Cap AC by level

[bryanmeerkat]

Max ac fighters do not neccesarily have to be gimped - i have a fighter with 39 ac with no buffs while using greataxe (in CE), he is level 17 and using poo gear. With armor boost +5 and the stance i have atm my ac is 46 with greataxe.

So everything hits you at level on a 2+

[MrWizard]

how about grazing hits having to have an ac roll on us....that would make it better in my book.
oh, something needs a 20 to hit me, but can tear me up anyway due to the grazing hits..
bummer. AC does not matter where grazing hits are concerned..

[Kriogen]

lv1 20
....
Then set trash in level 1 quests to have a +5 to +10 to hit , bosses +10 to +15 ,
build this up through the levels so that generally at "capped ac" trash has between a 50-75% to miss and bosses have between 25-50% to miss.

Then why bother with AC.

If you have hard cap on AC that many/most can reach and mobs to hit is by default "50-75% to miss and bosses have between 25-50% to miss", then you could just remove AC and say that *all* chars have AC 20 by default and mobs always have 25-50 or 50-75 tohit chance.

With Displacement mobs have 50% tohit chance. Almost like your sugestion. With incorporal bonus it can be even better.

Hmm, we kinda have what you suggest now. Around 50%, give or take a point.

[Hordo]

I have an idea...

How about we tie AC to the character's stats, gear and buffs... and then add up all the plusses and subtract all the minuses and see what we get?

then, if they have a good ac they get hit less and if the ac is bad then they get hit more?

And the Dev's could possible scale the to-hit of the mobs so that those that sacrifice some DPS to have a high ac can contribute meaningfully by taking less damage.

Nah... that would make too much sense.

just roll a BBN.

HOLY MOLY! What an epiphany!

Do you think such an even might possibly stop folks from posting inane suggestions to revise such an AC system?



+1 for sarcasm!

[Dartwick]

This suggestion doesnt fix any of the problems.

Its would simply result in most players having capped AC in everything under epic.

[Broldin]

I was thinking about this the other day actually. It really does make sense. Many games use a hard/soft cap for defence (soft cap being a point of diminishing returns). It allows for the numbers to have a desired effect and allows devs to tune the difficulty of encounters as the OP describes.

I know, and understand, all of the arguments about how this spits in the face of PnP. That said, for the good of the game DDO has to be treated like an MMO.

Some of the points made against it are interesting as well.

Those saying there is no issue I disagree with. As DDO is based on the D20 system, there really is no middle ground. As everyone knows, you either have AC, or you don't. This changes how you gear your characters. For those purists, do you ignore AC in your PnP games? No, it matters, a lot.

For the argument stating "well then you may as well just remove AC and give a % chance to hit", you're missing the point. Yes the OP suggestion would allow most to be at the cap, that's the point. AC matters, DR and HP are then what makes the difference between casters and melee. It also promotes balance in equipment. At present, there is none, as most forego AC all together and dedicate their gear purely to their intended role be it healing, dps, etc. I would argue the the current state of events is a greater arguement for removing AC sinse it really isn't a factor any way.

Just my 2cp. Interesting debate all around though =)

[bryanmeerkat]

Ok for all the naysayers , what AC does your capped toon currently have ?

Class and AC please , wearing your standard gear .

How many of your level 20 toons have anything like 50 on your standard gear ?

Mines 38 , but thats on a fairly high dex/wis build clonk .

[cedad]

The only problem with AC, is that the devs have to accept that there is a fringe of characters that may reach an AC high enough to get hit only 5 % of the time and that even with a few AC debufs.

AC does cap at the moment. The cap is 20 + MAX Monster to hit bonus with buffs + max AC debuff possible.
Everything above that can be reached but will not provide any bonus.

Setting a max AC by level in stone (as in player side) is not a good idea.
The max AC is just what the devs choose to give their monsters as to hit bonus.
Therefore it already exist.
The same way Min AC exist, it's 1 + MIN monster to hit - max tohit monster debuff.
The only problem is that the min AC is somewhat too high at the moment to matter for some toons and AC 5 is the same as AC 35 on a capped toon. It is mostly due to the fact that secondary attacks add bonuses to the 1rst attack instead of adding maluses.
That problem might be revised by either dropping the bonuses on the attack by the bonus given to attack #3 or by adding that same amount to the AC. That would drop the added AC, you need for significant AC (ie AC that bring 5 % chance of not being by point of AC).

BTW my Capped toon is a Monk with significant AC of 55 (it's significant because when I get AC buffs I get hit less, and when I get debuffs (or change robe) I get hit more).

[zealous]

The only problem with AC, is that the devs have to accept that there is a fringe of characters that may reach an AC high enough to get hit only 5 % of the time and that even with a few AC debufs.

AC does cap at the moment. The cap is 20 + MAX Monster to hit bonus with buffs + max AC debuff possible.
Everything above that can be reached but will not provide any bonus.

Setting a max AC by level in stone (as in player side) is not a good idea.
The max AC is just what the devs choose to give their monsters as to hit bonus.
Therefore it already exist.
The same way Min AC exist, it's 1 + MIN monster to hit - max tohit monster debuff.

Correct.

The only problem is that the min AC is somewhat too high at the moment to matter for some toons and AC 5 is the same as AC 35 on a capped toon. It is mostly due to the fact that secondary attacks add bonuses to the 1rst attack instead of adding maluses.

This is however not true. The only difference between adding bonuses and adding maluses is the range for, as you put it, significant AC. The size of that range is still the same. The problem is that the range of significant AC is low, intensified by mobs not having any iterative attack bonus.

That problem might be revised by either dropping the bonuses on the attack by the bonus given to attack #3 or by adding that same amount to the AC. That would drop the added AC, you need for significant AC (ie AC that bring 5 % chance of not being by point of AC).

They likely already did this.
---

A capped clonk can easily have some:
10 base + 8 bracers + 4 icy + 3 barks + 5 prot + 5 wis + 3 dex + 1 haste + 4 shield clicky/wand + 2 recitation + 2 mabar cloak + 1 stance + 2 parrying weapon + 2 defensive fighting=50

Alternatively
10 base + 15 dt fp + 3 barks + 5 prot + 1 dex + 1 haste + 9 tshield + 2 cloak/bracer + 2 parrying weapon + 2 defensive fighting=50

50 AC doesn't really require spending stat points, feats nor grinding, most chars wouldn't sacrifice 2wf/PA/item slots for a content dependent partial protection that's not really needed though

[noinfo]

how about grazing hits having to have an ac roll on us....that would make it better in my book.
oh, something needs a 20 to hit me, but can tear me up anyway due to the grazing hits..
bummer. AC does not matter where grazing hits are concerned..

Or better still, no grazing hits...

[moorewr]

Perhaps the OP would be so kind as to tell us what rules in the source game support the idea of an arbitrary AC cap?

Also, /not signed.

[grodon9999]

AC works fine except for a few small things (well, epic is a large thing but that's getting rebooted . . .).

[Dendrix]

Perhaps the OP would be so kind as to tell us what rules in the source game support the idea of an arbitrary AC cap?

Also, /not signed.

Perhaps you could kindly tell me what rules in the source game supports the idea that my 1st level character cannot wear +3 armour?

DDO has power increasing by level.

[samthedagger]

lv1 20
lv2 22
lv3 24
lv4 26
lv5 28
lv6 30
lv7 32
lv8 34
lv9 36
lv10 38
lv11 40
lv12 41
lv13 42
lv14 43
lv15 44
lv16 45
lv17 46
lv18 47
lv19 48
lv20 50
lv20 entering epic quest 70

Then set trash in level 1 quests to have a +5 to +10 to hit , bosses +10 to +15 ,
build this up through the levels so that generally at "capped ac" trash has between a 50-75% to miss and bosses have between 25-50% to miss.

Why ?

Well with this system it would mean an achievable ac would be possible without making people able to completley out run the AC curve to make them 95% immune to ac .

This would then make having some devotion to ac desirable , without having to put the kitchen sink in to make it feasable

Please take a little time to learn the mechanics of AC before making a post suggesting how to fix it. Your post demonstrates your complete lack of understanding about how AC works and is supposed to work in the game.

[Kaeldur]

Max ac fighters do not neccesarily have to be gimped - i have a fighter with 39 ac with no buffs while using greataxe (in CE), he is level 17 and using poo gear. With armor boost +5 and the stance i have atm my ac is 46 with greataxe.

Precisely. Your AC = no AC... That's not even half the max AC.

I will repeat this every AC discussion: the problem is the amount of stacking AC sources. To reach usable AC you need to commit all you have to it. And anyone who doesn't commit all resources they can will have useless AC, because the gap is that big.

The only thing we can say for sure is AC is broken. The amount of threads being made about it and the amount of replies each of these threads get suggests that the majority of players agree with at least 1 thing: AC/To-Hit needs revamping.

[grodon9999]

Just curve it, for every 2 points over X AC it affects things as one or something like that.

[Dartwick]

My level 20 has like 52or 53 AC in regular gear self buffed with wands. Then 5 more from combat expertise if I want to be useless.

But it doesnt matter of course because that AC is almost useless in all the end game content.

The point is your cap does nothing to fix the problem. The fix the to change the way AC works.

[redoubt]

No thank you.

[Cyr]

This suggestion reads as a race to the mediocre fixes everything. This of course is not true.

AC does not work currently. A cap does not fix this. There needs to be an incentive not to dump AC on the high end as well as the low end. A cap only addresses one aspect of this equation and as such will always fail.

[NadgersFishtoaster]

My halfling rogue regularly broke those "limits". Perhaps someone will suggest that we ban halflings in order to make board and sword paladins more comfortable.

I guess there is a season to all things, including AC modifications ...