Is this right - AC/To-Hit?

[Eladrin]

What's happening with monk water stance? it still reads as a + dodge bonus to armor class which are supposed to be no more.

Should be a for-real percent dodge bonus now.

[sephiroth1084]

These are both true.


In the current build, we're giving monks 2% dodge when defensively centered at levels 1, 2, and 4. They should also gain 15 points of armor class as they level.

We're still watching them.

What does that highlighted portion mean? Is it when centered and in a defensive combat stance? Do Water and Earth count as defensive combat stances for this purpose? Why this odd functionality?

Also, while I understand (and want) the 2 monk splash to still be relevant, this seems like an awful lot of front-loading. What about a front-load of +4% dodge at level 1 or 2, and then +1 or 2% dodge every X levels? That's a lot of stuff in monk that improves over levels like that, but it fits. Maybe +2% at 5, 10, 15 and 20 for +12% at level 20?

[donblas]

These are both true.


In the current build, we're giving monks 2% dodge when defensively centered at levels 1, 2, and 4. They should also gain 15 points of armor class as they level.

We're still watching them.

What does "defensively centred" mean? How the AC bonus affect monk splashes or do we reroll them as inferior variants of their main class?

I presume this will still leave monks behind armor wearers in actual AC, slightly ahead in dodge (if they can get a lot of dodge gear) and far, far behind in PRR?

[eonfreon]

Seriously? How we calculate the chance to miss is what makes our combat system good?

I always thought it was the active nature of it.

The calculations are far more important than the "active nature of it", especially since that "active nature" is incredibly fake. And becoming more apparent all the time. Once it was a good fake, but not nearly as much as it is now (combat changes such as Doublestrike and %chance for offhand procs compounded the fact that what's on the screen is not what's really happening).

But in all of this, the nerf for melee to-hit is the worse. The Devs try to sell it as a buff because of the +25% chance because everyone "likes to hit". But that buff is for the lowest to-hits, those whio didn't care about it. Whereas most melee with high to-hits are losing 10% or more in some cases. And even that's not TOO bad if it was just straight up dps, but it affects everything, all melee special abilities rely on hitting as often as possible. It's one thing that I lose straight up 5-10% from my to-hits and thus dps, it's another that Stunning Blows, Trips, and Sunders and even weapon effects will have an extra chance of not hitting at all.

Did the Devs consider those abilities? And if so, why are there no discussions on them. With those effects having less chance of even landing, why are there no discussions about possible cooldown changes.

Basically, when the Devs outlined the new system they should have gone through each and every Feat, Enhancement, Enchantment, etc and listed it with updated information.

Now I get the feeling that Feats and such will change "somewhere down the line" and I really dislike that idea. Especially with the troublesome respec mechanics in game, that cost real money in most cases.

The Devs should really get rid of all respec costs until they get their system together.

[grandeibra]

Seriously? How we calculate the chance to miss is what makes our combat system good?

Two things make it great. Completely agree about the active part. The second is the fact that you can customize your toon so much and have tangible effects from doing so on tohit/damage/ac/flanking/destructing etcetc By basically negating the effect of small increases the sense of control and fun is removed. Control. Cutomizable. Key words for why this is the ONLY MMO I ever liked. For me that is. And it seems for some others as well.

Like I've said many times: changes to wop, evasion in heavy, autocrit etc etc were all changes that were sorta needed and killed SOME builds. The current change kills the combat system itself and the fun of trying to find that next great loot that gives u a +1 to hit or ac.

It also brings everyone to the middle. casters get closer to fulltard barbs in to hit chance, full tard robe ac builds are even more gimp than before, dex builds are history. The bell curve just became tighter, i.e., less diversity, i.e., less fun. Imo. An example if a certain item grants +2 dps and another +1 tohit and +1 dps, before they were both viable and depending on build preferable. Now the dps one is better for every single build. Less diversity. Fighting using tohit debuff weapons used to be viable, now their effect is so low that I haven't been able to build a single scenario where they are preferable to max dps weapons. Less diversity. Powerattack on/off used to be situational. Now it is a given to leave on at all times. Less diversity.

What I find most strange is that the tools to fix tohit/ac were already there. Attack chain, no item effects of same type stacking, increase DR on armor. Done

[rakhtal]

What does "defensively centred" mean? How the AC bonus affect monk splashes or do we reroll them as inferior variants of their main class?

I presume this will still leave monks behind armor wearers in actual AC, slightly ahead in dodge (if they can get a lot of dodge gear) and far, far behind in PRR?

Defensively centered means outfit and no shield, you don't need ki weapons.

[Cyr]

In the current build, we're giving monks 2% dodge when defensively centered at levels 1, 2, and 4. They should also gain 15 points of armor class as they level.

We're still watching them.

Note even close to enough to make them compete or not make them poor shadows of their former selves.

Less emphasis on monk levels and more on stat allocation is needed unless the goal is to insure that monk splash builds are completely pointless in anticapation of the enhancement pass killing them completely.

[LeLoric]

The simplest solution would have been to simply change the d20 to a d100 and lower excessive monster attack bonuses while adjusting buffs and items to have less swingy effects.

Simplest is rarely the most effective. Widening the dice just further emphasizes the gaps between max and those not at max. This provides a much more bell curve type distribution rather than a linear one that allows for a more condensed player base. Many argue that is normalizes mediocrity which is in a way true but it also leaves more to skill /player knowledge versus build which I think is a good thing. It also makes developer balancing of content/abilities/gear much easier which while it doesn't directly affect us as players it allows for better designed content which is always a good thing.

Yes you ddo lose a bit of the d20 feel with the new system and it's harder to know your exact capabilities but it's fairly intuitive and buffing for to hit and the likes does make a noticeable difference in fighting at level stuff.

Does it overly penalize melees versus casters? Yes but melees are gaining pretty significant dps increases with this update while casters are fairly negligible. The gap in dmg output will be significantly narrowed even with more misses. They also gain some pretty strong mitigation differences that can allow them to be more self sufficient which is where casters maintained the big advantage.

[sephiroth1084]

Should be a for-real percent dodge bonus now.

I still think it feels weird that Earth stance is the best defensive stance with a big AC and PRR boost, and the best DPS stance for some characters thanks to the +1 crit multiplier, while Wind is the second best offensive stance for those characters and the best for most others, wtih Fire being semi-utility (though with all the +1 Ki items around, it is far less useful for this) and higher to-hit on non-Finesse monks, where half the benefit comes from the base stance, and Water is kind of the utility stance as well with a little defensive nod, better DCs and some Ki gen also that "stacks" better with the +1 Ki items thanks to generating Ki between fights.

Eladrin, what are the goals for each of the stances? What do you want them to be used for? Who do you envision taking each stance?

[LeLoric]

What does that highlighted portion mean? Is it when centered and in a defensive combat stance? Do Water and Earth count as defensive combat stances for this purpose? Why this odd functionality?

Defensively centered has always been in the game. It just means no armor/shield but is irregardless of weapons same thing that qualifies you for wis bonus to ac now.

[Ape_Man]

In the current build, we're giving monks 2% dodge when defensively centered at levels 1, 2, and 4. They should also gain 15 points of armor class as they level.

We're still watching them.

I play splashes and I don't want to switch to armor because I'm lazy and don't want to re-gear EVERYTHING and not throw out multiple Epic Moronan helms. That might help pure (over-powered anyway) monks but leaves splashes out in the cold.

I'd really prefer this additional dodge be somehow tied to you stats considering really at this point nothing else in this system that matters is.

[TPICKRELL]

...In the current build, we're giving monks 2% dodge when defensively centered at levels 1, 2, and 4. They should also gain 15 points of armor class as they level.

We're still watching them.

At last a change here, even if it is only a tiny step forward.

Monks have always had lower hit point potential, but high to very high damage mitigation potential.

Thank you for the change, but even with this improvement, Monks still have one of the lowest damage mitigation potentials and one of the highest costs to achieve that potential.

[donblas]

Defensively centered has always been in the game. It just means no armor/shield but is irregardless of weapons same thing that qualifies you for wis bonus to ac now.

Thanks

and to you rakhtal

+1s for helpfulness if I have any left.

[FooWonk]

I'm actually wondering whether they should just abandon 'to hit' for anything except maybe ranged (where lag/ping would be more noticable), and just stick to pure physics checks for melee. You know, you swing, if it's stood there it gets it's dodge chance to avoid the hit, but otherwise is just hit. Ditto for players. Actual armour would just provide dodge and PPR. Then we'd have a genuinely 'active' combat system, with melee based fairly solidly on player skill (such as their ability to block to increase PPR and take less damage before they start swinging again, or just plain getting out the way). BaB and to hit gear could be used purely to add to things that are supposed to be scalably tied in to class abilities (e.g. how much extra passive defense benefit you get from putting armour on, maybe bonuses to DCs of combat tactics like trip, stuff like that). Would make sense as well - AC was always a bit odd, right back to 1st edition, because real armour doesn't stop you getting hit. If anything it makes it more likely you will get hit due to movement restrictions - what armour does is stops you taking damage when you ARE hit. But it's a rare armour that means you don't even feel a hit that was really intended to hurt. There's the kinetic impact pushing at you if nothing else. So PPR/DR are the things armour should be adding, rather than 'hit avoidance' when looked at like that.

If they did that, there would also be slightly less maths and data-swapping happening, which would be lighter on client AND server, which should improve collision detection which should mean when I get 5m away from that troll/ogre and he starts his triplecrit swing it might actually be 5m away so I wouldn't keep getting hit regardless. (remember the TWF nerf was to reduce the load by removing some of these calculations already, and I think that probably did lighten some of the lag problems).

Would be a massive change. Doubt it would be at all popular due to the straight out abandoning of the to hit roll itself... but whatever game it was that did that... I'd play it for sure.

This is actually very similar to one of the several proposals we talked about, but decided on the hybrid system specifically so we could keep the d20. Talks on that are what led to us wanting players to graze on a 2+ - we're making you physics hit, it seemed bad to have miss appear after that.

There's precedent for using Armor Class as damage reduction in Unearthed Arcana, but as you mention, if we had gone with that proposal we'd have wanted it to behave in a PRR-like fashion. To-hit would likely have converted into an armor reduction stat.

I like this much better.

AC is bypassed directly by to-hit + d20.
Any AC not bypassed is added to PRR.
Dodge provides %-chance to avoid attack.

This is simple.
Fixes AC issues by using physics collision detection.
Maintains damage mitigation for high AC characters through a PRR which has a diminishing return.
And as the armor being worn has a base PRR, mitigation still improves across the board for those wearing armor.

[Dandonk]

I have to disagree with this as well.

While an individual +1 or -1 to hit or Armor Class (on monsters) may not have an effect in a specific encounter due to the rounding to maintain the d20 for players, overall, debuffing, to-hit, various tactics, and buffing have a significant effect over the entirety of the dungeon.

For a particular attack, +1 to hit may or may not move you into the next 5% band. Against a different monster in the dungeon, or under slightly different circumstances (you moved into flanking for an additional +2), it might. Taking the entire quest into account, the +1 will make the difference occasionally, increasing your overall damage output.

Many of these bonuses and debuffs are less critical than before, when some characters would be unable to contribute to a fight at all without them, but together they should provide tangible benefits to the damage output of the party as a whole. There's also an interesting twist where AC debuffs (and buffs) are slightly more powerful in general than to-hit.

If we removed the rounding to 5% for players, then every individual +1/-1 to hit and AC would have an effect on player damage output, but then we'd lose the direct tie to the d20, which we're loathe to do. It's quite possible for us to do this, if there's enough call for it. We thought that keeping the d20 with this known behavior was preferable - let us know if we're wrong.

Skipping to-hit buffs like Greater Heroism or Inspire Courage would have dramatically negative effects to your overall damage output as a physical character. Considering the lengths that people are willing to go for an additional +1 damage, I think that it would be bordering foolish to refuse to use buffing and debuffing that increase your overall damage through the duration of the dungeon.

A 10 str cleric using a +5 weapon will hit more than 50% of the time against an AC 65 mob, and you don't see a problem?

You cobble together an abomination of system that does away with d20 roots of a socalled D&D based game, and you don't see a problem?

You reduce the value of build choices that involve to hit to next to nothing, and you don't see a problem?

You make more or less EVERY character in the game able to hit stuff nearly the same percentage of the time, and you don't see a problem?

Really?

Really??

/sighs-in-defeat

[sephiroth1084]

Defensively centered has always been in the game. It just means no armor/shield but is irregardless of weapons same thing that qualifies you for wis bonus to ac now.

I've always just read that as "centered." Guess it's been a while since I've looked at the actual descriptions.

[Ape_Man]

Are like dodge modifiers supposed to stack when all is said and done? I'd prefer they don't actually and we'd get some more from our stats.

[Cyr]

Does it overly penalize melees versus casters? Yes but melees are gaining pretty significant dps increases with this update while casters are fairly negligible. The gap in dmg output will be significantly narrowed even with more misses. They also gain some pretty strong mitigation differences that can allow them to be more self sufficient which is where casters maintained the big advantage.

I see no evidence of this in any of the details of the xpack. It certainly is not the case in level 1-20.

I fail to see how more melee misses and increased max caster level with fairly decent dc boosts are going to result in a narrowing of the gap in epic levels either.

[donblas]

I've always just read that as "centered." Guess it's been a while since I've looked at the actual descriptions.

Centred includes using ki weapons. You get some benefits by being in cloth with no shield, but not all unless you use ki weapons. I just hadn't heard the former called "defensively centred" before.

[LeLoric]

I see no evidence of this in any of the details of the xpack. It certainly is not the case in level 1-20.

I fail to see how more melee misses and increased max caster level with fairly decent dc boosts are going to result in a narrowing of the gap in epic levels either.

The +3 max caster level is nothing compared to the kind of dps increases we see from dreadnaught, shadowdancer, fury of the wild, fatesinger, grandmaster.

Even the tank line gets some marked dmg increases.

Draconic gets some other cool damage abilities but they all take the place over some other spell to cast in the rotation so their replacement value is much less.

One could even argue that the high number of evasion mobs is much more detrimental to casters than the few misses you see as a melee.