U55 Legendary Monsters Accurate/Dodgy and stuff will NOT be in Dread

[Torc]

Hey folks, just gonna give a quick update on some of the legendary monster changes which have been floating around in the previews.

In essence we have been experimenting with several things…

1.Having Mobs in legendary reaper reduce players effective dodge (a much more milder version of what happens already with incorp/displacement)

2.Having Mobs in legendary gain new abilities based on their “class”. Example: A rogue might have some dodge, or a Fighter might have some Dodge Pen.

I’m not going to go into much more detail than that now because with all that's going with Dread we have decided that these sub systems need more time to bake in dev. So we are kicking this can to another update.

To be clear... These changes will not be in the Isle of Dread update.

When we are ready to dig into these things again more details will be provided in this Lammania thread, and it will be part of a different update/preview cycle, with a bit more time to take in feedback and hash out the effects to general game balance.

Enjoy the Dinosaurs!

-T

[DRoark]

Have they considered just readjusting the current Reaper abilities? It seems silly to have a % of a % reduction on Heals, instead of just making it None.
There is alot of damage vulnerability overlap, and Famine seems to have been overclocked pretty high awhile back, it's like 3 reapers-in-one.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

Hey folks, just gonna give a quick update on some of the legendary monster changes which have been floating around in the previews.

In essence we have been experimenting with several things…

1.Having Mobs in legendary reaper reduce players effective dodge (a much more milder version of what happens already with incorp/displacement)

2.Having Mobs in legendary gain new abilities based on their “class”. Example: A rogue might have some dodge, or a Fighter might have some Dodge Pen.

I’m not going to go into much more detail than that now because with all that's going with Dread we have decided that these sub systems need more time to bake in dev. So we are kicking this can to another update.

To be clear... These changes will not be in the Isle of Dread update.

When we are ready to dig into these things again more details will be provided in this Lammania thread, and it will be part of a different update/preview cycle, with a bit more time to take in feedback and hash out the effects to general game balance.

Enjoy the Dinosaurs!

-T

The dinos do look good. (I had a lot of fun in the king quest on lamma.)

Please keep in mind that melee are affected asymmetrically by defense changes, since ranged/casters/healers/tanks can kite. You might even say that the latter can dodge manually. Only the former need dodge in the first place. Consider giving a sizable AC bonus (and looking at the curve) to the Epic Defensive Fighting stance. Geometry cheesing is our #1 defense. I do NOT recommend any reductions to the defense currently available if you don't address the geometry issue.

A light armour toon with best in slot, and all past lives, can barely tank a doom on r10---when casters can kite it to death.

Addressing player challenge is addressing the geometry issue. At the very least dooms should teleport (like devils) after they cast their doom stack.

Thanks for your work on the game Torc. Please address defensive changes to melee players in particular.

[elvesunited]

1.Having Mobs in legendary reaper reduce players effective dodge (a much more milder version of what happens already with incorp/displacement)

2.Having Mobs in legendary gain new abilities based on their “class”. Example: A rogue might have some dodge, or a Fighter might have some Dodge Pen.

I’m not going to go into much more detail than that now because with all that's going with Dread we have decided that these sub systems need more time to bake in dev. So we are kicking this can to another update.

To be clear... These changes will not be in the Isle of Dread update.
-T

Question ... Why? With dodge cap I don't think you could get it much beyond 50% and those characters that do get dodge that high are among the most fragile in the game. Reducing dodge effectiveness is like messing with an opposing team by tripping their weakest player.

[songswrath]

Question ... Why? With dodge cap I don't think you could get it much beyond 50% and those characters that do get dodge that high are among the most fragile in the game. Reducing dodge effectiveness is like messing with an opposing team by tripping their weakest player.

i 2nd this 100% just trash this messing with dodge stuff and work on bug fixes and storage options this is what players want not reinviting combat system's

[Ganak]

Appreciate that this change is getting additional time to bake.

[Chacka_DDO]

I would suggest a rebalance of dodge blur displacement incorporeal prr/mrr, monster damage etc.
If you think some of the player's stats provide too much damage reduction by either completely ignoring monsters' damage or mitigating them too much then nerf it but do NOT nerf the player stats secretly behind the scenes and do NOT make some spells totally senseless like it makes no sense at all to cast displacement in r10 because the effect is completely negated.
And it is an in my opinion an obvious mistake to believe it is a good idea to take concealment, dodge, spell resistance, and other things completely or almost completely away from players the more skull they play in reaper so that in the end only HP remains as a working defensive stat, this makes playing more reaper skulls maybe objectively more difficult but this is a BORING way!
Good ideas to make more reaper skulls more difficult are the doom, despair, and foremost vengeance reapers, they are maybe not ideal but this is the right way to increase difficulty.

And I also have the slight impression that you are sometimes completely lost regarding the question if DDO should be more difficult and if you want it more difficult how to do that.
For example, if you push monster saves so that an average player cannot land spells anymore it might feel more difficult on the surface but this is NOT fun increasing!
The same if monsters one-shot kill you especially if you play a melee character, for example, if they bypass all your fortification (they sometimes crit hit you and you can do nothing to prevent that), also this is not difficult increasing in a fun way, this is simply unfair and boring and at its best just good for a laugh because the player knows he did nothing wrong and it went south anyhow.
Also here I want to emphasize that if you want to make DDO more difficult because you think it is fun, that's fine for me but DO NOT do it if you don't have good ideas, then better leave it as it is, there is no need to make DDO worse.

And by the way, I have still the opinion that there is no need for the touch range restriction when you use Epic Defensive Fighting, especially not for heals and raise spells.
The balance for the Hit Points bonus for melee is that they need more HP, there is no additional balance needed like this touch range as long as you can ensure that casters and archers don't make use of EDF and this should be ensured in another way (not going into details to keep t short but there are ways and I made already many suggestions in the past)
And I would suggest that part of EDF should be a general damage reduction at least against melee physical damage from monsters.

[ahpook]

Question ... Why? With dodge cap I don't think you could get it much beyond 50% and those characters that do get dodge that high are among the most fragile in the game. Reducing dodge effectiveness is like messing with an opposing team by tripping their weakest player.

I am ok with them adding some mobs (not all or most) with dodge and some mobs (not all or most) who can by pass dodge. Make the enemies varied and add strategic play. But they really need to get the melee house in order before they start messing with stuff like this. I am glad that they pulled the idea for now and hopefully they will only tackle it after they have looked at their entire combat system to make sure it is working.

Though it rankles me that they will add stuff like this to Reaper but when they don't want to deal with something in reaper they use "we don't balance for reaper" as an excuse.

[Pandjed]

Though it rankles me that they will add stuff like this to Reaper but when they don't want to deal with something in reaper they use "we don't balance for reaper" as an excuse.

Adding stuff to reaper is "balancing reaper", not "balancing for reaper". That's more than a semantic. In this case, it translates to:

• balancing for reaper = balancing general abilities that are also used in casual, normal, hard, and elite with the goal to affect the reaper difficulty, possibly ignoring all other diffs
• balancing reaper = balancing the actual reaper mechanics with the sole purpose of affecting the reaper difficulty

So the approach "We don't balance for reaper, but we balance reaper whenever we feel it's needed" is just natural. Otherwise, we wouldn't had level gated reaper trees, new reaper types, increased RXP in legendaries, reaper crafting, etc.

[Havocthedemon]

Question ... Why? With dodge cap I don't think you could get it much beyond 50% and those characters that do get dodge that high are among the most fragile in the game. Reducing dodge effectiveness is like messing with an opposing team by tripping their weakest player.

Let me save you time, the devs don’t actually listen. They make up their minds internally with warped perceptions of the game and this is their way of easing you into a decision they already made. It’s not a discussion. Remember the warlock nerf? How funny is it that they thought that was needed, when even at its height before the nerf it’s nowhere near as insanely powerful as sorc and fvs and alchemist is right now. I legit did all 3 tabaxi lives as fvs and literally blasted through heroic so easily I could have done it one handed. Remember when they thought monk dps “overperformed?” Are you kidding me? No wraps build was ever even close to being as powerful as any barb or Paladin. They will continue to make decisions based on faulty data and perceptions and they will never revisit a decision they made even if the game has completely evolved and changed since that decision. And there’s reason for them to. Just shut up and buy the new overpowered thing they make and play it until the nerf it, then buy the next thing.

[Nickodeamous]

as a handwrap monk that actually has to be in touch range, losing any amount of dodge (and we are dodgy), will have a huge impact specifically on monks. And to be clear, PRR/MRR is only gonna take being hit by 5k down to like 4.9k if you bump that those by say 10 more at end game. So, in essence, dodge on monks is our way of survival. Thanks for pushing this down the road.

Nico

[Seph1roth5]

I think any old/new reaper penalties need to be rebalanced amongst r1-10. There's a very different game being played by different groups

1: new players that keep throwing themselves at elite and dying a lot because everyone tells them to run elite/r1
2: players that run most quests on r1 for the xp
3: players who run everything on low r1-4
4: players who run everything on r5+

So it'd be nice if any reaper penalties such as self-healing and damage weren't as severe early on, as opposed to a smooth progression (no thanks!).

[DRoark]

Yeah, plague reapers are vastly overtuned. Slow effects, hits close a Carnage, and the Heal Debuff. Only thing they didn't do to screw it up even more, is give it Fear.

[blarhblarhblarh]

The older twist of fate system worked so fine with meld.

Now without it seems to have created more problems than solutions.

[DeltaBravo]

Okey this makes no sense at all, and even to think about implementing this is silly..

First off, there is allready soooo many hidding "nerffs/Debuffs" that players dont know anout and new players have no idea. And example.`?? okey sure.. a new player finally goes into a reaper quest on his Wissard or something else who get displacement.. And does what he/she normally does.. only to find out that mobs hits right thorugh his displacement.. He dont understand this and bug reports it.. Why? becourse no where does it say that this item does not give same bonus in reaper... And there is a million of exsamples of this.. And that makes the game more complicated then needed..

Monks will take a way way to hard hit on this aswell, they are allready in a tight spot no reason to completely remove em from the game..

Stop the "hidden nerfs" it destroy more then it fixes...

NOW that ebing said. if there is something you see might courses issues and makes player run trough quest on r10 like it was Casual.. Make more challenges then. Iam not talking about updateing mobs.. Becourse that makes it confuseing, and a mob you used to insta kill suddently have a DW is a nerf.

What you should be doing is adding more reapers maybe some champs aswell, that then either itself have Dodge bypass or have a high dodge or whatever it is you see players kill to fast, so that when we see a "dodge Reaper/champ" or a "DW reaper/champ" So now players can see that the nesxt room players have to make the required effort, and players also now get the challenge they are looking for and makes the game more fun- Theese mobs should not be add before after R4. and maybe even higher.. But this will feel like a challenge update, and NOT a Nerf. and we all get what we want.. And devs now dont have to try and reblanece everything, and players will actully have an idea of whats going on.. even if you are a new player.


Cheers DB

[Sven_Hoek]

I’m not going to go into much more detail than that now because with all that's going with Dread we have decided that these sub systems need more time to bake in dev. So we are kicking this can to another update.



-T

PLEASE, let it bake for a long, long time, and when you do pull it out of the oven and it is burned beyond recognition, throw it into the "can" and kick it down the road so far until it falls into one of the 666 layers of the Abyss, never to be seen again. And just say to yourself, "What was I thinking?!"

[Alled78]

Hey folks, just gonna give a quick update on some of the legendary monster changes which have been floating around in the previews.

In essence we have been experimenting with several things…

1.Having Mobs in legendary reaper reduce players effective dodge (a much more milder version of what happens already with incorp/displacement)

2.Having Mobs in legendary gain new abilities based on their “class”. Example: A rogue might have some dodge, or a Fighter might have some Dodge Pen.

I’m not going to go into much more detail than that now because with all that's going with Dread we have decided that these sub systems need more time to bake in dev. So we are kicking this can to another update.

To be clear... These changes will not be in the Isle of Dread update.

When we are ready to dig into these things again more details will be provided in this Lammania thread, and it will be part of a different update/preview cycle, with a bit more time to take in feedback and hash out the effects to general game balance.

Enjoy the Dinosaurs!

-T

I dont like the direction you want to take.
Actually the game is more difficult for melee players.

Why are u increasing difficulty mainly for melee AGAIN?

Are u playing the game?

Sincerely, Abo.

[Havocthedemon]

I dont like the direction you want to take.
Actually the game is more difficult for melee players.

Why are u increasing difficulty mainly for melee AGAIN?

Are u playing the game?

Sincerely, Abo.

They definitely are not and clearly have a warped perception of the game. No one is asking for this and not one person who actually plays this game thinks this is a good idea. Hell I would bet even most people who play casters at cap would just sigh and feel even worse for melee players who are only playing melee bc it’s just a build they enjoy and not one that’s actually good. I mean the ranged builds are 10x better than any melee build but the devs are trash for this. Literally no one thinks this is healthy or good or that dodge even needs touched.

[draven1]

I know what caused this problem, there are some exceptionally high dodge build like ALWAYS ON 60%+ dodge, 95% for fair amount of time build. You should adjust(or nerf) those robe dodge build(Ocean stance), not under 35% dodge for most light-armor melee builds.

Armors limit dodge by armor Maximum Dexterity bonus, but, robe or clothes don't. Robes have MRR cap penalty, but, there are many ways to reduce that MRR cap penalty now.

[J1NG]

I know what caused this problem, there are some exceptionally high dodge build like ALWAYS ON 60%+ dodge, 95% for fair amount of time build.

I actually don't think it's this that was the cause that lead to this development.

1. These types of builds were possible since 2016. LONG before ED changes, gear changes, Level increases, etc. It's not a new occurance of something that shouldn't be there. It's been there a while and known about.
2. Not only that, between 2017 and 2018, the developers actually "specifically" MADE IT EASIER to create ultra high dodge builds. That doesn't reason like they felt it was an issue only to tackle MANY years later "just" as Legendary is about to come out. So instead, I rather reason that...
3. Legendary couldn't be seen as just another extension to Epic that players sleepwalked through, hence why the Devs began looking to add further difficulty for players. The only other cheap option they had left was Dodge to add onto enemies. Unfortunately, this means that players with no bypass would be an issue, so they began developing further bypass roll bonus to be applied for players. But, being a shrewed coder, you reuse what you create, so they were thinking of giving the buff and debuff both ways. - Only, I'm 100% certain they forgot about the play aspect of Avoidance defences entirely and why Dodge became the ONLY defence option for Avoidance at all; because they screwed the pooch regarding other Avoidance defences (debuffs that were appropriate for the time when those debuff ratings were made and now they no longer fit anymore given the changes they are aiming for with Dodge too). And why they went the way they did separating out the defences as they did years ago. So this pit they're stuck in, is entirely a mess they got themselves into by not actually being observant enough to see where they are going with stuff they do as well as still trying to go the easy way.

You should adjust(or nerf) those robe dodge build(Ocean stance), not under 35% dodge for most light-armor melee builds.

I'm sorry, but if you want to nerf specific groupings, SSG won't do that either. Think about it. There are just as many Monk (Ocean Stance) users who rely on Dodge only to have around 30-40% Dodge at the end as well. So your nerf idea is to nerf monks (Ocean Stance users only) but ignore other Light Melee. That won't fly. There's no reason to do something like that, since it won't spite those that you think it should spite (those with far more Dodge defence), and instead just spite many other users entirely instead to save your Light Armored Melee grouping.

No, what the Devs need to do is actually bite the bullet and invest into a method that penalises players with the Avoidances defences (ranged, casters, tanks who aren't hate tanks, etc), but NOT those who engaged into Melee itself (who put themselves into danger). As that lot is the one who lose out entirely over any debuff to Avoidance defences (usually of which are temporary) by being in melee range. But for many years now, no effort has been made to even attempt to rectify this. But I see with the approach they have taken that it is because they are trying hard NOT to implement anything more complex to save on server resources and go with the cheapest and easiest solution.

Applying Dodge was the logical decision, I too would have done that. But unfortunately, I also recognise that Dodge is the LAST Avoidance defence left that isn't crippled by badly managed debuff ratings and 100% (Complete) Bypass availability by enemies. So if this goes ahead, without any other changes, all this does is nerf, and provide no recourse for those whom had created Avoidance defence toons, which SSG themselves basically herded Light Melee towards through their design decisions many years ago and then just upping the damage output on enemies. So something needs to give, and only SSG know what that'll be in the end. But I do know this, it would not look good if it's JUST a flat debuff application. They need something MORE.

J1NG