Hey Lynnabel - please fix!

[cdbd3rd]

Hi Lynn,

Speaking of Ravenloft this is something that has bugged me for quite some time now and this is me being a total weeb roleplayer...

Can you start changing

"Close Window" to "Goodbye! (close window)" Or "Thank you! (close window)" or other roleplayish nonsense in NPC dialog?

For example:



I don't expect you guys to go back and change all old instances of this in the game. But going forward can you guys make it your mantra for that last line to read something like, "It was my pleasure to take care of those scum, sorry for the mess Captain! (close window)"

Lol. I hadn't paid that much attention to that, but now that you've mentioned it...

[RydeaNikkna]

Seem to recall it was mentioned by another Dev, so known issue, but I believe Mobs currently aggro the furthers target in range when they are aggroed, instead of the mob that aggroes them, this can result in mobs running past the person attacking them for someone doing absolutely nothing.

Also you can no longer break aggro with stealth. It used to be that if you broke line of sight and went into sneak mode, the mobs would go into search mode (they used to come around the corner with red ? over their head) and actually have to find you again (presumably via a search/listen vs your hide/move silent skills.) It seems mobs have forgotten search mode; they and any other mob they see know precisely where you are. Same goes for a ranged attack that you move out of sight, mobs no longer search, they just come directly to you (or past you to other party members)

It is not that these make the game unplayable, they just nerf a couple playstyles out of existence. But this isn't the first nor last nail in the stealth coffin, the kill-all-mobs-to-open-the-way quest mechanic was a large nail too. Maybe these are anti-zerg measures that just waffle-stomp stealth too. I don't know, but right now DPS is king, skills are less in demand.

[ComicRelief]

What specifically is wrong with aggro as it stands?

Well, for one thing, when they 'fixed' the mechanic where if you range-plink one mob, all in a given radius come running after you, not just the one mob, that I've seen a cascading effect with that. Meaning, if I range-plink the closest mob to me, and everyone in a 30-ft radius of he/she/it instantly know where I am and the mob which is farthest from me manages to trigger additional mobs that are within a 30-ft radius of *he/she/it* and not the original hit mob (which is out-of-range of the additional mobs), which may trigger yet a 3rd event, etc.

Trouble is, this seems to be an intermittent issue, as it doesn't happen all of the time. How do I know it happened? Usually by a short delay from when the last 'original group mob' shows up and the first of another wave (seeing as how they have to run farther). One place I've seen it happen is "A Cry for Help" which has a couple of really long (longer than 30-ft), twisty corridors. I'm at the door, I shoot and kill what appears to be the only couple of mobs in the corridor, and then after a short delay, here comes a couple more running around the corner; I kill them, short delay, more mobs coming around the corner.

{I also maintain that a regular bluff-failure should not instantly trigger (group) aggro. Critical fail? Fine. Regular fail? No. It has ruined the bluff-pull.}

[Lynnabel]

Well, for one thing, when they 'fixed' the mechanic where if you range-plink one mob, all in a given radius come running after you, not just the one mob, that I've seen a cascading effect with that.

I've seen quite a few people here and elsewhere talking about this. That specific change was actually a reversion to our previous shared aggro system. It is working as intended that you can no longer pull mobs by simply standing outside of their aggro range and hitting them one at a time. Monsters thematically will absolutely notice that you are shooting their friend with arrows :P

It is not that these make the game unplayable, they just nerf a couple playstyles out of existence.

My last life was a pure assassin rogue and I had no trouble at all working either solo or in a group. I had some rough spots before 12 and Assassinate (Execute is so great O_O) but after 12 and up through 30 it was quite fun and rewarding. I did put points into both hide and move silently, though, so your mileage may vary if you neglect one or the other.

[nokowi]

My last life was a pure assassin rogue and I had no trouble at all working either solo or in a group. I had some rough spots before 12 and Assassinate (Execute is so great O_O) but after 12 and up through 30 it was quite fun and rewarding. I did put points into both hide and move silently, though, so your mileage may vary if you neglect one or the other.

hahahahaha!

20 players can fill thread after thread with what is specifically wrong, but evidently that makes no difference.

Assassin is now purely for those that don't understand agro - a really sad state of affairs.

FYI - I did about 80 assassin lives.

[guzzlr]

In our duo we repeatedly (always) see the mobs blow by the first person to aggro them and charge whoever is farthest away. This may be a cat, a hireling, the other half of the duo, or some mosquito on the wall. We have even watched mobs run all the way back to the beginning of quests to hit a hireling waiting on standby. Then ensues a silly case of mob beat healer hireling while said healer hireling stands there until dead.

It is really frustrating to be the intimitank watching the icon flash over the heads of mobs only to have them rush over to people a hundred miles away.

[Lynnabel]

but evidently that makes no difference.

Why do you say that? Feedback of all kinds is important to us, we're working hard to make DDO the best it can be.

[mpetrarca]

I would really like to see a search feature in Augment Bags just like Collectables Bags, Ingredients Bags, Gem Bags and even Tapestry Pouches! I myself have a Colossal Augment Bag and it is quite a chore to find anything in it. In fact, at times I wish I could get a refund.

[PermaBanned]

What specifically is wrong with aggro as it stands?

Why do you say that? Feedback of all kinds is important to us, we're working hard to make DDO the best it can be.

Not sure if all y'all have better forum search tools than we do, but if do and/or check Nok's posting history you'll find many threads & discussions about agro, stealth and how the two {don't?} work together.

Stealth play isn't generally my thing, so I follow these far more than I participate in them. Even though I don't have personal experience with the current (alleged?) issues, as just a forum "lurker" on the subject I'm well aware that folks like Nokowi who do play Stealth/Assassin have cited & exampled (via screen shots, vids etc) numorous problems. Not sure what if any of them would be under your umbrella, but the info is out there and easily accessible.

FYI;

I've seen quite a few people here and elsewhere talking about this. That specific change was actually a reversion to our previous shared aggro system. It is working as intended that you can no longer pull mobs by simply standing outside of their aggro range and hitting them one at a time. Monsters thematically will absolutely notice that you are shooting their friend with arrows :P

I'm totally with ya there, but you'll find in those threads that "realism" is a R10 Legendary Elite can o' worms

On a related note, the lack of consensus on just what exactly constitutes "stealth play" (i.e. "Invis + Sprint Boost" vs "Hide & Move Slient" vs ...?) has also been... problematic. I don't want to digress or derail further on that, but if/when you get into agro/stealth threads you'll see what I mean.

[nokowi]

Why do you say that? Feedback of all kinds is important to us, we're working hard to make DDO the best it can be.

Well, its been 7+ months since U33.2 and here you telling us everything is fine, despite very detailed posts to the contrary, and prior dev responses that they would like to look into it if they have time (many months ago).

The assassins that post on the forums are largely letting their toons gather dust - spend a few minutes in the rogue threads if you have doubts.

Some of the confusion is that ranged assassin is still mostly functional (less affected by broken agro mechanics), but melee is completely broken (it's functionally better to not use stealth than to use it).

Actions speak louder than words, and the actions say SSG doesn't care enough to do something about it. The words say "we might get around to it", with no update for months, and the actions say "we simply don't care".

I'd like to have my toon back, even if someone is picking their way through content at 1/10th the pace of everyone else by ranging toons one at a time - it's a totally inefficient play style, and one mostly used by casual players. It's hardly an issue worth breaking entirely unrelated play style over, especially one that is as unique as stealth play.

[Mindos]

Why do you say that? Feedback of all kinds is important to us, we're working hard to make DDO the best it can be.

Years ago, there was a Dev that fixed Agro. He/she did a good job, no one complained. That Dev is gone now. Should be able to find in the older Dev Tracker.

2nd Point: The Agro system went to sheet right after the datacenter move, during the great lag battle. My conspririciry is that CPU cycles for AI/Agroo were turned WAY down.


Lets just say what I want: And I want it consistently, not turned off a patch later, regressed, adjusted, etc.

1. Don't tell us its the way it always was. It isn't. One of us, either the Devs or the customers are wrong. And you know what they say about customers never being wrong?
2. I wanna shoot a projectile NEAR a mob, and have it wake up, and come look for me. I don't want it to ignore it. I don't want EVERY mob on the continent of Khorvaire to come to me either.
2. I want line of sight to work correctly, I should be able to sneak behind without touching a mob. I shouldn't glitch and come out of stealth in the wrong order when assinating, thereby preventing the assinate, etc. (if you dont know what I'm talking about her, then you really should. -reread that line as needed. Envenomend blades doing damage first preventing the kill ring a bell?
3. Spiders/animals telling the entire world where we are. Sure, they have life sense, tremor sense, but they talk to every mob everywhere? They direct like a hound dog? I can see mobs following a spider/dog, not getting mental telepathy from it like an Ohio class submarine radar array.

4. Finally, just give us what we want. Know what we want. Fix it, THEN NEVER CHANGE IT. Seriously, why, just why, has there been ANY changes to the agro system ever? And how many times has it been changed and adjusted? It's rediculous. I don't want a khobold statue to wack on, I don't want a robot that runs into walls, off ledges!

-rant off. Sorry in advance

[zehnvhex]

I imagine she never played a stealth build prior to the agro rework so probably has nothing to compare her experiences to. As assassin works fine now simply because everything works fine now. It doesn't mean it's stealth play like it used to be.

I believe Torc said he wanted to look into fixing stealth/agro when he had the chance but between u36 and Ravenloft it sounds like they don't have much time to work on it. It's a shame because for a brief glorious period in DDO history stealth was really fun and sort of working outside of a few small issues.

[nokowi]

I imagine she never played a stealth build prior to the agro rework so probably has nothing to compare her experiences to. As assassin works fine now simply because everything works fine now. It doesn't mean it's stealth play like it used to be.

It doesn't need to be like it used to be. Everything does not work fine now.

What I can tell you, is that if you play a ranged build, most of the issues can easily be avoided. True seeing mobs share your location with all other mobs, and if you move far enough from that location the mobs simply remain in search mode. On ranged, you are likely moving away from mobs anyway, and may not notice this as a major or even minor problem. If you are melee, you need to approach mobs (not run away), and it prevents you from using your primary ability to assassinate mobs that should not yet have a way of detecting you. It's certainly fine that a true seeing mob moves toward you, attacking and taking you out of stealth, and THEN getting all agro, but this is NOT what currently happens.

The other issue is that the sharing of agro can cause mobs to maintain agro in very strange ways, such as a mob simply getting within X radius of you, and without any reason for that mob to know your location. Again, a minor issue for ranged but a deal breaker for melee. When you combine the first with the second, even ranged builds can suddenly agro mobs for no reason (mob approaches within X distance of player), although this is an infrequent but very annoying occurrence for ranged (unlike melee, where it is much worse).

I believe Torc said he wanted to look into fixing stealth/agro when he had the chance but between u36 and Ravenloft it sounds like they don't have much time to work on it. It's a shame because for a brief glorious period in DDO history stealth was really fun and sort of working outside of a few small issues.

Yet they do have time to prevent casual players from picking off mobs one at a time. A cardinal rule of design is to not break more than you fix.

Players were already gathering all agro with the old mechanic, as it was the optimal/efficient way to play, and it was actually more challenging to tank when individual mobs had a better chance of going to separate players. People say they are using stealth to get agro now - ridiculous.

[Aelonwy]

I encountered a new bug... and I can post some screenshots to prove it if you want to see them. I'm not certain though if the bug is only visual or what, let me explain:

While doing Epic 3BC I took a fresh Major Slayer Boost, a few minutes later my hubby decided he wanted to do a quest so we popped into Epic Prove Your Worth. About a third of the way in the quest (right before pit of spikes) the game froze and I DCed, so I restarted my computer, restarted the game and as soon as I could kept going in the quest. I hit the shrine after the spike pit and noticed that my Major Slayer Boost was counting down in the quest. So I took a few screenshots to capture the icon counting down in the quest and went to make a bug report but the external window for bug reporting either wasn't coming up or it was very delayed. Either way we kept going, I took another screenshot at the end and finished out into the wilderness zone of Epic 3BC where the timer continued to time down from the time it had counted down in the quest (~34 mins) and then recalled to 3BC town area. Turned in the quests and jumped on my guildship.

Now this is where it really gets weird. Once I'm on my ship in the cargo bay selling and repairing I notice that the timer on my Major Slayer Boost is back to where it should have been (56+ mins). So now I'm thinking there was some weird visual bug going on when it looked as if it was timing down in the quest. But its not over yet folks. No we went back out to the wilderness zone and the first time we entered the timer on the slayer boost gave me an additional 20 seconds or so. That is it went from 56 mins and I think 16 seconds to 56 mins and 30+ seconds but then continued to time down as is proper.

I don't get it. That is beyond bizarre and I still am not sure if I can trust that icon. I half want to enter a quest and see if the timer goes down to what it showed in the Epic Prove Your Worth quest (~34 mins) but its late and my kids are going to wake me expecting breakfast. I'll post again tomorrow if it continues to behave strangely but for now this is what I know.

[nokowi]

I encountered a new bug... and I can post some screenshots to prove it if you want to see them. I'm not certain though if the bug is only visual or what, let me explain:

While doing Epic 3BC I took a fresh Major Slayer Boost, a few minutes later my hubby decided he wanted to do a quest so we popped into Epic Prove Your Worth. About a third of the way in the quest (right before pit of spikes) the game froze and I DCed, so I restarted my computer, restarted the game and as soon as I could kept going in the quest. I hit the shrine after the spike pit and noticed that my Major Slayer Boost was counting down in the quest. So I took a few screenshots to capture the icon counting down in the quest and went to make a bug report but the external window for bug reporting either wasn't coming up or it was very delayed. Either way we kept going, I took another screenshot at the end and finished out into the wilderness zone of Epic 3BC where the timer continued to time down from the time it had counted down in the quest (~34 mins) and then recalled to 3BC town area. Turned in the quests and jumped on my guildship.

Now this is where it really gets weird. Once I'm on my ship in the cargo bay selling and repairing I notice that the timer on my Major Slayer Boost is back to where it should have been (56+ mins). So now I'm thinking there was some weird visual bug going on when it looked as if it was timing down in the quest. But its not over yet folks. No we went back out to the wilderness zone and the first time we entered the timer on the slayer boost gave me an additional 20 seconds or so. That is it went from 56 mins and I think 16 seconds to 56 mins and 30+ seconds but then continued to time down as is proper.

I don't get it. That is beyond bizarre and I still am not sure if I can trust that icon. I half want to enter a quest and see if the timer goes down to what it showed in the Epic Prove Your Worth quest (~34 mins) but its late and my kids are going to wake me expecting breakfast. I'll post again tomorrow if it continues to behave strangely but for now this is what I know.

You might notice that if you are DCing due to lag your timers continue to count down. When you have major lag, you can't trust the current timer status, because there is no "update" from the server, and you are simply seeing a counter on your end. I wouldn't call this a bug myself.

[red_kain]

As I've currently got a pure rogue assassin at 30, which I play actively. I'd like to say that my experience with stealth is that it seems to be working relatively fine, although I'm often being detected just before I get close enough to assassinate in quests such as the slavers chain. What I assume is happening is since I am in a hall and have to approach from the front (where the enemies are looking) they get a large spot bonus, see through my 80ish? hide/move silently, thus ruining my assassinate (which goes off) as they aggro and I lose sneak attack. I'm only using +15 augments and I'm a INT build so I might just be under what I'm expected to be at (90-100 hide/move silently) but my bluff(82/85ish) is kind of in the same area, it seems to have about 50% success rate on legendary elite content, which again, I feel is because I'm just under that 90-100 range. I personally would prefer the monsters having a bit lower spot/bluff requirements but not focusing on them is my own fault (no insightful skill gain). I'd also like to say that this is only an issue when solo, as in a group letting someone else aggro first lets me get sneak attack even if they detect me, and assassinate works (for me).

In terms of running around a corner and losing line of sight then ditching aggro with sneak, forcing enemy "search mode", realistically, if you can "hide in plain sight" and monsters can't see you, then going around a corner should work, but game wise, it may end up breaking mechanics in unforeseen ways so leaving it as not working seems fine. I can see devs not interested in making that work for a balance//not breaking things/intended play point of view In general stealth doesn't feel too powerful right now but it does seem functional and useful for what it is. I don't have too many problems with widespread aggro either. Though clerics always getting targetted first, (related to "furthest party member?) more than EVERYONE else, is still a thing. Has always been a thing as far as I can remember.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I wanted to ask about Legendary Greensteel set bonuses too. I'm hoping Lynnabel can find me a clear answer as I haven't seen a direct dev response related to this subject. I planning some sets right now, and am not currently prepared to do major testing (or have spare testing materials) and would like to know.

In regards to this thread --- https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...69#post5903969

Is Opposition's HP% bonus not applying when paired with partial other (escalation/dominion) augments WAI or broken and in need of fixing?

For clarity as I understand it, if you wear 2 pieces of LGS gear,
1st: Tier1: Opposition+Material / Tier2: Opposition+Material / Tier3: Escalation+Material / CLEANSED
2nd: Tier1-Opposition Material T2&3 Blank.

You SHOULD get 3 augments worth of HP% (12% bonus HP), however you don't.

I'm just looking for a "WAI" or "broken-will fix" answer here.

[ComicRelief]

I've seen quite a few people here and elsewhere talking about this. That specific change was actually a reversion to our previous shared aggro system. It is working as intended that you can no longer pull mobs by simply standing outside of their aggro range and hitting them one at a time. Monsters thematically will absolutely notice that you are shooting their friend with arrows :P
*snip*

I think you misunderstand. It's not the 'shared' aggro that's the problem, per se. I get that hitting a single mob in a group will aggro the group. BUT it should NOT aggro a completely *separate* group that is farther away. In other words, if I hit mob A located at position zero, his buddy (B) at position 30-ft is aggro'd (along with "B1", "B2", "B3"...) - I get that - but there are occasions when hitting A triggers B (as it should), but then mob C, which is located at 30-ft from B or 60-ft from A is also aggro'd (presumably because B triggers C, which IMO should not be the case, as C is in a different group from A). And D at 30-ft from C, which is 60-ft from B, which is 90-ft from A is also aggro'd. Etc. That's the 'cascading effect' that sometimes happens. At least, it's the best explanation I can come up with for what I have observed.


Also - just because a mob is hit doesn't mean it should know instantly and exactly where that hit came from. I mean, I get ranged by mobs all the time - do I know exactly where they are? No. At least, not every single time - rarely, in fact. I have to look around and find them. Which takes some finite amount of time. (Sometimes, it takes quite a *long* time.) Unfortunately, it doesn't work the same way in reverse - mobs *instantly* and *accurately* know exactly where I am. And it doesn't matter if I turn a corner (or even several corners), where the no longer have line-of-sight, and "thematically" they should no longer know exactly where I am, yet they still do.

And don't get me started on Drow which I can see being able to literally up-and-disappear before my very eyes. If they can do it, why can't I?

[Dragavon]

Seem to recall it was mentioned by another Dev, so known issue, but I believe Mobs currently aggro the furthers target in range when they are aggroed, instead of the mob that aggroes them, this can result in mobs running past the person attacking them for someone doing absolutely nothing.

Yes, this happens all the time.

[dunklezhan]

Hey Lynn,

The aggro/stealth thread you are looking for is here, this post just summarises all the posts up to page 11 that have documented evidence:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5943827

Torc is aware, although whether or not having reviewed it he thinks there really is a problem is a whole other thing, of course! Assuming he thinks it is a problem, I get the impression its quite deep systems work he's looking at.

.... get stuck in?

[Flywheel]

It is the only scroll that I know that completely lacks description. So it is hard to say which class can learn it for example.
Please fix it.