Is this right - AC/To-Hit?

[Masadique]

If we are voting:

Scrap the d20. d100 is better for fine tuning anyway, why hide it? We'll still roll d20s for skills. Maybe make some awesome throw back to the d20 in the UI. Your art guy could start having fun hiding little easter eggs throughout. DnD is awesome. DDO is different. Embrace it!

Should we just make a poll for this?

V

[anto_capone]

I just wish I understood how this new system worked. I keep trying to wrap my brain around it, but after about 10 mins my eyes glaze over and I get a headache. I've always been good at math too.

Its way too complicated for me.

[Eladiun]

People saying they would stop playing a game because the die graphic on the screen changed from a d20 to a d100 are being utterly hyperbolic and absurd.

Just like everyone who freaked out when weapon tool-tips changed to say 2-5 rather than 1d4+1.

[Aashrym]

Should be a for-real percent dodge bonus now.

What about the dodge bonus for inspire heroics? Last time I was on Lamma that still read as a +4 dodge bonus to AC as well.

And how much dodge bonus would we be looking at? I don't want to see something that costs a song and gave 4 times the bonus as the dodge feat drop relatively.

[Dandonk]

Just like everyone who freaked out when weapon tool-tips changed to say 2-5 rather than 1d4+1.

Some cried slippery slope at that point, and look where we are now.

[CanuckWisdom]

Good point.

Here's an alternative proposition that shares some commonalities with what has been proposed by Turbine.

3 sources of defense:
-Dodge (not being there when the blow lands) - You get your Dexterity Score - (40/Armor max dex)) in flat out dodge percentages, plus bonuses from feats & monk abilities. Dexterity no longer counts towards AC directly.

A 18 dex character in Mithral armor with an armor mastery bonus (total max dex 4) has (18-(40/4)) = 8% chance to dodge
A 12 dex character in Adamantine full plate (max dex 1) has (12-(40/1) = 0% chance to dodge
A 30 dex character in cloth armor (no max dex) has a 30% chance to dodge, but no meaningful AC

Figure each level of Monk gives +1% to dodge, and maybe each wisdom point modifier too, +2% from feat bonus, etc.
This isn't a d20, but it's also in line with how we handle Blur, Displacement, etc. It's intuitive, simple, and should provide a reasonable way to bring AC down without making any other major changes to DDO.

-Armor Class
As before, but with monster to-hits scaled down to account for the lack of Dex & dodge bonuses to AC decreasing AC across the board. This will help make high-AC closer to balanced by making it numerically closer to mid/low AC.

-Damage Reduction
Leave this component as-is while the suggested Dodge vs. AC system is tested to see what further changes need to be made.

Very good suggestions, and basically how I would have done it. Many melee can get ac up to 40-60, but very high ac is 90-100. Why not take away some of that stacking ac so very high ac is 75-85, and monster to-hit can be reduced without having near invincible characters. 60 ac has more meaning then and we can add the dodge % bonus in as a way to make melee's more solid (something along those lines). Oh and this is with keeping the d20.

[blkcat1028]

if we are voting:

Scrap the d20. D100 is better for fine tuning anyway, why hide it? We'll still roll d20s for skills. Maybe make some awesome throw back to the d20 in the ui. Your art guy could start having fun hiding little easter eggs throughout. Dnd is awesome. Ddo is different. Embrace it!

Should we just make a poll for this?

V

+1

[Sgt_Hart]

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.

Dare I mention.. With keeping the D20.. Why not simply make MOAR d20's if your having a hard time?

I mean quick example, you want nasiter monsters to have better to hit, and make tanking more useful in say raids..

• 1d20(1-20) for trash
• 2d20(2-40) for quest miniboss
• 3d20(3-60) for quest boss
• ---------------------------------------
• 2d20(2-40) for Raid trash
• 3d20(3-60) for Raid Miniboss
• 4d20(4-80) for raid boss.

... or maybe do it 1/2/3 d20 for quests and 2/4/6 d20 for raids. I mean, hell, D&D with RNG is quite easy to "Fudge" the numbers for. Want to keep the existing max of 20? Fine, make the raid... boss roll 10d2(10-20 spread) Mini boss:4d4+4(8-20) Trash: 5d4(5-20)

Keeping the D20 isn't tremendously hard, It's a matter of working out how far off the 1d20 you want/need to go to balance out how homebrew rules.

[blkcat1028]

Would it be possible for one of the resident math geniuses to work out a mock-up of what the system would look like if they dropped the d20 and went with a d100?

It would be a very interesting to compare the two.

[Ape_Man]

If the D20 is gone scrap the name "Dungeons and Dragons" from the game title.

[voodoogroves]

I think the other fallacy that crept in Eladrin was some assumption that in every attack / AC combination there had to be some middle-ground effectiveness where there were some misses and hits that weren't 1s or 20s.

I'm not sure how that crept in as an implied part of the design, but from a player perspective it is absolutely ok for some things to only hit on a 20 and others to only miss on a 1 ... players and monsters alike. It just shouldn't be all of them.



I really do wish you had divested the PRR from armor and gone with the armor-as-protection route. That would have allowed you to actually lower the top-end ACs and lower things into a range where if someone is trying for meaningful AC, they can be "on the die" somewhere. Buffs and de-buffs (active tactical play and teamwork) would matter.

I think it'd solve the dex/wis/dodge problem too.

I'm sure you guys looked at it ... convert the attack roll into something more akin to a touch-AC "hit" as opposed to a "hit and do damage" and scale the Unearthed Arcana armor-as-resistance paradigm
- take some bonuses (armor, shield, dodge, dex, monk, wis) ... those make up the new defense number
- reduce armor bonuses for heavy armors; instead grant a combination of PRR or DR
- take some bonuses (natural, deflection, etc.) and add to a PRR, which based on some scale reduces damage from being hit
- generally speaking, things will 'hit/touch' the heavier armors more often but not the dodgier light armors ... but those heavier armors will reduce damage (soak / PRR)
- the to-hit roll only compares against the new defense class
- class and PRE abilities should be closely watched to ensure the AC doesn't scale wacky high; right now folks can stack to 100+, if that were more like 50/60 reasonably, the d20 die for that wouldn't be obscene
- defenders, who's job it is to soak, would get more PRR than native AC
- If you wanted to put dodge and deflection into an "avoidy" chance as well, you could do that. This would help keep AC and PRR even lower and the d20 even more relevant.


DR and PRR both have analogs in the rest of the game too with DR = energy resist and PRR = energy absorption, so the mechanic remains useful. There are also ablative options for both (pro energy, temp hp, etc.) so the system is internally consistent.

[joaofalcao]

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.

And I always tought it was because it was D&D.

Oh wait, that ship sailed a long time ago as well, isnt it?

Well, if it wasnt, certainly is sailing right now.

[donblas]

Good point.

Here's an alternative proposition that shares some commonalities with what has been proposed by Turbine.

3 sources of defense:
-Dodge (not being there when the blow lands) -

-Armor Class
As before, but with monster to-hits scaled down to account for the lack of Dex & dodge bonuses to AC decreasing AC across the board. This will help make high-AC closer to balanced by making it numerically closer to mid/low AC.

-Damage Reduction
Leave this component as-is while the suggested Dodge vs. AC system is tested to see what further changes need to be made.

I'm not sure why you would even need AC in this scenario. (Note I like D&D's system so I am not advocating this.)

I can see that dodge is not getting hit.

I can see that DR is getting hit but being able to reduce damage when this happens, possibly to zero if physical defense was good enough.

But what would AC represent then?

[LeLoric]

Numbers.

10-15% miss increase for many mobs is expected for melee.

That is a 10-15% loss to make up for in the first place.

A +3 max CL increase is another ~15% -20% dps increase. Higher DC's matter alot for dps also. Particularly on low DC builds like warforged sorcs where the stacking twist potential and much higher base stats will mean big differences for 1/2 or no damage saves.

That is ALOT of ground to make up IN EPIC LEVELS. In heroic levels it is just plain caster win/melee lose.

You neglect to take in that casters also have to regain a large amount with the emp/maximize changes no longer being multiplicative. You know, numbers.

Caster total dmg is about a 10% increase depending on how much more gear you wish to add etc.

My kensai is running almost 50% dps increase in maxed out dreadnaught on single target dps and 200% for multitarget dps (granted yes this was bad before). This is after additional miss chance is calculated in.

Once again evasion and resistances will cause more lost dmg form casters than any misses generated will.

Having played both and also analyzed a lot of number comparisons (yes I can do numbers too, I do simple ddo dmg comparisons as a break from researching algorithmic phenomena in biology) I can tell you that melee dps increase is far higher than caster in the new content.

Dreadnaught gets a huge dps boost. Fury and shadow are about equal but shadow gets a fair bit of instakills. Even shiradi champion, which falls behind the melee dps by quite a bit still, is actually quite a bit ahead of what casters are gaining at about a 20-25% depending on build.

[Masadique]

If the D20 is gone scrap the name "Dungeons and Dragons" from the game title.

Or not. Keep DnD and change one dice. The game uses all kinds of other dice to you know. It will still use a d20 for skills and other such things. It will just have better combat.

Oh! An idea, keep the animated dice, don't tell anyone you're changing the code, and just troll people.

V

[Cetus]

So here's the problem that I have with the formula

The rounding 5% results in gaps of to hit bonus that are insufficient to create an impact on your success chance.

The 10.5 factor thats added to your to hit is already accounting for the d20. Problem is, we use the d20 roll today to easily figure out where our success chance stands on a mob by mob basis. I started a thread regarding our inability to gauge our performance here: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...23#post4519323

Thirdly, the 25% proficiency bonus is rediculous. Another posted pointed out previously how a zero bab caster automatically lands a quarter of his hits. Here's my suggestion to fix the formula:



[Player Attack Bonus + .5(Player attack bonus) <---- Proficiency bonus]/[2*mob AC] + 1d20%


65 to hit versus a 70 ac mob:

[65+32.5 proficiency bonus]/140 = 70%

66 to hit versus a 70 ac mob:

[66 + 33 proficiency bonus]/140 = 71%

67 = 72%

68 = 73%


Everytime your to-hit equals the AC of your enemy you always achieve 75% successrate with your attacks.

Further improvements to your to hit don't provide returns that diminish at the same rate as the original formula.

If you are at a 75 to hit versus the 70 ac:

75 + 37.5 proficiency bonus = 112.5/140 = 80%

If weapon focus feats, fighter past life feats are converted to +1 or +2% to hit bonuses we can approach the 95% success chance realistically.

We still adhere to the d20 system. We still have benefit from every to hit improvement. The proficiency bonus is intimately tied to your to hit- so a zero bab doesnt all of a sudden lasnd a quarter of your attacks.

I haven't tested this extently and I ahven't plotted it in excel yet, but this is my rudimentary alternate solution. If someone has the time to post a more extensive picture of how this formula plays out- I'd appreciate it.

[bgcorporation]

I'm not liking this at all. Diminishing returns in a D&D game? That's ridiculous. Is this why they are giving so many things recently like the percent deduction on items in the DDO store? So in essence this game is turning into WoW.

[sirgog]

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.

The odd nature of AC debuffs being better than To-Hit buffs is - interesting.

Even if they had exactly the same effect, debuffing AC on a monster is significantly better than increasing your personal To-Hit as the AC debuffs provide a party/raidwide DPS increase rather than a single player DPS increase. On live this is really noticeable - Epic Cojoined Abashai Devastator goes down a good 2-3 minutes faster in PUGs when I'm on my bard that uses Epic Kron'zek's Cruelty.

My personal DPS increase (from missing on a 7 or so to hitting on a 2) is not nearly high enough to account for killing a half million HP boss that much more quickly.

As for 'will buffs be worth casting' - yeah, they will generally be. Especially at low level, where To-Hit is most important.

[CaptainSpacePony]

I have to disagree with this as well.
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.

IMO, the new to hit system effectively throws out the legacy D20 system, and trying to keep it intact serves little purpose. Embrace the new and let every buff/penalty have a measurable effect.

[Jonathrint]

I'm not sure why you would even need AC in this scenario. (Note I like D&D's system so I am not advocating this.)

I can see that dodge is not getting hit.

I can see that DR is getting hit but being able to reduce damage when this happens, possibly to zero if physical defense was good enough.

But what would AC represent then?

Dodge is not getting hit through quick reflexes, keen senses, or use of the Force.

AC is not getting hit because the enemy's weapon can't get past your shield and armor to even scratch you.