Why? Question about design choices.

[Cpw]

Why has the relationship between ranged and melee combat been changed so much from 3.0 -3.5 rules?

In D&D pen and paper.

Single weapon 1 swing per 6 sec.
Ranged 1 shot per 6 sec. a feat (rapid shot) raised this to 2
Two-weapon 2 swings per 6 sec. (only if not moving)

I know that the developers "added swings" so that combat was more tactical. But why did they change the relation between ranged and melee so radically? Ranged combat with all feats is slower than swinging one weapon. If its play balance could it not be balanced by giving the MOBs the same ranged ability? Maybe add ranged knock downs or cripples to stop kiting. It just seems so different from how Pnp works for no good reason.

[jwdaniels]

Why has the relationship between ranged and melee combat been changed so much from 3.0 -3.5 rules?

In D&D pen and paper.

Single weapon 1 swing per 6 sec.
Ranged 1 shot per 6 sec. a feat (rapid shot) raised this to 2
Two-weapon 2 swings per 6 sec. (only if not moving)

I know that the developers "added swings" so that combat was more tactical. But why did they change the relation between ranged and melee so radically? Ranged combat with all feats is slower than swinging one weapon. If its play balance could it not be balanced by giving the MOBs the same ranged ability? Maybe add ranged knock downs or cripples to stop kiting. It just seems so different from how Pnp works for no good reason.

And then your character would level, and his BAB would increase. Magically, when your BAB hit +6 you'd have two swings with a single weapon, two shots with a bow, or three shots with TWF plus feats. Soon, your BAB would reach +11 and now you get three attacks with the single weapon, threee shots with the bow, or four swings with TWF (again plus feats). This can continue, eventually givine four swings with a single weapon, four bow shots, or five swings with two weapons (again plus feat bonuses).

[Baahb3]

Because if you were playing a video game and you were able to have your character do 1 attack every 6 seconds you would quit the game in less than an hour.

They had to change things or no one would play the game long enough to get to higher levels when you could make 4 or more attacks in 6 seconds and even then to only swing once every 1.5 secs is still really slow and boring for a computer game.

[Cpw]

Yes I know the progression and the feats to add to it. The question is why was ranged made slower than any melee no mater what feats are taken. That seems to be a big change for me. Basic ranged is half the shots that a single melee weapon gets. Huge difference.

[Cpw]

And I know why they raised the speed of melee. It makes sense but why leave ranged at close to the PNp rate?

I remember reading a developer saying why they made the melee change. I have never seen why they decided to change the relationship between ranged and melee.

[dkyle]

Melee means greater risk of bodily harm, therefore warrants more DPS. It's a matter of risk vs. reward.

I do think ranged could use a bit more of a boost, preferably something across the board so that Arcane Archer isn't the only viable choice for ranged DPS.

[Therigar]

I think that somehow attacks were tied to animations when the game was originally coded. I think this was done to give some sense of "realism" to the game. You swing once and the little drawing on the screen goes thru a single attack. You swing twice and it goes thru a double attack.

At one per 6 seconds that is awful slow and it is darned hard to code in the blocks and parrying that would be going on between effective attacks. Boring....

So, melee animations went faster and resulted in higher attack rates.

Now, I'm not sure that this is how the game currently works. I know the animations were changed and attack segments adjusted so that the attack bonus chain was knocked down from 5 to 4 and standardized for the various melee weapons.

As characters increase in levels more attacks become available (the rate depends on if they are full BAB classes or not). This only seems to affect melee weapons. Without the appropriate feats and/or enhancements it does not apply to ranged weapons. And, in most cases these feats have to be triggered -- they are active and not passive feats.

This is indeed a deviation from PnP but one that makes sense in a real-time game where the animations and actions are designed to be fun and exciting rather than waiting every six seconds for something to happen.

The question then becomes one of game design and what the developers perceive as game balance. While we could have some debates on these it seems clear that the present implimentation most closely achieves thier goals.

[Bobthesponge]

to prevent ranged characters from dominating the game. if a bow can do the same DPS as melee then everyone would just stand back out of harm's way and pew pew pew until everything is dead. as it is the ranged DPS is lower to balance the much smaller chance of taking damage.

it was a balance decision.

[Therigar]

Melee means greater risk of bodily harm, therefore warrants more DPS. It's a matter of risk vs. reward.

I do think ranged could use a bit more of a boost, preferably something across the board so that Arcane Archer isn't the only viable choice for ranged DPS.

Actually, arcane archer isn't the only viable choice. To the contrary, it is probably a poor choice. The only ranger PrE that should ever be taken is Tempest -- even if you are an elven archer focused build. Your archery skills will be more than sufficient to deal with ranged DPS and your ability to fall back on Tempest TWF will enable you to fight when forced to melee.

[KKDragonLord]

And then your character would level, and his BAB would increase. Magically, when your BAB hit +6 you'd have two swings with a single weapon, two shots with a bow, or three shots with TWF plus feats. Soon, your BAB would reach +11 and now you get three attacks with the single weapon, threee shots with the bow, or four swings with TWF (again plus feats). This can continue, eventually givine four swings with a single weapon, four bow shots, or five swings with two weapons (again plus feat bonuses).

Actually, Bows get a second attack pretty early with Rapid shot.

7 attacks for TWF +1 for haste = 8 attacks +AoOs which could be equal to your dex with a feat
8 attacks for TWF monks +1 for haste = 9 attacks
10 attacks for WF monks with slam and bite +1 for haste= 11 attacks

not to mention several other possibilities, im pretty sure there must be a very high and silly record (discounting infinite loops) in the official 3.5 Optimization boards somewhere.

I particularly liked the idea of a Thri-kreen Monk with about 14 attacks in Dark Sun.

[voodoogroves]

Actually, Bows get a second attack pretty early with Rapid shot.

7 attacks for TWF +1 for haste = 8 attacks +AoOs which could be equal to your dex with a feat
8 attacks for TWF monks +1 for haste = 9 attacks
10 attacks for WF monks with slam and bite +1 for haste= 11 attacks

not to mention several other possibilities, im pretty sure there must be a very high and silly record (discounting infinite loops) in the official 3.5 Optimization boards somewhere.

I particularly liked the idea of a Thri-kreen Monk with about 14 attacks in Dark Sun.

King of Smack and the President/Prime Minister of Smack were some early forays into serious and good multi-attacking builds...... You could get far more attacks in PNP if you tried. Whirling Frenzy, any spell or psionic power or other means of getting a natty attack (horned helm, incarnum, whatever), etc.

I'm pretty sure Chuck hit more than the 1496 listed here, but 1496 is a pretty decent number anyway ... http://community.wizards.com/go/thre..._World_Records

[dkyle]

Actually, arcane archer isn't the only viable choice. To the contrary, it is probably a poor choice. The only ranger PrE that should ever be taken is Tempest -- even if you are an elven archer focused build. Your archery skills will be more than sufficient to deal with ranged DPS and your ability to fall back on Tempest TWF will enable you to fight when forced to melee.

But that wouldn't be "ranged DPS". Perhaps "best of several poor options" would be a better term than "viable". So far Turbine's attempts to make ranged at least somewhat worth focusing on has been to add more and more goodies to Arcane Archer. I'd prefer ranged as a whole got some love, instead of a only a single PrE.

[KKDragonLord]

King of Smack and the President/Prime Minister of Smack were some early forays into serious and good multi-attacking builds...... You could get far more attacks in PNP if you tried. Whirling Frenzy, any spell or psionic power or other means of getting a natty attack (horned helm, incarnum, whatever), etc.

I'm pretty sure Chuck hit more than the 1496 listed here, but 1496 is a pretty decent number anyway ... http://community.wizards.com/go/thre..._World_Records

There you go =)

[Cpw]

Ok most seem to think its a balance thing with risk versus reward. So why Is PNP so unbalanced towards ranged users?

Wait its not.

So why in a computer game is it "unbalancing"? The only thing I can think of is its a poor AI thing and that is handled by other games by Anti-kite code and you can give the Mobs ranged feats that would solve much of the potential abuse.

The only other thing I can think of is that they did not like the look of ranged users firing as fast as they should. (and truth to be told you would look like some sort of speed daemon) Its hard to tell what there reason was we can only guise.

[KKDragonLord]

Ok most seem to think its a balance thing with risk versus reward. So why Is PNP so unbalanced towards ranged users?

Wait its not.

So why in a computer game is it "unbalancing"? The only thing I can think of is its a poor AI thing and that is handled by other games by Anti-kite code and you can give the Mobs ranged feats that would solve much of the potential abuse.

The only other thing I can think of is that they did not like the look of ranged users firing as fast as they should. (and truth to be told you would look like some sort of speed daemon) Its hard to tell what there reason was we can only guise.

You are missing some key information and basing your assumptions from that.

Im not even going to acknowledge your premise that ranged is not unbalanced compared to melee in PnP because that is a bold statement to make to say the least.

1) PnP is a Turn based game where movement and attack speed had their trade offs, which pretty much meant that if an enemy or character had to move they would generally lose their Full Attack action, so a ranged person did have quite a bit of defensive advantage there, also, it Was unbalanced at first because bows had a limit to Str they could have applied but they removed it in later releases of splatbooks

2) DDO does have a design flaw on attack speeds and ranged is the most glaring example of that. The speed was initially programmed to match animations and animations were designed to look good, not to be balanced which caused several weapons to have differing attack speeds. Bows have an additional drawback which is the reloading animation which isn't very much enhanced by upping attack speed, so the ranger capstone that claims to add 25% to speed ends up adding something around 15% or less.

and Third, your attempts to compare DDO with PnP are fundamentally flawed, this is not a tabletop Role playing game, it is a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game and each word of that phrase have their own weight on the way the game is designed to work. Dont think this as D&D, think this as DDO. If you want PnP, play PnP, or go and invest your lifes work into making programmable games such as NWN be closer to PnP, which is something people actually try to do, but even they don't get it the way you would imagine it to be perfect.

Oh.... and lastly... give up the notion that PnP is balanced.
DDO is more balanced that PnP ever was, or will be, all you gotta do is check the WotC Character Optimization Boards of any edition.

[Therigar]

But that wouldn't be "ranged DPS". Perhaps "best of several poor options" would be a better term than "viable". So far Turbine's attempts to make ranged at least somewhat worth focusing on has been to add more and more goodies to Arcane Archer. I'd prefer ranged as a whole got some love, instead of a only a single PrE.

DDO is a game and as such has many elements that are not very realistic. Along with other popular misconceptions about the historical effectiveness of ranged combat this has led most people to believe that ranged weapons, particularly the English type longbow, are virtual killing machines.

Historical reality is that, until the rise of efficient gunpowder weapons, ranged weapons (including bows of all types) did not dominate warfare. Even English successes at battles like Agincourt and Crecy were atypical and aided much more by battlefield position and inept French leadership.

IMO, DDO has struck a fairly realistic balance where ranged combat can be effective if circumstances are right but where melee combat is more deadly and more efficient.

[voodoogroves]

Simply, the turn-based versus real time and MMO aspect instituted a number of changes from PNP.

In DDO, you can dodge rays. In PNP there were different ACs for different situations (ie, touch AC)

In DDO, attacks are tied to animation swings. In PNP you had X attacks and no specific ties to an animation sequence.

Things are not specifically tied to 6 second rounds in DDO.

etc.

You could keep animations static and just have very widely varied attack amounts ... or you could speed up animations where the person with one attack moves SLOOOOOWWWWW and the one with 7 or 8 is too quick to see, etc.

[sirgog]

to prevent ranged characters from dominating the game. if a bow can do the same DPS as melee then everyone would just stand back out of harm's way and pew pew pew until everything is dead. as it is the ranged DPS is lower to balance the much smaller chance of taking damage.

it was a balance decision.

There are other games where ranged and melee do roughly equal damage that are well balanced, example: WoW.

They make up for the danger of melee by giving bosses dangerous attacks to use from range themselves, and by giving melees many utility features (similar to our Trip, Sunder and Stunning Blow, but in WoW they are more focussed on interrupting enemy spells).

[Cpw]

If its damage from safety why not nerf the wizards and sorcerers into oblivion? They both do more damage than any ranged character...heck they both do more damage than any melee character.

[sigtrent]

Yes I know the progression and the feats to add to it. The question is why was ranged made slower than any melee no mater what feats are taken. That seems to be a big change for me. Basic ranged is half the shots that a single melee weapon gets. Huge difference.

you play PnP so imagine this....

You are an archer, you make an full bow attack at full bab. Your turn is over.

The fighter across the room's turn comes up, He charges you and attacks ending adjacent.

Your turn you take a move action to step away triggering an attack of opportunity, you then make a single attack.

He takes a move action to close ranks, makes an attack.

You are on more or less equal ground, unless you are significantly faster, he's going to get to beat you up as much as you can shoot him. Unless you have terrain or some other advantage.

In a real time game that doesn't work... the archer can simply backpeddle around the map shooting while the melee pointlessly chases them around never actually catching them.

In this game, if ranged did as much damage as melee, then there would never be a reason to use melee as ranged would always be a better defensive option of never being in range of a melee's attacks. DDO would become a first person shooter rather than a game about swords and armor.