Weekly Developer Update - November 9-15, 2013 - Feather of Sun

[Feather_of_Sun]

Hello!
I'm Feather of Sun, one of the System Designers for DDO.
Rather than posting all over the place, I thought it'd be helpful to use one thread to give updates about some of the cool things I'm working on for future releases.

The things I mention in this thread have been put into our internal development build.
This is the build that will become Update 21.



November 9th, 2013:
Updates to the random treasure generation system for weapons!

The Burst prefixes will come back. I've seen a lot of people asking for them. While they're not as powerful as the "Flaming II" you could get instead of Flaming Burst, but they are very close and not everything needs to be exactly equal... it does help to have some variety.

• Flaming Burst
• Shocking Burst
• Icy Burst
• Acid Burst

New weapon AoE damage prefixes have been made that can appear on Epic-level loot.
The below list of prefixes appear rarely in addition to one of the normal things you'd get as a prefix on your item. They match roughly in theme- as an example, Tempestuous could come with either Shocking or Shrieking paired with it.
Some of these are old names, but they do new things.

• Infernal - 2% Chance On Hit: A blast of flame ignites your target, dealing 4 to 16 damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies.
• Meteoric (Can only be found in the highest level treasure) - 2% Chance On Hit: A falling star strikes your target, dealing 3 to 18 Fire Damage and 1 to 6 Bludgeoning Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies. Affected foes must also make a DC (20+Item Level) Reflex Saving Throw or be knocked prone.
• Glacial - 2% Chance On Hit: A burst of glacial frost chills your target, dealing 7 to 14 Cold Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies.
• Erosive - 2% Chance On Hit: A blast of acid corrodes your target, dealing 3 to 18 Acid Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies.
• Tempestuous - 2% Chance On Hit: A bolt of lightning strikes your target, dealing 1 to 20 Electric Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies.
• Righteous - 2% Chance On Hit: A blast of holy energy strikes your target, dealing 3 to 12 Good Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby non-good enemies.
• Kinetic - 2% Chance On Hit: A burst of magical force strikes your target, dealing 3 to 12 Force Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies.

4 new weapon suffixes: (Bringing the amount of suffixes at each given Enhancement Value to between 12 and 14)

• Humanoid Bane (Combination of Human Bane, Elf Bane, Dwarf Bane, Halfling Bane, Orc Bane, Goblinoid Bane, Monstrous Humanoid Bane, Reptillian Humanoid Bane, and Giant Bane.)
• Natural Bane (Combination of Animal Bane, Vermin Bane, Plant Bane, Magical Beast Bane, and Fey Bane)
• Feeding (On Vorpal Hit: Target incurs 1 negative level, you gain Temporary HP)
• Draining (On Vorpal Hit: Target incurs 1 negative level, you gain Temporary Spell Points)

This is just a start. There's a lot more I'd like to do.
Armor, shield, and accessories will get new things as well, as will spellcasting weapons.



November 10th, 2013
Augment updates, and new Red augments.

• Spell Focus augments have been changed to stack with other Spell Focus equipment.
• Augments are now conceptually divided into four categories: Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Named.
• All the augments that currently drop in random treasure are "Common".
• Uncommon and Rare augments will appear in treasure, but less often than Common augments.
• An augment's rarity will be denoted by the word "Common", "Uncommon", "Rare", or "Named" appearing in text in the top right of the Augment's tooltip.
• Six new Uncommon Red Augments are being put into random treasure drops in all epic level content.
• One new Rare Red Augment is being put into random treasure drops in all epic level content.
• These are the Meteoric Star Ruby, Ruby Eye of the Inferno, Ruby Eye of the Glacier, Ruby Eye of Erosion, Ruby Eye of the Tempest, Ruby Eye of Righteousness, and the Kinetic Ruby Eye.
• They work as the effects described in the November 9th Update earlier in this post.
• These new augments have no minimum level to use, and do not affect the level of any item you slot them in.

November 11th, 2013

• Set up some cool new cosmetics!

The “Noble” cosmetic set has both Crimson and Dark varieties, for a total of 20 individual cosmetic items.
Here's a screenshot that will give you an idea of what the "Crimson Noble with Golden Pauldrons" cosmetics will look like:



November 12th, 2013

• Polish work has been done on the particle effects that will be used by the weapon procs from the Uncommon/Rare Augments. (The meteor looks pretty awesome!)

November 13-15th, 2013

• Bug fixing!

We’re making a concentrated effort to clean up as many enhancement system bugs as is possible for Update 20, Patch 1.
Keep an eye out in the future for patch notes that will list everything that’s been fixed.



Thanks for reading! This was a glimpse into what a developer’s week can look like.
In the future, other developers will take their own turn giving similar updates.

As mentioned at the start of this post, most of the things mentioned here as new features are works in progress that are underway in our internal development branch. They haven’t been tested by our Quality Assurance team yet, and changes often happen before features are released.

[Vellrad]

You can develop any augments you want, but with no barter mechanics for them (like the aurum traders, great idea BTW) and with current droprate no one will ever see them.

[StoptheRock]

This kind of communication is the way to go. Keep it up Feather!

[jakeelala]

Please make a non-random Collector Turn in vendor for these or something. Random loot is too random.

In 5 Months I've never looted any blues augments for instance, except for one +25 Vitality, in what must hbe 100's if not 1000's chests of all levels.

[maddong]

Can we get convalescent and superior parrying back on bracers?

And thanks for the communication!

[UurlockYgmeov]

+1 for the information - keep up the communication!

[Zibowskij]

Can we get convalescent and superior parrying back on bracers?

And thanks for the communication!

^This

[Ovrad]

The news about augment sounds good, but there's 2 problems with augments that need to be addressed as soon as possible:

• Due to the low drop rates and high number of augments (We currently have what, ~500 of them?), it's near impossible to get the specific augment we want. Also, too few are available through the barter system.
• Storage for the extra augments is still completely unreasonable. Even the biggest bag available in the the store isn't nearly big enough for current augments, without even taking into account the new ones incoming.

Because of those two issues a lot of players still ignore the augment system, even power players. Finding an augments that's viable for your character is excessively difficult, and finding the perfect one is pretty much impossible. Adding more of them will only exacerbate the problem. Please address these issues before continuing to pile on some more.

[Jasparion]

I love finding awesome random loot as much as the next guy, but what I cant stand is that the more random loot gets buffed and fiddled with, the more useless my raid items and named items become, and the less inclined I am to bother raiding or running specific dungeons for named items.

As it is now, I can kit out a toon from the Auction House which is nearly as good as someone who spent months and months farming for specific items. Sure, there are individual items which are still fantastic, but I bet I could find 30 rubbish named items for every 1 great named item. I dont care that random loot may have the same ratio - because when I hit the AH I can get exactly what I want.

So my request would be to please lay off the random loot for a while, and take a look at the dozens and dozens of once great named items which now have to rely on my strong sense of loyalty to avoid being trashed every life when I struggle to clear my TR cache.

My preference would be back-dated changes so that previously earned items get buffed (certainly the nerfs always seem to be back-dated), but at least if new items got buffed it would have me wanting to run things again, for more than just XP.

[Silverleafeon]

Holy Ghostbane!

[Tocawe]

I suppose all those changes are "subject to change"?

AoE effects on weapons seems interesting.
I could see some characters would prefer an AoE effects on their weapons, but another character would prefer the same weapon without the AoE effect due to aggro management, or characters prefering AoE effects on EH but not on EE.

About the impossibility to loot the augments you want/need: What about a system that let us upgrade vendor-less augments to higher tiers?

[EllisDee37]

[*]Spell Focus augments have been changed to stack with other Spell Focus equipment.

Please do the same with spell focus mastery items. (orbs, dragon cloak, tablecloth, magewright's set bonus) Make mastery & augments give enhancement, DC item effects and cannith crafting equipment.

[Teh_Troll]

Please do the same with spell focus mastery items. (orbs, dragon cloak, tablecloth, magewright's set bonus) Make mastery & augments give enhancement, DC item effects and cannith crafting equipment.

THis.

[slarden]

Thank you Feather. This is a great format and I like how you consolidated everything into one post.

These are great. As others have mentioned I would love to see more options for healing amp - an augment or on random items - either or both would be great. Healing amp is great for tanks but it's also very useful to any character that uses cure serious or cure critical wounds to self-heal.

I like how the banes are being grouped - humanoid bane will be very useful

Most importantly, thank you for putting all this time in on the weekend.

[J2345678]

Burst prefixes will come back. I've seen a lot of people asking for them. ...not everything needs to be exactly equal... it does help to have some variety.

Burst effects should be similar to the new on crit damage effects on weapons.
Elemental versions of:
* Bloodletter
* Heartseeker
* Ribcracker

--------------------------

Add a lot more UNIQUE effects for named items.
Finding (+X item of +Y) with higher numbers is not rewarding.

--------------------------

Ghostbane is bad because it is a suffix so competes with Disruption which cannot be beat.
Any item that has Ghostbane and COULD have had Disruption is trash.
Ghost Touch was a prefix and better than Ghostbane because of it.

--------------------------

No single digit proc rates. 2% is pathetic. Less than 10% is garbage.
Any effect with a "chance" of happening should be MINIMUM 10%, preferably 50-75%.
2% = 98% chance of nothing = I would never consider using one of these unless it was a 'bonus' (as in no ML increase, no slot used, extra) effect on something already useful.

--------------------------

Keen and Impact are bad.
They don't stack with the Improved Critical feat which any character planning to hit things will have.
AND they make the other effects on the weapon weaker.

For similar reason Deathblock II+ is bad.
The only part that matters is "immunity to all death effects".
Higher Deathblock #s just make the other effects and the item weaker.

[BOgre]

various criticisms

I disagree with most of that.
For example 2% proc. Green Steel got by for years with 2% proc. Consider it a half-vorpal. 10% is just FAR too OP. 2% actually procs quite a lot. No fix needed (although throwing us a bone for 3% would be sweet).

Keen and Impact is indeed very useful. Toons that have taken ImpCrit:Slash are pretty happy that their Balizarde has Keen. For example. So yeah, in the case of off-feat weapons that you'd be tempted to take if not for being of an off-feat weap type, finding ones with Keen on them might tip the scales. Don't disrespect the Keen.

All in all, the proposed changes/additions are a HUGE step in the right direction, especially in light of the mess we've had to endure lately.

[sirgog]

--------------------------

No single digit proc rates. 2% is pathetic. Less than 10% is garbage.
Any effect with a "chance" of happening should be MINIMUM 10%, preferably 50-75%.
2% = 98% chance of nothing = I would never consider using one of these unless it was a 'bonus' (as in no ML increase, no slot used, extra) effect on something already useful.

The most popular proc weapons in DDO's history were Lightning Strike (1.5%), Disintegration (2%), Corrosive Salt (2%) and Greater Incineration (5%).

Much less popular were Steam (20%), Elemental Mastery (four 20% chances), and pre-update Cloudburst (9%).

All of those proc rates came from statistically significant volumes of testing (200+ procs).


We have certain 'procs' now, Flaming VI and the like, that are not popular.

[Oxarhamar]

Burst effects should be similar to the new on crit damage effects on weapons.
Elemental versions of:
* Bloodletter
* Heartseeker
* Ribcracker

--------------------------

Add a lot more UNIQUE effects for named items.
Finding (+X item of +Y) with higher numbers is not rewarding.

--------------------------

Ghostbane is bad because it is a suffix so competes with Disruption which cannot be beat.
Any item that has Ghostbane and COULD have had Disruption is trash.
Ghost Touch was a prefix and better than Ghostbane because of it.

--------------------------

No single digit proc rates. 2% is pathetic. Less than 10% is garbage.
Any effect with a "chance" of happening should be MINIMUM 10%, preferably 50-75%.
2% = 98% chance of nothing = I would never consider using one of these unless it was a 'bonus' (as in no ML increase, no slot used, extra) effect on something already useful.

--------------------------

Keen and Impact are bad.
They don't stack with the Improved Critical feat which any character planning to hit things will have.
AND they make the other effects on the weapon weaker.

For similar reason Deathblock II+ is bad.
The only part that matters is "immunity to all death effects".
Higher Deathblock #s just make the other effects and the item weaker.

I agree with most of this save the bit about Keen & Impact

in low levels before gaining the Improved Crit feat Keen is one of my favorite effects.

also in higher degrees Keen II for example adds 0.5 weapon dice.

I like these effects

Otherwise your spot on

[Missing_Minds]

[*]Draining (On Vorpal Hit: Target incurs 1 negative level, you gain Temporary Spell Points)

You can skip that one. Pure vendor trash. If you actually gained SP that would be something, but with the way temp spell points work, forget it. I'd rather have a weapon capable of DPS instead.

In place of I suggest "Silence" Casters can not cast for 6 seconds. And if you do, I'd go back and make that rune bone club be on any crit, and make the crit range 19-20, rather than just vorpals.

[oradafu]

[*]Humanoid Bane (Combination of Human Bane, Elf Bane, Dwarf Bane, Halfling Bane, Orc Bane, Goblinoid Bane, Monstrous Humanoid Bane, Reptillian Humanoid Bane, and Giant Bane.)[*]Natural Bane (Combination of Animal Bane, Vermin Bane, Plant Bane, Magical Beast Bane, and Fey Bane)

Not that this decision is bad, I just find it a bit ironic with the treatment of the combining of Banes on weapons and the merger of the Paladin prestige classes.

Since the upgrade of the Epic Antique Greataxe, weapons have been pigeonholed into a specialized item for bosses or certain mobs. The decision to collapse Banes into larger categories means that weapons will become less specialized and opened to being used more with less weapon swapping.

The merger of KOTC and HOTD was announced so that Paladins wouldn't be as pigeonholed and more useful in quests. However, the Devs decided to keep the Undead and Evil Outsider slaying separate, even for pure KOTC Paladins. So the merging of the KOTC and HOTD actually kept Paladins pigeonholed, especially if you consider that it KOTC and HOTD had kept separate trees, Paladins would have been able to dabble in both Undead and Evil Outsider killing.