DDO Devs, Myopia, and Hiatus

[Mr_Helmet]

Bottom line - this was a good patch. It was not a nerf. Imbues were never WAI. If it takes some players a 10 page thread to vent then so be it. Catharsis is good.

I haven't played in 5ish months, but I keep coming back for the sweet, glorious, delicious tears.

[nokowi]

Bottom line - this was a good patch. It was not a nerf. Imbues were never WAI. If it takes some players a 10 page thread to vent then so be it. Catharsis is good.

This would be a reasonable response if they hadn't said multiple times it is not about the imbues.

[Marshal_Lannes]

I haven't played in 5ish months, but I keep coming back for the sweet, glorious, delicious tears.

I love reading their justification about how their exploit build was good for the game and it just hurts everyone when it's taken away. Every single one of these things comes down to the kill count and the players in question just can't stand it if they aren't quite as awesomesauce.

[nokowi]

Sorry, but your posts overtime become more and more similar Nokowi posts - formerly expert, now not play about 2 year and only whine to forum again and again.

Knowledgeable players leave the game when devs make poor design choices, and the game no longer serves certain play preferences. DDO has taken a narrower and narrower approach to the game that really only fits those that don't identify with a build, and are willing to continually switch to the easiest thing.

There have been many that had far more stealth/rogue expertise than me. If you don't like my posts, consider that there is a reason there are not a multitude of players really testing the stealth/agro systems - and it has to do with poor design choices, from making DDO a run to the end with zero challenge to not designing the agro system around those that care about agro.

You can of course address any specific point I make if you feel it is incorrect or outdated. If you can't do that, you really shouldn't worry that my play experience is largely limited to logging in and testing the things I am complaining about.

[nokowi]

I love reading their justification about how their exploit build was good for the game and it just hurts everyone when it's taken away. Every single one of these things comes down to the kill count and the players in question just can't stand it if they aren't quite as awesomesauce.

It's interesting that posts like this never get infractions. Trolling other people and making up negatives about them - fully supported.

Specifically showing why someones point is wrong - infraction worthy.

Show us where someone said they had to dominate the kill count.

[Astanila]

I think we can do way better.

-Shuriken should be AoE (throw mutiple shuriken out at multiple enemies in a cone or other AoE shape). They should for the most part NOT work with IPS, I think.
-Daggers Should allow for around half the projectiles as Shuriken, but have a higher base damage and/or crit. Range should be longer too.
-Axes should be highest damage, least projectiles, and longest thrown range. Hammers should be similar to axes, maybe slightly less damage but with native chance for knockdown on vorpal.

I think Thrown weapons should be a hybrid of damage and CC, or ranged AoE. This makes them distinct and interesting versus xbows and bows, and useful but not totally OP.

This is the type of post that I would like to see. Any suggestion is better than crying over the change.

Although I think computing distance for increasing or decreasing damage/hit might cause lags, but it is indeed a good and basic idea, and we do have maximum range cut like spells.

(From D20 SRD: Range Increment:
Any attack at less than this distance is not penalized for range. However, each full range increment imposes a cumulative -2 penalty on the attack roll. A thrown weapon has a maximum range of five range increments. A projectile weapon can shoot out to ten range increments.)

We also have the coding like Improved Critical which could do different effect to different type of weapons.
Thus, we could have combined things like shuriken expertise to throwing expertise line which could be up to greater or perfect tie.

- Axes and hammers could use SWF as reference and increase their multiplier of appropriate ability score.
Also increase chance of hamstring/knockdown and/or maximum range.

- Daggers could follow like shuriken expertise now does, but with lower RoF and chance.
Alone the line we could increase the additional throw chance and/or maybe add some sneak attack damages or deception chance.

etc

Finally for the aoe idea, it's also a good idea to think about.
Ban IPS for throwing is one way to distinguish them from bow and xbow.
However, IMHO, the throwing aoe should not start from nature but from feats.
It also should act like chain but not cone for the nature of one returning throwing weapon.
Increase your investment in feats to increase the number you can chain.
In this way, I think devs could have a better control over the power comparing to cone shape.

Now, there will be problems for Gloaming Philter-like weapons though...

[Saekee]

I think we can do way better.

-Shuriken should be AoE (throw mutiple shuriken out at multiple enemies in a cone or other AoE shape). They should for the most part NOT work with IPS, I think.
-Daggers Should allow for around half the projectiles as Shuriken, but have a higher base damage and/or crit. Range should be longer too.
-Axes should be highest damage, least projectiles, and longest thrown range. Hammers should be similar to axes, maybe slightly less damage but with native chance for knockdown on vorpal.

I think Thrown weapons should be a hybrid of damage and CC, or ranged AoE. This makes them distinct and interesting versus xbows and bows, and useful but not totally OP.

this is a cool idea.

Throwing daggers benefit from assassin knife specialization so with a couple of feats, an assassin could use knives for special situations instead of GxBows. That would make for some fun builds.

I have an assassin build that has throwing daggers as a small ranged supplement. Since throwing expertise: daggers does not exist, in practice I chose repeater usage. The xBow synergy is not as good though.

[BigErkyKid]

I clearly have no vested interest in this fight. However, to those saying that DWS is an alternative in terms of active attacks: NOPE!.

The active attacks in DWS are weaker, specially nothing compared to slayer arrows, and all in all there are fewer of them. After all, shuris seemed to be using DWS already.

Now I know perfectly well that AA shuris are unbalanced. But I really want active abilities to matter more.

At the moment they truly matter very little for many builds, or they aren't very creative (cleave cleave momentum lay waste is not creative active combat).

I am always surprised at how they think that active attacks like say tendon cut need those crazy long cool downs. FPS it is a single target minimal effect attack!!

So coming back to shuris. If they over perform, nerf. But if you don't want to kill the style offer them something. Active attacks are needed in this game, and taking away without replacement is a bad idea.

[Marshal_Lannes]

This would be a reasonable response if they hadn't said multiple times it is not about the imbues.

You're right it's all about kill count.

[Marshal_Lannes]

It's interesting that posts like this never get infractions. Trolling other people and making up negatives about them - fully supported.

Show us where someone said they had to dominate the kill count.

It's interesting that you jump in the thread and pick and choose what you've read. If you have followed this thread you'll have seen it is about kill count. That certainly is what is between the lines. That is what all these things are about. If you want a specific example though here is one by a poster in this thread:

I expected more from Aheras (DDOTalk71), but he's been getting smoked by me in kill counts for a long time now using a crossbow, so I understand his pent up frustration.

[Vish]

So much for those racial lives...

Elf monks be feared.
What, no more?
Well, ranger t5 is great for mc
But isn't where it's at
For monks

[Renvar]

I think we can do way better.

-Shuriken should be AoE (throw mutiple shuriken out at multiple enemies in a cone or other AoE shape). They should for the most part NOT work with IPS, I think.
-Daggers Should allow for around half the projectiles as Shuriken, but have a higher base damage and/or crit. Range should be longer too.
-Axes should be highest damage, least projectiles, and longest thrown range. Hammers should be similar to axes, maybe slightly less damage but with native chance for knockdown on vorpal.

I think Thrown weapons should be a hybrid of damage and CC, or ranged AoE. This makes them distinct and interesting versus xbows and bows, and useful but not totally OP.

This is an interesting idea.

I think it would need careful balancing. You wouldn't necessarily just be adding it to what already exists. It would kind of be a re-imagining of what throwing weapons are. Rather than chasing the x-bow and focusing purely on DPS and trying to get the crits and the big hits like you do with the furyshotting, stop trying to balance the single attack RoF + base damage + crit profile for throwing weapons amongst themselves and in relation to bows and x-bows. Go a different direction and make them unique.

Just brainstorming here, but something like:

Shuri - give them a feat or enhancement that creates a cone shape attack so they can do AoE damage, but the damage is not as high. Give an enhancement (based on thrown weapon type) that a player can select to do a crippling/slow type of effect on hit or on crit. With scaling DC.

Dagger - give them a manyshot style multiple hits on the same target style attack. Again, damage per hit for daggers is not so high, so it isn't OP. Their enhancement that create a trip/knockdown effect. With Scaling DC. Maybe another that is a throat strike that limits casting by casters.

Hammer - Give them a chain style attack where the hammer can bounce to other,nearby, targets. 3-4 hops maximium. Damage/crit chance could decrease on subsequent hits. Their enhancement creates a stun effect. Again with scaling DC.

Axe - Of all the thrown's this one should have the best damage profile/crit profile. Let this be the thrown weapon with the base damage and strong crit profile for a thrower build who wants to do strong single target DPS. Enhancement does a sunder style reduction of Fort/PRR temporarily. (Stacks can build with more AP spend)

If you are giving AoE or manyshot style attacks per round, those would have to not work with IPS. You could mess with the RP scaling on them(like they do on the warlock cone and chain) to balance the damage. If you can hit multiple targets, that needs to be balanced. You could add more special active attacks that do unique things for each weapon. Some of which might overlap with other thrown weapon types. (Hammers could do a knockdown effect instead of a stun, for example). The key to that being that knockdown effects work on different mob types (undead for example) where stuns are ineffective.

Questions:

Are these multiselector/mutually exclusive so that a player is specializing in one type of thrown weapon, or, if they want to make the build investment to be more versatile, they can swap weapons as the situation demands?

Where would these things come from? Is this a racial tree, a class tree, different class trees, a universal patron tree? An ED tree would be nice in that they could be twisted or any class could access, but that would make them unavailable in heroics, so that seems like a non-starter.

Regardless, I think that finding a unique set of enhancements/abilities for throwing weapons is preferable to giving them the ability to use the AA tree attacks, which are more bow focused.

[Ulfo]

I think we can do way better.

I see slightly different way:

-Shuriken should be AoE (throw mutiple shuriken out at multiple enemies in a cone or other AoE shape). They should for the most part NOT work with IPS, I think.

Cone AoE - yes, no IPS - yes, better crit profile ( because ninja themed weapon ) and longest range ( because real physics ).

-Daggers Should allow for around half the projectiles as Shuriken, but have a higher base damage and/or crit. Range should be longer too.

Higher base damage, lower crit, bleeding dot effects, lower range than shurikens.

-Axes should be highest damage, least projectiles, and longest thrown range. Hammers should be similar to axes, maybe slightly less damage but with native chance for knockdown on vorpal.

Same exclude range - must be shortest.

[Scrapco]

longest range ( because real physics ).

On what planet?

[bls904c2]

the devs have been on balance pass for years. they have been talking about trying to balance this out so all builds do relative damage some lower some higher. sense reaper has come out so many videos have been surfacing about how synergies make a class really OP.

it should come at no surprise some synergies are being blasted from orbit. devs make some of these nerfs quietly because of most things on the forums can't be discussed rationally because people are attached to there builds.

instead of complaining about the nerf from orbit how about offering constructive ideas to help get the ball rolling back in the right direction

like

thrown weapons have different crit range and multiplier just like the crossbows vs repeating crossbows. in the artificer tree they have one stat for xbows and different for repeating. can the devs just have the tree include all ranged types on a multi select like in the arti tree

arrows 100% chance slay on dc of #
stars 75% chance
axes 75% chance
hammers 50% chance with a 10% of stun

or

select box for

witch weapon specialty
arrows or thrown

[nokowi]

You're right it's all about kill count.

Or its about this, which has been said multiple times by multiple people:

But I really want active abilities to matter more.

If you have to demonize other people for your opinion to be valid, your point is probably not valid.

[nokowi]

It's interesting that you jump in the thread and pick and choose what you've read. If you have followed this thread you'll have seen it is about kill count. That certainly is what is between the lines. That is what all these things are about. If you want a specific example though here is one by a poster in this thread:

I expected more from Aheras (DDOTalk71), but he's been getting smoked by me in kill counts for a long time now using a crossbow, so I understand his pent up frustration.

I'll let someone else reply to why they said something.

You yourself seem to have ignored the multiple statements about wanting active abilities and summarized it as just about kill count.

I on the other hand, can understand that people want both effective characters and interesting characters to play.

You were the one complaining about Mini-Thor's dominating kill counts because of past lives, so how effective a character is should be part of any discussion - kill count is one measure of this.

If any time some mentions kill count you jump to your own foregone conclusion, you won't be able to participate in a discussion.

[Ulfo]

On what planet?

Any where all present DDO lifeformes can survive.

Try harder. 8)

[Ulfo]

If you have to demonize other people for your opinion to be valid, your point is probably not valid.

Sic.

[jakeelala]

My dream was that this thread or the other would become a referendum of players on ranged combat in general, coming up with lots of interesting and viable changes to make ranged combat make sense, fit the game, and make new unique ways to play.

It seems to be sort of starting to happen here, which is great.

Now if only a Dev would acknowledge they are reading and getting ideas, because of course they are. Hi Devs!