Poll: What do you think of the upcoming changes to DDO's combat system?

[peterfrosty42]

dislike

Sure, armor was broken...but they've broken to-hit to 'fix' it.

[GermanicusMaximus]

divines wearing heavy armour just got far more powerful

I am not convinced that this is true at all, but given the overall changes to the game, and the attitudes displayed by a lot of the players, you can be sure that I will be regearing and respecing my divine caster to maximize his personal power at the expense of anything else he has done in the game for the past 2 years.

[bhgiant]

Updated again.

SL - 8
L - 6
U/N - 7
D - 19
SD - 34

[Rhysem]

I'm of mixed feelings. On my undergeared characters (I have a case of altitis and a lack of time due to baby), its great because its a boost for them. For better geared characters (okay there's only one, and he's a monk, so...), its not so hot. In terms of overall game balance, this is probably a good thing. I'm not so confident with it during the leveling process though, particularly for a "fragile" melee class like monks (or melee bards/arties, but they come with better self heals).

I have played only a little bit, but I did play some on llaammaallaanndd.

But overall strongly dislike. It isn't D&D, its a sad hack to cover undisciplined monster/quest/gear designers. Especially this bit about two versions of AC -- AC itself and dodge, which are both essentially the same thing (you're either missed, or you're hit). What your actual mitigation is isn't clear.

Also strongly dislike all the know it alls who say monks can't have PRR because that's for heavy armor. Its a mechanic for reducing damage. You do it by wrapping yourself in a tin can with a 4x4 foot board in front of you. I do it by getting part way out of the blow, so what would have been a hit to the chin is on my arm instead. Its VERY thematic for earth stance AND for monk/martial arts (aka: learning to fall after being thrown). Neither of us is "right" -- they are both valid interpretations of the mechanic and in-theme for each character.

I strongly dislike that monks get left in the cold of hit/miss with very little PRR. I've played other games where the melees could have either all PRR, or all dodge, or self-healing, or a even mix. By far the worst to play and worst to play with were the dodge, and that's where monks are being left. Boo.

[Zerkul]

Like, except for the thing that 50 attack bonus doesn't hit anymore at 95% an AC of 50: for me this is just stupid.

... on second tought ... Dislike!

[samthedagger]

I have not played on Lamannia yet so take my vote with a grain of salt. But if I understand the system as well as I think I do from reading this forum and the sticky about the system I vote: Like

I think flattening the linear AC model to a longer curve is a very good thing. It will make AC valuable at all levels and turn off "god-mode" at lower levels for players with twinked out gear which will add more challenge to the game. I also like the idea of damage mitigation through Physical Resistance Rating and the idea of giving every player a chance to dodge. Most importantly, I think the endgame (20+) challenges are going to flatten out a bit and this will make things easier on healers, which, as a cleric player, matter to me a great deal.

Some of the things I am a little more hesitant about are the reduction of the effectiveness of some buffs which was the basis of some characters being relevant at all (primarily thinking bard here, but also more narrowly some spells like displacement). I am also a little disheartened to see that the d20 is effectively being tossed out as the primary physical combat mechanic. I liked that DDO closely mirrored the mechanics of D&D, but I can deal with the changes if it makes for a better game, which I believe it will. Another thing I am concerned about is that this might make the game a little tougher for new players. But I am hoping that with all things considered, such as AC + dodge + PRR new players will be able to manage within a reasonable space of time.

All in all, this looks like it will be better though.

[maddong]

They could always do a compromise I suppose.

Rolling to hit a player uses the new system.
Rolling to hit a monster uses the d20 system.

That way fighter's past lives are still useful.

[redspecter23]

They could always do a compromise I suppose.

Rolling to hit a player uses the new system.
Rolling to hit a monster uses the d20 system.

That way fighter's past lives are still useful.

I think a good compromise would be to allow any given player to choose if he wants the new or old system to apply to him. You could swap systems on a 7 day timer by talking to an NPC and giving them a ton o plat. If the new system is really an improvement, then it should be a no brainer, but for us crazies that for some reason like the old system, we would have access to it.

[Reesi]

Undecided

In my testing, most of my gimp characters (all of them) did better and I had less "oh sit" moments fighting trash that used to take out 95% of my health in 2 swipes even though I had made an effort to keep my AC up. The old system was broken when leveling, my rogue with 38 AC around level 15 couldn't take 3 hits before I was a splatter on the ground, my ranger (same level) with 50 more hp and slightly more AC was in the same boat. My survivability was only better because I had more hitpoints. AC was a throw away stat because whether 38 or 44, it made absolutely no difference over wearing a deathblock robe. It was frustrating.

The game has a large following of dedicated fans that liked things a certain way. I'm not sure that messing with it was a solid choice. It's 6+ years old, there is no large new influx of players coming, you have to cater to your regulars. You don't turn your sports bar into a martini lounge when you live in East Nowhere, West Virginia and expect a new crowd of wealthy "players" to show up.

[BTIGER]

Like

I'd change some things.. especially with monks who I think are just not appreciated by the devs.
Seriously guys, you never watched kungfu movies as a kid?

[/QUOTE]
The purpose of this thread is to provide a clear and objective reference of the community's opinion of the changes being made to the combat system. [/QUOTE]

it's a community of something that's for sure..but representative of DDO's community I doubt.

[rincemeister]

Strongly Dislike - AC needed work but not like this. A triumph for mediocrity.

[Belduroz]

LIKE

AC becomes more useful in most cases, especially in high-end content (epic, lord of blades) with absurd to-hit numbers without the usual current binominal result of useless - invulnerable. Being hit 20% instead of 10% of the time as before is not too much of a hit in my opinion. Sure, it's like doubling the damage, but that's what PRR and dodge (one of my concerns) are for.

To my concerns: i'm not sure if dodge is stacking additive (like more ac) or multiplicative (like blur) - let me know if anyone knows. If it's additive, it's still a powerful source of mitigation, against very high hit mobs even more powerful than now. If it's multiplicative, it's way too weak compared to the effort it takes to get it on equipment.

My second concern is the balance of classes. As it looks now, stalwart/DoS get a huge tanking boost with the changes. In the end against raid bosses, it's still only about 10-20% less chance being hit, what seems balanced. But they even get more, like additional PRR, while other classes are very limited on medicore ac compared to those. I'm aware both PrEs are THE tanking PrEs/classes, but it takes out other classes capable of tanking (mostly monks), as from what i've seen so far, their boni seem way inferior.


Changes on to-hit: they don't seem to be that terrible to me. A lot of people with enough hit on live still have room for some more to-hit. And for toons with less to-hit it's a boost. Also debuffing leads to major changes of the result of the hit-%-formula (same with ac for tanking bosses), so we will see more improved sunders in the future i guess


Spellpower changes: Casters needed a nerf. I'm mostly a caster-player myself and i don't feel 8% game-breaking in any way. The new system requiring to maintain more clickies is meh, but hardly different from what it is live for min-maxing spell damage.

Honestly i even like the overall spellpower change, it makes people more thinking about WHAT and HOW they cast instead of just brainless throwing maxed emped dots and direct damage spells if they have the sp. The new system benefits thinking about your sp, leading to an increased damage/sp-ratio

[Dunklerlindwurm]

Like

Alot of Feats that were useless before are useful now.

AC matters for everyone now.

[Stillwaters]

LIKE
To my concerns: i'm not sure if dodge is stacking additive (like more ac) or multiplicative (like blur) - let me know if anyone knows. If it's additive, it's still a powerful source of mitigation, against very high hit mobs even more powerful than now. If it's multiplicative, it's way too weak compared to the effort it takes to get it on equipment.
Its like another blur (multiplicative)

Changes on to-hit: they don't seem to be that terrible to me. A lot of people with enough hit on live still have room for some more to-hit. And for toons with less to-hit it's a boost. Also debuffing leads to major changes of the result of the hit-%-formula (same with ac for tanking bosses), so we will see more improved sunders in the future i guess
Have you seen the tables on minimum/maximum tohit? also debuffing, and buffing for that matter sometimes mean nothing, even large buffs/debuffs vs a high lvl opponent (endgame)

Information in Yellow you might see more stacks of imp sunder in the future, likely 'cause the casters will be applying it to improve their spells(saves/DCs still work as normal).

[Synthetic]

Information in Yellow you might see more stacks of imp sunder in the future, likely 'cause the casters will be applying it to improve their spells(saves/DCs still work as normal).

Against the highest ac targets people will continue to use destruction etc and while it won't be required to hit more then 5% it will increase your to hit by 5%. You don't understand the to hit system it's all about stacking buffs and debuffs and each one of those counts as opposed to know where it's over kill or required because you're above or below the to hit range.

[Stillwaters]

Against the highest ac targets people will continue to use destruction etc and while it won't be required to hit more then 5% it will increase your to hit by 5%. You don't understand the to hit system it's all about stacking buffs and debuffs and each one of those counts as opposed to know where it's over kill or required because you're above or below the to hit range.

Oh i understand it quite well, yet you fail to see that now adding in most/all the debuffs COMBINED works out usually to less than a sunder/curse in the old system.

To hit was never broken in endgame, now it is!

[grandeibra]

yup stillwaters

it is easy to do the math for it. Destruction, for example is pretty much ONLY useful if:

*the mob has higher ac than the dpsers to hit
*the destructer is a TWFer, preferably a rogue who loses less of their dps from swapping from best dps weapons than some other classes
*raid with many melees in the group. In regular groups/caster-heavy-raids the loss in dps from one toon swinging non-max-dps weapon is higher than the total group benefit from destruction

Basically the new system means to max dps every melee should always use the their top dps weapon (ignore the ones that improve tohit at cost of slightly less dps since they now don't benefit anyone), so diversity in items best for different builds narrows. Ignore debuffs unless a group with lots and lots of other melees since debuffs, even if they give +1d20 higher to hit, rarely are a net-dps gain.

[karl_k0ch]

Like

Dimishing returns is a better choice for coping with such a large scale of AC values and to-hit mods, both on the mob and the PC side.

[Synthetic]

Oh i understand it quite well, yet you fail to see that now adding in most/all the debuffs COMBINED works out usually to less than a sunder/curse in the old system.

To hit was never broken in endgame, now it is!

A sunder in the old system was worth variable amounts but mostly it was worth 0% You used improved sunder for the fort debuff previously. It occasionally was useful for an ac debuff and then only for some toons.

You always hit on a 2 that doesn't make you think something was broken?

[dragons1ayer74]

Strongly dislike



I only hope this does not end up killing the game.