Armor Up - Developer Diary #1

[9001]

About DR, as far as I recall (sorry I'm not too up on stats, having just come back to the game after sporadically playing it, and I was never too educated on balance to begin with) applies BEFORE prr, does it not? I'm assuming elemental resists do too. I figure it'd be better to have them apply after, as that would make them at least a little more useful.


Additionally, I wanted to ask if the people who are against melee and ranged power are also against spell power. I personally think it'd be nice to see a non-flat source of physical damage that works for BOTH melee and ranged (probably better to REPLACE deadly stuff) and it might help physicals compete with casters for damage (casters still do a lot of damage over melees, right?)

People can argue one way or another about whether staying true to pen and paper or changing things, but my PERSONAL opinion is that the health of the game is more important than sticking exactly to pen and paper, though it should still be recognisable as dungeons and dragons, ie dice, class and level structure, etc. Some compromise would be best imo, we don't need systems added for no reason but if it actually serves to help game balance and there's no better pen and paper option then there might have to be that compromise.

Lastly, the melee power thing seems to be in some cases a way of scaling normally static damage (like the proposed paladin light damage), perhaps the real issue is the prevalence of a lot of crit multiplier and range bonuses? Between overwhelming critical, class bonuses, and some epic destiny bonuses, crits can get ridiculously high (ie a light pick swash bard could get 19-20 x4, plus if they take tier 5 in warchanter, and go legendary dreadnought, plus overwhelming crit you get 6x multiplier on 19-20)

aaand sorry for being long-winded but the last thing I wanted to say was I'm not too happy about the flat cap because it still makes evasion almost necessary. I dislike evasion being almost a must, rather than a nice bonus that the classes that get it have, plus the fact that warforged have to pick between light armor and limited prr, or heavy armor and limited dodge bonus turns me off from warforged (unfortunately because they are my favourite race).



tl;dr version do people hate both melee/ranged power AND spellpower or just the new one; pnp purists vs non-purists should try to compromise if it helps the health of the game, crits are too buffed, needing evasion sucks and warforged need medium armor

EDIT: sorry for the personal plug, but is there any way that, if you're looking at damage mitigation, that pale master zombie stance can be made into a proper (semi?) damage mitigation/melee stance without only being worthwhile if you literally stand there and take damage? It'd be a nice to see in general some cleanup of less than useful core abilties and tree enhancements, and I'm glad to see the buffs you've been throwing to some of the underloved classes

[Ebondevil]

tl;dr version do people hate both melee/ranged power AND spellpower or just the new one; pnp purists vs non-purists should try to compromise if it helps the health of the game, crits are too buffed, needing evasion sucks and warforged need medium armor

MIthrol Body is the Warforged Medium Armour, but the Dev's seem to be stuck on considering it as Light even though it is virtually identicle to a Mithril Breastplate (medium armour stats, reduced to light armour thanks to Mithril).

[Thar]

For the people complaining about the armor changes, do you really want to see everyone running around in pajamas forever? I personally dont, nor do I want every character I play to need evaison. I will agree with one post that I read that a little mitigation against a ton of mobs is like a drop in a bucket, however CC does still exist... Maybe playing smarter is the way to go. It seems like it would be near impossible to balance mitigation on armor for large groups of mobs and keep it balanced against bosses.

The problem i have it the take away. It could easily be modified to keep heavy shields with evasion as they are today and reduce the shield bonus to 1.5. There is no reason to take heavy shields away from this group.

Will we see light shields in the game... probably, but really what is the point. Why spread the development even farther? do we have 28 lvls of good bucklers? Do we even get an decent light/med/hvy armor and tower/hvy/buckler shield update each update? do we even have a thunderforged crafting option for shields? So now we want to spread the update loot between 4 shields when before it was only heavy and tower? We will hardly ever see another good light shield afterwards in the future once a pass is done or the others will be put on the backburner. You really don't expect 4 new shields, 4 new armors, and x number of new weapons + wearable equipment each update? Last update we got what 10 new pieces of loot for 3bc?

The gain/loss benefit is too much. Anyone that can use light shields is either useing buckler (bard) or heavy (everyone else). mothball the light shields and spend the time where more people can benefit.

This is beyond my arguements that evasion tanks already give up PRR, AC, and capstones (which are improving now) to get evasion and some increased dodge cap with light armor. WHY must Sev be further nerfing this setup? What is the point/purpose? Monks can't use heavy shields. WHY? What is the point of this change? IF there is no point then it is a useless negative to an otherwise positive change for epics with the mrr.

The sole point would be to move the population to heavy armor/tower/heavy shield as the only good way of negating magic damage. You don't want evasion any more. BUY a heart and TR...

or go to another game...

[Thar]

For those evasion builds that you are hurting, will we be receiving LR20 stones to redo our characters???

[BananaHat]

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~

Can you also make abilities like say... the Monk's Healing curse scale as well with either positive spellpower or melee power? 1d2 healing in the epic levels, even with healing amp, is still fairly lackluster. Say the average melee guy (non-monk) has upward of 150-200% healing amp from various sources. He gets healed by the curse for maybe 2-4. Add melee power and now he is getting healed for 4-8, still not great but double the piddly healing it was doing before. It almost keeps up with the bard's regeneration song for a TWF.

Adding melee power to the Monk's strikes and finishers would be awesome by the way and let them scale like this new Paladin light damage thing.

[maddong]

Are warforged going to get their BAB added into the PRR calculation or still get less PRR than fleshies?

[HatsuharuZ]

Are warforged going to get their BAB added into the PRR calculation or still get less PRR than fleshies?

I think that Sev answered that question somewhere else... can't remember where, but I think he said yes, and had no idea why that change was made.

[LordTigerDawn]

It really sounds like another new system that will be poorly implemented. Exact same method that has been used to get to this point in the game. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Based on the length of time this has progressed, this is obviously systematic within Turbine.

I do not expect any different, but I do not think this will actually fix anything.

We could list the mistakes that have happened in the past, but that is kinda moot. The real problem is there is no real direction from the top, and no ability to say "No" to all the new ideas. People (in general) might see the new ideas as great, but really it is usually a "Shortcut" response to learning what is actually going on in the game to and a sign of laziness.

For example,

MRR - Okay, so this is basically a formula example of Energy Absorbtion. Energy Absorbtion was the answer to living through fireballs not long ago (then they made that not stack anymore), but now MRR is. Before Energy Absorbtion was Protection from fire and Resistances (which can get into the 100's now). I mean really a solution would be to be able to enchant large/tower shields with Protection from fire/Energy (caster lvl by shield type) every 3 seconds in epic (mechanics already exist, see ek tree for temp hp). That is a Dnd solution that has existed forever. But new systems are continually created, just because "New" seems like a good idea. Special Note: Spell Resistance, totally ignored also did much the same thing but for spells with saves.

Prr - Damage Reduction and Temporary Hitpoints. Make AC matter.

Melee/Ranged Percent - This is just a bandage for the poor decision made in epic destinies. Destinies that should have been tied to tiers per lvl in the destiny, aka. Tier 1 abilites at lvl 21, tier 2 at lvl 22 etc. If you needed to sell them in 2 groups, epic destiny 1 21-25 then epic destiny 2 26-30 so be it.

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Sorry this has been more of a rant, but I enjoy this game, but I am tired of having to use a university lvl of math in order to play it.

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I have a simple question: What is DDO Unique Selling Proposition? Increasingly from a players standpoint it is, Dnd wants to be a Wow clone. If that is the goal, then really you need to stop paying the Dnd license fee and rebrand it to "Kobolds, Orcs and Humans Oh My!!!". There are 10 Wow clones popping up a week, where does that lead...

Thanks for reading if you made it this far, I would just prefer a solution within the already defined game, instead of exploring yet another new system that is continually done right now.

[Alavatar]

Yes.

Mithral Body will be treated as Light armor and provide 10 PRR.
Adamantine Body will be treated as Heavy Armor and provide 30 PRR.

Sev~

What about Max Dex Bonus for Body feats? Currently, they are capped and do not scale with level like normal armor types do.

[Seljuck]

I see that DDO increasingly moving away from the standard D&D system..
Is there really no other way to balance game without changing game mechanics and adding 'WoW like' parameters??
I thought this supposed to be D&D game?
When these changes come into force, this game will look like all other MMOs

[BigErkyKid]

Please do not neglect the AC system.

While non armor users get to miss chances (dodge, incorp.) AC is currently a very heavy investment with little returns.

The fact that there is PRR and MRR will help close the gap, but I still think that without AC, armor will be a bit behind.

The current problem with AC is that it gives you defense at level, but the CR of mobs has been changed in epics so that it has become meaningless.

Perhaps a simple adjustment of the CR role in the to miss function by AC would do the trick.

[Nascoe]

I was just playing around a bit with a sorc during my lunch brake today, and looked at his enhancements and think this needs answering.

When you add MRR for armor and shields, is the plan to add that to spells and SLAs like (Improved) Shield - this already should give some magic protection, would feel strange if it doesn't offer MRR and Mage armor. Much the same would go for shield of faith too really. I guess Nightshield already offers force (well, MM, but could easily be enhanced a bit to ALL force)

IMO if you have a MAGIC armor / shield then really that should be a way to block especially magic damage, no? And it would make the spell a bit more desirable to have on robe wearers like Wizards and Sorcerers (see complaints above that these have neither evasion nor PRR from their outfit/robe).

Surely it should not be too much, but it should help at least a bit and maybe make these spells/SLAs more than just spell list/AP fillers for higher lvls

[Monkey_Archer]

Please do not neglect the AC system.

While non armor users get to miss chances (dodge, incorp.) AC is currently a very heavy investment with little returns.

The fact that there is PRR and MRR will help close the gap, but I still think that without AC, armor will be a bit behind.

The current problem with AC is that it gives you defense at level, but the CR of mobs has been changed in epics so that it has become meaningless.

Perhaps a simple adjustment of the CR role in the to miss function by AC would do the trick.

The AC system is functioning extremely well atm. The problem isn't the system, but rather the very limited builds that can take advantage of it. S&B defenders and monk builds can easily hit viable ac numbers, but pretty much anything else needs to stack martial past lives to get even remotely useful ac.
The obvious and easy fix would be to just nerf defender, monks, and past lives, then reduce monster attack bonuses accordingly... but thats obviously not happening.

[BigErkyKid]

The AC system is functioning extremely well atm. The problem isn't the system, but rather the very limited builds that can take advantage of it. S&B defenders and monk builds can easily hit viable ac numbers, but pretty much anything else needs to stack martial past lives to get even remotely useful ac.
The obvious and easy fix would be to just nerf defender, monks, and past lives, then reduce monster attack bonuses accordingly... but thats obviously not happening.

The amount of APs you got to put into AC and from other DPS options to get "viable" AC is much larger than the APs others have to put to say get shadow veil. Or to pile up dodge from low hanging AP options plus items (9% dodge from item and then many cheap options for say monks and bards to get close to 20 dodge).

And shadow veil gives 25% incorp regardless of the level (same for dodge), whereas AC needs to keep growing to remain competitive at higher levels. To the point that in end game you need a very large number to even notice it.

Add that it seems that some classes (monks) need to spend far less in getting their AC than others (Defenders) and you get a system that I think is far from functioning extremely well.

I think AC should be brought to something closer to how it works in heroics. It is only fair, given how much it costs.

[slarden]

With the upcoming changes and the new MRR rating, would it make sense for epic arcane past lifes to have an MRR rating bonus rather than 1% energy absorb for the passive past life benefit?

[Severlin]

Some responses:

~ Energy Absorption is multiplicative and expressed as a percentage. That makes it a poor choice for adding bits of protection to many different enhancements. MRR is an additive rating.

~ Additionally, players are used to having resistance rating on armor and we wanted to follow the existing system.

~ The reason we don't revamp the armor class system (again) instead of using this PRR and MRR system is that Armor Class is, by its very nature, a binary defense and binary defenses create spikey damage. Evasion, displacement and dodge already offer that playstyle. We wanted a more predictable (for the player) damage mitigation for armor.

Sev~

[Battlehawke]

Makes sense.

Some responses:
~ Energy Absorption is multiplicative and expressed as a percentage. That makes it a poor choice for adding bits of protection to many different enhancements. MRR is an additive rating.

~ Additionally, players are used to having resistance rating on armor and we wanted to follow the existing system.

~ The reason we don't revamp the armor class system (again) instead of using this PRR and MRR system is that Armor Class is, by its very nature, a binary defense and binary defenses create spikey damage. Evasion, displacement and dodge already offer that playstyle. We wanted a more predictable (for the player) damage mitigation for armor.

Sev~

[Exiledtyrant]

Some responses:

~ Energy Absorption is multiplicative and expressed as a percentage. That makes it a poor choice for adding bits of protection to many different enhancements. MRR is an additive rating.

~ Additionally, players are used to having resistance rating on armor and we wanted to follow the existing system.

~ The reason we don't revamp the armor class system (again) instead of using this PRR and MRR system is that Armor Class is, by its very nature, a binary defense and binary defenses create spikey damage. Evasion, displacement and dodge already offer that playstyle. We wanted a more predictable (for the player) damage mitigation for armor.

Sev~

So AC and flat elemental resist/absorb for Heroic leveling and PRR and MRR/absorb for epic leveling then?

[Thumbed_Servant]

Kudos Severlin.

You have well thought out reasoning behind these changes, AND you express your answers in very concise and understandable language.

[Dagolar]

So AC and flat elemental resist/absorb for Heroic leveling and PRR and MRR/absorb for epic leveling then?

No. AC, Absorb, Dodge, Incorp, Evasion for chance at nil damage;
PRR, MRR, DR, and Resist for damage reduction.

The best way to view it is to treat PRR and MRR as updated versions of DR, and dodge as a variant overlap of Incorp and AC.

In other words, it's basically the core D&D system, just expanded into more forms, and adjusted to react to a system with far, far higher hit point and damage expressions.


[Assuming MRR/PRR values stay the same as current PRR values, and noting that Resist/DR always acts before any other reductions-
Even a 30 resist energy would still be worth about 15 points less elemental damage, assuming 50% damage reduction from MRR.]