Rogue - Mechanic (and Traps) Proposed Changes

[Severlin]

I am behind on this thread and will be catching up in the next couple of days. We want to go through all the feedback, but I wanted to update you on what we've been working on.

We all know that crossbows in general are just clunky to use. We became increasingly dissatisfied with a Mechanic pass that used crossbows. Not only do they have an awkward two click firing process, but the current animation scripts are killing attempts to queue activated effects like Leg Shot. The reload portion is also not affected by ranged alacrity.

We ripped apart the system and re-implemented the animation scripts for firing crossbows. When this hits Lamannia you will see that crossbows now fire and reload all in one action, somewhat like bows. Each click fires one bolt and reloads for normal crossbows, and fires three bolts and reloads for repeaters. Ranged alacrity now speeds up the entire animation; shooting and reloading. Activated attacks like Leg Shot now queue properly and aren't simply lost as the ability goes on cooldown. And yes Endless Fusilade still works. That took a lot of time to fit into the new system.

What does this mean?

Crossbows of all types got a DPS boost because the feats and abilities that currently boost ranged alacrity now work correctly on the whole animation and the number of bolts fired is higher. This also means that repeaters can use Leg Shot reliably and since all three shots from that volley get the increased damage it is very effective.

All this means that Mechanics that use repeaters on our internal builds are too good and we will have to do another pass on it to tone it down.

We are essentially starting our balancing tests from scratch and we will be very interested in Lamannia feedback.

<Snip changes since it will probably be better to post them all at once after our testing.>

~ As an aside, Artificers that use crossbows will see an increased rate of fire.

As I said, I apologize for the late changes but our fixes to crossbow animations are requiring us to essentially start balancing the tree from scratch.

Sev~

[flaggson]

our fixes to crossbow animations are requiring us to essentially start balancing the tree from scratch.

Sev~

This is.. awesome.. simply awesome

[HatsuharuZ]

Severlin, do you have any idea how happy the fact that you're making crossbow-reloading into a single animation makes me?

[Delacroix21]

I am behind on this thread and will be catching up in the next couple of days. We want to go through all the feedback, but I wanted to update you on what we've been working on.

We all know that crossbows in general are just clunky to use. We became increasingly dissatisfied with a Mechanic pass that used crossbows. Not only do they have an awkward two click firing process, but the current animation scripts are killing attempts to queue activated effects like Leg Shot. The reload portion is also not affected by ranged alacrity.

We ripped apart the system and re-implemented the animation scripts for firing crossbows. When this hits Lamannia you will see that crossbows now fire and reload all in one action, somewhat like bows. Each click fires one bolt and reloads for normal crossbows, and fires three bolts and reloads for repeaters. Ranged alacrity now speeds up the entire animation; shooting and reloading. Activated attacks like Leg Shot now queue properly and aren't simply lost as the ability goes on cooldown. And yes Endless Fusilade still works. That took a lot of time to fit into the new system.

What does this mean?

Crossbows of all types got a DPS boost because the feats and abilities that currently boost ranged alacrity now work correctly on the whole animation and the number of bolts fired is higher. This also means that repeaters can use Leg Shot reliably and since all three shots from that volley get the increased damage it is very effective.

All this means that Mechanics that use repeaters on our internal builds are too good and we will have to do another pass on it to tone it down.

We are essentially starting our balancing tests from scratch and we will be very interested in Lamannia feedback.

<Snip changes since it will probably be better to post them all at once after our testing.>

~ As an aside, Artificers that use crossbows will see an increased rate of fire.

As I said, I apologize for the late changes but our fixes to crossbow animations are requiring us to essentially start balancing the tree from scratch.

Sev~

That is good news, although i am suspicious that repeaters are "to good" with your test build. But what about great crossbows? I thought mechanic would be a sniper tree. We have so many fast ranged shiradi builds allready, and we arent hurting for more. I liked the idea of a slow insanely damage great crossbow, at least it was something new and unique.

[FlaviusMaximus]

snip

Glad it's being done right.

One other thing to take a look at is that, according to a thread from a few months ago, repeaters are getting the doubleshot bonus on all three shots. In order to further balance repeaters and non-repeaters, it might be beneficial to either scale back the doubleshot bonuses repeaters receive or increase the doubleshot bonuses that non-repeaters receive.

If the testing in the thread was and is still accurate, that is.

[Severlin]

Glad it's being done right.

One other thing to take a look at is that, according to a thread from a few months ago, repeaters are getting the doubleshot bonus on all three shots. In order to further balance repeaters and non-repeaters, it might be beneficial to either scale back the doubleshot bonuses repeaters receive or increase the doubleshot bonuses that non-repeaters receive.

If the testing in the thread was and is still accurate, that is.

Doubleshot is divided by 3 for repeaters to compensate. This is on live so if it doesn't appear to be working in some cases we would definitely welcome a bug on it.

Sev~

[Delacroix21]

Sev, you mentioned before how you see mechanics as snipers, so I have to ask: is this a great crossbow tree? Or a repeater tree with a few great crossbow extras?


I am all for a repeater tree, but see that as a better fit for artificers during their pass. I would really like to see a unique tree focused on a very unique weapon, just like acrobats made staves viable.

[Oxarhamar]

Doubleshot is divided by 3 for repeaters to compensate. This is on live so if it doesn't appear to be working in some cases we would definitely welcome a bug on it.

Sev~

So glad you've fixed the reload bug.

As far as Doubleshot on Repeaters it has never been reduced on live as far as testing has shown (just read the wiki) however, it was much needed then if the doubleshot was not affecting all three bolts Repeater builds would have been even farther behind other Ranged Archetypes than they already were.

Here is to hoping the attack speed buffs & reload shot loss bug make up for the lost doubleshot.

[IronClan]

I( don't care about other games, this is DDO and in DDO one of it's coolest traits isthe ability to move around and use positioning and the environment to your advantage.

I am giving a little game development focused background on why you might use movement to counter balance high damage as a sniper mechanic...

The fact is that 99.9% of the game caters to your preference... so having an option that involves a heavy hitting sniper type that uses sneak mode to move around (just like a sniper does) to maintain full archers focus seems like a nice little option for people who wouldn't mind if DDO had more playstyle options than just the "run around at breakneck speed" one.

In other words you are already a happy camper in DDO... people who might enjoy a stealthy sniper like playstyle however have absolutely no viable choices that would reward them.

I am a little sad that you're trying to defend the status quo of the entire game by lobbying against a sniper mechanic variation (a couple enhancements within a tree that allow a new playstyle really)... It makes me sad because I've often noted that the Dev's will immediately drop/dismiss anything as long as SOMEONE is adamantly against it, even if the reason they are against it is not that great.

This happened already with the idea of Assassins being allowed to use DEX or INT, a few people made a big invalid stink that when cooler heads prevailed turned out to amount to DEX getting about +3 Assassinate DC at the expense of scrolling tensors all the time, while losing top end damage potential... But the Dev's listened to the mob and are no longer considering DEX. A win for the "angry mob" and a loss for people who are more rational and realize that +3 DC while having to scroll tensors constantly is not a bad trade off.

This also happened when people made a stink about making enthrallment combine with Fascinate when you took the enhancement...

And here we are talking about giving some incentive to a sniper mode playstyle being some sort of game ruining soul crushing thing that would limit the game for people who only want to run around at full speed 100% of the time and don't want to allow anyone else to have an option.

Don't you have enough options that involve running around at full speed?

[UurlockYgmeov]

I am behind on this thread and will be catching up in the next couple of days. We want to go through all the feedback, but I wanted to update you on what we've been working on.

We all know that crossbows in general are just clunky to use. We became increasingly dissatisfied with a Mechanic pass that used crossbows. Not only do they have an awkward two click firing process, but the current animation scripts are killing attempts to queue activated effects like Leg Shot. The reload portion is also not affected by ranged alacrity.

We ripped apart the system and re-implemented the animation scripts for firing crossbows. When this hits Lamannia you will see that crossbows now fire and reload all in one action, somewhat like bows. Each click fires one bolt and reloads for normal crossbows, and fires three bolts and reloads for repeaters. Ranged alacrity now speeds up the entire animation; shooting and reloading. Activated attacks like Leg Shot now queue properly and aren't simply lost as the ability goes on cooldown. And yes Endless Fusilade still works. That took a lot of time to fit into the new system.

What does this mean?

Crossbows of all types got a DPS boost because the feats and abilities that currently boost ranged alacrity now work correctly on the whole animation and the number of bolts fired is higher. This also means that repeaters can use Leg Shot reliably and since all three shots from that volley get the increased damage it is very effective.

All this means that Mechanics that use repeaters on our internal builds are too good and we will have to do another pass on it to tone it down.

We are essentially starting our balancing tests from scratch and we will be very interested in Lamannia feedback.

<Snip changes since it will probably be better to post them all at once after our testing.>

~ As an aside, Artificers that use crossbows will see an increased rate of fire.

As I said, I apologize for the late changes but our fixes to crossbow animations are requiring us to essentially start balancing the tree from scratch.

Sev~

awesome! keep ripping, shredding, fixing and updating! keep up the brilliant work and wonderful communication!

[IronClan]

As I said, I apologize for the late changes but our fixes to crossbow animations are requiring us to essentially start balancing the tree from scratch.

Sev~

Seems like there's a lot of traction for a Great Xbow Sniper playstyle in this thread.

Can we get Mechanic held over for the update after? The reason I think this would be good is that I think the players in this thread are on to something. But right now it appears from the outside looking in that there isn't time for significant changes to mechanic (based on the predominant sentiment that things on Lam are rarely altered at a conceptual level)

I would love to see Mechanic done right, and IMO some rewarding of positioning/tactical movement/sneak mode would be just the thing to provide a sweet Sabotur and Sniper vibe.

IMO this could be acomplished with 3 or 4 enhancements added that aren't currently part of the plan. Looking at the tree there would appear to be an empty T2 T4 and 3 empty T5 locations that could add sniper/stealth sabotur abilities which have been suggested on the last couple pages.

[Slasheboy]

Sev, you mentioned before how you see mechanics as snipers, so I have to ask: is this a great crossbow tree? Or a repeater tree with a few great crossbow extras?


I am all for a repeater tree, but see that as a better fit for artificers during their pass. I would really like to see a unique tree focused on a very unique weapon, just like acrobats made staves viable.

Why not both?

Just like how Spellsingers got multichoice enhancements for DPS vs enchantment, can mechanics (and battle engineers in the future) get both - a line of xbow enhancements that have 2 choices - one that is more suitable to gxbow, and another that is more amenable to repeaters. One request though, please don't make them linked, so that we can mix and match - some going all-in in a particular style, others mixing and matching, swapping styles for different occasions (like Gxbows for undeads/elementals, repeaters for others)

[UurlockYgmeov]

Can we get Mechanic held over for another update? The reason I think this would be good, is that I think the players in this thread are on to something with allowing a sneaky Sabotur/Sniper playstyle... I think it's a popular concept.

I would love to see Mechanic done right, and IMO some rewarding of positioning/tactical movement/sneak mode would be just the thing to provide a sweet Sabotur and Sniper vibe.

agree - keep working on it - but if it needs to be held back until patch 1 (U25 not U300 please) then please do.

[R1ncewind]

By the way in lamania Adrenaline overload is not working with crosbows...

[btolson]

I am behind on this thread and will be catching up in the next couple of days. We want to go through all the feedback, but I wanted to update you on what we've been working on.

We all know that crossbows in general are just clunky to use. We became increasingly dissatisfied with a Mechanic pass that used crossbows. Not only do they have an awkward two click firing process, but the current animation scripts are killing attempts to queue activated effects like Leg Shot. The reload portion is also not affected by ranged alacrity.

We ripped apart the system and re-implemented the animation scripts for firing crossbows. When this hits Lamannia you will see that crossbows now fire and reload all in one action, somewhat like bows. Each click fires one bolt and reloads for normal crossbows, and fires three bolts and reloads for repeaters. Ranged alacrity now speeds up the entire animation; shooting and reloading. Activated attacks like Leg Shot now queue properly and aren't simply lost as the ability goes on cooldown. And yes Endless Fusilade still works. That took a lot of time to fit into the new system.

What does this mean?

Crossbows of all types got a DPS boost because the feats and abilities that currently boost ranged alacrity now work correctly on the whole animation and the number of bolts fired is higher. This also means that repeaters can use Leg Shot reliably and since all three shots from that volley get the increased damage it is very effective.

All this means that Mechanics that use repeaters on our internal builds are too good and we will have to do another pass on it to tone it down.

We are essentially starting our balancing tests from scratch and we will be very interested in Lamannia feedback.

<Snip changes since it will probably be better to post them all at once after our testing.>

~ As an aside, Artificers that use crossbows will see an increased rate of fire.

As I said, I apologize for the late changes but our fixes to crossbow animations are requiring us to essentially start balancing the tree from scratch.

Sev~

Kudos. This will make repeater builds much less frustrating to play.

[bbqzor]

We ripped apart the system and re-implemented the animation scripts for firing crossbows. When this hits Lamannia you will see that crossbows now fire and reload all in one action, somewhat like bows. Each click fires one bolt and reloads for normal crossbows, and fires three bolts and reloads for repeaters. Ranged alacrity now speeds up the entire animation; shooting and reloading. Activated attacks like Leg Shot now queue properly and aren't simply lost as the ability goes on cooldown. And yes Endless Fusilade still works. That took a lot of time to fit into the new system.

/shocked

What does this mean? ... We are essentially starting our balancing tests from scratch and we will be very interested in Lamannia feedback.

Well, likewise it would be impossible for us to give you feedback without seeing Lama. What WILL help is getting Rate Of Fire (RoF) information from you.

Yes, I said it. You give us information.

Without that there is literally ZERO way we can know what we should be seeing. Look, there just no way to replicate years of play and animation testing in the time frame youre looking at otherwise. We need to know what we should be seeing.

I can (and will, time permitting) go parse rate of fire info on lama. But all that will do is tell me what it is. I need to know what you think it should be as well. Thats the only way to look for under or over performing. I mean you flat out said, its better, so comparing it to the old values is just going to show "more better". Help us help you. Give us some foundations to work on here. Are you expecting 90 shots/min? 120? Something close to melee speed? No more than double what it used to be? Etc.

Needless to say, I am excited, but I also fear that without knowing what ballpark you are aiming for, feedback will just turn into a foul ball. Thanks.

As an aside, Artificers that use crossbows will see an increased rate of fire.

Well, artificers using a crossbow are pretty behind the times dps wise. I cant say this is a bad thing, in spirit (unless the new animations are like 5000/min or something, obviously).

I apologize for the late changes but our fixes to crossbow animations are requiring us to essentially start balancing the tree from scratch.

No see, if there is anything you should not apologize over, its fixing broken and cumbersome animation garbage that shouldve been taken out ages ago when the melee animations were split from the combat log. It is fantastic to see this finally addressed. Dont apologize at all.

Doubleshot is divided by 3 for repeaters to compensate. This is on live

But this I have issue with. It all goes back to rate of fire, not fires per mouse click. If a regular crossbow shoots 60 times a minute, and has 10% doubleshot, it gets 66 shots on average. If a repeater gets 1/3rd the doubleshot just because it shoots 3 bolts per click, it would have to shoot 180 bolts a minute to get an equal return on its doubleshot (10% yielding 6 extra bolts per minute).

Now I dont know what the new animations are, obviously, but look. Unless they are throwing 3x the bolts per minute down range, the doubleshot penalty is not an equalizer. Its a nerf. Doubleshot should not relate to "applications per mouse click". It should relate as "extra attacks per unit time". And thats the variable to balance it around. Otherwise, its just nerfed for repeaters, and is one of the major reasons that repeaters do not hold up much in epic.

Maybe now repeaters fire exactly the same speed as crossbows but deliver 3x the bolts, so 1/3rd doubleshot is perfectly balanced. I dont know. But while you are in there redoing the system to make it awesome-sauce, I dont want to see this aberration of logic grandfathered in. It was bad math when it went live, and its still bad math, unless the new RoF makes it good math. So again, we need to know the RoF information.. but Im assuming you guys have that in house. And even if you dont tell us (which, as I mention above I think you should) you can look at this for yourself.

PLEASE make sure someone carefully looks at the returns over time for Doubleshot. That is a far more important metric to meet than trying to make sure "Legshot" or whatever doesnt fire off an extra time. The longer the game goes on, and the higher we get as level caps advance etc, the more important simply getting more base attacks is. We are already passing the point where one swing with a 5W weapon nearly eclipses any maneuver hotkey we could use. Doubleshot is rare leveling up, so I hope there is significant focus on ensuring parity for this higher level modifier between different options in the epic game. Having something where like a melee guy with 10% doublestrike gets 10 more swings, but a repeater guy needs 30% doubleshot to get the same 10 extra bolts is the sort of thing which creates the huge gulfs in balance between the two. Thanks.

[Nascoe]

I am behind on this thread and will be catching up in the next couple of days. We want to go through all the feedback, but I wanted to update you on what we've been working on.

We all know that crossbows in general are just clunky to use. We became increasingly dissatisfied with a Mechanic pass that used crossbows. Not only do they have an awkward two click firing process, but the current animation scripts are killing attempts to queue activated effects like Leg Shot. The reload portion is also not affected by ranged alacrity.

We ripped apart the system and re-implemented the animation scripts for firing crossbows. When this hits Lamannia you will see that crossbows now fire and reload all in one action, somewhat like bows. Each click fires one bolt and reloads for normal crossbows, and fires three bolts and reloads for repeaters. Ranged alacrity now speeds up the entire animation; shooting and reloading. Activated attacks like Leg Shot now queue properly and aren't simply lost as the ability goes on cooldown. And yes Endless Fusilade still works. That took a lot of time to fit into the new system.

What does this mean?

Crossbows of all types got a DPS boost because the feats and abilities that currently boost ranged alacrity now work correctly on the whole animation and the number of bolts fired is higher. This also means that repeaters can use Leg Shot reliably and since all three shots from that volley get the increased damage it is very effective.

All this means that Mechanics that use repeaters on our internal builds are too good and we will have to do another pass on it to tone it down.

We are essentially starting our balancing tests from scratch and we will be very interested in Lamannia feedback.

<Snip changes since it will probably be better to post them all at once after our testing.>

~ As an aside, Artificers that use crossbows will see an increased rate of fire.

As I said, I apologize for the late changes but our fixes to crossbow animations are requiring us to essentially start balancing the tree from scratch.

Sev~

Thank you for getting on this. I have liked the flavour of my rogues, clerics and even wizards having simple crossbows as backup ranged weapon (when spells run out or melee is not a good option) and found that most often apart from the first shot a crossbow (apart from a repeater) is just not worth it (its true that in real life middle ages crossbows were a bit like that too, but in game its not much use having a not working weapon type). This might get some of them to actually hang on to that spellpen / magnetic ones they sometimes get :-).

I really started digging the feel of having a great crossbow for a big shot on my mechanic (well and one paladin) - still using that one named great crossbow from Korthos by the way, even well into his life. Its just so annoying to lose special actions from the reload and get stuck on that with an enemy in your face.

I do not mind if the mechanic tree now arrives to live only as the first patch, this is a really big change and it has the potential to give me a good reason to revisit alts and play them through with a newly more usefull weapon. Great news IMO.

[nayozz]

"All this means that Mechanics that use repeaters on our internal builds are too good and we will have to do another pass on it to tone it down."

nuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu !


just boost great crossbow instead :-)

[silisav]

As I said, I apologize for the late changes but our fixes to crossbow animations are requiring us to essentially start balancing the tree from scratch.

Sev~

Thumbs up for the great work and love for the game you are showing.

[Blackheartox]

I am behind on this thread and will be catching up in the next couple of days. We want to go through all the feedback, but I wanted to update you on what we've been working on.

We all know that crossbows in general are just clunky to use. We became increasingly dissatisfied with a Mechanic pass that used crossbows. Not only do they have an awkward two click firing process, but the current animation scripts are killing attempts to queue activated effects like Leg Shot. The reload portion is also not affected by ranged alacrity.

We ripped apart the system and re-implemented the animation scripts for firing crossbows. When this hits Lamannia you will see that crossbows now fire and reload all in one action, somewhat like bows. Each click fires one bolt and reloads for normal crossbows, and fires three bolts and reloads for repeaters. Ranged alacrity now speeds up the entire animation; shooting and reloading. Activated attacks like Leg Shot now queue properly and aren't simply lost as the ability goes on cooldown. And yes Endless Fusilade still works. That took a lot of time to fit into the new system.

What does this mean?

Crossbows of all types got a DPS boost because the feats and abilities that currently boost ranged alacrity now work correctly on the whole animation and the number of bolts fired is higher. This also means that repeaters can use Leg Shot reliably and since all three shots from that volley get the increased damage it is very effective.

All this means that Mechanics that use repeaters on our internal builds are too good and we will have to do another pass on it to tone it down.

We are essentially starting our balancing tests from scratch and we will be very interested in Lamannia feedback.

<Snip changes since it will probably be better to post them all at once after our testing.>

~ As an aside, Artificers that use crossbows will see an increased rate of fire.

As I said, I apologize for the late changes but our fixes to crossbow animations are requiring us to essentially start balancing the tree from scratch.

Sev~

Sev, with this you just made repeteater builds the best ranged dps.
You basically made all builds that use a repeteater and slaying shot able to "overperform"

I dont even need to test on lama to say this will happen as i wrote here.
Maybe limit slaying shot to 2 bolts?
Since this way you are allowing repeteater builds to fire 4/6 bolts with slaying shot salvo, that is imo pretty game breaking considering we think that a furyshot is op..