Armor and Mitigation Changes

[patang01]

Some changes based on player feedback:

~ We are dropping the changes to Dodge cap and keeping the current system.

~ The enhancements that require a shield in Stalwart and Sacred Defender will be a multi-selector offering a new medium/heavy armor option.

I will be updating the OP.

Other things we will be discussing.

~ We will be looking into Mithril and other armor materials and how they interact with this system. We don't want these to make an armor worse by changing the PRR and MRR bonuses.

~ We are discussing an alternate system where robes and light armor have capped or reduced MRR so people who want to build for PRR can do so. Our working model is to only cap MRR and not PRR. We will need a little more time to iron out the details.

Sev~

As I see it the different materials should add more PRR then MRR and vice versa. Say you have Mithril. Why not add a quarter less PRR for it but a quarter more MRR (or something like that) and for adamantine the reverse - so more PRR but less MRR? That would make the type of material special - plus with Mithril you generally get a better dodge cap anyways.

[Aviya]

As I see it the different materials should add more PRR then MRR and vice versa. Say you have Mithril. Why not add a quarter less PRR for it but a quarter more MRR (or something like that) and for adamantine the reverse - so more PRR but less MRR? That would make the type of material special - plus with Mithril you generally get a better dodge cap anyways.

signed

[Seikojin]

Some changes based on player feedback:

~ We are dropping the changes to Dodge cap and keeping the current system.

~ The enhancements that require a shield in Stalwart and Sacred Defender will be a multi-selector offering a new medium/heavy armor option.

I will be updating the OP.

Other things we will be discussing.

~ We will be looking into Mithril and other armor materials and how they interact with this system. We don't want these to make an armor worse by changing the PRR and MRR bonuses.

~ We are discussing an alternate system where robes and light armor have capped or reduced MRR so people who want to build for PRR can do so. Our working model is to only cap MRR and not PRR. We will need a little more time to iron out the details.

Sev~

For dodge cap, couldn't more cap raisers be added to existing dodge increasing enhancements? So existing +1's can increase the cap as well? This would benefit everyone. By this I mean I think every tree that has dodge increasers should inherently raise the cap as well. Or at the third tier raise the cap by some (1 or 2). This way filler splashes on that enhancement fill its roll, and going all the way at least adds its benefit even if you were taking it as filler, making the second tier a non-buy until you have the points to get that +2 dodge.

I think light and under capping mrr may be a good way to go.

I also like the mithril being more mrr and adamantine more prr. Makes logical sense.

[Purkilius]

I am excited about the future.

me to.

[EazyWeazy]

Booooooooo.

I hate everything in this post just as much as I loved everything in the original OP. These are terrible concessions to make to the vocal minority who don't care a whit about game balance, but rather only care that their personal builds don't get changed.

If there's no PRR cap, you should remove the dodge cap as well. If there's going to be a dodge cap, there should be a PRR cap. Stick to your original vision.

Much wisdom here.

[CaptainSpacePony]

Please please for the love of all things DDO, have mithral count one level *higher* for PRR and MRR. Epic Cavalry Plate should have some of the most PRR/MRR in the game. Having built up the Cavalry Plate and having it become *worse* when made epic (shift from steel to mithral) was just a slap in the face.

Taking the metals into account, you could have Mithral increase MRR and Adamantine increases PRR - so that an Mithral heavy plate (shows as medium) would have: 45 PRR, 60 MRR if armor has enchantments, and Adamantine would have 60 PRR, 45 MRR.

When PRR was introduced, mithral took a hit. That being said, Medium Cav plate and the like have been that way for quite a while. The quoted piece is reasonable but I think this overhaul is an opportunity for something more interesting.

Instead of treating mithral as medium armor with heavy PRR or whatever, how about leaving it as is with the following simple modification:

Mithral:
Armor is treated as one category type lighter then normal
-10% Arcane spell failure (to a minimum of 0)
3 reduction to Armor check penalty for armor (to a minimum of 0)
+2 increase of the maximum dexterity bonus to AC
1/2 standard weight
+ X stacking MRR

Adamantine:
Provides damage reduction (DR) based on the type of armor that is made from it: Light: 1/- damage reduction Medium: 2/- damage reduction Heavy: 3/- damage reduction
Hardness rating 10 points higher then equivalent steel armor
+X stacking PRR

The value of XP is worth debating. It could be a constant value like 10 or 20. It could scale based on the armor's enhancement value. Or it could be a combination of the two. Shields could also grant more on top of armor.

Intuitively, I personally think X should be about 20.

[DagazUlf]

Booooooooo.

I hate everything in this post just as much as I loved everything in the original OP. These are terrible concessions to make to the vocal minority who don't care a whit about game balance, but rather only care that their personal builds don't get changed.

If there's no PRR cap, you should remove the dodge cap as well. If there's going to be a dodge cap, there should be a PRR cap. Stick to your original vision.

This ^^^^^^^^^^^. Go with your original plan. I bet you have a gut-feeling that it was the right move.

[Lanadazia]

IMO the actual problem and the powerlevel split between evasion builds and heavy armor users is not the PRR
but the dodge cap
i'm using light armors and robes on whatever build, even a cleric, to have a higher dodge! i use to have at least 20% dodge on each character
there is no heavy armor out there, that is able to get a dex bonus that high, even some light armors arent able to get there (not even without armored agility stuff)

fact is: right now - PRR < Dodge

you have to put ALOT into getting a high PRR, more effort to get this, dodge is kinda easier to get

i like the introduction of MRR, since dodge wont work on magical effects, but i still think evasion + dodge > prr+mrr


the prr maybe makes you ignore 40% of the damage, but you're getting hit anyways, the dodge will ignore 25% of the hits completely
for example if a mob does 100 damage, and hits you 100 times, the dodge build will dodge on 25%, so you get 75x 100 dmg =7500 damage
whilst the PRR actually reduces damage more frequently: like 60 dmg x100 times = 6000 damage

point is: a 25% dodge is easy to get, i can get up to 29 dodge without gimping myself right now (the dodgecap doesnt allowes me to though)
but the PRR to ignore 50% of the damage is WAY more costly, gimping down alot of dps if you'd play a barb in medium/heavy armor
and since you dont have evasion in heavy/medium armor there is just no point in wearing medium/heavy armor at any time!


also: please fix mithral in matter of PRR!
like the epic cavalery plate is considered medium due to mithral, but lost PRR on the same turn
mithral should be the way to go for high end content armors since its the best material for an armor

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I'd love a PM about the details, and how much you'd sacrifice by swapping to a Medium shield.

Sev~

I think shields still need to be looked at a little.

.. and DR. WF, Brb, and shield DR. (active and passive).

Differences between bucklers, light, heavy and tower shields....
loot tables for drop rates of them....

stuff like that.

But over all, I like what you are doing.

Still not sure about numbers, and seems to me we are nerfing evasion, at least a little.

Seems like a possible big nerf to Monks. (which is not necessarily a bad thing.)(but I would like high lvl monks, like Mnk20, to still be very durable.)

in this case nerf may not be the right word, but I think the result is the same. (but then, we did all ask for this.....lol)

[Madja]

Some changes based on player feedback:

~ We are discussing an alternate system where robes and light armor have capped or reduced MRR so people who want to build for PRR can do so. Our working model is to only cap MRR and not PRR. We will need a little more time to iron out the details.

Sev~

This makes me very happy

[Delacroix21]

As others have pointed out, the class most ignored by these changes who gets crushed in EE is barbarians.


Barbs survive damage through extra hp and their inherent DR. The extra hp has been made meaningless through the insane damage output of EE mobs, and their DR has been severely crushed by it stupidly being taken into account BEFORE PRR.


So let's say we have a pure barbarian who somehow manages to pull off 50 DR (which they can't), and enough PRR to have 50% mitigation (doubtful). An EE mobs hits them for 300 damage, 50 stopped by PRR, 250/2: 125.


If DR was counted LAST it would be: 300/2: 150, -50 damage: 100. This way the barbarian benefits 25% more from his DR! I would take this a step further and add a Epic feat requiring barbarian levels that doubles your inherent DR.



Not to mention no barbarian will be running around with a shield and so will still get destroyed by EE spells.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

*Head explodes*


Question: Is there really a need for light shields? It might be a good idea to combine light shields and bucklers. Basically, make all light shields into bucklers, and increase the stats of bucklers to what used to be light shields.

I would argue that these changes make there a need for light shields. (and finally a difference between them.)

[bbqzor]

We are dropping the changes to Dodge cap and keeping the current system.

I blame the poor explanation in the OP which did not define how it was replacing max dex, instead appearing as a cap to many. You should reword and reformat this change and try again. Put some effort into making sure its as detailed and simple to follow as it needs to be so everyone can understand. It is something which heavy armor and tower shields could use.

The enhancements that require a shield in Stalwart and Sacred Defender will be a multi-selector offering a new medium/heavy armor option.

Does this change allowing Evasion with large shields? This fix only addresses half the problem facing current s/b evasion tanks, by allowing light armor again when using a shield. But without large shields and evasion, that doesnt help. Can you actually give us a direct comment about a large category of builds you are invalidating?

We will be looking into Mithril and other armor materials and how they interact with this system. We don't want these to make an armor worse by changing the PRR and MRR bonuses.

2012 called and wanted to point out we made the same arguments with the MOTU changes, almost exactly 2 years ago. Mithril Full Plate needs to remain Medium for proficiency considerations, but if you can make it add heavy prr/mrr values, that would be nice. Same with Mithril BP, allowing Evasion and being light, but keeping medium prr/mrr. Furthermore, multiple mithril shields have incorrect dex caps, armor check penalties, spell fail values, weights, etc. Can you simply look at the half dozen or so mithril named shields and ensure they are all correct. Stuff like the HoX shields have been wrong seemingly forever. If youre going to fix this, dig in and actually fix it all.

We are discussing an alternate system where robes and light armor have capped or reduced MRR so people who want to build for PRR can do so. Our working model is to only cap MRR and not PRR. We will need a little more time to iron out the details.

While allowing uncapped PRR is better for the game (theres no limit to saves or hp or anything else defense wise, adding a limit to prr is somewhat counter intuitive and leads to future itemization issues), hurting MRR simply because cloth/light armor guys might have evasion is likewise painful. What about barbs, who often wind up in light armor because of factors like the dodge cap, and the fact there are almost no medium named armors which are any good? They just put on light armor because they want to not die in melee and have few choices, and now it caps their other stuff? Or Bards. Spellsingers... no medium armor prof, no swash evasion... so they are just going to be capped on magic defense? The one defense a spellsinger sounds like it should be good at? This system is full of holes too. Take your time and iron it out... be sure it doesnt catch all these other classes/builds in the crossfire. Sigh.

[Scraap]

~ The enhancements that require a shield in Stalwart and Sacred Defender will be a multi-selector offering a new medium/heavy armor option.
Sev~

So S&B with the hit to DPS/Threat, or Heavy Armor with the hit to magic damage in order to retain the PRE benefits with each having additional built-in pros and cons for synergy when used togeather. Sounds like a reasonable direction.

~ We are discussing an alternate system where robes and light armor have capped or reduced MRR so people who want to build for PRR can do so. Our working model is to only cap MRR and not PRR. We will need a little more time to iron out the details.

I dunno. Rather see you go with KISS on that. Yes, the computer can keep track of as many variables as we can throw at it, but player assessments need to see the results in a stark enough manner that they can tell where they need to improve, so fewer variations in the systems in play to cause confusion the better I'd think.

~ We will be looking into Mithril and other armor materials and how they interact with this system. We don't want these to make an armor worse by changing the PRR and MRR bonuses.

Wouldn't be possible to make mithril worse unless you actively cut off ASF or something along those lines. The prior designer just flat out made it count as one category lower. Will agree

As I see it the different materials should add more PRR then MRR and vice versa. Say you have Mithril. Why not add a quarter less PRR for it but a quarter more MRR (or something like that) and for adamantine the reverse - so more PRR but less MRR? That would make the type of material special - plus with Mithril you generally get a better dodge cap anyways.

Seems like a good notion.

[Sardonica]

That is all.

[TFPAQ]

Ovrad talks about Peak damage, which we also call damage spikes. The design here is some builds will have higher total mitigation and have to deal with more damage spikes (Evasion builds with high Armor Class and Dodge) and some builds will take more overall damage but have a more predictable damage curve (Heavy Armor builds.)

~ The characters these changes benefit already have lower Reflex saves and thus are taking a lot of extra damage out of the gate.

~ The Evasion builds with high Dodge will have more severe damage spikes, but overall damage will still be lower thus conserving healing spell points *if* the healer can keep them alive during the spikes.

~ If we significantly reduced the MRR of this proposal heavy armor would simply not be as valuable as Evasion + high Reflex. We love our Evasion builds, but we do want other options that can compete in tough content.

Sev~

It is what you would expect in a "real" situation - Monk dodges (evades) and is pretty much untouchable, until he is touched then - ow. Full plate warrior, hunker down, turtle up and "come get some".

Barbs need some similar help (DR, etc ...).

I really like where this is headed - including the current magical resistance amounts initially laid out.

Nice ... very nice.

[TFPAQ]

o.O really? You are not going to buff dodge because a handful of people dont understand the benefit of the change? Your joking right?


I dont understand how a couple folks can change something like this. There are far more people in favor of the buff than whiners about some fringe build or people who ust plain dont understand the change.

As usual, I have to line up behind Impaqt on this one.

"Reading is fundamental" ... I hope the dodge "de-buff" gets a second look internally Turbine!

[Bridge_Dweller]

Booooooooo.

I hate everything in this post just as much as I loved everything in the original OP. These are terrible concessions to make to the vocal minority who don't care a whit about game balance, but rather only care that their personal builds don't get changed.

If there's no PRR cap, you should remove the dodge cap as well. If there's going to be a dodge cap, there should be a PRR cap. Stick to your original vision.

What he said. You original ideas were better.

[Thrudh]

These look like great changes. Thanks!

I agree!

[Thrudh]

What he said. You original ideas were better.

I agree here too...