Update 23 Second Look

[Lifespawn]

You can't face the truth.

ps. i know what i am talking about see his statement where it reads : Now suppose you are comparing two builds. Build A has 100 PRR and build B has 200PRR. That is, build B has double the amount of PRR than build B. However, build B only has 1.5 more combat time than build A.

Now as it has been pointed out the crucial issue here is that it is easy for certain builds to reach high values of PRR but heavy armor wearers do not have much more PRR.

And thats just wrong, they have much more prr right now on lammania and it does absorb much more damage (even reducing it to zero occasionally, even on EE difficulty) than for someone who is running around in pajamas evading traps/incoming spells with little prr.

if the combat of a is 20 seconds 10 more seconds is a lot more time in the battle between healing or backing away

damage can never be zero from prr as dr hits then prr even 10 damage would still give you damage and 200 damage would still be noticeable

all that needs some tweaking is the numbers maybe 100 prr for only 30% mitigation or something If 200 is easily reachable

[Pescha]

if the combat of a is 20 seconds 10 more seconds is a lot more time in the battle between healing or backing away

damage can never be zero from prr as dr hits then prr even 10 damage would still give you damage and 200 damage would still be noticeable

all that needs some tweaking is the numbers maybe 100 prr for only 30% mitigation or something If 200 is easily reachable

Near zero is still zero if it is not noticeable in my opinion and thats not only me who is saying that.

[Thar]

This final point is useful feedback. If playing on Lamannia makes you feel that heavy armor wearers aren't getting enough defense and aren't really viable, we definitely want to hear that. Or if you think light and no armor builds are far too survivable and trivializing content without challenge or fun, that's also useful feedback. The two don't have to be directly related, of course. If your play convinces you Heavy Armor wearers are getting too much PRR, we want to hear that too. Also, if it's seems Just Right!

The exact numbers are dependent on many other values in the game, so getting +5 seconds may or may not make the difference for any particular character. It depends on if that means Cocoon keeps you alive, which depends on exactly how much you are getting hit for, as well as your overall total health and other healing sources and your class and destiny and items, etc. This is why we seek as many different playtesting results from Lamannia as we can get (and we appreciate videos from those who want to go that extra step).

Light armor (not monks) are not too survivable. They get torn up in combat faster than cheese in a grater. Their only saving grace is evasion to limit the big spell damage hit. A small boost in prr is not saving them. They can't get AC high enough to be viable in EE for all but light armor tanks who barely do so (by barely i mean 70% miss chance at level). Rangers are at a big disadvantage melee'ing since tempest doesn't give enough AC/prr and no shield means they can't get benefits.

Too much is oh evasion is too uber... Those people mean improved evasion if they know it or not. Normal evasion requires max dex bonus + feats + enhancements/aug to get the best reflex save. Most other characters dont have a save in the 60s or know why you would want or need that.

Evasion is nice but it doesn't help you kill something. light armor melee still have to go up and hit something. that's where they don't do well and take the beating.

Heavy armor seemed fine on Lam, maybe too fine and needed some scaling back but it really was more on the overall boost to dps that caused stuff dieing too fast., but that's for you Dev's to decide if i run in EH or EE how fast do i drop without a heal. what damage are you shooting for being able to take per min.

[droid327]

We don't want a PRR system where characters have to be all-in or might as well give up on PRR completely.

...

If playing on Lamannia makes you feel that heavy armor wearers aren't getting enough defense and aren't really viable, we definitely want to hear that. Or if you think light and no armor builds are far too survivable and trivializing content without challenge or fun, that's also useful feedback. The two don't have to be directly related, of course. If your play convinces you Heavy Armor wearers are getting too much PRR, we want to hear that too. Also, if it's seems Just Right!

I think, ideally, you'd have some dual-ended system where a little bit of PRR gives you a bit of defense, then there's a "plateau" of limited returns, before it accelerates again at the uppermost end to better reward heavy investment.

The problem is that the first maybe 25-35% of mitigation from PRR is too-low-hanging fruit. Everyone can get it for very low opportunity cost, which means they're not giving up Evasion or Dodge cap and they can run a class with Displacement (ie with ASF concerns), etc. Conversely, if you give up Evasion and Dodge and ASF and all that for full-on heavy armor and put all your eggs in the PRR/MRR basket, you're probably not gaining as much as you gave up compared to those builds.

Maybe heavy armor just needs to have the MDBs relaxed a little, so that its not such a dichotomy between high-Dodge, medium-PRR builds and low-Dodge, high-PRR builds? Or have more MDB bonuses added into Heavy Armor Tank-type enhancement trees? Not saying Heavies should hit 25 Dodge...but it probably needs to be more than 6.

The most EE-survivable build I played on Lama this cycle (which included heavy armor Paladins specced T5 in Sac Def) was my Swash Skirmisher. Full Dodge, Displacement, 10% Incorp and 40something% mitigation from PRR. Position management was the most important factor in mitigating damage after that...fight while slowly walking backwards so only 1-2 mobs can stay in melee range. She could hold her own against a full wave of Yuan-ti in EE DDtW. The paladin would quickly get overwhelmed by 4+ mobs in EE.

[Rull]

Our goal is getting players to understand how PRR works

If that is your goal, then you should really go with the 100 base + additional PRR (and make the formula 100/PRR. the only difference is your character sheet displays the '100 +' in the '100 / (100 + PRR)' formula)

Sev's example then becomes:
At 100 PRR (naked) I can fight for 10 seconds before I need a heal.
At 200 PRR I can fight for 20 seconds before I need a heal.
At 300 PRR I can fight for 30 seconds before I need a heal.
At 400 PRR I can fight for 40 seconds before I need a heal.

It's useful to point out this statement is not an inherent part of PRR. If instead you have 200 PRR (200 PRR => means it takes x3 time to die compared to 0 PRR), you need to reach 500 PRR to double your time to die (500 PRR => x6 multiplier for how long you live), or x2.5 more PRR, not x4 times as much. If you have 1500 PRR (x16 multiplier), you need 3100 PRR to double the time to die (x32 multiplier), which is barely more than x2, not x4. The reason the quoted example works is because it happened to pick 50 PRR for the example, but the strong statement isn't a feature built-in to PRR, and potentially confusing for people trying to understand how PRR works in general.

This disparity dissolves completely then, 50 PRR from an item means 150 PRR total so still 15 second time-to-heal, and you need another 150 (double) to double that to 30 seconds.

[Seljuck]

Actual prr values and curve have to be toned down, especially for heavy armored characters. How it is possible for pure fighter w/o shield to reach 60% + dmg absorption? Without too much investment in defense pure fighter run through EE like in EH on live. With this values ee for heavy armored characters can't offer any challenge.

Don't get me wrong please, I like idea of boosting melee survivability but it have to be done with caution. Right now we change one extreme (melee that die after 1-3 s of face to face fighting with single mob on ee) for another (same mob almost can't even scratch you).

[BigErkyKid]

We don't want a PRR system where characters have to be all-in or might as well give up on PRR completely. That mostly creates sometimes 90% of players don't care about, but we have to keep balancing around and making items and abilities (etc.) for instead of things that 90% of players want, and gets in the way. This is especially true for newer players or players who don't want to do all the math (and we care about all those players), and PRR should work for them. Getting more makes you take less damage, and it shouldn't be (almost) useless for players who don't have "enough".


This final point is useful feedback. If playing on Lamannia makes you feel that heavy armor wearers aren't getting enough defense and aren't really viable, we definitely want to hear that. Or if you think light and no armor builds are far too survivable and trivializing content without challenge or fun, that's also useful feedback. The two don't have to be directly related, of course. If your play convinces you Heavy Armor wearers are getting too much PRR, we want to hear that too. Also, if it's seems Just Right!

The exact numbers are dependent on many other values in the game, so getting +5 seconds may or may not make the difference for any particular character. It depends on if that means Cocoon keeps you alive, which depends on exactly how much you are getting hit for, as well as your overall total health and other healing sources and your class and destiny and items, etc. This is why we seek as many different playtesting results from Lamannia as we can get (and we appreciate videos from those who want to go that extra step).

Alright, so moving on from the discussion on how to read PRR. My bad if I got caught on it.

First of all, just as a reminder for the discussion, the current change to PRR has done two things:

A. Increase the PRR given by armor.

B. Increase the amount of damage reduction per point of PRR (e.g. before at 100 PRR you took ~60% of damage and now you take 50%).

This has resulted in a buff to the survivability of all the builds that had PRR.

There are two concerns resulting from this:

1. The reduction in damage taken might be too high for a large number of builds (specially self healing), bringing the feeling that there is no "real danger of death".

2. That the pass has benefited more light armor / PJ than heavy armor, or at least has not brought an edge to heavy armor over light in terms of physical damage mitigation.


Now, on the first point:

PRR seems indeed very low hanging. For instance, the shadow plate armor alone, without enhancements boosting it, or any sort of additional item (or PL) is giving my paladin in Lama 75 PRR. This is a 42% damage reduction. Dragonhide armor is giving 29 PRR or 22% damage reduction. This means that a lot of builds can reach around 100PRR with a heavy armor and a PRR item (for instance, guardian's ring), which is a very minimal investment.

For pure paladins (currently perceived as the best melee build all around), sacred defense already boosts this to 100PRR and with an item and blitz I move up to 160. This is 56% less physical damage on a THF full DPS build. And we are talking about a first life character, PLs and what not can pile it up. Cetus has a video on his BF with 200PRR (33% damage taken) while on full DPS mode.

The bottom line is that the change in survivability for a lot of builds is quite dramatic. It has boosted their capacity to stay in combat by a lot. This has been enough to compensate for the damage reduction of blitz and people are finishing quests slightly faster than before. However, in this new context, the boost to damage reduction has decreased the feeling of danger since now heals are quite capable of keeping up with incoming damage without having to back jump too much. Before, in EE, most characters spent their time running around like headless chicken. A few mistakes or unlucky double strikes and you were out. I do not feel the same now.

The second point:

Arguably, the objective of the pass was to make heavy armor competitive. This is where I think that change B has sabotaged your efforts. On my multilife character copied to lama, pure paladin in blitz had ~170 PRR whereas my bard had ~140 PRR. A monk paladin splash was also over 100PRR while blitzing.

Early levels of PRR are easy too reach on certain builds (monk and swash splashes) while keeping evasion and dodge. Since the additional damage reduction of PRR is diminishing, this means that in physical damage reduction those builds are not very far. For instance, for the example of the paladin vs the bard, I have computed here the overall damage taken over time and the bard beats the paladin by 20%.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5418759

This advantage of light armor / PJ over heavy armor is even bigger once you compare to other builds without access to defender trees.

For the sake of giving an example, using my numbers in the thread linked, in order for the paladin to have the same damage taken as the bard, it would have to get 233PRR. We all know that reaching very high levels of PRR means using a shield and probably going Unyielding, so the bottom line is that heavy armor builds (even those with easy access to PRR like the paladin) remain behind in terms of being able to take punishment. Specially if they want to remain competitive in terms of DPS.

Whether this is wrong or not is of course a design decision. How do you picture dodge characters? And heavy armor? Personally, what makes sense is that dodgers have better to be missed chance, but heavy armor has better capacity to take the damage that actually hits. At the very least, both type of builds should have equivalent (in expectation) damage taken. But this of course my not be the design goal of the devs.

[BigErkyKid]

PS - Something that I think could work is to abandon the pretention of having PRR in a formula.

Set the values of damage reduction that you want at certain PRR tresholds and then "connect the dots" for the PRR in between.

This allows you a lot more flexibility to accomplish your different goals (early PRR mattering, but crazy damage reduction not reached to soon, etc.)

I guess the devs already have in mind the sources of PRR. For instance, a pure caster is most likely getting at most 1 item and 1 enhancement, for a total of around 30-50 PRR. A heavy armored lad can get easily 100PRR. A more specialized defensive class goes up to 130-150 PRR. etc.

The other option is to bring back the hard caps to PRR.

[Scrabbler]

U23 Second Look Feedback Summary

I didn't play the first Lamannia u23 test, but I did some of the second one. Of system changes that were noticeable, they were almost all bad. Players have way too much defense, and also do too much damage, especially Paladins. The overall game challenge was already too low, meaning not only the chance for a player to win or lose a fight, but also the experience of winning it (the number of milliseconds of attacking before each monster dies, how long I can survive AFK mid-battle, what percentage of monsters can be a threat, etc).

It's baffling why they decided to take gameplay that was already "too soft" and make it globally softer. All I can figure is that a handful of specific combinations of character features were overpowered so they could do Epic Elite pretty easily, and instead of fixing the outliers they decided to boost all players in that direction, without noticing what it does to the rest of the game. Epic Elite was never supposed to be manageable, not for characters below level 35+. It existed as a "safety valve" so that players who happened to be too strong would have someplace to test their prowess, not something that everyone's entitled to beat.

If it were up to me, I would honestly cancel adding MMR, the new PPR formula, Paladin buffs, most of the defender tree. Since it's not, I'll probably quit for 6 months and then peek at how things have gone in u24.

[Scrabbler]

Hirelings

• Hirelings now will very frequently turn off Stand Your Ground mode and start following you again. This is separate from a previous behavior, where they would walk a small distance away from the assigned point but remain in the mode in that area.
  
  
• The hireling AI customization reveals some weird things, like the Bard15 hireling having a Raise Dead effect that I've never seen him use (and which is not a Bard spell).
  
  
• There seems to be no way to click on the AI customization icons to cast the spell now, or to drag it to a hotbar. I know that's intentional, but it'd be more logical to have those features before getting into toggling automatic effects.
  
  
• I did not try an Artificer to see if AI customization will allow you to turn off fire breath attacks. It would be quite a nice improvement if it does, because the fire breath is essentially like the dog activating crowd control on its own DPS.
  
  
• The monsters found in Abbot Orchard give a good reminder that hirelings healers still don't try to help with negative levels. (They still cast Remove Blindness when you step in a fog, though...)

[Scrabbler]

u23 Paladin stuff

• Paladins are further from balanced than they were previously. That is, in comparison to Fighter and Barbarian (the other heavy melee classes, meaning full BAB without Evasion or strong spellcasting), they're now more too high than they were previously too low.
  
  
• The biggest thing missing from Paladins now is an aura to protect nearby allies from phyiscal attacks. That would be an obvious way to make the class better without piling on DPS. The AC aura used to do this, back in a different AC system. Since you probably won't fix the AC system, the aura needs something else (like PPR).
  
  
• Holy Sword is very overpowered. We could tell it would be, but testing confirms. (Even after the +W effect was removed). Aside from being too strong in general, Holy Sword means that Paladins gain too much power from level 14, as opposed to each of levels 2-13 and 16-20.
  
  
• For an ability called "Slayer of Evil" to do full damage to Neutral and Good opponents is very stupid.
  
  
• It is stylistically bad for Paladins to do passive Light damage on every swing, and a bit bad for balance too. It should be Bane or Physical, or otherwise not flashy.
  
  
• It is very bad for balance that Paladin Slayer of Evil damage applies to non-Evil enemies. It should not hurt non-Evil, and have extra damage when they are extra-evil (subtype).
  
  
• The KOTC core3 Slayer of Evil blurb is redundant with the core2 blurb. Advancing Slayer of Evil in core2 looks like the pattern is off.
  
  
• For the benefit of new players, Extra LOH enhancements should require LOH first.
  
  
• I'm not much attracted to KOTC tier5. In a lot of classes players will rush to get tier5 enhancements as soon as they're level 12-13. But since I didn't have Beholders on the menu, I was pretty happy to wait and fill it in later. Overall that's because KOTC t5 doesn't include a single super-damage effect. The 10 melee power is pretty strong, but it's not as obvious an improvement as crit profile, and putting it behind Censure Demons just kinda hides the true purpose of the enhancement. Holy Retribution was non-attractive because it didn't refill a Smite (and because it would subtract Divine Might duration). Having the Harper tree to consume AP distracts from getting t5, because I can obtain even more meleepower over there (although not from just 1 enhancement). The more meleepower I have from elsewhere, the less important it is to get this 10 points.

[Scrabbler]

U23 MMR Conclusion

After trying it, it looks like adding MMR was a mistake.

The Problem That Was Faced: Heavy armor builds aren't attractive enough, because they prevent use of character features that reduce damage by a percent on a successful Reflex save, and by a different percent on a failed Reflex save.


A Straightforward Solution: Create some character features (in existing feats and new enhancements) which allow heavy armored characters to reduce damage by a percent on a successful Reflex save, and by a different percent on a failed Reflex save. (This aligns closely with the existing character feature, and doesn't stack with it, so it's easy to make them balanced)


A Complicated Non-Solution: Create a whole new stat, available from multiple new sources, which reduces damage by a rating and applies to most things with Reflex saves, and also lots of things without Reflex saves. And which doesn't work on some Reflex saves. Allow it to work in conjunction with existing percentage Reflex-damage reducers, but with stat sources being lessened according to armor category. (This works on a much broader set of effects than the old feature, and can stack with it, so it's hard to make them balanced).

Is it completely impossible to adjust MMR so it works acceptably? No, with enough effort and special-case rules it can be tweaked to fit. But it's not there yet, and the other approach would've been easier and more reliable. Right now Reflex-dump characters are too protected against Reflex attacks, characters in general are too protected against many non-Reflex attacks, and legacy energy defenses are integrated poorly. Wearing a big steel suit prevents Lighting Bolts, hurray.

[Dalnarac]

I have been reading most the post on the PRR math and it has been using 100 increments. I am hoping you are just doing this for simple math purposes. If I had 134 PRR, do I have a better benefit than 100 PRR?

[BigErkyKid]

I have been reading most the post on the PRR math and it has been using 100 increments. I am hoping you are just doing this for simple math purposes. If I had 134 PRR, do I have a better benefit than 100 PRR?

Yes.

[Rull]

u23 Paladin stuff[*]I'm not much attracted to KOTC tier5. In a lot of classes players will rush to get tier5 enhancements as soon as they're level 12-13. But since I didn't have Beholders on the menu, I was pretty happy to wait and fill it in later. Overall that's because KOTC t5 doesn't include a single super-damage effect. The 10 melee power is pretty strong, but it's not as obvious an improvement as crit profile, and putting it behind Censure Demons just kinda hides the true purpose of the enhancement. Holy Retribution was non-attractive because it didn't refill a Smite (and because it would subtract Divine Might duration). Having the Harper tree to consume AP distracts from getting t5, because I can obtain even more meleepower over there (although not from just 1 enhancement). The more meleepower I have from elsewhere, the less important it is to get this 10 points.[/list]

Well, crit profile is just very popular because it's effectively percentage-based and percentage damage is so strong. don't mistake MP for being weaker.

Especially on lvl12 the tier5 is very good.
Assuming for instance that you crit on 17-18-19-20/x3, and have 20 MP, 10 from 3 feats and 10 from Harper

you deal:
2-16 120% basedamage
17-20 360% basedamage
average 168% basedamage

+1 modifier on 19-20
2-16 120% basedamage
17-18 360% basedamage
19-20 480% basedamage
average 180% basedamage

but 10 more MP gives
2-16 130% basedamage
17-20 390% basedamage
average 180% basedamage
AND better light damage, much better damage vs 100% fort, better glancing blows, etc.

[DagazUlf]

This final point is useful feedback. If playing on Lamannia makes you feel that heavy armor wearers aren't getting enough defense and aren't really viable, we definitely want to hear that. Or if you think light and no armor builds are far too survivable and trivializing content without challenge or fun, that's also useful feedback. The two don't have to be directly related, of course. If your play convinces you Heavy Armor wearers are getting too much PRR, we want to hear that too. Also, if it's seems Just Right!

I primarily play a pure-class THF Fighter. Currently, I run him with light armor/high dodge/decent saves, on Live. On Lammy, I tried him out with Med. and Heavy armors to see if it was time to switch things up. The results I have from my perspective is that Med. definitely fared worse than Light and/or no armor, and Heavy was close but not any better than running him with Light armor.

Overall, it's still much improved over what we have on Live currently, but I think a little tweak upwards might be warranted. It still seems far more advantageous to go light or unarmored.

Thanks.

[Scrabbler]

My one big U23 question for the designers:

Why did you decide that all monsters throughout the game should be less dangerous and much faster to kill?

[Scrabbler]

The results I have from my perspective is that Med. definitely fared worse than Light and/or no armor, and Heavy was close but not any better than running him with Light armor.

Can you give the numbers for Dodge and PPR reduction you had for each of the armor categories? Multiplying each pair together would give a fast look at which is theoretically better.

[Severlin]

My one big U23 question for the designers:

Why did you decide that all monsters throughout the game should be less dangerous and much faster to kill?

You mean on builds that were underperforming? Because we players to have more build choices.

Sev~

[UurlockYgmeov]

You mean on builds that were underperforming? Because we players to have more build choices.

Sev~

less dangerous, faster to kill for some builds - some builds aren't threatened by much already.