Combat Feedback for Update 5.

[FluffyCalico]

Ehh, can I get a refund on the +2 tomes I've bought at the DDO store so a lot of my builds could get GTWF? Thanks.

Meh I want them to turn my +3 dex tome to a +4 so can can get the STWF feat they just tossed back in. Either that or unlimited 20% xp pots for a an extra TR just to get 1 more DEX point. I don't mind hunting a +3 but +4s are not so easy to come by.

[emptysands]

Traditionally the software development mantra is "make it work, then make it fast." In this case it seems that combat is working, but just not fast enough. I think fundamentally changing how combat works may be the wrong approach. Now I certainly don't know the underlying architecture of the DDO system, but if high end Raid lag is due to heavy processing requirements then the server is simply lacking computing capacity to accommodate the load. Computing capacity is understood to be a far cheaper resource than development efforts are.

In the age of clouds and virtualization, why not spawn a dedicated combat server which will handle all the combat processing and I/O for high-end content? That will liberate the main servers from the task by reducing resource contention. Furthermore these combat server instances can be spawned as-needed to conserve resources and automatically scale with resource/load demand.

In other words the problem might have an architectural solution that would enable advancements in many other areas. A square peg can fit into a round hole, if the hole is big enough. Rather than grind off the square's edges, you can expand the hole. Making combat fit into existing lag realities is different from making lag realities fit existing combat.

If you don't do that already that is...

One of the traditional methods for speeding up random number generation is pre-generation.

Say mapping 5 x 1d6 to 5d6 pre-generated random number.

[Druxan]

As anyone that really knows programming will tell you, efficient code makes a huge difference. Much more than any increase in hardware will do.

As I am not a programmer I didn't know that. good to know, thank you.

Still don't like the loss in dps though.

[ddoplayer064]

Lord, what a mess...

Couple of things really stand out.

1. The Rangers Tempest line is useless with this change. 3 near worthless feats for a +2 to AC and a 5% chance to proc a double strike? No frakin' way is that, in any shape or form, balanced.

2. Spending twice the resources (and more stat allocation points) to do inferior damage to THF? Cool...

3. I want a full respec, especially for my Bard. I would have dumped dex instead of spending 10 build points there, and would have saved 15k plat on NOT buying a +1 dex tome to get iTWF.

[Asymetric_War]

Thanks for the massive amount of feedback all.

We're currently thinking of adjusting the numbers to:

Code:

Doublestrike Bonus Main hand Off hand
No feats 0 20% 100% 20%
TWF 0 +20% 100% 40%
ITWF 0 +20% 100% 60%
GTWF 0 +20% 100% 80%
STWF 0 +20% 100% 100%
Tempest I 0 +10% 100% 90%
Tempest II 0 +10% 100% 100%
Tempest III +5%* 0 105% 100%
Wind IV +10% 0 110% 80%
Zeal +10% 0 110% 80%
Alacrity +10% 0 110% 80%

* Only when wielding two weapons.

So Rogues will still get screwed and so will all multiclass toons. Thanks for nothing! As I said before, the ONLY thing rogues have (since parties just waltz merrily through traps) is DPS. And now you're going to take that away from us. I wonder what you think is going to motivate us to keep playing and paying?

I'm going to have to stop following this thread, the utter cluelessness on display here is spoiling my mood and I don't want to walk around ****ed off all day. But I'm going to say this one more time : every time you people make multiclass toons less viable you take away from the main asset that DDO has over other MMO's - the ability to customize and create a near infinite range of builds. And every time you do that you lose people like me. That may not matter to you now that you've got lots of new players in but folks like me are the only reason this game didn't go completely belly up in the first year after you botched the launch. You don't have to appriciate that but you could at least refrain from overtly spitting in our faces.

[Pfold]

I'm trying my best to wrap my brain around this one.

Maybe I'm looking at this in the wrong way but it seems as though you're removing 1 roll ('piggybacking' o/h) and adding a 'doublestrike' feature. Does the doublestrike feature add another roll to the process? If so, what got accomplished?

Let me think about this in another way:

You want to remove/reduce calculations in order to alleviate lag on your end. If you reduce the overall speed of twf, why not reduce opponents' hp pools and nerf thf damage rates accordingly so everything seems unchanged on our end?

I agree change is inevitable. This game just punishes you too much when a change like this comes about. I mean, if it were like 50g to change your spec it would be another story.... ....lol

[Ollathir]

I'm trying my best to wrap my brain around this one.

Maybe I'm looking at this in the wrong way but it seems as though you're removing 1 roll ('piggybacking' o/h) and adding a 'doublestrike' feature. Does the doublestrike feature add another roll to the process? If so, what got accomplished?

Let me think about this in another way:

You want to remove/reduce calculations in order to alleviate lag on your end. If you reduce the overall speed of twf, why not reduce opponents' hp pools and nerf thf damage rates accordingly so everything seems unchanged on our end?

I agree change is inevitable. This game just punishes you too much when a change like this comes about. I mean, if it were like 50g to change your spec it would be another story.... ....lol

Its the physics detection checks they are trying to address. Seems it slows stuff up more than a simple roll.

[FluffyCalico]

1) Casters used to DPS so they have monsters 100X the hp and made greensteel weapons.
2) People use to run past trash mobs so they gave us DA
3) People used to make AC toons so they gave us Glancing blows
4) People used to love min 2 so they nerfed it
5) Casters use to debuff and finger of death stuff so they gave everything that matters blanket immunities
6) People used to use w/p so they broke it
7) People used to take the 2hf feats so they are breaking them now
8) People used to make 2wf so they are nerfing them

Did I miss anything?

[Visty]

Talking against your self much?

nop

I have over 17 toons and ALL of them use 2 weapons to do damage. Thats allot of time wasted on GS items and allot of feets wasted aswell.

and ppl say twf wouldnt be overpowered but sorry, if one person has 17 twflers already it says more then thousand words

[sephiroth1084]

Elaborating on that with appeal to an expert...
Why would an STWF feat be less fun than things like Cleave and Slicing Blow (if they had been fixed to be worthwhile)? All three feats have the end result of causing additional melee damage, so what's the difference?

As a major game designer recently explained, a character option probably isn't much fun if acquiring the option doesn't change what the player does. That fits STWF, because a player who has STWF does exactly the same things as when he only had GTWF (even if the results are a little more successful, he doesn't behave differently). But a player who gets Cleave or Slicing Blow will start doing new behaviors, as he begins watching for situations where those active feats work best and clicking the icon at the right times.

A game where active feats like Cleave and Slicing Blow have a useful place in combat is more fun than if they didn't.

"You must spread more rep around, blah, blah blah..."

I guess so. It's harder to accurately read these things when unhelpful moderators are squishing dozens of separate topics into a single thread for "ease of reading".

Absolutely. I find it fairly disheartening to see two more pages of responses creep up in the time it takes me to write one. I have no ****ing clue how the devs could possibly be trying to keep up (or catch up) with all of this.

For one, while providing the information in one, easily accessible place was a good idea, it should have then been divided into multiple topics. Part of the confusion here is due to the juxtaposition of the language concerning the lag fix, and that of the nerf, leading many to read the nerf as being a solution to lag (which it is partly).

[Ollathir]

1) Casters used to DPS so they have monsters 100X the hp and made greensteel weapons.
2) People use to run past trash mobs so they gave us DA
3) People used to make AC toons so they gave us Glancing blows
4) People used to love min 2 so they nerfed it
5) Casters use to debuff and finger of death stuff so they gave everything that matters blanket immunities
6) People used to use w/p so they broke it
7) People used to take the 2hf feats so they are breaking them now
8) People used to make 2wf so they are nerfing them

Did I miss anything?

Only thing that comes to my mind is the whole Epic fragments instead of tokens deal but that sort of dont belong.

[Pfold]

Its the physics detection checks they are trying to address. Seems it slows stuff up more than a simple roll.

Can't they preserve dps outputs as they are and still implement this change in the formula? I think that's what a good degree of the disappointment is stemming from.

Seems like they're just going to gum up the works even more. You can't put a bandaid on open heart surgery. Everyone would probably be better served if a new combat system was created from scratch to streamline the entire process with little affect to the end user.

We'll wait, we promise. As long as you're a little quicker than that search function on the ah

[vVAnjilaVv]

Can't they preserve dps outputs as they are and still implement this change in the formula? I think that's what a good degree of the disappointment is stemming from.

Seems like they're just going to gum up the works even more. You can't put a bandaid on open heart surgery. Everyone would probably be better served if a new combat system was created from scratch to streamline the entire process with little affect to the end user.

We'll wait, we promise. As long as you're a little quicker than that search function on the ah

Don't forget, a large part of the change is an intended nerf to TWF.....the lag issue is only part of why they are doing this.

Basically they WANT you to do LESS dps as a TWF.....that's intentional.

[Pfold]

Don't forget, a large part of the change is an intended nerf to TWF.....the lag issue is only part of why they are doing this.

Basically they WANT you to do LESS dps as a TWF.....that's intentional.

So, let me get this straight....


We're getting pigeonholed into playing thf and they're pretending to fix the lag in doing so?

Is this accurate?

I think I got it now

[FluffyCalico]

So, let me get this straight....


We're getting pigeonholed into playing thf and they're pretending to fix the lag in doing so?

Is this accurate?

I think I got it now

Actually 2hf is taking a big nerf too

PS> Easy to miss its only in like 1 post but they borking up the 2HF feats.

[Pfold]

Actually 2hf is taking a big nerf too

Doh!

So just pretending to fix the lag then.

[Swedishchef]

Basically they WANT you to do LESS dps as a TWF.....that's intentional.

´

And it makes you do less dps as THF aswell if you do some calculation on it.

What i got from this is:
-We will nerf the mobbs in EPIC, oops guys we forgott all the dps builds out there, they will now blaze epic and get better stuff.
-YAY i got it let´s nerf the dps for all twf and thf by 40 and the s&b can feel usefull in epic, we can also make it sound like we trying to fix the dps lagg, but instead they will spend more time in shroud/vod/tod/epic etc etc so we don´t have to add more material as fast bc now they will have to spend more time in the quests they alrdy love to grind. And let´s not forgett all thoose going for TR they will have to spend more time in each q due to less dps.

SUCCESS = we don´t have to fix lagg, less new material, more grdining... happy days

[vVAnjilaVv]

So, let me get this straight....


We're getting pigeonholed into playing thf and they're pretending to fix the lag in doing so?

Is this accurate?

I think I got it now

Not entirely, it's been said many times that fixing the lag was a small part of it....not ALL of it.

No pigeonhole has been created yet...this is not even in testing so I would not go looking into it too deeply...you may wanna hold off on making any TWF builds until this is more resolved tho.....but I seriously do not think it's going to be THAT bad.....it would be a game breaker if it was.

And besides.....if THF in some way becomes more powerful than TWF after this...u can be pretty much guaranteed they will either make TWF better or will nerf THF....I doubt your gonna find a safe place for very long as far as that goes.

If THF became better and everyone started only playing those types it would ring the nerf bell for Turbine all over again.

[Cetus]

What would be the problem with implementing the doublestrike feature for TWF'ers exclusively and adding extra perks or percentages to bring the dps back up to an unchanged level. That way the dps is unchanged, the physical detection is as if they were a two hander, and THF'ers remain untouched.

THF'ers were not contributors to lag to the extent that TWF'ers were, so if the system is digesting the detections as if its a buncha THF"ers, lag is reduced and EVERYONE gets to keep their dps. Noone ever complained about TWF being overpowered (I personally do just fine with a two hander) and thus everyone is happy.

[vVAnjilaVv]

What would be the problem with implementing the doublestrike feature for TWF'ers exclusively and adding extra perks or percentages to bring the dps back up to an unchanged level. That way the dps is unchanged, the physical detection is as if they were a two hander, and THF'ers remain untouched.

THF'ers were not contributors to lag to the extent that TWF'ers were, so if the system is digesting the detections as if its a buncha THF"ers, lag is reduced and EVERYONE gets to keep their dps. Noone ever complained about TWF being overpowered (I personally do just fine with a two hander) and thus everyone is happy.

Well...supposedly there are tooo many TWF'ers.....I personally love playing my Greataxe fighter as much as my Dual rapier ranger....so I really don't know what the deal is.

I know a lot of flavor of the month tempest/monk splashes will need to change more than 3 levels of class to probably be viable after the nerf....but I won't go there......I just got back some of the rep I lost

And if the lag thing has something to do with detection checks then it's blatantly obvious why they are taking glancing blows away from attack while moving...even tho a lot of THF will still do moving attacks because it increases survivability a lot of times.

This seems like a whole new combat system and we may well be seeing THF working much more differently also after the TWF change depending on how succesfully it is implemented.