Fix Fear Reapers

[LrdSlvrhnd]

And I suspect that the three persons I quoted below would be right there with me complaining about the lack of content.

Well, you're wrong in at least one case. I've advocated for at least one update cycle a year that's nothing *but* bug/QoL fixes in the past, and I'd cheerfully vote for such an idea in the future.

Also, I never said a complete overhaul of Reaper Mode or even Reapers in general... just the Fear Reaper. Which wouldn't necessarily require an entire update for, anymore than any of the other changes and fixes they do with any given update do.

This part isn't true, by the way... The tick is perfectly timed that if you open a door right after a tick, you'll have enough time before the next tick.

Maybe it's perfectly timed that if YOU open a door right after a tick, YOU have enough time; my reflexes and connection (and luck) generally aren't such. Same with howler quills, DP, and other dots, but those at least go away rather than increasing.

[Wakisaka]

I keep reading about fixing fear reapers but that really isn't the core issue. The core issue I see is mobs aggroing on players when they shouldn't.
I would rather just see that very small subset of dungeons* (which also are a problem even in other difficulty settings) get corrected.
Fear reapers are just fine the way they are and should be capable of long range murder if you noisily run past a room or over top them**.

*i.e. Thrill of the Hunt expand the corridor moving the cages further out to the side or better yet move the cages to the
back of the room where you don't get instant red alert aggro.

** If you crack the floor above and make a fear reaper mad at you in Wiz-king you better drop down and kill it.

[Niminae]

1) Reaper mobs =\= Reaper difficulty. Fear Reaper redesign =\= Reaper difficulty redesign. I know what I say. Do you?
2) What? 18 quests what?
3) Yes, assumptions. My favorites.
4) Ok? One quest is still content, contrary to the no content you claim and assume/tried to predict?

Tell me more.

Ok, I'll tell you more.

1) Please decide what you're trying to say, and then stick by it. If you can say that you want "redesigns, either small or big one" and then wiggle around however you like when the specifics are discussed, then you really don't have a position. Let's start with the statement of someone who appears to be on your side: Do you want three months of dev time spent changing how Fear reapers work at the cost of those three months being spent on developing new content, or don't you? A simple 'yes' or 'no' will suffice.
2) I tried carefully to describe examples. Perhaps I missed a case where I made this clear to you. I didn't mean to make it easy for you to change the subject, and that was wrong of me. I am so sorry.
3) Again, not assumptions. A really easy prediction based upon past behavior.
4) And now we're going to argue whether one quest or zero quests is enough content to satisfy the player base in an update? Please, give it up. Argue your point, don't try to nit pick my posts in some sideways manner that is not relevant in the slightest. That does not make your case in any way.

Cordovan made a statement a while back about how they could see revenues drop off when new content releases dropped off, and that was why they would never do a "bug pass" or anything similar for fixing old issues instead of releasing new content. He stated that to do so would be the end of the game.

I am not going to try to find it and quote it. You can believe me or not, I do not care. That was the gist of his statement. I choose to take it at face value. You are free to choose otherwise.

[Wizza]

Ok, I'll tell you more.

1) Please decide what you're trying to say, and then stick by it. If you can say that you want "redesigns, either small or big one" and then wiggle around however you like when the specifics are discussed, then you really don't have a position. Let's start with the statement of someone who appears to be on your side: Do you want three months of dev time spent changing how Fear reapers work at the cost of those three months being spent on developing new content, or don't you? A simple 'yes' or 'no' will suffice.
2) I tried carefully to describe examples. Perhaps I missed a case where I made this clear to you. I didn't mean to make it easy for you to change the subject, and that was wrong of me. I am so sorry.
3) Again, not assumptions. A really easy prediction based upon past behavior.
4) And now we're going to argue whether one quest or zero quests is enough content to satisfy the player base in an update? Please, give it up. Argue your point, don't try to nit pick my posts in some sideways manner that is not relevant in the slightest. That does not make your case in any way.

Cordovan made a statement a while back about how they could see revenues drop off when new content releases dropped off, and that was why they would never do a "bug pass" or anything similar for fixing old issues instead of releasing new content. He stated that to do so would be the end of the game.

I am not going to try to find it and quote it. You can believe me or not, I do not care. That was the gist of his statement. I choose to take it at face value. You are free to choose otherwise.

1) Fixing Fear Reaper =\= not putting out content. It's an idea you created in your own mind, and try to use it as your argument.
2) I have no idea what you are talking about.

My 2) was

Nothing says that they won't create new content with the fix to a broken mechanic. Have a quote or are you pulling it from the magic hat that you, and only you, have?

Which is linked to 1. You, and only you, believe that because they will fix or redesign a single mob/mechanic, they won't put out content for the next update (which was then changed from no content to one quest, conveniently).
3) Cool story.
4) Who is talking about player base? You quoted 3 of us, I replied to that speaking for myself. And, again, we already know that Stonelands will have content, it's not up to debate. See 1)

Never talked about a bug pass, merely about 1 bug fixed, as per the title and OP.

Not bothering after this. Your post is full of "predictions" and assumptions. Have fun!

[Wizza]

Teleporting to the person is indeed a solution, but it makes fear reapers pretty trivial then.

I don't like that suggestion if we can avoid it.

Agreed.

If we can avoid it, I'd rather something else. If we can't avoid it, then I don't care as long as it gets fixed.

[Morroiel]

Seems pretty trivial to me now that I've thought about it for a while:

x1,y1,z1 = position of reaper
x2,y2,z2 = position of player on top of aggro list

Function LOS - there exists a function call somewhere in the code already which disallows spellcast if you don't have LOS of your target (barriers/etc disallow LOS)
Returns True if line of sight between object 1 and object 2 exists
Returns False otherwise

While (aggrolist != empty)
If LOS() = TRUE: object collision = on, velocity = 0, escape loop
ELSE: ignore object collision, set velocity (x2-x1,y2-y1,z2-z1)/T, where T is some time constant.

Minimal nerf (very minimal instances where it could be abused) while fixing the problem.

Thoughts?

[Niminae]

1) Fixing Fear Reaper =\= not putting out content. It's an idea you created in your own mind, and try to use it as your argument.

It's not an invention, it is a simple fact. There are so many devs, and so many working hours. Any hour spent on one thing is an hour not spent on another thing. This should not be a hard concept for you to understand. When you slice the pie up and take a piece, the whole pie does not remain.

(which was then changed from no content to one quest, conveniently).

You continue to struggle with simple concepts such as examples. Combined with your struggle to understand how spending time on one project necessarily pulls time away from other projects, and it is clear that any further discussion with you is not going to be productive, because I do not have the time to provide you with the background education you would need to discuss the topic correctly.

[Rekia]

Ugh. I just had a full party wipe in The Crucible due to an unreachable fear reaper.

Please if any devs read this, can we please just disable fear reapers until they are fixed? Having the entire party die most of the way through a long quest like the crucible and then have to walk back through an explorer area to start all over again really drains the fun out of the game.

I like fighting fear reapers and trying to find them when they work correctly, I don't like situations where you have no chance to win at all.

[Wizza]

Ugh. I just had a full party wipe in The Crucible due to an unreachable fear reaper.

Please if any devs read this, can we please just disable fear reapers until they are fixed? Having the entire party die most of the way through a long quest like the crucible and then have to walk back through an explorer area to start all over again really drains the fun out of the game.

I like fighting fear reapers and trying to find them when they work correctly, I don't like situations where you have no chance to win at all.

Where was the Reaper in that quest?

[Rekia]

Where was the Reaper in that quest?

We didn't find it in time. We spread out to look for it. I thought it would be above the maze for sure, but it wasn't, and it wasn't in the maze as far as I could tell either. It would have been nice to at least know where it aggro'd from so that we could try to avoid that in the future if possible.

Oh yeah that reminds me, I didn't see anyone mention this one yet, but we had a fear reaper aggro in Ritual Sacrifice in the room with the portal where you have to save that guy. It was up top but it was too far back for anyone to hit it. We could run back out of that room and eventually get out of the DoT, but we needed to be in that room to continue the quest...

[Powerhungry]

reapers can be charmed.
if a fear reaper is charmed will its full dungeon DoT kill all the mobs?
I don't have a toon that can charm like that - anyone else try it?

[PsychoBlonde]

Ugh. I just had a full party wipe in The Crucible due to an unreachable fear reaper.

Please if any devs read this, can we please just disable fear reapers until they are fixed? Having the entire party die most of the way through a long quest like the crucible and then have to walk back through an explorer area to start all over again really drains the fun out of the game.

I like fighting fear reapers and trying to find them when they work correctly, I don't like situations where you have no chance to win at all.

I'm not criticizing, but I've had this happen before--it's recoverable if you wait a while and then someone does a Jibbers or a Cake because after everyone's been dead for a bit the fear reaper will go inactive. This gives you some time to rez, heal up, and then find where the dang thing is and kill it.

Is this perfect? No. But Reaper difficulty isn't designed to be "fair" or even "fun" necessarily. If you don't want the game trolling you a bit, play on elite and sail to victory without worrying about catastrophic TPK's.

[Wizza]

reapers can be charmed.
if a fear reaper is charmed will its full dungeon DoT kill all the mobs?
I don't have a toon that can charm like that - anyone else try it?

No, it won't.

But Reaper difficulty isn't designed to be "fair" or even "fun" necessarily.

Lolz

[Faltout]

We didn't find it in time. We spread out to look for it. I thought it would be above the maze for sure, but it wasn't, and it wasn't in the maze as far as I could tell either. It would have been nice to at least know where it aggro'd from so that we could try to avoid that in the future if possible.

Underwater?

[Wizza]

Underwater?

Doubtful. Mobs whitedot once Underwater, including Reapers. That one could be bugged underwater though, you never know on DDO. I had a Fear Reaper spawn somewhere in End of the Road as well, couldn't find it either.

[Severlin]

We are working on a fix and we are in the testing phase. In a future patch a Fear Reaper won't start yelling, even if it becomes active, until it sees a player. In other words, it has to have line of sight to a player before it begins its party damage ability.

Once it has seen a player however - has been active and established line of sight to even one player - its scream will damage everyone regardless of where they are, even if they later break line of sight, like it does on live.

Sev~

[Wizza]

We are working on a fix and we are in the testing phase. In a future patch a Fear Reaper won't start yelling, even if it becomes active, until it sees a player. In other words, it has to have line of sight to a player before it begins its party damage ability.

Once it has seen a player however - has been active and established line of sight to even one player - its scream will damage everyone regardless of where they are, even if they later break line of sight, like it does on live.

Sev~

Thanks for looking into this and for the update. If that works correctly, it should be much better.

[CSQ]

We are working on a fix and we are in the testing phase. In a future patch a Fear Reaper won't start yelling, even if it becomes active, until it sees a player. In other words, it has to have line of sight to a player before it begins its party damage ability.

Once it has seen a player however - has been active and established line of sight to even one player - its scream will damage everyone regardless of where they are, even if they later break line of sight, like it does on live.

Sev~

Perfect! In theory, at least. Hopefully it will work as intended and all of this will be behind us forever. Forever. Yes.

[Vish]

We are working on a fix and we are in the testing phase. In a future patch a Fear Reaper won't start yelling, even if it becomes active, until it sees a player. In other words, it has to have line of sight to a player before it begins its party damage ability.

Once it has seen a player however - has been active and established line of sight to even one player - its scream will damage everyone regardless of where they are, even if they later break line of sight, like it does on live.

Sev~

Thx sev,
Can we have tangleroot reaper now?

[YUTANG75]

We are working on a fix and we are in the testing phase. In a future patch a Fear Reaper won't start yelling, even if it becomes active, until it sees a player. In other words, it has to have line of sight to a player before it begins its party damage ability.

Once it has seen a player however - has been active and established line of sight to even one player - its scream will damage everyone regardless of where they are, even if they later break line of sight, like it does on live.

Sev~

Sounds good. I like the sound of that. The only problem will be doors and walls which mobs can somehow see through (Ie most hidden doors).