Summary of Combat Changes in Menace of the Underdark

[Eladrin]

Major changes are being made to the hit formulas in Menace of the Underdark to address several Armor Class and mitigation issues that plague the system we currently have on the live servers, and become especially apparent in extreme content. Armor Class is intended to provide indirect damage mitigation over time – it makes sense that the less the monsters hit you, the less damage you take.

We've put this thread together to try to explain what we're doing and why. (Several changes have occurred since earlier beta rounds - if I don't mention something, it's probably been removed.)

The biggest issue that we have is that against any particular monster, there is only a “functional AC band” of 20 points, where each point of Armor Class matters. Let’s look at a mid level example, ignoring critical hits for now, where a monster with +20 to hit is attacking a player:

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Figure 1: Mid Level AC – Monster attacking Player

The mitigation curve with the live system looks like this. Against a monster with a +20 to hit, if you have a 21 or lower Armor Class (the first red zone), you are hit 95% of the time, since monsters miss on a roll of a natural 1. It doesn’t really matter if you’re at 10 AC, 15, or 21 – you’re still getting hit 95% of the time. At an Armor Class of 40 or higher, once again, each point of Armor Class is excessive – the monster is only hitting on a roll of a Natural 20, so your Armor Class is “wasted”.

Major problems start arising when character AC’s in a party are 20 or more points apart – monsters can barely touch one character but are almost always hitting the other character. The low AC character is taking an astounding nineteen times as many hits as the high AC character. Meanwhile, to challenge the high AC character, monster to-hit numbers have crept up significantly, until we reach our current epic level content, which has charts like this:

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Figure 2: Epic Lord of Blades - Monster attacking Player

The Epic Lord of Blades, without serious debuffs, hits everyone’s Armor Class in the game right now 95% of the time, from the angriest Frenzied Berserker in a loincloth to a Stalwart Defender wearing the best defensive gear in the game.

Since Epic quests, until now, have been designed for a certain extremely hardcore crowd, this was somewhat acceptable, but in Menace of the Underdark we’re opening them up to a wider audience (including Casual, Normal, Hard, and Elite modes).

Players have often told us that the Armor Class system is broken, and the charts above clearly indicate that they’re absolutely right! It’s completely true, especially in high level content. The system functions only in a very narrow band of 20, but player AC ranges wildly from single digits to hovering right around 100. This unsurprisingly leads to characters discarding any attempts to increase their Armor Class, since there’s no way for them to get it to the point where it has any actual effect on gameplay. (Tabletop D&D has a few systems that address the disparity, such as additional attacks per turn at increasing penalties - even if the first attack will hit you 95% of the time, the second or third attack might miss if you have some focus on AC.)

We would like Armor Class to matter to everybody. We would also like everyone to gain some benefit if they acquire an item that increases their Armor Class by another 3 points, regardless of how high their Armor Class already is.

Our solution is to change the way Attack Bonus and Armor Class are compared. Instead of adding 1d20 to a monster’s Attack Bonus and directly comparing the values, we’re calculating a hit chance separately. Each point of Armor Class increases your chance to be missed, while each point of the monster’s Attack Bonus increases their chance to hit you. The tooltip on your Armor Class value of your character sheet will display your chance to be missed by the “average monster” of your level.

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Figure 3: Defense Chance in the AC Tooltip

A general rule with the new formula is that every doubling of Armor Class pretty much doubles your mitigation. A character with 30 Armor Class will be hit approximately half as often by a specific monster as one with a 15 Armor Class, and one with a 60 Armor Class will be hit approximately one quarter as often as the 15 Armor Class character.

Players will use the same formula, but will have a 25% bonus to hit if they are proficient with their weapon. Unlike monster attack rolls, player to hit rolls will be mapped to a d20 by rounding to the nearest 5% - if you hit on a 13, you’ll hit on a 13. Players will also graze opponents on a roll of 2 or higher on the d20 instead of a 10 or higher – if you character looks like it hit with your weapon, it should do some damage on anything but a roll of a 1.

Converting to a system like this increases the band of “Effective Armor Class” dramatically, but also results in high Armor Class characters being hit more often. If we did nothing to address that, the mitigation curves for above charts would look like this:

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Figure 4: Mid Level AC Comparison of Systems – Monster attacking Player

Values from 17 to 305 Armor Class are supported with this mid-level curve.

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Figure 5: Epic Lord of Blades Comparison of Systems – Monster attacking Player

The Epic Lord of Blades now acquires a chance to miss at 66 Armor Class, and the curve doesn’t reach a 95% miss chance until 1244 Armor Class.

While these curves dramatically assist characters with Armor Class lower than the Attack Bonuses of their opponents, this isn’t sufficient to keep high Armor Class characters “tanking” as well as we would like. There are two additional changes that we’re planning to help them out there, and one for the lightly armored dexterous classes out there.

• More Armor Class for wearing Armor
  We want armor to mean more to your character than it does today. Currently on live, a character with a 90 Armor Class is likely to be getting 16 or fewer points of their Armor Class from the suit of armor they are physically wearing. We’re creating multiple “tiers” of armor that provide increased bonuses, starting around level 7.
  
  Named items will be retroactively upgraded to grant bonuses appropriate for the tier that they drop at. The Epic Red Dragonplate Armor, for example, will provide 27 total points of Armor Bonus instead of 16.
  
  We didn’t forget about the Warforged – Docents will now also grant different amounts of Armor based on your body feats.
  
  Several feats and enhancements have been modified to provide greater amounts of Armor Class or percentage boosts to Armor Class.
  
  
• Physical Resistance Rating
  Heavily armored or defensive characters will be taking decreased damage from physical (bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing) damage due to a Physical Resistance Rating score.
  
  If you are proficient in your armor, you will have a starting Physical Resistance Rating, modified by whether it is light, medium, or heavy armor, that increases as your Base Attack Bonus increases.
  
  Shield Mastery, Improved Shield Mastery, Two Weapon Defense, various Defensive Stances, and the monk’s Earth Stance all provide various amounts of stacking Physical Resistance Rating.
  
  Your Physical Resistance Rating will be visible on your character sheet, and the tooltip will let you know how much it's helping.
  
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  Figure 6: Physical Resistance Rating Tooltip
  
  
• Dodge
  Dodge bonuses now give a chance to evade attacks entirely instead of providing Armor Class. Your passive Dodge percentage is capped by the Maximum Dexterity Bonus of your armor, shield, or body feat, but short duration effects can go well beyond it.
  
  Several feats now provide Dodge bonuses that did not have defensive benefits before – Mobility and Spring Attack each grant 2% Dodge, and abilities like Uncanny Dodge and Improved Uncanny Dodge now grant a massive Dodge bonus instead of a small amount of Armor Class.

If we include a 30% Armor Class Boost into our formulas, our Stalwart Defender III tank (wearing heavy armor and a tower shield, with Shield Mastery and Improved Shield Mastery) can expect approximately the following improvement to survivability against the Epic Lord of Blades:

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Figure 7: Includes Physical Resistance Rating and AC increases

Our 100 AC tank on live should be going from 5% mitigation to around 64%. The Physical Resistance Rating boosts give a large amount of durability to the character, and very importantly make a healer’s job easier by making the incoming hits smaller.

In our mid level example, we’ll drop our tank down to Stalwart Defender II (reducing their Physical Resistance Rating), but retain heavy armor and a tower shield. Against this opponent, overall mitigation drops some at high AC values (since it’s no longer really possible to get to 95%), our 40 AC tank on live is still at 78% mitigation overall:

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Figure 8: Includes Physical Resistance Rating and AC increases

Overall Summary:
With the new combat formulas, we’re hoping to have Armor Class matter at all levels, for every character. Each point of Armor Class that you gain will help you mitigate damage, whether it’s your 17^th point or your 117^th. Armors provide increased Armor Class bonuses as well as Physical Resistance Rating. It’s not really possible to reach the 95% plateau anymore, but a high Armor Class character’s survivability will still be high, and the formula is much more forgiving to middling-AC characters.

We hope that this post helps people understand the scope of and the reasons behind the combat changes, as well as providing clarity to make them easier to understand, and we welcome further questions and feedback here in the forums.

If you're curious, further details on the exact combat formulas are in another post here, containing the deep dive into specific feat and system changes.

[grayham]

Very clear, and well designed. Thanks.

[Ape_Man]

Never mind . . . more details: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=374769

[Scraap]

Any thoughts on converting barb and forged DR feats/enhancements to PRR percentile amps for scalability?

What's the current thinking on dex/wis to dodge?

[maddmatt70]

So can a dex based character whether using a shield or two weapon fighting, or wearing no armor or light armor etc. tank anymore in DDO?
If you look at things holistically from the following aspects:
1. Enough hate to tank. Will these characters be able to generate enough hate to tank?
2. AC and Physical resistance vs. AC and Dodge vs. AC and Physical resistance and Dodge? Does everything from a tanking perspective have to be AC and physical resistance now.
3. Will there be additional items that provide physical resistance or will physical resistance be solo restricted to shield and armor from a gear standpoint?
4. Do tanks all have to be primarily paladins, fighters, and monks now?

[Thrudh]

So can a dex based character whether using a shield or two weapon fighting, or wearing no armor or light armor etc. tank anymore in DDO?
If you look at things holistically from the following aspects:
1. Enough hate to tank. Will these characters be able to generate enough hate to tank?
2. AC and Physical resistance vs. AC and Dodge vs. AC and Physical resistance and Dodge? Does everything from a tanking perspective have to be AC and physical resistance now.
3. Will there be additional items that provide physical resistance or will physical resistance be solo restricted to shield and armor from a gear standpoint?
4. Do tanks all have to be primarily paladins, fighters, and monks now?

Good questions...

Where does a TWF high-Dex character fit on these charts? Can Dodge go high enough to make up for the less AC and PRR?

[Eladrin]

Any thoughts on converting barb and forged DR feats/enhancements to PRR percentile amps for scalability?

We considered this - but DR still operates in the current system and since we don't expect Barbarians to end up with large PRR values, we thought it could end up as a downgrade in many instances.

What's the current thinking on dex/wis to dodge?

At the moment, it's still added to AC as normal.

[voodoogroves]

I get the explanation, however the underlying issue of your design is that AC alone can't reasonably do the job for a tank. More to the point, this means AC after a point won't be "worth it" from a grind perspective. Each additional point may help on the hit % track, but you'd be better served stacking AC, dodge and PRR (and presumably DR which is essentially a resist, not a soak).


A more linear progression that actually rewarded someone achieving a high AC would be appreciated.

[aristarchus1000]

Thanks for the summary. Th work is appreciated, even as the tweaks get worked out.

[Ape_Man]

Good questions...

Where does a TWF high-Dex character fit on these charts? Can Dodge go high enough to make up for the less AC and PRR?

It would need to go up a HELL of a lot to hit those numbers considering how low the relative ACs are. We're talking like a % of dodge for every point of DEX and WIS bonus in addition to the AC bonus. If I'm wrong I'd love a chart explaining why.

Speaking of Dodge . . . any gear tweaks coming our way? Will a chattering ring still only be worth 3%?

[voodoogroves]

We considered this - but DR still operates in the current system and since we don't expect Barbarians to end up with large PRR values, we thought it could end up as a downgrade in many instances.

I'd suggest keeping DR - resist and % are both in the game now for elemental as well as physical damage.

What you might consider IN ADDITION is giving WF a PRR-boosting AP capability to offset their poor healing amp. Instead of giving them more amp (since they are out of balance), give them more physical damage reduction.

[Eladrin]

So can a dex based character whether using a shield or two weapon fighting, or wearing no armor or light armor etc. tank anymore in DDO?

In theory, they end up trading PRR for outright evasion from dodge. We'll make adjustments if it doesn't end up working.

[maddmatt70]

Good questions...

Where does a TWF high-Dex character fit on these charts? Can Dodge go high enough to make up for the less AC and PRR?

Well it appears in the other thread that if you do go with pally or fighter defender you can get your hate applied to two weapon fighting and it does not have to be shield focused so at least from what I can tell you can at least possible get the threat required to tank if you go with fighter or paladin as some or all of your base levels..

The rest I have no idea..

[taurean430]

It seems that there are no updates to either armored bracers or armored robes. Is this on the table?

[stainer]

Read the op and feel like I just sat through a meeting at work.

[Ape_Man]

Do shield wands/clickies give and PRR? if not, why not?

Will tempest once it's un-broken? If so please back-load this to make the PRE worth more.

[Eladrin]

Do shield wands/clickies give and PRR? if not, why not?

We're currently looking at getting Shield and Mage Armor to give bonuses as if they're shields and light armor. (This is not a promise. There may also be some Tenser's changes. Maybe.)

Will tempest once it's un-broken? If so please back-load this to make the PRE worth more.

The Tempest Shield of Whirling Steel probably should give bonuses. Good idea.

Read the op and feel like I just sat through a meeting at work.

I heard similar comments from people that were proof-reading it for me internally.

It seems that there are no updates to either armored bracers or armored robes. Is this on the table?

If they prove necessary, anything's on the table. I could easily see us making an enhancement line that increases the benefits you receive from mystical armors like that.

[BruceTheHoon]

1) Will mithral armours now provide less protecion than their identical steel counterparts?
If yes, why?
I'm asking, because this is currently not the case on the live servers.
The way I see it, one would then be trading AC for minor dexterity bonus = dodge%. Due to unstacking nature of these two attributes, a mithral full plate user would most probably be trading a measurable amount of AC for a next to insignificant amount of dodge bonus.

2) AC feats and enhancements are being adapted to this system. What about other AC buffs, like barkskin, shield spell and bard's songs?

[emtp]

+1

Read the op and feel like I just sat through a meeting at work.

This does make it clear what you are trying to do and I just solo acit wit on my clonk last night both live and beta. I was able to complete on beta as I didnt need to heal as much but the healing was a little lower but not by too much and when I switch to fleash maker staff it was more. I wrote down the numbers but i am not seeing them this morning. But I did see a drop in incoming hits both the number and the amount of damge. So maybe so more work is needed but a lot better then the beta 2 test that i treid.

Qestion- Is there a place to see what your doge bounus is?

[donblas]

We're currently looking at getting Shield and Mage Armor to give bonuses as if they're shields and light armor. (This is not a promise. There may also be some Tenser's changes. Maybe.)

.

Do shields and light armor give PRR??? Mages who aren't proficient don't get PRR from armor, and you don't get PRR from shields unless you have shield mastery. If you mean these spells will act as if you had those things then mages with actual real armor with actual real shields (that have become much more useless under your new system) will be left behind in this regard too.