U45 Preview 1: Balance: Ranged Combat Changes

[Stoner81]

Well done on ripping the anus out of Inquisitive! /sarcasm

Stoner81.

[0ldschool]

Improved Precise Shot
I gotta say this change came out of left field for me. -20% damage is a huge penalty. There has to be something better that can be done here. Oftentimes when I am running around I will only be hitting 1-2 targets with this, sometimes 3, its not all that common to be getting 4+. If you aren't a short race it suddenly becomes a lot harder to IPS through a lot of mob types too.

If its doing too much being able to hit a theoretically unlimited number of mobs, then perhaps it can be made to only be able to hit a certain number. 3 pops out to me as a good amount, enough it feels useful but not too many that you can hit every mob in the dungeon at once. Besides, its never been very realistic to be able to shoot/throw a projectile through 5+ enemies. By decreasing the maximum target count and leaving damage as is I feel a better overall result is achieved that will leave players more satisfied and understanding while still limiting ranged AoE capabilities. You could also go for some sort of scaling on the number of targets but what to scale it off escapes me. Maybe BAB since it currently does no animation scaling for some ranged combat styles (specifically dual xbow styles).

Alternatively, have the currently target enemy, hard or soft targeted, takes full damage and any other enemies hit take the reduced damage (which should be a 20 reduction in rp not flat -20% damage btw). This way you aren't penalized for running in IPS if your only hitting one creature, but it still limits AoE capabilities. A solid solution.

+1. I agree with everything you said here. I don't believe that IPS needs nerfing, but if it must be nerfed, I would MUCH prefer a 3 mob max and no damage penalty, or your 'only the first hit mob takes full damage' idea, which is actually a great concept. It is logical that progressive targets would take less damage as the missile passed through them. This is a really great idea, much more elegant than the brute force -20% damage nerf.

[Horst-of-the-Wood]

Did you think of AA bow rangers (or Elves going AA) with this new changes? Yes they are rare, but they exist, at least you got 1: me. Its already a niche build (I'm always the only bow using ranger in groups doing R5+/raids on Thelanis, never seen another bow user for ~1year or even longer).

I'm playing AA mainly for cc (paralyze etc), its already a heavy investment to get it working on high skull reaper, you are facing many immunities and throw away your dps compared to masshold cc users (always way behind in kills/dps). As AA you have to run in IPC Stance for CC as single target CC would be useless with current quest design (mass trash mob grps around every corner), and this changes bringing a net -20% loss to damage for me. As I sayed, its already a niche build, I'm already depending alot on damage from others and only can be a real help to groups missing cc (no mass holds) in quests where mobs are not immune to my paralyzing arrows. I'm already playing in EA sometimes to at least provide some heals when my cc isnt working...

Ranger: Deepwood Stalker's Heavy Draw no longer reduces Attack by 5 when toggled on, and now also grants a +1 Competence Bonus to Critical Multiplier to Longbows and Shortbows while toggled on.

Its already there in Core18 of AA: Shadow Arrows Passive: Equipped bows gains a +1 Competence bonus to Critical Damage Multiplier. So doing a deep investment into this 2 enhancement trees doesnt give any real benefits now, as the +1 crit multiplies was the main reason for me to go 31 AA on my Deepwood Stalker build.

Right now I'm only using AF to stack up to 25 stacks (= 75 ranged power) by standing still and shooting stuff and then run Manyshot and Unbridled Fury (you can't stack up AF while Manyshot is up but wont lose the old stacks when using it, so you can - for a really shot time - have manyshot with adrenalin and +75 ranged power from AF). Right now this only applies to solo gaming, as in groups everything is dead long before you are able to stack up AF to 25.
The new AF seems to be only useful for bossfights, which will be nice in some raids but otherwise its <0.5% of situations where it will be useful. Most R10 bossfights are boring hp-bag-beatdowns anyways, standing on a save-spot hitting auto attack and drinking a coffee...

Time to say goodbye to my rangers, will TR out with U45.

PS: I would love to see a change to future quest design: Do smaller trash mob groups but with stronger monsters that are harder to fight/have some unique abilities. Encounters of 3-4 mobs (eg. like in Sorrowdusk Isle quests) instead of 20+ always-the-same mobs (eg like in Creeping Death). Then the new AF feat would start getting useful.

[janave]

The weird thing is that encounter design, flat surfaces with large packs of mobs combined with the silly AI beeline tracing to players ( one of the same things that helped killing stealth btw) is the cause for IPS over performing. The more vertical unevenness and more spread of mobs would make this feat situationally useful, if the silly AI was fixed so mobs occasionally take cover from ranged attacks rather than trying to charge into melee, would make the feat much less an issue.

IPS being a stance for distance aoe with no activation time and cooldown is unique, the tradeoff supposedly is the narrow hitbox. However, due to aggro system + monster pathing and general gauntlet style dungeons the tradeoffs are minimalized. It could turn a boomerang into a harvester truck. Being a stance also frees it from collision with other activated buffs, boosts, etc.

IPS is also weird on Xbows as they dont have the side-step miss bows have with soft targeting, this really allows Xbows to kite with a short distance, avoiding hits while still doing aoe dps with the IPS hitbox.


Will we get a free heart coupon with u45? The nerfs to many builds are substantial and close to game breaking.

[Ausdoerrt]

Did you think of AA bow rangers (or Elves going AA) with this new changes? Yes they are rare, but they exist, at least you got 1: me.

Well there's your problem, the devs clearly don't want you to play an archer.

[FuzzierSage]

Disclaimer: I play and enjoy Inquisitive, because I've wanted to throw a Hand Crossbow (or two) on a Cleric since I started. I've also got a Repeater-using Arti alt, a baby GXB heroic alt and a Longbow Ranger/Favored Soul that just TR'ed.

I think nerfing IPS for all ranged weapons is not a good idea. I think a more "complicated" solution up-front could save you a ton of trouble down the line.

You're already addressing throwing with Alchemist, so I'm not speaking on it here, but it could probably fit into either the "bow" type of AoE or the "crossbow" type of AoE, depending on where you want it to sit.

• Revert IPS to its current (Live) state.
• Make IPS work only with Bow and Shortbow.
• Tweak the AoE options in the trees "related" to each type of Crossbow: GXB/Mechanic, Repeater/Artificer, Dual or Simple/Inquisitive as necessary

You avoid adding another kick in the groin to Bows, you can focus on nerfing Inq/GXB and buffing Repeaters to some equilibrium state on single-target. And you can do things that aren't Crossbow-related for AoE for those types (if you feel they need access to it).

Mechanic Rogue's already got Alchemical traps, Artificer's already got spells/Runearms and some activated attacks. And Inquisitive either gets a simple AoE in its tree, pairs with Alchemist or pairs with a casting class (since it's a Universal tree and people loudly hate the thought of a Universal tree ever being good on its own).

Just buff/differentiate those attacks a bit (if you have the time).

It'll kinda future-proof things going forward, because it means that you're only ever going to need to tweak each "group" on its own merits and not have to deal with a feat that lets single-target things be applied to multiple targets across vastly different weapon types.

Bonus: It'll free up feats on crossbow users to take "flavor" things (since no more IPS for them) so people will stop yelling at us for wanting to shoot things good.

Then, once the AoE elephant's out of the room, figure out where you want each one to sit DPS-wise (sounds like you already have) and then change accordingly.


Conceptual Reasoning behind this probably-dumb idea:

Crossbows are supposed to be the "easy to pick up" option for ranged weaponry (like in meatspace), and it makes sense that you'd need to specialize in them to use them as a "main weapon". This is sorta supported already by needing specific class training or a feat to use the more Exotic types (GXB, Repeaters), and by needing to be trained (unlock from doing stuff in Sharn, spend limited AP) to use them as a main weapon for Inquisitive (since it seems like the type of thing a non-Combat main character would carry, given the Detective angle and the Diplomacy interactions).

The classes/archetypes using these types of weapons probably aren't going to have as much practice with them as they would with other aspects of their Class (relative to a Fighter or Ranger who gets feats for them basically for free), so using "other stuff" for AoE fits conceptually while being less of a balance nightmare than the current IPS state.

Meanwhile you've got Rangers and Fighters who can train fully with a Bow as a side-effect of just being a Fighter or Ranger (free feats), or an Elf. Shooting through things and making weird trick shots is kind of their thing.

Final Thought

I do have one plea as an Inquisitive player though: This is a "gameplay feel" thing, so grain of salt, I may be unique/crazy, etc

The fun of it is in shooting fast (and getting to dual-wield). Bringing the damage buffs on Lama down a bit more to reach your DPS target but leaving the speed as-is on live would be far preferable to firing slowly. It could end up scaling abnormally with procs but will also get hit harder by DR, so it's possible to smooth it out using existing in-game mechanics.

If at all possible, nerf the damage and keep the speed. If I wanted to shoot really slowly at things, I would've made a GXB build.

[Vasandralov]

All I can do is giggle.

This has been a comedy for some time now. I don't even have to say anything caustic - the OP begs the ridicule in and of itself.

Keep up the.... whatever it is you all do. I'm sure its great.

[GeoffWatson]

The nerfs to Inquisitive were about what I expected.

Really surprised at the IPS nerf. Most ranged builds are far behind casters, and don't need the nerf. The change to Archer's focus looks terrible unless fighting a raid boss.

[Dnarth]

I have gone through life after life to get my ranger up to power. Quit complaining that your time is somehow more valuable than my time.

Casters CAN and DO instakills. Casters CAN and DO hold mobs. Casters CAN and DO out DPS any other class.

I think nearly all of the complaints on the forums are from casters who are whining because a xbow users managed to get some kills on the kill count.

The Bytcher~

Nah word on the street is 90% of the players council was calling for nerfs. Yeah 1/10th of 1% of the games players that are more self serving than serving the game as a whole. I can say one thing the PC is not respected in my circle.

[Iriale]

All I can do is giggle.

This has been a comedy for some time now. I don't even have to say anything caustic - the OP begs the ridicule in and of itself.

Keep up the.... whatever it is you all do. I'm sure its great.

This was exactly my reaction. It's so ridiculous that I can only laugh. God may know what they are doing, but certainly not me.

I do not know if the devs are listening to melee whiners, to the player council, or have had a bad nightmare, but at this point it seems that their ignorance of their own game is gigantic.

A nerf to IPS? Seriously? It's the most ridiculous thing I've heard in my life. Only the complainers who want to nerf all styles except their own would propose something like that. IPS is difficult to use, it requires skill to take advantage of it. The next thing is eliminate glancing blows and spells from the game? Please. Devs, do us all a favor, and wake up to reality! It seems that you live in a fantasy world, and not precisely DDO.

Repeaters are a bit overperforming? c 'mon, devs, c'mon. What kind of tests do you do? Oh wait, you don't do any. Only that explains that for you the inquisitive was doing ok dps for a year and a half (despite the tests they gave you in the forums) and now, suddenly (alchemist ahem ahem) is OP. Suddenly you have done tests, what happened to the previous tests? LOL LOL LOL

As for the bows, which have been missing for years of the game because nowdays the style is not bad, is terrible... oh. Great way to help them. Really. Great way /sarcasm off

It's so ridiculous that you have to laugh, yes. I just hope that the whales wake up at once and this time it hurts in their pockets.

[karatemack]

I do not know if the devs are listening to melee whiners, to the player council, or have had a bad nightmare, but at this point it seems that their ignorance of their own game is gigantic.

We were told years ago that the didn’t want to “develop via consensus”. Essentially this meant they wanted a thumbs up or thumbs down but didn’t really want meaningful feedback.

Instead, they develop from the ivory tower and quite frequently suffer from groupthink. When we point this out we are dismissed/mocked. Yet there is a clear and obvious trend in player feedback over the past 2 years (for anyone paying attention) that overwhelmingly supports the novel idea that the issue here is not on the part of the player.

[Ashlayna]

These are not the same thing. There are a couple of important words missing from the top one that change the context of what we said to a thing we very intentionally did not say. The position of Repeaters relative to other Crossbows does not invalidate the impact that Crossbows and Ranged styles as a whole have on other parts of the game.

Since the majority of the problem comes down to being ranged in the first place, how long until the best fix is "just make everything attack from melee range"? No sarcasm intended, because if you're trying to "balance" ranged combat to melee, that's what you're going to have to do, short of tanking damage on ranged attacks to the point that there's no reason to play ranged.

Bows are already underperforming, recent changes to them indicate that you're aware, and now, in order to nerf both a current tree, that doesn't use bows, and lock out a new tree from being OP, that also doesn't use bows, you're nerfing bows yet again, along with the effect it's going to have on Artis and Mechs that aren't spec'd into Inquis or Alchemist.

[barecm]

Nah word on the street is 90% of the players council was calling for nerfs. Yeah 1/10th of 1% of the games players that are more self serving than serving the game as a whole. I can say one thing the PC is not respected in my circle.

Let me correct you here. I am on the PC and I cannot see any threads on nerfing inquisitive. I did not scroll through the pages of topics, but nothing in your face.

HOWEVER, where the discussion did happen is in Steelstar's discord chat. Yet another channel of information that is not readily made available for folks where awful decisions like this are brought up. There you saw all the casters whining about how inquisitive. I for one had no knowledge of the chat until I saw it posted on other sites and saw with my own eyes what was going down.

Also saw where Steelstar was discussing how IPS is in the way of longbow fixes somehow. My interpretation is that it was too hard to figure out how to fix things with longbows, so they decided just to nerf everything and hope people just stop playing so they don't have to fix something they hate anyway.

Clearly, all the love goes to casters. Melee is there to provide meat shields. Ranged has no value.

Take it for what it is, the devs will back track on everything they say, but the truth is what we see in the game.

[Jerevth]

I am unenthusiastic.
-IPS is a real PITB to line up more than three commonly. Yet it gets ganked. It was difficult to attain (BAB 11, 19 dex, point Blank and Precise shot feats required)- almost impossible for a first life or second life to attain without buying tomes... So, now, after a player invests in their character, they must learn to instinctively toggle the IPS stance to maintain power output or accept a 20% reduction in damage in general?

Dragging an entire Tactical Combat area (Ranged) backwards and calling it balance is only going to underscore that missile weapons, in general, are inferior.

The bar has been set: bring the ranged classes up to approach that bar rather than dragging all of them backwards. You adjusted the mobs to compensate for the power creep already in order to to maintain the current bar. Yanking the leash on an already ailing combat approach is not a wise decision. Inqui was too powerful, so you've determined through data. Cutting the legs of Rangers, as well, is just scorched earth and salted the fields.

I would propose IPS imposes a damage scale after the first target is hit, instead. (Energy is lost with each mass the missile transits.) First target takes 100%, then 95/90/85/80, etc or 90, 80, 70, 60, etc. It's a struggle to get a decent range power modifier in the first place. The proposed 20% will kick that right back again. All the effort to increase it using other feats will now just be a struggle to remain in place or accept that ranged will no longer be viable AOE toons without investing in something else: Inqui, Falconer, etc.

I've been sitting on a (former) main ranger for three years because he just could not compete with an arti. Improve the ranger, don't make everyone move to spell caster or melee because the enhancement you sell makes ranged better for all. Inqui should be optional, not mandatory. Will the next enhancement tree offered be spell based and result in Sorcs and Wizzies getting hobbled because it was too powerful? Poor dude was my first character. He's on the chopping block for deletion currently.

These are questions, not accusations. I'm not throwing dung into the fan, but these are questions that should be asked and considered by the development team. What is your goal here? If it's balance, when you've already increased the mobs to oppose the current power levels. You cannot take away from the weaker classes first. There are a lot of factors currently, granted, but handicapping all ranged because the for-sale enhancement tree made it easier is not the solution that will benefit the game, the players or the company.

[SerPounce]

Nerfs are always tough, but this seems reasonable on it's face. There is probably going to be a huge drop in the number of inquisitives, but that will have at least as much to do with fatigue with the build than the impact of the nerfs. I'm not sure if I'll keep my endgame inq build or go back to a battle engineer like that guy was before.

Is there any chance of making stance shifting less clunky? In itself I think the IPS nerf is warranted, but I'm dreading dealing with mid-combat stance shifting where if you move at the wrong time you end up in neither stance. It's great that IPS and AF are more balanced now, but it means I'm going to want to switch between them much more often rather than once or twice a quest for red named beat downs.

It would have been nice if bows could have gotten some love with this same update as this will surely be a bitter pill for anyone still using one, but I understand resources are limited.

[CaptainSpacePony]

I've been playing Inquisitive a lot because it seems stronger/easier than other things.

Reducing Law on your Side scaling from 200% to 150%--sounds good, but I must ask, "Why do things not just scale at 100%? What's with the drive to make them scale more than 'regular' damage?"

[karatemack]

Let me correct you here. I am on the PC and I cannot see any threads on nerfing inquisitive. I did not scroll through the pages of topics, but nothing in your face.

HOWEVER, where the discussion did happen is in Steelstar's discord chat. Yet another channel of information that is not readily made available for folks where awful decisions like this are brought up. There you saw all the casters whining about how inquisitive. I for one had no knowledge of the chat until I saw it posted on other sites and saw with my own eyes what was going down.

Also saw where Steelstar was discussing how IPS is in the way of longbow fixes somehow. My interpretation is that it was too hard to figure out how to fix things with longbows, so they decided just to nerf everything and hope people just stop playing so they don't have to fix something they hate anyway.

Clearly, all the love goes to casters. Melee is there to provide meat shields. Ranged has no value.

Take it for what it is, the devs will back track on everything they say, but the truth is what we see in the game.

So... 1) there’s still a players council? How often has that roster been updated? And 2) only a select few favorites get to participate in a separate discord with steelstar where feedback is actually impactful?

If true... then it would explain the disconnected design goals and developer confidence they’re getting it right.

[OfElectricMen]

As we approach each Hardcore season, one of our goals is to make changes that change how you build and play characters - We want to shake up builds and strategies, and it makes sense to align these game-wide changes with the release of new seasons of the Hardcore League.

NO it does not. Any decision made from this position is simply the WRONG decision. But I'm sure you won't lose that many VIP subscriptions from this kind of BS. I mean, you're going to lose mine, but whatevs.

[droid327]

"Why do things not just scale at 100%? What's with the drive to make them scale more than 'regular' damage?"

Yeah I'm seeing this argument more and more here and I'm sympathetic to it.

Its confusing when stats arent just stats. There's fewer and fewer things where they just work straight up what their number is, 100%. I can kinda understand where MP and RP are "meta metrics" that are meant to be scaled off of...but Doubleshot should just be Doubleshot and provide consistent benefit for all ranged builds.

Look at poor Repeaters...they get 33% Doubleshot, so that stat is undervalued for them. They hardly benefit from Alacrity, so that stat is worthless for them too. All they can do is try to stack RP, but that's only really available through enhancements, destinies, and filigrees. They arent even the fastest-firing ranged weapons anymore - Inqui totally blows them away, Shuri already did and now Simple Throwers can too, so its not even like "Repeaters trade scaling for high ROF" and try to stack on-hit effects. And now they gotta deal with -20% damage on their IPS too...

[Ashlayna]

Nerfs are always tough, but this seems reasonable on it's face. There is probably going to be a huge drop in the number of inquisitives, but that will have at least as much to do with fatigue with the build than the impact of the nerfs. I'm not sure if I'll keep my endgame inq build or go back to a battle engineer like that guy was before.

Is there any chance of making stance shifting less clunky? In itself I think the IPS nerf is warranted, but I'm dreading dealing with mid-combat stance shifting where if you move at the wrong time you end up in neither stance. It's great that IPS and AF are more balanced now, but it means I'm going to want to switch between them much more often rather than once or twice a quest for red named beat downs.

It would have been nice if bows could have gotten some love with this same update as this will surely be a bitter pill for anyone still using one, but I understand resources are limited.

Yep, nerfing AA because Inquis was viewed as OP is "reasonable"...