My Opinion on Melee in DDO

[Standal]

Like most Internet posts; I am simply complaining about a problem without offering a viable solution.


Go back in time and change the past?

That is the issue with these kinds of threads. The correct solution is to roll back to either the pre-MOTU level 20 game or the game immediately after MOTU and then redo everything with a respect for the game as it was. Something from every epic raid should still be relevant. Don't introduce any heroic items with better than +6 to an ability. Don't nerf the **** out of clickies.

The problem is that that's impossible. So just roll with the game as it is until you finally don't enjoy it enough to log on.

[Niminae]

The feat thing. Of course someone who invests should do better.
But we have a situation now where, "your class is proficient with all martial weapons, yet you must never consider using any you have not further invest in, because other players will laugh at your uselessness."
... that just ain't right IMO.

I prefer to play casters, but I run with a lot of decent melee players. I see them swapping weapons to break DR wherever that makes sense. Of course swapping to a lame weapon just to break DR might not be productive, and of course they might have had to invest in building out and/or farming up different weapons, but I don't see that as any different than a caster who might be more focused on one type of spell damage having to swap to another in fights where the mobs are resistant or immune to their preferred element.

Melees have only 2 ways to cc mobs dire charge and lay waste.

Both need a high investment to work properly, require a hit roll, mobs have a chance to save, last just a few secs, lots of mobs are immune, lay waste have a long cooldown.

With the fact you need to be in close range to use those abilities, in higher skulls this is the main problem.

This is a problem. Reapers are immune to stuns, and as for Lay Waste the wiki says:
Bug: Feats, past lives, item boosts don't affect the DC of Lay Waste.
Bug: Legendary Tactics isn't applying to the knockdown DC of Lay Waste.

If this is correct that's a huge amount of DC being missed out on just due to known bugs. Perhaps the devs should get around to fixing things that might allow melee classes to work as intended?

[SuperSexyLisa18]

I prefer to play casters, but I run with a lot of decent melee players. I see them swapping weapons to break DR wherever that makes sense. Of course swapping to a lame weapon just to break DR might not be productive, and of course they might have had to invest in building out and/or farming up different weapons, but I don't see that as any different than a caster who might be more focused on one type of spell damage having to swap to another in fights where the mobs are resistant or immune to their preferred element.



This is a problem. Reapers are immune to stuns, and as for Lay Waste the wiki says:
Bug: Feats, past lives, item boosts don't affect the DC of Lay Waste.
Bug: Legendary Tactics isn't applying to the knockdown DC of Lay Waste.

If this is correct that's a huge amount of DC being missed out on just due to known bugs. Perhaps the devs should get around to fixing things that might allow melee classes to work as intended?

Fight reapers is a lottery for melees, you have to turn all your boosts and kill it before he turns to you or you are a soulstone.

But others can easily cc them for some reason...

[ThreadNecromancer]

I've been playing mostly monk/rogueish types since I started playing this game, and I only have one problem with being melee:


Kiters.


If a ranged/caster gets aggro from melees, they need to stop damaging it until someone else gets aggro again. Or use friggin Diplomacy if you have to, I don't care. But I flat out REFUSE to chase mobs around like a chicken with its head cut off because some ranger/caster/shuricannon/warlock can't handle getting hit in melee. Learn to manage your aggro, people. This isn't Keystone Cops.

[azrael4h]

Lets assume, for just a moment, that the devs are not stupid, and are aware of the fact that people want more challenge.

What options do they have, given the limits on the AI?

Big bags of HP that hit like trucks. OK, this we got.

Mobs that trip, improve trip, use the CC capabilities at their disposal. We have this too.

Mobs that use ranged weapons or magic when players stay out of their reach. Ummm, yeah. Got that.

Anything I've missed?

I keep seeing people say 'they need to be creative!' but stop there. Give them ideas to work from.

Do I have any ideas? One or two, but I'm sure players would hate when mobs matched, or exceeded, their PRR, MRR, Dam & hit mods (because then they may not be big bags of HP, but you wouldn't do much more than scratch them, and good luck if they had our all or nothing stacking defenses). That's why I'm on this end playing games and not that end designing them.

Mob positioning where archers and casters are perched and able to target PCs, while melee critters are on the same area as the PCs. Requiring a mix of ranged/casters to CC the hostile melees, and deal with hostile casters/ranged, while the melees have something to fight. See Maraud the Mines as an example. A couple champion casters in the center room and in the arena portion can make this still a decent challenge. Hidden foes behind illusionary walls, who can surprise us. Alarms which summon additional spawns.

Casters who use Disjunction to weaken temporarily our characters, removing the vast power some of the gear provides for an encounter or two. Anti-magic fields that prevent casting in an AoE, silence spells for single PC casters. Use of Gust of Wind to dispel persistent AoE DoTs and CC.

Combats that have traps placed throughout that the mobs aren't hurt by. Collapsing sections of floor that prevent just straight zerging.

All of this is in earlier quests, except the silence spell. "Modern" DDO quests are pretty much red alert sacks of hp.

[azrael4h]

I've been playing mostly monk/rogueish types since I started playing this game, and I only have one problem with being melee:


Kiters.


If a ranged/caster gets aggro from melees, they need to stop damaging it until someone else gets aggro again. Or use friggin Diplomacy if you have to, I don't care. But I flat out REFUSE to chase mobs around like a chicken with its head cut off because some ranger/caster/shuricannon/warlock can't handle getting hit in melee. Learn to manage your aggro, people. This isn't Keystone Cops.

Well, that, and since Ranged was given a few upgrades since MotU and such, increasingly mobs die long before I get to them. Running Newcomers with a guildy on an Arty Friday, most mob died or were largely killed before I could hit them with my Monk. Stragglers I had to chase then to try and punch, and Monks especially don't do well trying to hit a moving target. It's very frustrating.

Kiters I ignore; it you are kiting, then I will move to the next group and leave you to solo as you obviously want to. When I'm ranged, I may try to engage at as far a range as possible, but I also only kite if I'm alone; in a group I'll stay still until the mob is dead or a melee has taken aggro. Since the aggro is borked in this game though, half the time I can take aggro without ever firing a shot.

[Phoenicis]

Mob positioning where archers and casters are perched and able to target PCs, while melee critters are on the same area as the PCs. Requiring a mix of ranged/casters to CC the hostile melees, and deal with hostile casters/ranged, while the melees have something to fight. See Maraud the Mines as an example. A couple champion casters in the center room and in the arena portion can make this still a decent challenge. Hidden foes behind illusionary walls, who can surprise us. Alarms which summon additional spawns.

Casters who use Disjunction to weaken temporarily our characters, removing the vast power some of the gear provides for an encounter or two. Anti-magic fields that prevent casting in an AoE, silence spells for single PC casters. Use of Gust of Wind to dispel persistent AoE DoTs and CC.

Combats that have traps placed throughout that the mobs aren't hurt by. Collapsing sections of floor that prevent just straight zerging.

All of this is in earlier quests, except the silence spell. "Modern" DDO quests are pretty much red alert sacks of hp.

Perhaps then people are asking for challenge on the forums, but when in game running quests that provide big bags of hp, so the devs (who can I'm sure watch which quests are run the most in any given level range) are making what people actually run, not what they are asking for on the forums.

Just a theory mind you...

[Thar]

Bards are great CC for R10.

If stealth/aggro wasnt broken currently, assassins would be more desired.

Assassins are still good taking meatbags down in one shot but you have to be really careful and let others get agro first.

[azrael4h]

Perhaps then people are asking for challenge on the forums, but when in game running quests that provide big bags of hp, so the devs (who can I'm sure watch which quests are run the most in any given level range) are making what people actually run, not what they are asking for on the forums.

Just a theory mind you...

Well, most of the best designed quests are years old, and have no loot to grind for and in many cases, no Epic or Legendary versions for the endgamers, so they're pretty much just a once and done on a TR train. Meanwhile, the loot that is most desired and up to date? Is in the bag of HP stuff. They're also balanced towards a pre-MotU DDO, forget the current DDO with the massive RG loot boost, enhancement power bloat, and Epic and Iconic PLs adding to character power. Some quests are still poor XP, so they're only really there for the fun.

People run quests for one of a few things. Loot, XP, and Fun. They will generally sacrifice the latter for either of the former two. They'll even run poor XP quests if the loot is good enough, until they get it at least and stop running it entirely. Thus the most run quests tend to be either the new stuff (for desired loot upgrades) or the high XP stuff (VoN5 EE, etc).

You theory is sound, but it ignores a few variables. Notably the why of running any particular quest. In my experience, all players are after one of those three things when they play DDO. Theoretically, it should always be Fun + 'X', but as we've seen, DDO Players will run VoN3 EEEEEHHHHHNNNN to level fast (or whatever the pattern was back when you had to farm XP). They find the fun at their goal, not in getting there.

[Gremmlynn]

That is the issue with these kinds of threads. The correct solution is to roll back to either the pre-MOTU level 20 game or the game immediately after MOTU and then redo everything with a respect for the game as it was. Something from every epic raid should still be relevant. Don't introduce any heroic items with better than +6 to an ability. Don't nerf the **** out of clickies.

The problem is that that's impossible. So just roll with the game as it is until you finally don't enjoy it enough to log on.

Actually, it would be to roll back to the 2004 or so time period and remake the game from the ground up to reflect where they want it to be. One of the games biggest problems is the amount of making stuff up as they go, rather than having a set plan in place to follow.

[Gremmlynn]

I prefer to play casters, but I run with a lot of decent melee players. I see them swapping weapons to break DR wherever that makes sense. Of course swapping to a lame weapon just to break DR might not be productive, and of course they might have had to invest in building out and/or farming up different weapons, but I don't see that as any different than a caster who might be more focused on one type of spell damage having to swap to another in fights where the mobs are resistant or immune to their preferred element.

It's not so much swapping to a different weapon as swapping to a different type of weapon. Especially when it's melee to ranged or visa versa. It's mostly a matter of feat/enhancement investment.

The point about casters just shows how much specialized the game has gotten. There isn't a whole lot of adapting one's play to the situation. Either what one does well works, or one is going to suck pretty hard. In most cases, if it's not completely immune, it's better to just accept the resistance or DR as that's likely to be less of a drop off.

[Gremmlynn]

I've been playing mostly monk/rogueish types since I started playing this game, and I only have one problem with being melee:


Kiters.


If a ranged/caster gets aggro from melees, they need to stop damaging it until someone else gets aggro again. Or use friggin Diplomacy if you have to, I don't care. But I flat out REFUSE to chase mobs around like a chicken with its head cut off because some ranger/caster/shuricannon/warlock can't handle getting hit in melee. Learn to manage your aggro, people. This isn't Keystone Cops.

The problem is that those who kite don't really care how you feel as that's what makes the game fun for them.

This game is rather dysfunctional for group play, in that what makes it fun to play as a melee makes it boring for ranged and what makes it fun for ranged (Keystone Cops) makes it annoying for melee.

[Chai]

I've been playing mostly monk/rogueish types since I started playing this game, and I only have one problem with being melee:


Kiters.


If a ranged/caster gets aggro from melees, they need to stop damaging it until someone else gets aggro again. Or use friggin Diplomacy if you have to, I don't care. But I flat out REFUSE to chase mobs around like a chicken with its head cut off because some ranger/caster/shuricannon/warlock can't handle getting hit in melee. Learn to manage your aggro, people. This isn't Keystone Cops.

With the numbers melee mobs hit for in the upper difficulty settings, its actually looking pretty much like keystone cops at this point, whether there is a melee in the group or not. This has much to do with people shouting down having parity between melee mob damage numbers, and ranged mob damage numbers.

[slarden]

Maybe less monster damage on non-critical hits?

But make critical hits high enough to kill most players.

Which is how it used to be, but realistically players will figure out and then get enough fort to nullify all criticals.

[Wipey]

The problem is that those who kite don't really care how you feel as that's what makes the game fun for them.

You really think that those ranged toons kite only to **** melees off ?
I do less sneak damage, I take more damage and spell damage, get hamstringed, can't line up mobs properly when I have to kite.

From 20- 30 almost no fail paralyze ( up to reaper 6-7 ), Tendon Slice Dun Robar, Stay Frosty, Improved Deception.
No it's less fun to kite - I love me some proper tank or heavy melee with some Incite so I can see pretty numbers on Furyshots.

Sometimes the melees just suck. Yeah your Paladin in Sentinel with 2 kills autoattacking some rednamed for 150 damage in 3 skull slavers is not good enough.

My favourite is hjealing "supposed" tanks and getting aggro with Arcane Pulse only - on a bloody fvs.

Yeah so I start kiting that thing so we can actually have some fun and not be here 3 hours because of some melee primadonna.

[Gremmlynn]

You really think that those ranged toons kite only to **** melees off ?

No, it's just generally preferable to standing in one spot shooting mobs that may as well be practice dummies due to the melee having the agro.

Like I said, either one style is bored or the other annoyed.