Armor Up - Developer Diary #1

[Severlin]

Yeah, I know... your OP post said in the new system its 4+bab. 2 less. Yea, its only 2, but wondering if its a typo or an intended change. Thanks for replies.

Typo, will fix now.

Sev~

[Desonde]

Physical Resist Rating
The attribute is used to mitigate physical damage of all types. The game already has Physical Resist Rating. We are changing the mitigation formula of this attribute, effectively buffing its power. The new formula:

100 / (100 + Rating)

This boost will help mitigate the damage of melee enemies in Epic Elite and will help players to build characters that can survive toe to toe with those enemies.

This will absolutely make PRR much more effective against bosses, but still doesn't do anything for the high damage mobs that spawn in groups large enough to trigger instant Dungeon Alert, and that attacking them causes all nearby foes to try and push the walls over to get to you. Even at 300 PRR (25% reduction) 16-32 mobs surrounding you doing as little as 100dmg (25 after prr) will chew through your 1000+ hp very quickly. (100dmg is low, and 16 is only common without the large aggro area, and it still results in 1200 damage in 3 attack cycles[some creatures attack two-three times in one cycle as well]).

Melee Power
The new attribute is essentially the melee version of Spellpower. Melee Power will not only increase the damage of straight weapon damage, but certain static effects from enhancements will now scale up with Melee Power allowing them to be more useful in epic levels. Melee Power will be gained from certain enhancements and from some melee epic destinies. Our plan is to have future loot include Melee Power. This rating increases melee attacks by the following formula.

(100 + Rating) / 100

As we rebalance static effects found in enhancements we will make these scale with Melee Power so they increase as you gain power and new loot. As an example, several Paladin damage sources that were previously static will now scale with Melee Power.

This scares me because the current issue with the game is the absurd exponential growth in numbers.

We don't need a multiplier to help widdle way monster's deep hit point pools by getting more feats, enhancements, ED's and items, we need the exponential curve smoothed and total pools brought down to be competitive.

Resistance Rating Caps and Evasion
In addition, there are new or changed caps on certain scores based on the armor you are wearing.

Buckler: None
Light Shield: None
Heavy Shield: No Evasion feat
Tower Shield: No Evasion feat

Magical Resistance Rating Cap for armor

Robes or Outfit: 100
Light Armor: 200
Medium Armor: No cap
Heavy Armor: No cap

Note that we have designed this so characters cannot gain both Evasion and the shield bonus coupled with high levels of resistance rating. This is intentional, as a character with both would be too powerful.

MRR and the Shield bonus is all great against single effects, but there are many instances in the game where this makes the character completely useless and unable to do anything but watch. Miior, Lailat when she's standing in the middle after the blades spawn, Druid's Curse Chain, to name a few have instances where reflex saves are constant and in massive quantities.

Sure with 300prr/mrr you'll only take 1/7 of the damage (1/14 if you save), but in the worse case scenario (miior) you'll be taking that damage 20 times a second [Solo, I can give the Doppelganger a full 100 stacks of statue lightning in less than 10 seconds]. You can compare that to light armor with evasion and they will take 1/3 of the damage 5% of the time, or ~1/15 of the damage with fewer items (1/6 and 1/30 if you have improved evasion).

To be truly comparable, large/tower shield users would have to take no damage on a successful save, or things that trigger reflex saves would need to have a cooldown limited that sheer amount of triggers per second.

[N-0cturn]

Melee Power and Ranged Power are just cleaning up and defining a lot of the places in the Epic Destinies that increase damage by a specific percent. The game already does this; we are just cleaning things up a bit and providing the ability for enhancements and feats to scale.

So this means for example Master's Blitz or Adrenaline will provide a bonus to melee and ranged spellpower instead of a flat % increase? If that the case I think it might be a good idea.

I still think it will be a problem to balance this correctly but as long as every flat % boost to damage is changed to spellpower I can see how this could work.

[dunklezhan]

Melee Power and Ranged Power are just cleaning up and defining a lot of the places in the Epic Destinies that increase damage by a specific percent. The game already does this; we are just cleaning things up a bit and providing the ability for enhancements and feats to scale.

Sev~

That makes a lot more sense. You should explain it that way first, next time.

[OverlordOfRats]

Correct.

In addition, the ranger would gain 10 MRR. The Paladin would gain 45 MRR and that would double to 90 MRR against effects that require a Reflex saving throw.

Sev~

Thanks.

I was afraid with the changes that the ranger wearing chainmail would be worse off for physical damage.

I knew from reading the other threads that the paladin in heavy armor and tower shield would be better off.

[Systern]

Yes, it gives us additional effects to put on future gear.

Sev~

Oh god please no. I have several nice doublestrike rings from the time of U14 that are pretty much niche now because they don't incorporate "Doubleshot" in their effect, having been superseded by "Flurry" which only appears on trash random armor and shields (and never on named loot). Y'all have yet to put Flurry on any named loot, so greater depth of itemization when you haven't even saturated what you have to work with is a non-issue.

Leaving Ranged Power for a separate update is also a mistake. As a player, I don't particularly care that melee and ranged are 2 separate combat engines behind the scenes. It's another Doublestrike/doubleshot mechanic that leaves the purely ranged builds (AAs and Artis) in the dust because Monkchers are OP. Just nerf freakin monks already and get it done with. My Pay-to-Win Arti is losing out. Already screwed by a save mechanic that doesn't scale on Rune arms, and now, oops, sorry, you lose in the damage race too. Not a good plan. (Also, I really really hate seeing mobs EVADE my rune arm shot from Lucid Dreams. It's a will save, and not subject to evasion. I don't mind so much when my pure arti or pure druid EVADE (though they don't have evasion) the frost lances from ice eles in Storm horns though, but, yea, I'd rather have the saving throw engine fixed... </Aside>)

Bucklers.... Ummm... Yea, a defensive item that confers no defensive benefit. If you would have them give equal stats to small shields, and then let flavor and availability decide which is used, that would be something. Having them give no defensive benefit (other than pathetic AC, which is so broken that you're performing these changes) is silly. They may look like Flavor Flav's wristwatch, but they really are defensive combat items.... They need to do SOMETHING.

[Sebastrd]

Greetings,

~ Physical Resist Rating (or PRR), the new formula the increases its power, and the bonuses to PRR that heavier armors will grant.
~ Magical Resist Rating (or MRR), the new rating that will mitigate magical damage, and the bonuses to MRR that heavier armors will grant.

Sev~

Is there any plan to convert the currently useless DR system to PRR/MRR?

[Ryethiel]

So, I guess most Warforged and Bladeforged will be sticking with Evasion... Not all builds can sacrifice that 1 Feat.

[Thar]

There is a post about our plans to fill the Light Shield gap as people level coming down the pipe.

Sev~

Buckler gap too?

Why the insistence on taking evasion away from heavy shield users? You can't use medium or heavy armor so the benefits on your new system are limited and only useful to tanks and druids as no one else in their right mind uses a shield anyway with light armor. Tanks are the ones needing the most help with these changes. Druids "have" heavy shields designed for them in the wall of wood and the new raid one. Taking that away is just wrong.

[AtomicMew]

No! Absolutely not!

Melee power, ranged power and magic resistance rating all need to be thrown out! Turbine has a very poor record for implementing new systems on top of the old systems. You already tried to "fix" the armor and AC system once, what makes you think things will be more successful this time?

The only thing that needs to be done is to add inherent PRR to heavy armors and to buff up the paladin enhancement trees. The whole "magic absorption" idea can be implemented far more easily by adding some absorption enhancements to the paladin cores. Any new system will only introduce additional bugs and class imbalance. Game mechanics are already complicated enough for new players.

TLDR: Do not introduce new systems. Buff paladins, add inherent armor PRR and fix existing bugs before adding more!

[Sethvir]

This is the worst new I ever read about DDO. This will take away the last tiny bit that makes this game at feel a bit like D&D.

UGH. cant stress it enuf, about how strongly i agree with all his points.

DDO was never d&d, but it definately had alot of different uniquenesses. but what u guys did in the past and and continue even heavier with this, is, streamlining the s.hit out of the system of how ddo/d&d works. YOU guys are the GAME MASTER(s), you guys should friggin know that, the things ppl cry for (power, simplification, instant gratification) is NOT what all those ppl came here and stayed until now or at least for a long time. its NOT what they actually want, its not what is good for them.
There is no longer ANY meaning in using diffrent types of weapons, they behave in the end all the same, have in the end all the same possible effects (last most prominent example swashbuckler core2, and i repeat again, i agree that bards did need a buff).
In the end almost all effects are more or less uselss, cos of the powercreep of basedamge/crit and untyped damage rising up like there is no tormorrow and on the other side, there is another enhancement added to warchanter that gives 1d3/4/6 frost damage on hit!????

I personally strongly believe that ddo has entered maintenance mode and i see it backed up by such changes. Why not designing a endboss for a change like, keeping aggro (aka tnking it with one dedicated tank the whole time) would be deadly mistake? Like the boss building up so much hate/rage against this puny hero daring to stand against him, that he would increase damge over time and finally doing one serious heavy attack followed by aoe cleave with high damage and knocking down and back folks arround him?
Or the other way arround, a boss that has mechanics that would prohibit continously switching aggro, by initiating a teleport gate to his new target that does big aoe damage and lingers and finally filling up the available space to fight in?

All theese things would require some serious and honest efforts, which are by now no longer in the realm of possibility. in maintmode there is simply no longer enuf manpower and money there to do it.

I wholeheartly agree with the guy i quoted, in the end things will just get streamlined and simplified, but theese things do not bring real advantages. They are good enuf to keep the attention of at least a portion of the remaining playerbase for a short time and thats it.

[jalont]

UGH. cant stress it enuf, about how strongly i agree with all his points.

DDO was never d&d, but it definately had alot of different uniquenesses. but what u guys did in the past and and continue even heavier with this, is, streamlining the s.hit out of the system of how ddo/d&d works. YOU guys are the GAME MASTER(s), you guys should friggin know that, the things ppl cry for (power, simplification, instant gratification) is NOT what all those ppl came here and stayed until now or at least for a long time. its NOT what they actually want, its not what is good for them.
There is no longer ANY meaning in using diffrent types of weapons, they behave in the end all the same, have in the end all the same possible effects (last most prominent example swashbuckler core2, and i repeat again, i agree that bards did need a buff).
In the end almost all effects are more or less uselss, cos of the powercreep of basedamge/crit and untyped damage rising up like there is no tormorrow and on the other side, there is another enhancement added to warchanter that gives 1d3/4/6 frost damage on hit!????

I personally strongly believe that ddo has entered maintenance mode and i see it backed up by such changes. Why not designing a endboss for a change like, keeping aggro (aka tnking it with one dedicated tank the whole time) would be deadly mistake? Like the boss building up so much hate/rage against this puny hero daring to stand against him, that he would increase damge over time and finally doing one serious heavy attack followed by aoe cleave with high damage and knocking down and back folks arround him?
Or the other way arround, a boss that has mechanics that would prohibit continously switching aggro, by initiating a teleport gate to his new target that does big aoe damage and lingers and finally filling up the available space to fight in?

All theese things would require some serious and honest efforts, which are by now no longer in the realm of possibility. in maintmode there is simply no longer enuf manpower and money there to do it.

I wholeheartly agree with the guy i quoted, in the end things will just get streamlined and simplified, but theese things do not bring real advantages. They are good enuf to keep the attention of at least a portion of the remaining playerbase for a short time and thats it.

If you had read the second diary you would have seen that this moves the power away from FOTM blitz builds and opens up more melee builds, pretty much the opposite of streamling and simplifying, although I do agree that it would have been better to nerf blitz to bring it more inline with the other melee destinies.

[WanderingGrump]

These are systems that are already in place. Yes, we are rounding them out and providing a bit of definition. PRR has been in the game for a long time and armor currently gives PRR on live. MRR is simply an extension of that system.

Melee Power and Ranged Power are just cleaning up and defining a lot of the places in the Epic Destinies that increase damage by a specific percent. The game already does this; we are just cleaning things up a bit and providing the ability for enhancements and feats to scale.

Sev~

The calculates and uses a lot of numbers which often we as players have to manually calculate will the new systems actually be included on the character sheets? Will we see some other stats like say Spell Penetration anytime in the future?

Also will older Spell Resistance Enhancements/Items have any effect on MRR? Or will it be something that essentially works in heroics but is worthless for epic content? Or perhaps the mechanic will translate over.

[gwonbush]

Also will older Spell Resistance Enhancements/Items have any effect on MRR? Or will it be something that essentially works in heroics but is worthless for epic content? Or perhaps the mechanic will translate over.

Unlikely, since in DDO they don't overlap. Spell Resistance affects non-damaging spells and MRR affects damaging spells.

[CaptainSpacePony]

So, I guess most Warforged and Bladeforged will be sticking with Evasion... Not all builds can sacrifice that 1 Feat.

Agreed. While only somewhat on topic, I'd like to renew my support for a the body type being a free feat at lvl 1 and a 4th WF body type.

[CaptainSpacePony]

No! Absolutely not!

Melee power, ranged power and magic resistance rating all need to be thrown out! Turbine has a very poor record for implementing new systems on top of the old systems. You already tried to "fix" the armor and AC system

On the other hand, I think spell power was a smashing success, and melee and ranged power seems to be an expanded application of that rather than something truly unique.

[Ryethiel]

Agreed. While only somewhat on topic, I'd like to renew my support for a the body type being a free feat at lvl 1 and a 4th WF body type.

Or, if they really wanna make it cost something, how about moving it from a Feat to a Multi-Selector tier 1 Enhancement? (For both races, of course.)

[Delacroix21]

We don't need to scale up +X[W] effects since Melee Power automatically scales all base weapon damage.

We can (and will) add Melee Power scaling to static effects that, as you say, do "1-10 acid/force/whatever damage" as we do passes on specific trees. Making those abilities useful.

Sev~

Will this also scale up elemental procs on randomly generated weapons? So a holy 2d6 weapon could do 3d6 or 4d6?

[rayworks]

Lets just pull back on the damage and power ratings we already have. The only reason people are concerned about the relative weakness of armor/prr/etc is because the devs keep ramping up the mobs' damage.

So just dial it back to sane levels and stop! it with the added complications.


And anyone who can think ahead 5 minutes will see how bad an idea this new stuff is, since the devs will further ramp up mobs' power to compensate, which will simply bring us back to the current status quo.

[jalont]

Lets just pull back on the damage and power ratings we already have. The only reason people are concerned about the relative weakness of armor/prr/etc is because the devs keep ramping up the mobs' damage.

So just dial it back to sane levels and stop! it with the added complications.


And anyone who can think ahead 5 minutes will see how bad an idea this new stuff is, since the devs will further ramp up mobs' power to compensate, which will simply bring us back to the current status quo.

I'd prefer an increase to mob challenge and a decrease in player power so that this game becomes something more than an easy snoozefest, but it doesn't seem that this is going to happen. What these changes DO DO, at least, is to open up more building options and remove some of the build balance problems in the game. If we can't have a challenging game, we can at least have a casual, fun building game, which this helps. Anything like nerfing mob power sounds like a horrible idea, as it would make an overly easy game even more easy.