DEV acknowledgment requested please. shiv/bluff not WAI

[katz]

this post is just to get some attention to a new issue that arose with the agro/bluff changes in U33.2. i have just bug reported this issue (Bug #24027-127889) and would appreciate "seen by a dev" if possible.

issue one: shiv is not working at all on red named bosses. per the description of shiv: "Melee Attack: +1/+2/+3[W] damage. On hit: Makes a Bluff check, using your Bluff skill, for one second + .25 seconds per Rogue level. On Sneak Attack: Target also gains a -2 Fortitude Save against Poisons for 20 seconds. (Stacks 5 times.) (Cooldown: 12 seconds)Passive: Reduces the threat of all your attacks by 5/10/15%" and per the patch notes regarding bluff: Bluff and Deception will no longer cause bosses to turn around. ... .Red-named bosses are still affected by sneak attack damage vulnerability.

i used nothing but shiv attacks on Bash in Blockade Buster on elite until i killed him, and never got a roll for it, never saw a debuff appear in his examination box or in the combat log.



this screenshot was taken right after an attempted shiv. the only things applied in this attack were vulnerability (thunderforged short sword in main hand) and poison (Sting of the Ninja).

I used Bash because i wanted to make sure it was possible to actually bluff my target before i attempted to test... and that revealed another potential problem. the needed DC to successfully bluff a target seems abnormally high. I did not build my rogue for bluff this life, so his skill was comparatively low. the first mob i attempted to use was the first random boss in Von3 on epic casual (CR22 drow).(i lucked out and he spawned every time i tested against him, as i tested various difficulties). a natural 20 roll with a 42 bluff skill did not succeed at bluffing him. low 40s is sufficient to stunning fist or assassinate at least some of the time in same quest on epic normal and even epic hard. low 50s is enough to disable the traps on epic hard. it seems not WAI that bluff is not working... at least some of the time. i WAS successfully able to bluff Bash on elite... but even then it was a struggle. a roll of 9 +47 skill failed (CR 23 ogre, 15th level quest on elite)


this does not seem to be WAI. hopefully a dev can weigh in and say "oh, we didn't notice that, thanks!" or "yes, sorry. that's WAI"

thank you for your time.

[Mr_Helmet]

To add to the pile, Deepwood's exposing strike doesn't work anymore in that regard as well.

Was the deception change supposed to only affect passive items or active abilities as well?

[katz]

deception is still supposed to grant sneak attack to all mobs, boss or not. it just doesn't turn them around anymore.

blagh. don't make me redo all the enhancements on my ranger to test that too >.>

[Mr_Helmet]

deception is still supposed to grant sneak attack to all mobs, boss or not. it just doesn't turn them around anymore.

blagh. don't make me redo all the enhancements on my ranger to test that too >.>

We get the sneak attack, just don't get bosses to turn.

[katz]

then that would be WAI, per the release notes.

"Bluff and Deception will no longer cause bosses to turn around. This also corrects an issue where ranged enemies would stop attacking after being bluffed or affected by Deception, and improves the enemy combat experience. Red-named bosses are still affected by sneak attack damage vulnerability."

[blerkington]

If we do get a response, I'd like to hear more on the following topics

* What is the formula currently being used to calculate bluff requirements?
* Can you give us some examples of how to build and gear for a high success rate at level in elite quests?
* Why are the skill requirements now so much higher for bluff than for stealth, opening locks, trapping skills, even instakills, given the minimal return?
* Why are the penalties for failing a bluff by even one point so severe? What is the difference between a failure and a critical failure?
* Do you think bluff will be used more or less widely with the recent changes? If more widely, then why?

Thanks.

[katz]

it's been a week. bumping for visibility.

[Enoach]

If we do get a response, I'd like to hear more on the following topics

* What is the formula currently being used to calculate bluff requirements?
* Can you give us some examples of how to build and gear for a high success rate at level in elite quests?
* Why are the skill requirements now so much higher for bluff than for stealth, opening locks, trapping skills, even instakills, given the minimal return?
* Why are the penalties for failing a bluff by even one point so severe? What is the difference between a failure and a critical failure?
* Do you think bluff will be used more or less widely with the recent changes? If more widely, then why?

Thanks.

Found in another Thread...

Pulled from below
The formula for bluff resistant is the creatures level + (1 * quest level). Hard multiplies this # by 1.25, and elite 1.5.

Now I'm not sure if by creature level Torc is referring to CR (Challenge Rating) or HD (Hit Dice). Now I have not finished my testing but what I can say is that I was having trouble bluffing with a 93 bluff in a level 21 Quest on Elite. But now that I'm armed with the above formula I can use it as part of my analysis to make sure this isn't just my observation bias.

0> That is the plan. There is still a bit to do here and we'll actively be making changes until we feel both systems are working well.

1> So I was hoping to get feedback on bluff difficulty. I can easily believe bluff resistant may be a little to aggressive, but we are trying account for itemization and encourage players to many throw a few enhancement points bluffs way. Madness... I know... given this has been free beer for so long. The formula for bluff resistant is the creatures level + (1 * quest level). Hard multiplies this # by 1.25, and elite 1.5. This may seem a bit much but our thinking is currently that "solo pulling" is a pretty powerful ability so we're trying to calibrate how much of a commitment a player needs to give to do it reliably.

2> All the stuff that exposed creatures to sneak attack damage should still work the same. If that's not the case please post or pm me an example of it failing to do so and we'll try to get it fixed ASAP.

3> Rogue traps haven't been touched in to long. /agreed. Can't give you a time frame on this yet, to busy with stealth/aggro stuff plus reaper and unannounced "stuff", but it's on my list.

4> We are currently testing monsters ignoring aggro share if their friend was "quick" killed by a stealth-ed player while their not facing them. It's looking good so far.

5> So I'd love some more details here. Is this dungeon alert you have an issue with or monster perception in general even when no alert is present? The issue I've currently been investigating is outside the dungeon alert system, and it seems that sometimes monsters looking for me while I'm stealth-ed will sometimes get a position update on me that seems....illogically accurate. Seems to happen more often if I actually move far away to which is counter intuitive as well. I'll figure it out eventually but if you know a location that this happens 100% let me know.

6> Assassinate was original designed for unaggro'd monsters. Still, looking at this from two situations....

A> Using assassinate in active combat with my party: Might be a big power boost? Shrug. Assassinate was originally meant to be a reward for sneaking up on a monster clean. Using it as a general combat skill is worth looking at but would have to be reviewed in the general combat dps track, so it's a bit muddier. Still worth a look.

B> Monsters are hunting me in stealth but aren't actively on me (red eye) or anyone else: This might be more what your hoping to see addressed and effects solo stealth play more. I think part of the problem is the bug, finger of god thing mentioned above?

Some General Comments:

-The aggro assist radius will be shrinking soon to cut down on some "interesting" monster chain reactions. Other steps may be taken, we'll see how it goes.

-We will be taking a look at stealth character game play and trying to find a balance. This will take time (sorry), but it's a complex system, and globally effects content. This will probably take a few iterations to nail it down over several patches, but we intent to steadily punch away at it. I hope to get the "clean kills on monsters if their friends not looking" in pretty soon. We got a lot more know how back on the team since the new company, so expect things to change, even if little by little.

- Please post feedback on bluff difficulty, what's you think a fair bluff score vs target is... hows the duration, etc.

-Torc

Bluff difficulty does not increase with each attempt. The wiki appears to be incorrect. I couldn't find evidence of it working this way for a long time either, though it's possible it may of many years back.

Character skills that have bluff like effects do not solo pull currently. Ranger distracting shot, etc, feature the sneak attack vul and turn around distract elements, but the solo pull is exclusive to the skill proper. These enhancement skills don't overtly say they allow for solo pulling but do refer to themselves as "bluff" effects which is naturally confusing. We'll likely touch up their text soon.

[Torc]

1. So the current tool tip doesn't actually say anything about a bluff skill roll anymore. This was changed a year ago when shiv was reworked. The bluff applies automatically and shouldn't interact with monster difficulty settings.

- There is no saving throw or skill check The description posted above appears to be from the wiki and is out of date. In general most of these skills with bluff added on the side appear to not do skill rolls.

2. It looks like when this was reworked the bluff effect was flagged to stop working on bosses (oddly enough this didn't include raid bosses!). So shiv's bluff hasn't worked on red name bosses for like a year, but it has worked on purple/raid bosses. This was likely intentional at the time because bluff's turn around mechanic caused so many misc AI bugs, and it still working on raid bosses was an oversight.

3. Side Note: That poison debuff on it only procs if you sneak attack with the shiv itself... which I find kinda weird... might look at making that more useful. Hrmmm. Text description doesn't say anything about that either. *sigh*

The up shot is because we've removed the turn around element on red names it's safe and easy to fix shiv's bluff to effect bosses again for sneak attack purposes. This will be fixed for the next update. Thank you for bringing it to our attention and I'm sorry Bash's demise didn't happen as promptly, as it should.

-T

[Sam-u-r-eye]

1. So the current tool tip doesn't actually say anything about a bluff skill anymore. This was changed a year ago when shiv was reworked. The bluff applies automatically and shouldn't interact with monster difficulty settings.

- There is no saving throw or skill check The description posted above appears to be from the wiki and is out of date. In general most of these skills with bluff added on the side appear to not do skill rolls.

2. It looks like when this was reworked the bluff effect was flagged to stop working on bosses (oddly enough this didn't include raid bosses!). So shiv's bluff hasn't worked on red name bosses for like a year, but it has worked on purple/raid bosses. This was likely intentional at the time because bluff's turn around mechanic caused so many misc AI bugs, and it still working on raid bosses was an oversight.

3. Side Note: That poison debuff on it only procs if you sneak attack with the shiv itself... which I find kinda weird... might look at making that more useful. Hrmmm. Text description doesn't say anything about that either. *sigh*

The up shot is because we've removed the turn around element on red names it's safe and easy to fix shiv's bluff to effect bosses again for sneak attack purposes. This will be fixed for the next update. Thank you for bringing it to our attention and I'm sorry Bash's demise didn't happen as promptly, as it should.

-T

+1 and cheers

[Saekee]

1. So the current tool tip doesn't actually say anything about a bluff skill roll anymore. This was changed a year ago when shiv was reworked. The bluff applies automatically and shouldn't interact with monster difficulty settings.

- There is no saving throw or skill check The description posted above appears to be from the wiki and is out of date. In general most of these skills with bluff added on the side appear to not do skill rolls.

2. It looks like when this was reworked the bluff effect was flagged to stop working on bosses (oddly enough this didn't include raid bosses!). So shiv's bluff hasn't worked on red name bosses for like a year, but it has worked on purple/raid bosses. This was likely intentional at the time because bluff's turn around mechanic caused so many misc AI bugs, and it still working on raid bosses was an oversight.

3. Side Note: That poison debuff on it only procs if you sneak attack with the shiv itself... which I find kinda weird... might look at making that more useful. Hrmmm. Text description doesn't say anything about that either. *sigh*

The up shot is because we've removed the turn around element on red names it's safe and easy to fix shiv's bluff to effect bosses again for sneak attack purposes. This will be fixed for the next update. Thank you for bringing it to our attention and I'm sorry Bash's demise didn't happen as promptly, as it should.

-T

Whoa! Thanks!

[blerkington]

Found in another Thread...

It's a good start but it doesn't answer all of my questions.

I think they still have some tinkering to do here unless the goal is to make the skill useless for most builds that currently employ it, in harder difficulties anyway.

Thanks.