Eladrin - a request for an AC experiment on Lamannia

[Thrudh]

So why the continued resistance to developing the game to be accessible to such characters? There is absolutely no reason for epic to-hit to remain (to have remained!) to ridiculously high! Epic HP was dropped. Epic immunities were dropped. And those affect much greater portions of the populace, and result in much faster and easier epic completions than would reducing their attack bonuses. This is long past due! We got grazing hits, at least in part, to balance encounters against high AC players, let's actually use that system!

This x20.

Why is it okay for my wizard with no epic gear to wail 15 mobs at once in epics, but it would be terrible if all my AC grinding for my one AC character actually kept me 80%-90% safe in epics while I slowly kill 1 monster at a time?

[smatt]

This is something I think the devs have ignored to a degree. There's a real disconnect between how characters of one role function compared to those of another.

Take epic trash fights, for example. Why is their to-hit so high? They aren't representative of a tanking situation and, especially now that intimidate has been changed, aren't at risk of being wholly negated by a high AC tank. Grazing hits are still an issue, especially if you're getting hammered on by several enemies at once, and it's very difficult to control that sort of group in anything by the most efficiently-run party, and solo, the experience is going to be both slow and difficult, even with 95% miss AC, as grazes, 20s and spells will still account for quite a lot of damage. Meanwhile, casters had been blitzing through epic quests solo before epic monsters lost half of their HP and became susceptible to death effects.

So how is having unhittable (a fallacy) AC overpowered in such a situation?

Okay, so that's trash. How about vs. bosses? No doubt that unhittable AC can be problematic in those situations, as it can make rather challenging encounters considerably easier, but so can a Shadow Faded monk standing in a Cloudkill. So can kiting a boss around while laying it low with persistent spells. The AC tank is still taking a fair amount of damage from grazing hits, 20s and spells. There is still a very fine point of balance that must be achieved amongst AC, DPS, hate, HP and saves to make those challenging encounters feel easy.

Horoth is quite a bit easier when an AC tank is taking care of, but risk isn't removed; AC tanks still die in there, more often, maybe, than barbarians do, although the barbarian runs tend to require more resources from the party. Also, even knowing how much easier the Horoth fight can be with AC tanks, we don't see hordes of such characters being created and pushed up through the levels. Raids aren't becoming the domain of defenders, are they?

So why the continued resistance to developing the game to be accessible to such characters? There is absolutely no reason for epic to-hit to remain (to have remained!) to ridiculously high! Epic HP was dropped. Epic immunities were dropped. And those affect much greater portions of the populace, and result in much faster and easier epic completions than would reducing their attack bonuses. This is long past due! We got grazing hits, at least in part, to balance encounters against high AC players, let's actually use that system!

Agreed.... Although there is the situation as to how to balance it out... OK, so IF they made AC more relevant through-out say Epic content, as well as the higher level content, by whichever method they so desired. What would they do to keep the overall difficulty/time/resource aspects of the quests reasonably close to what it is now?

[sephiroth1084]

Agreed.... Although there is the situation as to how to balance it out... OK, so IF they made AC more relevant through-out say Epic content, as well as the higher level content, by whichever method they so desired. What would they do to keep the overall difficulty/time/resource aspects of the quests reasonably close to what it is now?

Close to what it is now in what sense? Close to the difficulty/time/resource use in from the perspective of a caster soloing quests? From the perspective of a DPS-heavy party full of barbarians swinging ESoS's and rogues dicing up everything in their paths?

I cannot imagine any degree of AC success making the quests faster.
All quests and raids are completable with rather low resource expenditure even when running around with squishy characters.

Having an AC tank that can manage aggro will make some sections of some quests considerably easier, but any place that has more than 1 dangerous monster will require some real teamwork to facilitate the AC-guy's successful management of the situation. You can't just send in the AC tank and have him spam intimidate on a room anymore. Maybe this was what the devs were concerned with originally (maybe not), but it's no longer a possibility anyway.

And again, we have grazing hits on a 13+ or something like that, and spell damage. No one is going through those quests unscathed.

Anyone who is against the idea of bringing to-hit scores in endgame content down to the point where a 90 AC represents 95% avoidance of full-on hits needs to analyze their own prejudices and assumptions regarding that style of gameplay. Does having a single AC tank somehow make the quest easier than have a CC caster, a healer with Blade Barrier or CC and 4 melees who can stun and trip everything? Or any easier than for a single caster to CC, nuke and slay their way through the quest? Or 6 casters doing that together at lightning speed?

Remember that if you've got someone with enough AC to not be getting hit, they have significantly less DPS than most characters heading into that content and likely lower DCs on any combat maneuvers they may have than similarly equipped DPS toons, while relying on only intimidate as their crowd control. Oooh! Broken!

[Astraghal]

Anything that makes solo'ing more viable on a melee has my vote.

[Elaril]

Why do any of you care if AC characters can solo anything?

I would imagine it has less to do with AC characters actually soloing things and people shifting to include only AC builds to their LFM's. I'd imagine the loudest anti AC voices are those who have totally ignored it on all of their characters, and would likely have to reincarnate to be able to be accepted into groups. That, and they have been the "main tank" on their dps/hp guy for so long, and they would hate to see the spotlight of being the ideal boss tank shift in a different direction. I, personally, would love to see AC be improved and I think the OP's suggestion is a good step in the right direction.

[Feithlin]

This is something I think the devs have ignored to a degree. There's a real disconnect between how characters of one role function compared to those of another.

Take epic trash fights, for example. Why is their to-hit so high? They aren't representative of a tanking situation and, especially now that intimidate has been changed, aren't at risk of being wholly negated by a high AC tank. Grazing hits are still an issue, especially if you're getting hammered on by several enemies at once, and it's very difficult to control that sort of group in anything by the most efficiently-run party, and solo, the experience is going to be both slow and difficult, even with 95% miss AC, as grazes, 20s and spells will still account for quite a lot of damage. Meanwhile, casters had been blitzing through epic quests solo before epic monsters lost half of their HP and became susceptible to death effects.

So how is having unhittable (a fallacy) AC overpowered in such a situation?

Okay, so that's trash. How about vs. bosses? No doubt that unhittable AC can be problematic in those situations, as it can make rather challenging encounters considerably easier, but so can a Shadow Faded monk standing in a Cloudkill. So can kiting a boss around while laying it low with persistent spells. The AC tank is still taking a fair amount of damage from grazing hits, 20s and spells. There is still a very fine point of balance that must be achieved amongst AC, DPS, hate, HP and saves to make those challenging encounters feel easy.

Horoth is quite a bit easier when an AC tank is taking care of, but risk isn't removed; AC tanks still die in there, more often, maybe, than barbarians do, although the barbarian runs tend to require more resources from the party. Also, even knowing how much easier the Horoth fight can be with AC tanks, we don't see hordes of such characters being created and pushed up through the levels. Raids aren't becoming the domain of defenders, are they?

So why the continued resistance to developing the game to be accessible to such characters? There is absolutely no reason for epic to-hit to remain (to have remained!) to ridiculously high! Epic HP was dropped. Epic immunities were dropped. And those affect much greater portions of the populace, and result in much faster and easier epic completions than would reducing their attack bonuses. This is long past due! We got grazing hits, at least in part, to balance encounters against high AC players, let's actually use that system!

Agreed. Perhaps it could help to give some numbers to calibrate: a well built and moderately well geared defender has around 70-75 AC, a well geared hits 75-80 AC, while a very well geared would reach 80-85 AC. A monk splashed can reach more or less 5 more at the expense of damage mitigation. All this self buffed, additional buffs making it 5-10 points higher (it can be more, but this would be very unlikely).
Correct me if you feel these numbers are wrong.

The best imo (though it would perhaps be harder to calibrate) would be if reaching 'god-mode' (only hit on a 20) against important opponents (bosses, and mini bosses in a lesser extent) were the result not only from the AC of the defender, but also from extern buffs & debuffs (which are quite limited now though), to make it the success of the group.

Anyway, I think AC will not become important only because it is reachable (though it is obviously necessary), but also because it is desired (by players I mean). If the monsters were hiting more violently, having someone between you and him would be much more desirable.

[grodon9999]

The best imo (though it would perhaps be harder to calibrate) would be if reaching 'god-mode' (only hit on a 20) against important opponents (bosses, and mini bosses in a lesser extent) were the result not only from the AC of the defender, but also from extern buffs & debuffs (which are quite limited now though), to make it the success of the group.

This is NOT POSSIBLE. See Grazing hits. You take damage on a 13 in elite content REGARDLESS of your AC.

[Feithlin]

This is NOT POSSIBLE. See Grazing hits. You take damage on a 13 in elite content REGARDLESS of your AC.

Grazing hits make you take damage, but still a lot less than a direct hit. 'God-mode' was used for easiness of language, I agree that it isn't anymore what it was before the introduction of grazing hits.

[sirgog]

I wouldnt be against 50% but i am completely against anything more then that ... 50% is alot especially when your talking Horroth and lord of blades.

on normal horroth can hit between 300 and 400 a hit ... i havent had to tank lord of blades yet .. but i saw a 800 hp tank get taken out in one hit on normal (on first day ... i hear things have changed since then) now 50% would mean a mob that hits 400 would be doing 200 points of damage .. and that is exceptable for a ac tank for sure ...

a mob that does 400 vs a player who has 70% is takign 120 poitns of damage ... that is retardedly OP. People will be soloing epics with the right palidan build or cleric monk splash or ranger monk splash. And i dont think that soloing epics should be made easier for elitists ... Its already too easy for casters to solo epics (fortunately its really hard for a caster to get a 60+ ac unless its a cleric or FVS monk splash)

Horoth doesn't even do that much damage with a critical hit, let alone a regular hit.

He does ~110 average on Elite on Live, and ~150 on Elite on Lamannia now. His spells do much bigger amounts of damage (250 DBF, 400 Meteor Swarm, 500 Disintegrate, only save DCs change with difficulty), but he swings much more often than he casts spells.

[smatt]

Close to what it is now in what sense? Close to the difficulty/time/resource use in from the perspective of a caster soloing quests? From the perspective of a DPS-heavy party full of barbarians swinging ESoS's and rogues dicing up everything in their paths?

I cannot imagine any degree of AC success making the quests faster.
All quests and raids are completable with rather low resource expenditure even when running around with squishy characters.

Having an AC tank that can manage aggro will make some sections of some quests considerably easier, but any place that has more than 1 dangerous monster will require some real teamwork to facilitate the AC-guy's successful management of the situation. You can't just send in the AC tank and have him spam intimidate on a room anymore. Maybe this was what the devs were concerned with originally (maybe not), but it's no longer a possibility anyway.

And again, we have grazing hits on a 13+ or something like that, and spell damage. No one is going through those quests unscathed.

Anyone who is against the idea of bringing to-hit scores in endgame content down to the point where a 90 AC represents 95% avoidance of full-on hits needs to analyze their own prejudices and assumptions regarding that style of gameplay. Does having a single AC tank somehow make the quest easier than have a CC caster, a healer with Blade Barrier or CC and 4 melees who can stun and trip everything? Or any easier than for a single caster to CC, nuke and slay their way through the quest? Or 6 casters doing that together at lightning speed?

Remember that if you've got someone with enough AC to not be getting hit, they have significantly less DPS than most characters heading into that content and likely lower DCs on any combat maneuvers they may have than similarly equipped DPS toons, while relying on only intimidate as their crowd control. Oooh! Broken!

No no no I never said "I" was against them doing SOMETHING about this issue.... I was just fishing for something.. So your'e saying they shoudl make AC matter and yet not mitigate the other side... I agree that the drop in DC's required gamewide to as well as the DoT spells were a mistake. They were ATTEMPTING to give the crybaby casters (Wah my WoF my WoF, I'm quiting wah wah wah) a bone when they changed some of the spells and BUFFED way more of them, as well as give the Epics a wider audience, making them easier overall. Overall I thought the spell pass was great, but it still needs some tweaking. IMO. If people always want the game to be tilted their way more by the Devs they also have to be willign to give up the things that are tilted way to far to the player side don't they? Or are we facing the "Mommy cut the crusts off my bread" spoiled child situation? (I'm saying this about you, just in general.

So would you be oppossed to giving some mobs EXTREME AC as well so that many melees would only hit 5% of the time? Or even 20-30% of the time, while lowering their HP some? Why should players be able to at soem point mitigate all damage but on a 20, while Purple named raid bosses can't? Yes I know they have unlimited SP etc etc... But still....


I read some of the posts on this subject, some that seem to be well thought out and well reasoned ideas.... The I think welll if it were only THAT easy to balance it between the variosu player group from below average, to average, to better than average, to good ,to very good, to no real life good. Then I think boy all the armchair Devs out there aren't all that. Because finding the glory hole of where it should sit and how to get there isn't all that easy.

The 3d20 to hit seemed like about the best idea I've seen that might bring things in line..... But who knows what people are missing and what OTHER problems might arise around this idea. At least it's some what keeping that ever so iconic D20, whcih woudl be a huge fight to dump IMO.

I agree that AC needs work, and needs to be more effective, so does static DR on Med-heavy armor and shields. BUT jsut becasue casters are way over powered, doesn't mean adding un-hittable or almost un-hittable melees to the equation will make things all better.

It is a good discussion though, with lots of ideas... Let's hope that the Devs are seriously looking at it. I think they are since Eladrin decided to add the changes to DoS and SD into this mod at the last moment. I think it looks good for future development, jsut not this week or this month...

[sephiroth1084]

People were soloing epics on casters before the last spell pass, and that just made their job easier. DPS oriented melees were doing reasonably well in epics before the epic pass, and that made their jobs easier.

AC-focused characters got a slight boost with the epic pass insofar as their low DPS was comparatively raised relative to total monster HP due to that HP being dropped, but that is a sort of tangential boost to the main thrust of such characters. Epics were made more accessible to everyone but AC tanks.

What I would suggest is to have the to-hit numbers dropped considerably with no other alterations, or to rework the to-hit/AC system as some have suggested (myself included), with no other changes, release the change onto Lamannia or live servers and see what the effect is, then balance from there if it's needed. We already know what isn't working, but we don't know what is.

As for monster AC, I think that we could stand to get more monsters with high AC, but that isn't a balance or counter to our AC. Monsters and players exist in different spheres, and something that affects one isn't necessarily balanced by giving the same thing, or even its opposite, to the other.

[Brannigan]

Where is Eladrin?

Oh yes thats right this thread is being ignored like all the other AC idea threads...

[Thrudh]

Where is Eladrin?

Oh yes thats right this thread is being ignored like all the other AC idea threads...

Yeah, that's helpful

[Brannigan]

Yeah, that's helpful

But sadly true.

[smatt]

[quote=sephiroth1084;4037759]People were soloing epics on casters before the last spell pass, and that just made their job easier. DPS oriented melees were doing reasonably well in epics before the epic pass, and that made their jobs easier. [/indeed] And the reason being??? Oh I can answer that. To make them more accessible to more players. Which on one side I espise becasue the peopel who played very hard and worked very hard for their epic gear now face people dancing through getting it far easier. But on the other hand, creating content for 1% of the population is bad business and bad game design.

AC-focused characters got a slight boost with the epic pass insofar as their low DPS was comparatively raised relative to total monster HP due to that HP being dropped, but that is a sort of tangential boost to the main thrust of such characters. Epics were made more accessible to everyone but AC tanks.

Again, I agree that AC needs a lot of work, as does DR for substantial AC builds. I dont' think there's any question about this at all

What I would suggest is to have the to-hit numbers dropped considerably with no other alterations, or to rework the to-hit/AC system as some have suggested (myself included), with no other changes, release the change onto Lamannia or live servers and see what the effect is, then balance from there if it's needed. We already know what isn't working, but we don't know what is.

Sire, again I agree... Although Lama is a horrible testing ground IMO.. Sure it can give a bit of an idea, more about big bad bugs etc. But the players who actually go there aren't going to give you a good represntation of the player base. In fact i think the top powergamers that reside on Lama, while beign very good, smart playes always give a point of view from a certain perspective that often gains too much weight if not sifted properly. But Lama is what it is...

As for monster AC, I think that we could stand to get more monsters with high AC, but that isn't a balance or counter to our AC. Monsters and players exist in different spheres, and something that affects one isn't necessarily balanced by giving the same thing, or even its opposite, to the other.

I disagree here, they aren't on different spheres.... If AC should matter to players it should matter to mobs as well. While of course the main way the game mitigates player to mob damage is purely HP's, just as the game mitigates mob to player damage with extreme players DPS. Fancy weaposn and big flashy colorful chains of numbers flashing on the screen are mre fun you know

Simply lowering mob to hit one way or another in end game sounds easy and all... But I think that it will make end game more trivial than it already is. Creating a situation where AC means more won't make AC toons anymore desirable, well except for dress wearing TWF, who AGAIN would gain a huge advantage, jsut as they did with the proliferation fo doge bonuses and the Icy Rainments debacle. The fact remains that Acane/Divines will still be the slaughter bots, simply put they can do it WAY faster. The only place it would make any difference at all is in the raids. But god forbid they nerf the magic classes back to this plane

[grodon9999]

I disagree here, they aren't on different spheres.... If AC should matter to players it should matter to mobs as well. While of course the main way the game mitigates player to mob damage is purely HP's, just as the game mitigates mob to player damage with extreme players DPS. Fancy weaposn and big flashy colorful chains of numbers flashing on the screen are mre fun you know

it does matter to mobs, mobs ACs are already high in epics. make them any higher and non full-BAB toons might as well retire.

[grodon9999]

Simply lowering mob to hit one way or another in end game sounds easy and all... But I think that it will make end game more trivial than it already is. Creating a situation where AC means more won't make AC toons anymore desirable, well except for dress wearing TWF, who AGAIN would gain a huge advantage, jsut as they did with the proliferation fo doge bonuses and the Icy Rainments debacle. The fact remains that Acane/Divines will still be the slaughter bots, simply put they can do it WAY faster. The only place it would make any difference at all is in the raids. But god forbid they nerf the magic classes back to this plane

it really won't make the game more trivial, in content where we already crush stuff it won't matter one way or another.

What it does do is remove another blanket immunity, and blanket immunities as just stupid.

[sephiroth1084]

And the reason being??? Oh I can answer that. To make them more accessible to more players. Which on one side I espise becasue the peopel who played very hard and worked very hard for their epic gear now face people dancing through getting it far easier. But on the other hand, creating content for 1% of the population is bad business and bad game design.

I'm just saying that making AC useful in epics isn't going to break anything, at least nowhere near as much as casters do.

I disagree here, they aren't on different spheres.... If AC should matter to players it should matter to mobs as well. While of course the main way the game mitigates player to mob damage is purely HP's, just as the game mitigates mob to player damage with extreme players DPS.

My point is that improving monster AC is targeting different stats than increasing player AC. The two are completely unrelated. Increasing monster AC targets players' attack bonuses, which needs doing, but has no bearing whatsoever on player AC.

Simply lowering mob to hit one way or another in end game sounds easy and all... But I think that it will make end game more trivial than it already is.

How can the endgame be trivialized by characters being difficult to hit? It's not like people are calling for 50 AC to be useful damage mitigating at endgame. I'm sorry, but I cannot see how characters who can actually manage to not get hit will break the endgame.

Creating a situation where AC means more won't make AC toons anymore desirable,

They don't need to be much more desirable, they need to be viable. Even in content where AC rules (ie lvl 1-10), no one sits around waiting for an AC tank. I don't expect this to change. What needs changing is the accommodation that characters who are focused on AC have at end game. There is a huge difference between parties not looking for AC tanks and AC tanks who feel like all of their effort has been a waste because it's meaningless at endgame. I'm calling for a fix to the latter, not necessarily the former.

well except for dress wearing TWF, who AGAIN would gain a huge advantage, jsut as they did with the proliferation fo doge bonuses and the Icy Rainments debacle.

There will be pluses and minuses for both heavily armored and unarmored AC styles. I'm not calling for fixes to that disparity, I'm calling for a fix to the AC/monster to-hit system at endgame. S&B tanks have gotten some love and now offer some rather unique benefits when compared to pajama AC builds, but neither the S&B nor the PJs wearer are of any value if monsters are routinely hitting AC 100.

The fact remains that Acane/Divines will still be the slaughter bots, simply put they can do it WAY faster.

Which is my point: improving AC toons at endgame isn't going to break anything. All I'm asking for is the ability to take my character built for AC into epic quests and raids and actually see enough instances of "MISS" to justify holding that shield, keeping on the Chaosgardes, etc...rather than swapping to DPS mode every time I step into such content.

Sure, there will be a few quests where having a solid AC tank will make things run a little more smoothly when in a mediocre group, or in a decent group with a poor caster. We need a little variety in the way quests are approached.

[smatt]

it does matter to mobs, mobs ACs are already high in epics. make them any higher and non full-BAB toons might as well retire.

Well yes sure, it could be problematic, but shoudl be looked at.... The extreme splash builds SHOULD hae issues they have to deal with.. That's what things like improved destruction and BAB boosting clickies and spells are for. If you're building to take advantage of this class and that class, well sometimes you have to give up something, more than the trivial. DDO multi-class is way to forgiving IMO, far too easy to get the best of all worlds, while onyl giving up a little within a party aspect, I realize you do give up many things when going extreme splash from the SOLO standpoint.

[grodon9999]

Well yes sure, it could be problematic, but shoudl be looked at.... The extreme splash builds SHOULD hae issues they have to deal with.. That's what things like improved destruction and BAB boosting clickies and spells are for. If you're building to take advantage of this class and that class, well sometimes you have to give up something, more than the trivial.

Not talking about splashes, splashes lose a point or two to-hit which is trivial on a Kensai or barb. Referring more to bard, melee-divines, and rogues.

For a non full-bab toon now to get reliably to-hit it takes a significant investment. raise it anymore and you just price them out of the market.

DDO multi-class is way to forgiving IMO, far too easy to get the best of all worlds, while onyl giving up a little within a party aspect, I realize you do give up many things when going extreme splash from the SOLO standpoint.

You can say that with a straight face considering the capstones we have? The ranger on is worthless, but all the other melee capstones are excellent. Casters already need to stay pure or are gimped. You give up a ton already splashing.