Armor Up - Developer Diary #1

[HastyPudding]

I'm of mixed feelings about this.

1a. I'm interested in seeing DDO finally mainstreaming with adding physical/ranged 'power'. I've always thought that the often complicated rules of D&D turned away new players due to them not having a pre-understanding of how D&D works. Go into the harbor and you'll most likely see somebody asking if XXX stacks with XXX, etc.

1b. This is a lot of work. The code is already a complete mess as it is, and you're not going to retcon previous items. That's going to make an even bigger mess. If you can't keep it simple, don't do it, or it's going to be a nightmare.

2a. I love the new changes to make heavier armor and shields useful. I simply can't wait to dust off my shield PDK and get him ready to play with his new toys.

2b. Haters gonna hate. The lack of evasion with certain shields is going to greatly irritate a niche group in the game (of which I don't belong). I also wonder about the implications of the PRR/MRR limitations concerning shintao monks, which are essentially tanks. I fear this is going to truly hurt pure monks more than the splashers. The 100 PRR limit is already going to nerf my pure 20 shintao tank because he already has almost 130 PRR.

[rayworks]

So swashbuckler builds get screwed. Thanks devs.

[Sethvir]

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.

I just DID read this now. And its EXACTLY streamlining at its worst. The 7 pararaps about the 7 'melee' EDs can be streamlined to:

ED a,b,c,d,e,f,g will be changed to core1-core6 will give 10 melee power and the abilities ab1-ab9 will give another 10 melee power.

See? perfectly streamlined.


Other problems. Currently we have several things (in EDs and enhancements) that give a multiplicator to damage (blitz, Zeal of the Righteous, sense weakness etcpp). i repeat, they work multiplicative. in the new system they would give melee power (only melee power? or maybe melee and ranged?) which in the end would DECREASE the final damage output. adding 100 melee power to an already having of 200 is less bonus than adding this 100 to an existing 100. while im totally on the side of: the game has way too much powercreep, theese changes have sideeffects most ppl just dont seem to see right now.

Example monkbuild i had some time ago:
rather low base damage and stunner with sense weakness, no mercy, blitz
1.5*1.3*1.3*3.5 = 8.87 * base damage
would change to:
(100+30+30+250)*1.5 OR if they change how stunned helpless damage is calculated - (100+30+30+250+50) = 460 = 4.6 * base damage
(100 base melee + 30 from sense + 30 from mercy + 250 ld/blitz)
---- PLZ dont tell me they wouldnt change no mercy, sense weakness or other things like them, to the melee power system, plz dont. whats the point of introducing it when they then again only pick some stuff they deem 'right' and change it. ---


in this case a viable build that was never fotm, was never uber, is rendered gimp. the build did live from multiplicative stacking damage boni in very certain circumstances. and theese changes wil reduce variability in building.
Im pretty sure there are alot more cases that work like this and would render more buldoption curretnly ok and viable as utter gimps. basically only allowing of builds with lots of base damage.
Just look at rogues which specialize in sneak damage. do they get melee power? do they keep enhancements that will add sneak dice? Think about the one and the other case and its consequences.


The problems that do arise from balancing all the things that affect damage, the amount of work needed to reallow more variance after this variance was cut down by the introduction with this system is just mindnumbing.

I strongly believe, the only outcome theese changes will have are: that base damage of weapons will trump ANY other way of achieving high damage output and thus totally reducing variance in builds.

[gwonbush]

So swashbuckler builds get screwed. Thanks devs.

Are you sure? My swashbuckler is getting +165% damage, 10 PRR (which now does more) and additional energy resistance.

[rayworks]

Are you sure? My swashbuckler is getting +150% damage, 25 PRR (which now does more) and additional energy resistance.

But the buckler you have to wear gets nothing but the base stuff, while larger shields get buffs.

[Atremus]

Couple of questions:

Will Melee Power and Ranged Power be visible on the character sheet?
Will all classes get inherent bonuses?
Will these effects for melee and ranged ruin all current gear like deadly did for the dream visor? How will you address balance with these changes? Another LR20?

[Monkey_Archer]

I don't have much to say considering there hasn't been many changes since the last armor and mitigation thread.

Still no reason to use light armor instead of robes and monk levels. Still no reason to use medium armor at all. Great for heavy armor/shield users. Unnecessary buff for unarmored spell mitigation.

[Nayus]

I don't have much to say considering there hasn't been many changes since the last armor and mitigation thread.

Still no reason to use light armor instead of robes and monk levels. Still no reason to use medium armor at all. Great for heavy armor/shield users. Unnecessary buff for unarmored spell mitigation.

Please read the OP, Light Armor is getting a lot of PRR and MRR that will reduce all physical and MAGICAL damage and now PRR is a lot better than it used to be.
As to "buff to unarmored spell mitigation" then no, if you're unarmored then you're probably evasion based and it would also nullify the worth of evasion if everyone got Improved Evasion for free in a Heavy Armor.

[droid327]

I asked this last time, I still want to know -

How will DR play with the new system? And the magical analog, Elemental Resists, with the new MRR?

If I get hit for 500 raw damage, and I have 100 PRR/MRR, and DR 30/- or 30 Resist, how does that work? Is it [500-30] * (100/200)? Or is it [500 * (100/200)] - 30?

I really hope you consider the latter...making DR reduce your damage by a flat amount AFTER all other reductions have been taken. That'll make DR very useful again, where right now its largely negligible - if damage is low enough for it to matter, you aren't dying anyway. If you're getting killed, DR is a drop in the bucket.

Having DR apply first means your PRR is essentially reducing the efficacy of your DR, in terms of how much damage you'd actually take with/without it:

500-30 * 50% = 235
500 * 50% = 250

....only 15 points of actual mitigation. Having it apply after means the more of one you have, the more useful the other is, its much more synergistic.

[Dagolar]

@ Melee Power / Ranged Power

I honestly don't see why you would add another multiplier to damage, that is already multiplied by the crit rate, attack speed, double-strike, helpless mod and flat damage bonuses. If this bonus will multiply the normal weapon damage it will unbalance the whole system even further.

Currently many effects like the paladin bonus damage (or Frenzy bonus damage) do not scale well because they do not profit from the crit rate and bonus effects like blitzing, which are arguably the most important multipliers. So I am perfectly fine with adding a spell power to those. But it should not affect the normal weapon damage in any way. Also for the Paladin abilities I would simply let it scale with positive Spellpower.

With this is mind it feels silly to make a difference between ranged and melee. Just add the according spellpower to all enhancements (elemental arrows would benefit from fire, ice etc spellpower...) and add a spellpower for the enchantments like frenzy that are not covered.

I agree, at first applying it to base damage seems REALLY, REALLY weird- if the issue is add-on procs, then why is it affecting base damage?
And why such a MASSIVE boost to damage? Aren't the prestiges already giving some measure of additional base DPS?
So even with just +90% (later, 110%) from epic levels alone, you're seeing about, say, 250% the damage of level 19 by level 28- NOT including dps bonuses from improved gear.

I mean, don't get me wrong- I am SICK of fighting training dummy styled bosses, who have more HP than a mountain; and melees could definitely use a leverage against casters, at least to some degree..

But it still seems weird.

So, my guess is, they want to keep the ratios between the contribution granted by add-on procs versus that of base damage the same as it is now.
In other words, that +1d6 elemental damage per hit will scale to about 3d6, but it'll still be X% of your total damage- it's percent contribution will be exactly the same.
That is, the devs don't want to imbalance the game in favor of add-on-proc-spamming builds over those that build up base damage.

So, that seems fine.

But it really makes you worry about EE and boss hit points being scaled even further to compensate..

As to your comments on spellpower in place of new bonus types, it is kinda weird they don't add in, say, Knowledge (Religion) (not as a auto-granted class-type ability) for upping divine non-healing spells.

Ah well.

[Monkey_Archer]

Please read the OP, Light Armor is getting a lot of PRR and MRR that will reduce all physical and MAGICAL damage and now PRR is a lot better than it used to be.

"Light Armor: 10 PRR, 10 MRR if armor has enchantments. (This is in addtion to the current PRR bonus of 2 + (BAB / 2.0) )"
Still less PRR than earth stance. Still dodge capped. Still bugged with certain dodge cap increasing abilities like elaborate parry.

As to "buff to unarmored spell mitigation" then no, if you're unarmored then you're probably evasion based and it would also nullify the worth of evasion if everyone got Improved Evasion for free in a Heavy Armor.

On live you can currently evade for 0 damage or improved evade for 50%. You take 100% from everything else. How is adding up to 100 MRR on top of this not a buff?

[Zakharov]

I understand the need to increase physical mitigation for heavier armor & shields but tying magical mitigation to them the same way makes *NO* sense at all. Please disentangle any inherent MRR from armor and shields - magical defense should be a choice players make in what equipment or abilities they choose, not an automatic "gimme" just for equipping heavy armor.

If you're already adding enchantment options to increase MRR (from sheltering etc) there is no need for anything inherent. If we are fighting the ice dragon we should seek out equipment specifically to defend against its attacks, not "any heavy armor or whatever, it will halve the damage the same either way". That's just boring.

You could also try some variety in your encounters – evasion is only an issue if reflex is the only save anyone has to make.. why not some other forms of attack instead?


Most importantly: Regardless of which way you go please make sure all enemies have the exact same attack & defense rules we end up with. I'm ok with power creep as long as it applies to everyone (players & monsters) equally. They still need their enhancements & destinies!

[maddmatt70]

I am not a fan of Melee Power and Ranged Power - they are just too out of the D&D loop. There has to be a cheap dev time solution that is going to solve the weapon/enhancement/class/destiny scaling. Perhaps if you made these level and tier base. For example any tier 1 enhancement that adds damage adds a certain % + adds to the base of that damage type like slashing or acid or etc. Yes the concept is similar to melee power, but it revolves around the particular damage which I think is more inline with D&D. Let's say for thief acrobats enhancement tree they do the following for the Q-staff enhancement
tier 1: +1 Qstaff damage +1% bludgeon.
tier 2: +2 Qstaff damage +2% bludgeon.
tier 3: +3 Qstaff damage +3% bludgeon
tier 4: +4 Qstaff damage +4% bludgeon
tier 5: +5 Qstaff damage +5% bludgeon
An epic Destiny basically would basically do double the damage per tier as an enhancement.
This may be a little too much power gain overall, but I wanted to illustrate the concept. I do not like melee power, but rather bludgeon power, acid power, etc. Melee power is too removed.

[Minrothad]

This is quite interesting, I like it.

Although, I am surprised to see the ED balancing seems to be applied almost entirely to melee/ranged and not to the caster world.

Good work.

Edit: Wrong diary entry, whatever.

[Severlin]

But the buckler you have to wear gets nothing but the base stuff, while larger shields get buffs.

And swashbuckler builds are pretty awesome and fun already.

Sev~

[Cetus]

I really dislike this entire melee power thing. It is unnecessary, adds complexity, and seems to be invented for the sole purpose of curtailing blitzes power.

[Severlin]

This doesn't seem much like a diary.

It "feels" more like a statement of what has been decided/no longer requires adjustment/will be implemented.

I am not hearing anything about the ideas/calculations/discussions/feedback consideration of the dev(s) involved.

Naturally, none of us need to know what you had for breakfast or your favorite TV show, and there should be no need to explain your personal philosophy on any subject.

The players probably don't have high enough search/spot/listen to discern the "process" on our own or the divination abilities sufficient to now what will/won't actually be introduced/modified to deal with the inevitable adjustment difficulties we all face.

I guess i.m just saying the obvious. I'll stop now.

Pseudograph

I am not sure what you are asking.

If you have concerns or suggestions you are best off just asking or voicing them so we can discuss them.

Sev~

[Zakharov]

This scaling is for player abilities. Monsters won't change.

Sev~

I disagree with this philosophy. Power increase/decrease and tweaking should apply equally to players and monsters. They still need enhancements & destinies.

[Severlin]

I really dislike this entire melee power thing. It is unnecessary, adds complexity, and seems to be invented for the sole purpose of curtailing blitzes power.

The main purpose of the design is actually to help scale static damage abilities from heroic like the Paladin's light damage. As an example, when we do a pass for the Assassin tree both Venomed Blades and Shadow Dagger can be made to scale with Melee Power and then these become more useful in later levels.

Sev~

[Zakharov]

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 point was that many people hate those systems. I personally am not a fan of many changes over the years taking us away from core rules. I would rather pay more money for a pure d&d online experience but sadly this is still the best option we have and I'm in the minority anyway.