Nerf the dang OP Barbs already!

[DeafeningWhisper]

Now that I have your attention, let's talk about game balance

No it doesn't involve singling out barbs and nerfing them, it does however involve an across the board nerf thou, let me explain.

The reason why DDO is unbalanced, IMHO, is that the GM doesn't role play.

No I don't mean we need more npcs in quests, but ask any GM and they'll tell you that to make an encounter enjoyable by the PCs you need to make the enemies challenging but not impossible to defeat.

The easiest way to do this is to throw mobs of the appropriate level, make sure they are not types the PCs can't kill and role play them correctly.

3 Main types of mobs exist in DnD when it comes to role playing them:

- The "believers": these are the guys who try to kill the protagonist out of some sense of right or wrong, justice, pure evil and so on. While their motivations may vary these guys are willing to die to try to kill or even just slow the PCs.

-The opportunists: enemies that are after the PCs for money, a quick meal or fame. Unlike the believers these guys WILL run away when out-numbered or defeat seems certain.

- Guardians: They are either mindless automatons (like skeletons, golems, zombies and so on) which have been created/animated with a simple rule like "kill anyone that crosses that door". They can also be enchanted/cursed beings forced to do a task and disregard anything else, including their own safety.

The problem with DDO is that all mobs/bosses are "role played" by the GM as guardians, they fight to the death with no regards to their continued existence.

This is probably because, well DDO is older then dirt! While the Graphic engine holds (more or less) the AI? Not so much... So how are the encounters made more challenging? Through "inflation" , mobs are the same from lvl 1 to 25, just with more HP, better saves, higher base damage/to-hit and a few more spells.

This leads to an "arm race" tougher mobs, even tougher toons to beat them. This is the cause for AC been worthless until the new system, insta-kills been so powerful (if roughly the same amount of kills can be accomplished by a well geared, well played melee no one would even mention insta-kills) and min maxing been necessary in making a "competitive" toon.


How to fix this with the relatively poor AI of a six year old game? Implement new routines into mobs to "simulate" the other 2 roles, a sentient creature hits a BB? They stop dead on their tracks and hits the caster or whomever they have aggro with ranged attacks until BB dissipates. They are getting hit by AoE over time spells? Step out and seek the closest target outside the AoE. Hell some mobs should just run away and force players to chase them in order to kill them when they are clearly screwed.

What does this allow? More challenging fights, the fact we can kite thousand of year old sentient supernatural creatures without them stopping to think: "Hum, maybe I'll stop running through that blender in the middle of the room and just fireball is ass from here" is what's wrong with DDO. We have archers jumping backwards when hit in melee, why shouldn't they avoid AoEs?

Smarter mobs, with better gear (Deathblock/heavy fort at random anyone? Recurring villains have PC lvls and usually gear of the same lvls, why shouldn't high lvl mobs?), better saves, more spells (why don't enemy wizards cast hage?) and more tactical feats (improved sunder, sap and so on) would make it possible to deflate the mobs hp and still keep this game challenging. Heck we could make them hit less hard if they hit "smarter", cleric sees a PM? Searing light, that barb is supreme cleaving the **** out of the melee mobs around him? Greater command/Irresistible dance/trip/sap him.

Mobs are incredibly dumb in DDO, truth be told if they acted just a little bit smarter then they do now most at level quests would be wipes.

This would mean some nerfs to PCs of course:

Cutting the amount of racial/class toughness enhancements so PCs don't have too many hit points compared to mobs.

Casters would have their damage limited, specially when it comes to no save spells adding a save or diminishing the damage would be needed (mobs have less hp, no need for triple dots hitting for 500+ per tick). I would also add an archer de-concentration de-buff, one that would be keyed to BAB (the higher then less you get de-buffed) to make it so wizards and sorcerers couldn't run around quests head first without fear of missing a concentration check. This would force "1st in a room casters" to either run with quicken all the time, or simply enter after a melee has grabbed archer aggro. Yes this would hit soloing, but only if you carry no concentration items/don't use quicken or keep archers alive for sp batteries.

Melees would loose some dps as well, not tons but enough that boss fights are not no win scenarios for the red/purple named. Be it by lower attack rate or lower base damage on weapons.

This is juts my 2 coppers, feel free to comment, ignore, laugh or point out how it wouldn't work

[Xaxx]

you do realize this is an mmo, and pretty much in every mmo and every rpg... every enemy except for scripted boss encounters, pretty much every mob fights to the death.... so ummm.. yeah... next?

[DeafeningWhisper]

you do realize this is an mmo, and pretty much in every mmo and every rpg... every enemy except for scripted boss encounters, pretty much every mob fights to the death.... so ummm.. yeah... next?

Sure, but do they have to be suicidal about it? Kiting none brain dead mobs through BB shouldn't be possible.

[psi0nix]

I cannot agree with "nerfing" anyone, of any class.

I do however agree that the mobs could do with some better AI, smarten them up a bit, so they stop and think :hey, that BB just hit me for 600, better not run through it again . . .

Or, "that wizard just wailed 5 of my friends, better of get to close, range attack / hit them as soon as spell has been cast, because we know they have a cooldown and cannot do that more than once every minute.".

Definitely up the AI, nerf no-one. ....

[Xaxx]

Sure, but do they have to be suicidal about it? Kiting none brain dead mobs through BB shouldn't be possible.

except for scripted boss fights.. yeah pretty much

lets go back to everquest ...... TRAIN TO ZONE TRAIN TO ZONE...

lets go to eq 2 *heheh i'll use my conjy pet to pull these 4 monsters below this hill just within their pullback range *boom boom boom* next

lets go to wow *ok give me a minuite to build agro... ok i have it NUUUUKE* and a group of mobs that are surrounding one mele get aoed into oblivion without even looking at someone else.... and lets not go back to burning crusade when the best way to make money for a hunter was to use your pet to gather up a whole herd of...dang it i dont remember the name of the big mammoths... then aoes the **** out of them and skin them.... doing this over and over and over and over made a whole lot of gold back in the day....

played skryim... lets not speak of ai in that game, outside of the dragon ai of course which while the dragons are semi random encounters is still MUCH more scripted than anything else save several boss battles in game....

i mean thats just some of your most popular games over the last decade and a half of mmorpgs/single player rps.... so yeah... outside of SCRIPTED BOSS AND SUB BOSS FIGHTS... you know like say lord of blades... who runs away at the end.... yeah pretty much every normal mob is brain dead CHAAARGE in any mmorpg you will ever play... because.... THAT MANY MOBS WITH THAT MANY THINGS HAVING COMPLEX AI WOULD FRY MOST MMO SERVER FARMS. Next question?

[psi0nix]

There is no doubt that such changes would result in a very heavy workload for the servers, but Develops are Developers because they ...well....develop ... new things new ideas, new methods.

They are what they are because they have superior problem solving skills.

The problem : How to advance AI without killing servers ?

The solution : .................................................. ...........

[DeafeningWhisper]

Next question?

Archers jump away from melee, adding a when hit by "insert AoE spell here" to the same jump is impossible without killing the game? Adding a stop chasing when hit by "AoE spell" and switching to ranged would kill the game? Asking for a slightly less ******** AI would kill the game?

People expecting less then nothing from the game is why it took 6 years for a half decent AC system.

[Zenako]

Actually the pathing AI is significantly better than it was in the old days. At one time there was no searching for alternate pathing, just going for the most direct route and stopping at the impassible barrier/gap. Made for some very easy encounters in some quests with terrain.

Spell selection and choices are better than they used to be, and slightly less predictable. Mobs actually will heal themselves if given a chance these days.

Is it DM quality AI, hardly, is it better than it was, most definitely.

[DethTrip]

How many people know at least a few people that have sunk 100, 200, or more dollars into this game? Time to hire some more programmers and get rid of all the **** bugs and fix other things like the AI in the game. I certainly don't think that's asking too much.

[danotmano1998]

I know from my own personal experiences that when the AI is tweaked, it has a LOT of unintended wierd consequences.

Perspective:
Every single monster that is currently in the game server is running that AI script.

Let's say the current AI script takes "x" number of milliseconds to run. Code in a few more If-Then statements, (Because that's really all AI is), and let's say these new lines have doubled the amount of time it takes to run this script. Now you have effectively doubled any lag issues.

You see where I'm going with this? Scripts commonly run like AI have to be as small as possible within reason. Yes, the AI could use some love. But you have to be EXTREMELY careful when you are tweaking scripts that every monster on the entire server runs. Otherwise, you could end up with a worse AI, or a completely unplayable game.

These games are a bit like a house of cards (or dominoes). If you push just one piece a little too far, the whole stack could collapse. Changes like this need to be done very gradually, a little at a time to avoid catastrophic failure, which NOBODY wants.

WHich blows my mind, now that I come to think about it. Too many changes too quickly without THOROUGH playtesting is a recipe for disaster. I can only hope Turbine and their team know the code well enough to risk riding the dragon, so to speak. Apparently, they do to some extent or the beta wouldn't be functional.

Speaking from experience, it's quite easy to make what seems like a harmless tiny change to some inconsequential detail that ends up completely screwing up another part, which then snowballs into another, etc...

All in all, my hat is off to Turbine. When I scripted with a team of 3 other people, it was a significant challenge. I can't imagine what it would be like to have the kind of chaos that they wade through every day.

Yeah, I'm annoyed at some decisions. Yeah, I lobby from time to time when things are looking silly or seem like a really bad idea. But at the end of the day, they make a game I love, and are continuing to strive towards making it fuller, bigger, and more fun even if I don't agree with some things.

[DeafeningWhisper]

I know from my own personal experiences that when the AI is tweaked, it has a LOT of unintended wierd consequences.

Perspective:
Every single monster that is currently in the game server is running that AI script.

Let's say the current AI script takes "x" number of milliseconds to run. Code in a few more If-Then statements, (Because that's really all AI is), and let's say these new lines have doubled the amount of time it takes to run this script. Now you have effectively doubled any lag issues.

You see where I'm going with this? Scripts commonly run like AI have to be as small as possible within reason. Yes, the AI could use some love. But you have to be EXTREMELY careful when you are tweaking scripts that every monster on the entire server runs. Otherwise, you could end up with a worse AI, or a completely unplayable game.

These games are a bit like a house of cards (or dominoes). If you push just one piece a little too far, the whole stack could collapse. Changes like this need to be done very gradually, a little at a time to avoid catastrophic failure, which NOBODY wants.

WHich blows my mind, now that I come to think about it. Too many changes too quickly without THOROUGH playtesting is a recipe for disaster. I can only hope Turbine and their team know the code well enough to risk riding the dragon, so to speak. Apparently, they do to some extent or the beta wouldn't be functional.

Speaking from experience, it's quite easy to make what seems like a harmless tiny change to some inconsequential detail that ends up completely screwing up another part, which then snowballs into another, etc...

All in all, my hat is off to Turbine. When I scripted with a team of 3 other people, it was a significant challenge. I can't imagine what it would be like to have the kind of chaos that they wade through every day.

Yeah, I'm annoyed at some decisions. Yeah, I lobby from time to time when things are looking silly or seem like a really bad idea. But at the end of the day, they make a game I love, and are continuing to strive towards making it fuller, bigger, and more fun even if I don't agree with some things.

Well explained, too bad thou a better AI would fix several "balance" issues IMO.

Maybe some day they'll rebuild DDO with a newer, better performing engine, I get the feeling they just add new scripts to the old code (can't be good for stability), which is bound to have unforseen consequences when random bits of code collide.