Armor Up - Developer Diary #1

[GeoffWatson]

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~

Could you fix Sting of the Ninja at some point? It is now completely useless, not working with named weapons.

Geoff.

[Eth]

Guess with a TWF toon that uses melee and ranged abilities I can reroll.
Doesn't sound to me like you intend to implement ways to get both melee and ranged power on the same scale in the same destiny.

[spindeldorf]

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.

Good point.

Go on Severling you are doing quite a good job.

DDO is a real time computer game and needs adeguate mechanics for scaling.

Introducing MRR, Meele Power and Ranged Power makes the enhancement system (heroic and epic) clear and consistent (i.e. Adrenaline I will give +300 Meele/Ranged Power, right?).

Of course imho.

[Indianwiz]

Greetings,

Physical and Magical Resist Ratings offered by armor
Robes or Outfits: No PRR, no MRR
Sev~

So, my wizard who will be soon level 30 (that is demi-god in PnP right?!) has absolutely no way to reduce incoming ridiculous amount of Physical and Magical damage?

[CaptainSpacePony]

So, my wizard who will be soon level 30 (that is demi-god in PnP right?!) has absolutely no way to reduce incoming ridiculous amount of Physical and Magical damage?

Not via their armor, unless they go eldritch night and leave the pajamas at home.

[Ayseifn]

So, my wizard who will be soon level 30 (that is demi-god in PnP right?!) has absolutely no way to reduce incoming ridiculous amount of Physical and Magical damage?

Wizards can still take the insightful reflexes feat.
Wraith form still gives 25-35% incorp.
Wizards can still cast displacement.
Eldritch Knight still gives armour and shield proficiencies.
Eldritch Knight still gives PRR and lowers ASF.
Wizards can still wear dodge items.
Pale Masters still get 10 PRR or 3 dodge, as well as other benefits from being undead.

They might not be the best but saying they get no way at all to reduce incoming damage is hyperbole.

[Slasheboy]

On the topic of free feats and stances,

How about giving Sacred Defender Combat Expertise for its Core 3. More importantly, make sure that it does not have the spell cooldown drawback so that the poor Pallies don't have to suffer.

How about giving Assassins or Thief Acrobats Improved Feint?


But its rather true that Power Attack is the must have feat currently.... it would be good if it not only scales into late game (like +5 damage while providing +1 or +0.5 melee power per epic level), but also make the other stances more competitive and scale into late game.

Something like Combat Expertise providing some PRR/MRR and/or gaining a subfeat that provides additional hate, while gaining an additional 2% AC or PRR or Max Hp per epic level.

Precision stand to gain more fortification bypass and some dodge bypass, and some other interesting things that scale into epic.

Manyshot and Improved Precise shot should start removing volleys and replacing it with Ranged Power and other stuff because of how OP they are together. So on and so forth.

[Stoner81]

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~

You sir have just given me a nerdgasm! I had been toying with TR'ing my assassin in to a hybrid (Rogue/Monk/Druid) so as to boost survivability and stuff but after seeing this new stuff I am going to keep her and see how everything works.

Stoner81.

[Uska]

Hang on a minute...Melee and Ranged POWER?

Are you kidding Devs? Yet another way for Elitists to lord it over casuals and newbies REALLY?

What stat is going to govern this? Strength I suppose? What of Dex, Int, Con Builds?

Are we going to get YET MORE gear we can't fit in?


What happened to the D&D in DDO?!?

It died just like it did in pnp

[geoffhanna]

Three questions, apologies if these have already been answered but I missed the answers amidst the sudden MessageStorm:

1. Isn't giving every ED 90 melee power, and 150 to every Melee ED, a huge power creep? Huge? Why not just give Master's Blitz 100 melee power and everyone else none

2. Shouldn't two-handed weapons earn more melee power than sword & shield? Otherwise, why sacrifice defense and a magic item slot for ... nothing?

3. If EE bosses are going to have less hitpoints while all the players are going to it harder, it seems that making EE content more accessible is a design goal. Is it?

[Aelonwy]

And will be less fun and awesome if the buckler they are forced to carry does nothing beyond its base while people with other shields get bennies. Bards don't get evasion unless they splash and it seems to me that your changes actually encourage people to take monk or rogue levels rather than stay pure. Seems contradictory.

A pure bard can acquire evasion from the swashbuckler capstone but only while swashbuckling. So pure 20 bard, in swashbuckler stance.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

Wow. Lame. I have 2 characters who wear robes/outfits, and neither have Evasion.

These are not simply pieces of cloth that characters wear for decoration, they are magically enchanted items, most of which offer Armor bonuses. Yet they won't even offer Magical Resist Ratings...even when worn by magic users? Two out of the three classes that typically wear robes/outfits, don't have Evasion. So give other armor users benefits, but don't give the robe/outfit users any, because it will benefit 1 single class* too much. Typical development strategy...

*I'm not including Rogues, because they can wear Light Armor without any penalties.

the future of casters is not robes, its heavy armor.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

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.

please dont add loot with melee power for a long time...

[Ebondevil]

I am worried we already have far too many bonuses and abilities which aren't included on the character sheet so it's difficult to reference what they are easily, I feel that is a problem that needs to be fixed before, or at the same time as adding more stuff to the sheet.

I'm not really a fan of Melee power and Ranged power, I think the problem is the Epic ward on monsters making many abilities and effects practically useless, the ridiculous amounts of health on monsters at epic levels, as well as the rules changes not being populated through the monsters fully (Like Poison Damage).

I can see the need for it, but It might be simpler just to have the +1[w] apply to the effects as well

So if you have a 2[1d6] weapon, and Venomed Blades tier 3 active (normally 1d8) it would give 2[1d8] poison, instant scaling for weapon effects to keep them in line with the weapons base damage scaling.

[Seikojin]

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~

You are not selling the Melee power / ranged power thing very well. Frankly I, and many others here, are skeptical and see it as a end around that wont actually solve any existing issues, while adding complications.

I will say that if you DO add it. It must remain enhancement/Destiny in nature. Absolutely do not put this on loot.

What I am thinking (and hoping) is that something currently live:
http://ddowiki.com/page/Epic_Cruel_Nobility
This has a lot of ability stacks on it. So when you swing with this, each swing has Base weapon die + enchantment + your stat + Ability 1 + Ability 2 + Ability 3 + Ability 4 = total damage output.

They can now change all those keywords to add to melee power, making it become Base weapon die + your stat + melee weapon power.

The amount of lag this could fix would be pretty good.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Why not just decrease EE monster stats/damage/CR/HP/whatever slightly?

I do not grind; my characters' DPS is horrible; basically, my toons are gimps is almost all ways.

Yet, I think EE monsters stats are exactly where they should be.




You have a choice for EE: grind for gear, take build advice from the uber number crunchers; or slow down and use some tactics.
EEs are not that difficult. Most PUGs blast their way through them with no effort and barely slow down.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

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

This bears repeating.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

And swashbuckler builds are pretty awesome and fun already.

Sev~

I agree, but the new changes really make Bucklers (in general) really lame, in comparison to other shields.

Would it really be a big deal to add "5" (or something) to "all" shields.

I have also always thought that Tower Shields need a "major" buff. These things were designed to hide behind, which seems to me that they should offer almost total protection.... when actively blocking anyway.

[lammbo]

Since all of these numbers will now be part of our builds moving forward, can we please get an updated Character Sheet that includes currently missing stats that must be manually calculated, such as:
Threat Gen
Riposte/shield bash %
Energy absorption values
Heal Amp (Positive/Repair)
Whatever else I am missing in my haste to get my $.02 into this discussion

Also, agree with previous posts about the now useless DR system. Something should be done with this because as it stands now, it is meaningless.

[Exiledtyrant]

Are sorcerer savant elemental forms going to be getting a defense boost too?