cleric in a group, for the lag U5 has brought in.

[Meetch1972]

And you're the righteous one for believing in Turbine as the victim of unfounded character assassinations? So much that you call down more nerfdom and core code alteration to further alienate a part of the player base?

Hmm.. On the social and forum front I'd say you smell suspiciously troll like.

Heyyyyyy guys, chill out, 'e we all have points to make, and some choose to dramatise in order to make them.

Some happen to be more sensitive than others. The post that triggered this one was a little over the top, though I don't believe it violated protocol. The big problem with furthering the nerf to make those already complaining jump is that it will make those who are borderline start to complain. It's a vicious cycle.

I think we all agree that the TWF nerf DOES indeed make TWF feel slow (like fighting in molasses I think someone said a long time ago). Unfortunately it's also been deemed necessary - I remember shortly after I joined someone talking in game about something like "more !@#$%^& tempest builds", and the main other balance issue I've heard about is eSOS, which has been tweaked too. The problem is that one changes the numbers while the other changes the feel.

Bottom line is that has been stated by a few others, a TWF build still does truck loads of DPS, even if it does feel wrong. Perhaps the swing rate should be pushed up and the to-hit chance dropped instead? Or the damage output of TWF penalised instead of the swing rate? Too late for either of those options to be considered I think.

If you're used to speed X, you'll definitely notice speed Y which is less than X. I understand that. But if you get used to speed Y then I would hope that the enjoyment returns. I can only suggest playing a non-DPS build for a while to see if that resets what you're used to with your TWF toon, 'cos while I sympathise that it would feel "wrong", I for one don't support returning the imbalance purely on the basis that it would feel right again.

U5 has done things that I like, and things that I don't like. Fortunately for me the things I don't like are all bugs which should ultimately be fixed (Turbine, you really screwed up with the UI bugs amongst other things, and we all know those are the least of your concerns) - I do not consider rebalancing the system to be a bug.

That's my opinion and you're entitled to yours. Just remember to debate within the forum guidelines.

[Meetch1972]

Tarrant, Tolero, this was supposed to fix lag? I have had the worst day ever in DDO for lag. It went from annoying to nearly unplayable this afternoon. Things were fine Sunday when I played. No lag, even though we had two arcanes nuking everything in sight. Today it was me, at a relatively low-server population time, soloing with a Paladin, Ranger, and then Cleric. I doubt I could successfully play my Cleric in a group, for the lag U5 has brought in.

Reports are that the lag issue they were intending to fix were indeed largely fixed (the reduction in need to spam heals in Shroud being the benchmark). It looks like a new lag beast has emerged thanks to something else that was changed in U5. It's like playing "whack-a-lagbeast". I think they need a +10 holy maul of greater lag bane (probably infused with a house P trinket) to keep up with the problems.

IMO the lag fix should have been completely separate to U5 in order to prevent this sort of report happening - the first rule of performance tuning is to change ONE thing at a time. The trouble is that the mechanism changes for fixing lag and the mechanism changes for nerfing TWF were probably entangled in the same code, making it far easier to run with a merged release doing both in one go.

[shablala]

And you're the righteous one for believing in Turbine as the victim of unfounded character assassinations? So much that you call down more nerfdom and core code alteration to further alienate a part of the player base?

Hmm.. On the social and forum front I'd say you smell suspiciously troll like.

Do you actually think before you babble these conspiracy theory BS? Character assassination? are you serious? Nefing just for the sake of ****ing people off?

Listen you dont have to agree that the changes will result in better game balance, but you at least have to give the benefit of the doubt to the devs for their intentions, even if the changes werent the best of choices.

If you truly and honestly believe that this is a nerf just to **** off some players that are obsessed with showing off their "theoretical" dps threshold, then why even spend another minute playing the game? If you are right, then the devs are telling you and the likes of you to get the hec out of here cause they dont want your kind.

Fortunately, I dont believe that's their intention If they do revert back all or some of the changes (if any), it will SURELY be for balance's sake again, not because of some small minority of people on the forum screaming "give me back my 378.58dps twf monster"!!

[AbsynthMinded]

Do you actually think before you babble these conspiracy theory BS? Character assassination? are you serious? Nefing just for the sake of ****ing people off?

I've dealt with gaming companies for the better part of 20+ years. I have yet to meet one that could maintain it's integrity and player respect. Blizzard is the front runner as their ethical errors have in no way effected their market dominance. You however seem to be the babbling brook of vitriol. Careful, you've no idea the depth of experience I've had on a corporate level.

Listen you dont have to agree that the changes will result in better game balance, but you at least have to give the benefit of the doubt to the devs for their intentions, even if the changes werent the best of choices.

The way they tried to sell things to us spoke volumes about their intentions and agenda.

If you truly and honestly believe that this is a nerf just to **** off some players that are obsessed with showing off their "theoretical" dps threshold, then why even spend another minute playing the game? If you are right, then the devs are telling you and the likes of you to get the hec out of here cause they dont want your kind.

They want Benjamin's baby, and they care nothing about the perspective of anyone willing to give them some. Whatever they told us was a fake, and the real motivation was either to save money or generate new interest for new income. I shall not further dissect this, as the changes are in, welcome to the new world order.

Fortunately, I dont believe that's their intention If they do revert back all or some of the changes (if any), it will SURELY be for balance's sake again, not because of some small minority of people on the forum screaming "give me back my 378.58dps twf monster"!!

My main complaint, was the change to the core code diverting us away from the D&D'ness the game is supposed to be all about. They told us this was to help the DPS lag, which so far as anyone can tell did not effect things at all. They did however raise the bandwidth ceiling, which according to player testing is working better for some servers than others. So as far as I am concerned, the DEVs lied. During all the firestorm of debate over the DPS issues, they snuck in a host of other changes. Many of which are taking a great deal of heat because of the general suck factor. Some of the new changes are alright, but on the whole the U5 has been a big bag of chaos and pain. Pain they could have avoided had they gone all in and discussed many factors with us players and taken the negative feedback to heart before implementing it. But then, I still assert they never cared about any of our feedback and the whole discussion was smoke screen to distract us.

Believe as you wish. Do not get testy with anyone over their personal evaluations of the situation. Unless you can discuss things from a impartial perspective, you are only diminishing any value of your argument.

[Meetch1972]

Breaking down one paragraph here 'cos it talks about so many little things.

My main complaint, was the change to the core code diverting us away from the D&D'ness the game is supposed to be all about.

This even bothers me a little, though not enough to make me think twice about intentions, motivations or playing again. As a long-term player, I can understand your attitudes have probably been shaped more by the evolution of DDO than most if not all of us who joined when it went F2P. Fairy 'nuff.

They told us this was to help the DPS lag, which so far as anyone can tell did not effect things at all.

No they didn't. The OP at the outset says as far as combat was concerned, 1) there's the DPS lag fix (one physics calculation instead of 2 at 0.15 seconds apart when TWFing) and 2) the rebalancing of combat (aka TWF nerf/THF twitch nerf - which also happens to be all THF while moving). It's easy to believe that your assertion is 100% correct with the amount of misinterpretation of the OP I've seen on the thread. Yes, the two should have been separated but I do not feel they hid one in the other.

They did however raise the bandwidth ceiling, which according to player testing is working better for some servers than others.

The bandwidth ceiling was only raised on Lamannia AFAIK, with the intention of applying as a hot fix later. Has it gone in already? The flip-side is that perhaps there is a negative impact from clients with slower ISP connections with throughput below the bandwidth cap. I should be concerned if normal DDO activity requires constant transfer of data that eats through my download quota - which it doesn't, yet, but trending up might call for some sort of protocol evaluation/in-packet-data-compression/optimisation if that's even possible.

So as far as I am concerned, the DEVs lied. During all the firestorm of debate over the DPS issues, they snuck in a host of other changes.

I don't think they snuck them in so much as everyone ignored all the other stuff to focus on the nerf. I'm guilty of that, as there are a couple of guild items I'm not fond of that I hadn't considered previously 'cos I let myself get drawn into this thread.

Many of which are taking a great deal of heat because of the general suck factor. Some of the new changes are alright, but on the whole the U5 has been a big bag of chaos and pain. Pain they could have avoided had they gone all in and discussed many factors with us players and taken the negative feedback to heart before implementing it. But then, I still assert they never cared about any of our feedback and the whole discussion was smoke screen to distract us.

I won't deny that there is much suck factor in U5 - degrees varying depending on your play style/attitude. However, it was my decision to be distracted, and I find it hard to believe Turbine used The Force to make you look elsewhere. I'm pretty sure "we" only have ourselves to blame (myself included) for missing stuff.

Believe as you wish. Do not get testy with anyone over their personal evaluations of the situation. Unless you can discuss things from a impartial perspective, you are only diminishing any value of your argument.

Agreed. Forums are for discussion, education, debate, other stuff specific to channels like the marketplaces, and occasionally - in the right context - venting. Name calling and labelling is not only bad form, but can get you silenced in the forums, which is a real bummer when you feel passionate enough to make a point.

[AbsynthMinded]

Ill only respond to a couple things as we seem to be in agreement more or less on the rest..

From what I have read in the forums, the bandwidth ceiling was indeed raised on all servers. The player testing suggests that some servers are doing better than others. But then this has always been the case..

The deception about U5 is that they asked for our input at all over the changes to TWF. As if they were gonna alter their coarse over player feedback. That was a fake.. However the massive attention it got made sure that there would be less scrutiny over the rest of it. Classic misdirection.

[shablala]

I've dealt with gaming companies for the better part of 20+ years. I have yet to meet one that could maintain it's integrity and player respect. Blizzard is the front runner as their ethical errors have in no way effected their market dominance. You however seem to be the babbling brook of vitriol. Careful, you've no idea the depth of experience I've had on a corporate level.

My friend, I don't need to be careful about anything. You have nothing under your belt that would intimidate me, one that started two successful companies, and has over 22 years sales experience selling to C-level executives. You dont need to give me a lecture about greed or economics.

They want Benjamin's baby, and they care nothing about the perspective of anyone willing to give them some. Whatever they told us was a fake, and the real motivation was either to save money or generate new interest for new income. I shall not further dissect this, as the changes are in, welcome to the new world order.

(sarcasm)Are you serious? you want me to believe that a for profit company creates a game and actually want to increase profit? get out of here, that doesnt make sense at all!! :P

On a serious note, was this change to TWF made to have a small percentage of the playerbase who are obsessed about min/max toons go out and buy lesser hearts of wood and increase profit? Absolute B.S. If that was the intention, it was an epic fail, since I seriously doubt that they sold enough of them to even cover the hours they are paying a janitor at the building.
There are however many things to this Update that will bring them some extra money, but none of which have anything to do with the TWF change.

My main complaint, was the change to the core code diverting us away from the D&D'ness the game is supposed to be all about. They told us this was to help the DPS lag, which so far as anyone can tell did not effect things at all. They did however raise the bandwidth ceiling, which according to player testing is working better for some servers than others. So as far as I am concerned, the DEVs lied. During all the firestorm of debate over the DPS issues, they snuck in a host of other changes. Many of which are taking a great deal of heat because of the general suck factor. Some of the new changes are alright, but on the whole the U5 has been a big bag of chaos and pain. Pain they could have avoided had they gone all in and discussed many factors with us players and taken the negative feedback to heart before implementing it. But then, I still assert they never cared about any of our feedback and the whole discussion was smoke screen to distract us.

The game is still based on D&D. If you thought that everything on the PnP can be automatically applied to an MMO without any tweaking for balance's sake, then you're dreaming.
What things did they "sneak" in? The cry of TWF nerf was heard 2-3 weeks before U5 went live.
I can not believe I am repeating this again, since I and countless others have mentioned it before, the change was not JUST to decrease lag(which IS absolutely decreased), in fact the MAIN reason was balancing the two melee playstyle, which was long overdue. More changes will be done, especially for THF, which hopefully will put both of them on a more or less equal footing.

Believe as you wish. Do not get testy with anyone over their personal evaluations of the situation. Unless you can discuss things from a impartial perspective, you are only diminishing any value of your argument.

Are you serious? I am the one getting testy? I am the one screaming about the change affecting my TWF toons? Well my friend, well one my toons is a 20ranger tempest III, and I am perfectly ok with the current changes, BECAUSE I have an "impartial perspective", unlike you.

Anyone who says that the TWF change has ruined their character, or made their character not viable in ANY content (even Epic), is a >bleep< >bleep< >bleep< exaggerating liar OR and incompetent player. I trust that you are neither.

[AbsynthMinded]

Was there anything in that which was related to the actual discussion? Seemed like you continued to attack me and not make any advance in the debate, if it can be called such anymore. You are misreading my position in any case, so I see no merit in dragging it out with you.

This thread is dead and long ago ceased to be about the merits or faults of the TWF changes, and so far as I can tell, has devolved into mostly petty arguments about who has the more smelly opinion. Nothing said here will change anything Turbine is doing with the TWF nerf. Neither will it improve the general suck factor of the many many issues caused as collateral damage by U5. Other threads may make more progress in that regard, but I have low expectations.

[tday123]

Here's what I've noticed and figured would happen...

DPS is down...Lag is still ever-present in the usual trouble spots (subt, shroud, etc.) Meanwhile there seems to be no lag issues on the EU servers and never was from what I hear. So Im not sure anything got accomplished to that stated end.

Now the multi-proc mainhand is an ok addition but is very problematic. My guy is not set-up as a hate tank but as a result of the nerf I am now able to pull aggro off of knights of the chalice and just last night pulled aggro from a monster build when my touch of death proc'd 4 times. While this sounds cool for a dps it upsets the balance that had taken time to establish in my raid group and now makes my toon a liabilty for my team. I know that a different strategy can be employed in most situations but not always; for instance its difficult to vary your strategy on the shadow master in TOD.

Oh well...I may try the overly gimmickie prestiges before I shelve the little guy but Im not very pleased. We were told the obvious; the was a serious lag problem on the US servers. We were told that turbine didnt want to spend money buying up-to-date equipment to make the gaming experience better for its paying customers. We were told that the devs had a plan b that would fix the lag while allowing them to keep from purchasing new capital. This was somewhat acceptable to me since I get that turbine was a recent acquisition of WB and they may not want to drop a lot of financial capital on a new piece of the corporation, but only so long as it fixed the problem. Ultimately only half of their solution has worked...they nerfed dps.
A disappointed customer.

[Thanimal]

Could a dev confirm that Tempest I and Tempest II *do* apply to unarmed? Some in-game measurements have suggested this, but this seems like a conceptual departure from the original Tempest PrE, so I'm thinking it's a bug?

Thanks in advance!

[crazycaren]

Hi
I didn't have any preconceptions about TWF before U5 happened. To me, it depends on how it feels in the game. Since U5 I've played 3 different characters and had 3 different experiences with the changes!

Ranger with rogue & monk splashes, lvl 17 with Tempest 2. Running around in the vale, vale and amrath quests. Hardly any change. OK, so there's some yellow first numbers on her second hand but she is still super fun to play. Lots of DPS, which was one of the points of her build. (Zergasaurus Rex on Khyber)

Monk with rogue splash, lvl 13 with TWF and Improved TWF. Running around in gianthold & desert quests. Using handwraps he's awesome. Lot of successful attacks and hits. However, trying to dual-wield vorpal kamas he couldn't hit anything. Just lots of misses. This is a definite U5 change as this used to be my favorite weapon set when in a party. I quite like the dual-vorpal combo as it makes the monk more welcome in parties since many people think monks are gimped anyways. (Treeh on Khyber)

Bard with rogue and ranger splashes, lvl 11 with TWF. Running lvl 10 & 11 quests. She can't attack a thing anymore when dual wielding. Has always had better attacks when THF but now her TWF is totally useless. (Redmaple on Khyber). Not sure what to do with this build since I had planned for over-sized TWF at end game. I'll have to rethink that plan.

[BossOfEarth]

I have a lv 16 Tempest II Str vorpal Ranger. My play style is to kill the casters while the Tanks take down the muscle. I almost always get 1st place on the kill count.

Pros:
The rhythm of TWF is easier on the ears.

Cons:
Breakables take longer to destroy.

Wants:
I'd like to set the text to display when procs happen without getting the text about damage.

Thanks for a great game and keep up the good work Turbine!

[Wraith_Sarevok]

Update 5 was a terrible update.

Not including the new bugs it introduced by breaking certain spell area of effect buffs, it completely sucked all the fun out of melee combat by cutting speed and replacing it with double-strike.

Double-strike in practice isn't as terrible as it sounds and overall boosts DPS for the TWF style to new levels, but it's not impressive to look at either and overall, feels boring.

THF was gimped badly by removing the hidden 10% capstone attack speed bonus for pure Barbarian builds, removing glancing blows while moving, and making absolutely no attempt at all to fix the many broken glancing blow feats/enhancements. The result being that THF has fallen from being the king of DPS in this game to 2nd, or in some cases even 3rd place behind the dark monk and TWF.

And at last we come to the absolute worst part of this update: The Dark Monk. It doesn't take a mathematical genius to glance over the Monk's unarmed damage at level 20, factor in some high-quality handwraps, attack speed bonus gained from stances, and put Void Strike IV and Fists of Darkness enhancements together, to churn out potentially the most damaging and versatile class in the entire game! I mean, what were they thinking? Did they really believe that an 8d4 force damage strike on each hit was just going to go unnoticed? Just awful, terrible decisions.

What I can hope for in the next update is a reduction in the damage gained from the Void Strike enhancement line, bringing dark Monks more in line with TWF and THF builds, and an attempt to fix the broken Warforged glancing blow enhancements and Barbarian capstone feat to give at least some damage back to the THF Barbarian builds.