Inquisitve core change to greatly increase demand

[Bjond]

Simple change: move the NIH effect from C3 to C1. Why? Fast trapping is an enormous boon not just to the trapper, but to the entire group. I get seriously annoyed by characters that have to stop and search and I'm sure other players get annoyed by my characters that have to do the same. And, well, it just makes trapping 10x more fun when you have it on your trapper.

So, make it easy and cheap to get; elf + 8-9 AP or L27 feat is simply too costly for most builds (or too late to matter much).

IMHO, this tiny change would greatly increase the demand for the tree. Every single trapper will want it rather than only players that want a strong Xbow build. More demand, more income, more money to hire devs to fix things. It's a win for everyone, even those that don't play trappers themselves.

[Djjinni]

Simple change: move the NIH effect from C3 to C1. Why? Fast trapping is an enormous boon not just to the trapper, but to the entire group. I get seriously annoyed by characters that have to stop and search and I'm sure other players get annoyed by my characters that have to do the same. And, well, it just makes trapping 10x more fun when you have it on your trapper.

So, make it easy and cheap to get; elf + 8-9 AP or L27 feat is simply too costly for most builds (or too late to matter much).

IMHO, this tiny change would greatly increase the demand for the tree. Every single trapper will want it rather than only players that want a strong Xbow build. More demand, more income, more money to hire devs to fix things. It's a win for everyone, even those that don't play trappers themselves.

This is a laughably huge buff to something that is already strong

You'd be making it cost 1AP and available to every class with no requirements.

Traps are a fairly integral part of the game that are already becoming less and less relevant.. why make them even less meaningful?

If you can't stand still while someone searches for a second to either: give you bonus exp; or stop you dying to a fatal trap - then I could suggest you're playing the wrong game :P

[Discpsycho]

Please don't.

The fact that Inq already have this quality-of-life improvement as such low-hanging fruit is ridiculous. As you say, Inq get something for free that other classes have to spend 8 points and a race *or* a level 27 feat on. I'm running a heroic rogue life right now and the fact that a FvS Inquisitor can auto-detect traps when I can't feels like insultingly obvious pay-to-win

[draven1]

This should be default skill for every trapper.

How many times do you see people just IGNORE TRAPS? It is almost every time for me.

Traps only SLOWS trappers, everyone else just pass through it.

Trappers need significant trap search & disable speed up.
And run speed up after disabling traps to catch the rest of group. For now, trappers left behind very often.

[Djjinni]

This should be default skill for every trapper.

How many times do you see people just IGNORE TRAPS? It is almost every time for me.

Traps only SLOWS trappers, everyone else just pass through it.

Trappers need significant trap search & disable speed up.
And run speed up after disabling traps to catch the rest of group. For now, trappers left behind very often.

I mean... should we all just be running through traps freely? Is that a good design for them?


At best I would want SPOT as a base skill to be allowed to autofind the boxes if your Spot is *WAY* above the dc, ie in trivial content. No more than this should be needed.

Traps should be far more deadly than they are really :P

[Bjond]

I'm all for deadly traps, but then trapping is required to have NIH just by default. The reason is that by the time the trapper can type "STOP! TRAP!", the rest of the party would be dead. What NIH does is provide a game mechanic for the trapper to announce to the group where the traps are located. If you rush into a swarm of deadly traps with an NIH trapper in group, that's on you.

This isn't PnP where on the rogue's turn, no one else can do anything while he calmly searches and points out the locations of all the traps to everyone. It isn't Hardcore where 5% of the player-base is out to grief the other 95% and the trapper is smirking over your corpse ("yeah, saw that coming"). If you really want THAT kind of play, then NIH itself needs a 3-way toggle (off, show to all, show only to trapper).

NIH is the turn-free MMO equivalent of what happens in PnP and yes, I think it would be even better if NIH was auto-granted to every trapper without the current skill-4 penalty. That is unlikely to fly, though. SSG will want to monetize the change. So, make it easier to monetize.

NIH @ C1 does nothing at all for the Inquisitive, but it's fantastic for everyone else.

[Djjinni]

What NIH does is provide a game mechanic for the trapper to announce to the group where the traps are located.

The game already has this mechanic.


It's called communication.

It's a DnD MMO. I thought group play was intended :P

[Hawkwier]

Stinkwizitor needs nerfed, not buffed.

[DYWYPI]

I play several competent DEX based Assassins in both Heroic and Epic Settings. I have no interest in taking either of the enhancements 'Mind Like Iron' or 'Nothing is Hidden' on any of my Rogues. Although I must admit it's interesting the Inquisitive Tree: 'Mind Like Iron' [-4] Search penalty is akin to 'Nothing is Hidden (III)'.

Note: those two enhancements only perform a single search on a localised object at a given timeframe and position. Thus you'd be at a slight disadvantage for large area of traps, if you use those enhancements because it would fail to "reveal" most close traps.

Watchful Eye, is a Level 27 Feat and functions slightly differently. In all cases when using those afore mentioned "automatic search" checks for traps both your [Spot] and [Search] skill must be equal (or higher for those two Enhancements) than the search DC for the trap itself. Pure Rogues aren't typically WIS based and might want to situationally swap their: Spot or Search items.

In either case you'll likely want to disable the trap and that 'disable animation' must still be performed regardless of how you reveal the trap. If you are greatly annoyed with having to Search for Traps the odds are you don't really enjoy "trapping" itself. Other than for the XP Bonus or the fact you've removed a harmful obstacle.

Search hardly slows down your Rogue character; it's negligible unless you are in a huge minefield. Or are completely clueless about the dungeon and your Spot skills are inadequate to show a "Trap Warning". Since 'Nothing is Hidden' primarily uses Spot, it would render that "automatic search" also completely useless if your Spot ability was lacking. I'll reiterate "automatic search" requires both high: Spot and Search.

Note: if you as a Rogue are worried about the time it'd take to find a Trap Control panel, within a group and they don't wait... then the odds are the group are either; unhelpful or not bothered if you DON'T even attempt to disarm the trap (assuming your Search DC is adequate).

Personally I don't find it frustrating using Search to find traps and can keep up with sensible PUGs when "trapping" on my Assassins. I also communicate and can warn cooperative people about traps in plenty of time.

Alas I also don't approach the game like a headless chicken crossing the road; that's determined to run into the next passing truck... ;-)

[JohnFlory]

Make pay to win even more OP. Smort!

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

I get seriously annoyed by characters that have to stop and search and I'm sure other players get annoyed by my characters that have to do the same.

Thank you for proving me that zerging and speedruns have become the norm these days. Thanks Blizzard, imho.

The player's choice to rather zerg through quests is manifesting itself as a demand to delete time-consuming skill animations now.

Having to stop and to search is more natural, though. It reflects a real life thing. You just have to stop and search if you want to find your glasses again. Not to mention socks.

[Kaboom2112]

Stinkwizitor needs nerfed, not buffed.

Nuked, nerfed isn't strong enough.

It's an abomination, the single dumbest thing ever implemented on purpose.

[Bjond]

Having to stop and to search is more natural, though. It reflects a real life thing.

DDO isn't about real. It's a game. It's about fun. I've yet to be in a single group where people waited for the searching trapper. It's really hard to even get them to not break the pipes in House of Pain. You'd think an extra 30% xp would motivate, but it's speed that's wanted. Slow is boring.

BTW, I likely should have posted "NIH free for all!" and left inquisitive out of it. So many so touchy about that tree. I do wish they'd fix the melee/range imbalance rather than perpetuate and deepen the divide, though.

[JohnFlory]

You'd think an extra 30% xp would motivate, but it's speed that's wanted. Slow is boring.

It's not 30% though, just 30% of base XP. I would assume you are aware of that and just used the short hand, but the amount of mathematical illteracy in this game is staggering. The average bonus XP is around 400% (of base XP) these days, so the difference between waiting for traps and not waiting for traps is along the lines of getting 470% of the base or 500% of the base, which is a 6.4% increase. Considering how quickly most quests go, that's usually not worth the time - unless the trapper falls behind and does it while the rest pushes on. Ransack is even worse - there are probably only a hand full of quests where smashing crates is beneficial to xp/min.

Bottom line: no-stop searching is smart and closer to "playing as intended" with trappers trapping instead of everyone just jumping over the traps or tanking the damage.

[Djjinni]

It's not 30% though, just 30% of base XP. I would assume you are aware of that and just used the short hand, but the amount of mathematical illteracy in this game is staggering. The average bonus XP is around 400% (of base XP) these days, so the difference between waiting for traps and not waiting for traps is along the lines of getting 470% of the base or 500% of the base, which is a 6.4% increase. Considering how quickly most quests go, that's usually not worth the time - unless the trapper falls behind and does it while the rest pushes on. Ransack is even worse - there are probably only a hand full of quests where smashing crates is beneficial to xp/min.

Bottom line: no-stop searching is smart and closer to "playing as intended" with trappers trapping instead of everyone just jumping over the traps or tanking the damage.

"no-stop searching is smart" why?


We could also just remove traps and mobs from the quests as they seem to reduce everyones precious exp/min so much

[count_spicoli]

Inquis in more demand? Seems like the only thnig anyone is playing. Actually should be the only thing people are playing because they are massively op right now and trivializing high reaper.

[Bjond]

Inquis in more demand? Seems like the only thnig anyone is playing.

<sigh> .. the tree becomes more in demand, not the play-style. The change opens a 1-AP spend to buy NIH for NON-INQUISITIVE trappers. It does nothing at all for a 41-AP inquisitive that's using the entire tree.