Tying AC to fortification

[PresentTense]

So about 24 pages into another thread, an idea has been raised that I think has real potential to improve the way the game mechanics work. But because it's buried so deep, I thought I would start a new thread to get the thoughts of some other people on the forums. The discussion we were having was about the change to intimidate and how it will lead to the death of turtle tanks, provide some help to S&B dps but give such a huge advantage to pure dps hate tanks that the end effect will be to just eliminate turtle tanks and their associated PrEs from viability. You can read the whole thread - if you're really that much of a glutton for punishment - at http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=308780.

On page 9, Eladrin makes is pretty clear that the goal of the change was to make S&B a viable strategy by encouraging a playstyle that had both some offensive capabilities and some defensive capabilities. The downside was that the change to intimidate is even more beneficial for hate tanks, who generate their hate through true dps, rather than poor dps with massive threat bonusues, making them the clear preference. But now, an idea has been raised that fixes the problem of S&B being worthless, and takes care of a larger problem - AC being worthless in Ginathold and beyond unless you specifically build for it to be in the 70s or higher, and comepletely worthless in epics.

The idea? Tie AC to fortification. Reduce the bonuses for light, moderate and heavy fortification. The exact values are up for debate, but suggestions include 10/20/30, 20/35/50, 10/20/35, 10/25/35, etc. Warforged would still get their stacking 10 percent, and I suppose the stacking fort on the even trinket could stay too, although it might need to be reduced to 5 percent. The rest of the way to 100 percent would be dependent upon your AC, with each +1 of AC equal to +1 fortification. Depending on how you break it down, that would mean builds would need to reach at least 40 on a warforged in the easiest setup and as high as 70 on a non-warforged in the highest setup. In other words, have an AC or accept some crits.

This would make AC a useful value in the game again, even in epics. You don't have to reach the 80s or 90s to be useful, but you also can't run around with an AC of 9 and expect your loincloth to somehow block critical hits for you. It encourages the use of medium armor for classes capable of wearing it, it encourages dex on casters and it makes S&B tanking a viable option when compared to hate tanking. Yes, it's a big change, but I think it fixes some of the long-standing problems in this game in one swoop. Thoughts?

[grodon9999]

I like it, but then again I think balanced characters are a good thing so I'm clearly in the minority here.

[Bodic]

seriously no

the only issue with AC is grazing hits. they need to go, and I sry to thoses builds that can only grazing hit.

[SynalonEtuul]

I do want sword and shield types to be more viable, but I feel this change would screw over casters unnecessarily in an attempt to fix something that doesn't have anything to do with them. Also, I think the best way to balance is rarely to nerf, but more commonly to bring everything else up in line with what has now become the norm (of course, I don't think all nerfs are bad - FW, for example, sorely needed to be changed, and I think the ESoS is probably a little overpowered as well).

[AZgreentea]

I thought I would quote the post you are likely referring too.

Sure. "Read by a dev."

Interesting thread.

(I actually played around with something like this a little while back on my personal server, where AC gave fort% on a 1:1 basis and attackers decreased your fort% by the their to-hit. Basically, excess attack bonus functioned as fort-bypass. It felt a bit too punitive with our current monster statting trends, but was interesting to experiment with.)

[Thrudh]

100% fortification is silly anyway...

It should be difficult to get 100% immune to crits (The devs might have to make another pass on end-game critter damage tables to balance that).

[Thrudh]

I do want sword and shield types to be more viable, but I feel this change would screw over casters unnecessarily in an attempt to fix something that doesn't have anything to do with them. Also, I think the best way to balance is rarely to nerf, but more commonly to bring everything else up in line with what has now become the norm (of course, I don't think all nerfs are bad - FW, for example, sorely needed to be changed, and I think the ESoS is probably a little overpowered as well).

That's a good point about casters... but maybe that just means they need to be even more careful about getting too much aggro.

[Feithlin]

I like the idea too. If, by ignoring totally AC, you get hit by a big nasty crit (impossible today because of the raw immunity granted by fort items), you'll think twice before doing it again. Additionnaly, that would permit for AC to not be all or nothing. Some AC would still be useful for preventing a part of the crits.

[varusso]

No.
I make certain my casters get the highest fort possible as early as possible, because AC on a caster is just not a viable option (not if you want to actually be able to cast -- elven enhancement + rare gear niches aside).

Add this to the firewall changes, which blatantly scream 'stop kiting and stand there and get beat on'...No.

Leave fort alone. If you want to add fort bonuses from AC on top of that, you go right ahead (though that would be mostly useless). But leave my 100% fort items (and shrouds for PMs) alone. I dont want MY toon gimped cos someone else wants THEIR toon ubered.

[KillEveryone]

This will screw arcane types.

[TheDjinnFor]

This was raised a while back and hit 100 pages...

Consensus was a few people really liked it, a few people really hated it.

[Trillea]

No.
I make certain my casters get the highest fort possible as early as possible, because AC on a caster is just not a viable option (not if you want to actually be able to cast -- elven enhancement + rare gear niches aside).

Add this to the firewall changes, which blatantly scream 'stop kiting and stand there and get beat on'...No.

Leave fort alone. If you want to add fort bonuses from AC on top of that, you go right ahead (though that would be mostly useless). But leave my 100% fort items (and shrouds for PMs) alone. I dont want MY toon gimped cos someone else wants THEIR toon ubered.

Hear here!

Heavy fort should be available to all PCs. Don't change it.

[nucphyschem]

As someone who plays both S&B and casters, DO NOT IMPLEMENT THIS. This idea is so ridiculous because as its been said above this would completely doom casters since the one of the few things has going for it is the Minos Legens.

[TheDearLeader]

I do not support this idea.

Moving a mobs to-hit more in line with what are safely-obtainable ACs are makes more sense.

The punishment of a Low-AC character is to always. get. hit. Weaker mobs may be affected by Blur and Displace, but where it counts, these unarmed characters are already taking massive amounts of damage.

I was (mostly) following that thread, and I'm still not sure how someone derailed it from Intimidate being broken in the current build, which will not be the current build come tomorrow, and going all the way to "I hate no AC toons, lets punish them".

Good on the OP for branching this discussion off.

[Chai]

/not signed

Other MMOs have done this with varying degrees of success, but DDO is much different from those sammich type games that putting this in would not have the same impact.

AC does need to be fixed, but not by linking it or directly relating it to another stat.

[Cam_Neely]

On page 9, Eladrin makes is pretty clear that the goal of the change was to make S&B a viable strategy by encouraging a playstyle that had both some offensive capabilities and some defensive capabilities.

The idea? Tie AC to fortification.

You leap to the assumption that Defensive capabilities are only AC and Fortification. On a Barb (where this has the largest impact it seems) I would rank HP, movement speed and uncanny dodge before AC in terms of defensive capabilities.

*EDIT*
/facepalm, forgot the most obvious,

And Static DR/DR Boost.

[kernal42]

The better implementation is to apply fortification instead as "inverse seeker."
Using arbitrary numbers of 15/30/40 for light/mod/heavy:
Suppose you have an AC of 20 and moderate fortification. A mob threatens a crit against you. When it rolls to confirm the crit, your effective AC is now 50 (20 base +30 fort), which makes it much less likely that he confirms*. Low AC builds can mitigate crits with fortification (as now), while high AC builds can get by with less fortification. Super-low AC characters (ie 10 AC barbs) will still get crit sometimes even with heavy fortification. A change like this would go a long way in making "some AC" actually useful.

Meanwhile, you can lower monster AC a little, but melee characters will still want super-high to-hit values (and seeker/power crit will now be useful) to reliably crit against all foes.

Cheers,
Kernal

*If you're worried about the 0.25% chance that an infinite-AC character is crit, you can just remove the "auto-confirm on 20" mechanic (I assume that exists now; maybe it doesn't?).

[TheDearLeader]

You leap to the assumption that Defensive capabilities are only AC and Fortification. On a Barb (where this has the largest impact it seems) I would rank HP, movement speed and uncanny dodge before AC in terms of defensive capabilities.

And Static DR/DR Boost.

[RJBsComputer]

First of all, in a d20 system, AC=To-Hit. A character or NPC's ablitiy to hit anything is based on:

AC of target = weapon mod + stat mod + BAB(level of toon) + magical mod + d20

Once it is determined that you have hit or been hit, then damage is computed.

The problem with AC is that a toon can achieve a level of AC that is way to high. Like a complete buff level 20 toon going into a level 1 quest. So what do the devs do? They adjust To-Hit values of NPCs so they can hit you. And what does the player base cry? "FOUL"

I agree that AC needs fixing, but it needs fixing in away that does not damage AC for other classes. As some have pointed out this idea affects casters; however, it well also affect rogues when it comes to backstabbing.

I have always been in favor of having a max AC cap for each level with DR being added to armor type.

[Angelus_dead]

The idea? Tie AC to fortification.

Yup, that is an old and infamous suggestion on these forums. In fact, it's so old that the threads introducing it have been erased by now. If you search around you can find references to back then.