Buff Inquisitive more

[BigErkyKid]

That's a good start, here's how I'd try to simplify and present it. Let's use that 2015 thread and assume the rate of fire for a repeater is still accurate (is it though? I'm guessing it could be different, but it may be different in a direction that adds or subtracts to the argument, so I'm just using it for convenience, it would be great to get a newer Carpone-ish set of data).

That thread states a repeater puts out 169 bolts in a minute for a similar scenario. Carpone's figures are in seconds to shoot 200 bolts so convert his numbers and you get:

repeater: 169/m
non-repeater: 88/m
"dual"-style: 153/m

For 60% doubleshot:

repeater: 202 (each bolt has a 20% change of doubling)
non-repeater: 140 (each bolt has a 60% chance of doubling)
"dual"-style: 244 (each bolt has a 60% chance of doubling)

For 21% doubleshot:

repeater: 180 (7% change of doubling)
non-repeater: 106 (21% chance of doubling)
"dual"-style: 185 (21% chance of doubling)

So that is interesting to me, since at 21% doubleshot the dual style rate of fire is only a little faster, while at 60% doubleshot dual style comes out about 20% faster, which at that point justifies saying there's a "significant difference" in rate of fire. I'm not sure what level players start hitting 60% doubleshot (or even much higher, is sustained 100% possible?). I'm fairly casual and managed to get to about 56% at level 30. What does a modestly above average player reach by level 12, level 20, level 30?

I skimmed the other thread and it seems a number of people here and there intuitively suggest doubleshot is an issue; when you look at the numbers this way, and granted this may be simplistic, it's a good argument for applying the same doubleshot penalty to dual style as you have for repeaters. How that would look:

For 60% doubleshot, with doubleshot penalty:

repeater: 202 (20% change of doubling)
non-repeater: 140 (60% chance of doubling)
"dual"-style: 198 (30% chance of doubling)

For 21% doubleshot with doubleshot penalty:

repeater: 180 (7% change of doubling)
non-repeater: 106 (21% chance of doubling)
"dual"-style: 169 (~10% chance of doubling)

In that case, dual style is at a little less rate of fire than repeaters. Then you could make a similar numbers-based argument about whether the other stuff would still be over performing.

Also, how many unintended "features" are at work in the tree at this point? I gather from other posts that the no holds barred works with great crossbows even though the text makes it sound like it should be limited to plain light/heavy. I imagine that's because the quickest implementation path was to copy and rename endless fusillade. Personally, I'd be fine with them limiting that to light/heavy repeaters and keep to artificers with endless fusillade that sort of advantage or difference for being able to use a great crossbow when so boosted. At minimum the feature text should match the actual behavior...

Good work!

Let me just add a couple comments:

1) End game builds can reach higher DBs:

9% PL
10% epic feat
15% inquisitive
2% guild buff
6% shiradi
13% head item
20% artifact
9+10+15+2+6+13+20=75%
20% killer (situational)

95% total doubleshot

Assuming your formula for doubleshot (just shots/min*(1+DB) ), and rounding it up to 100% for convenience, we get:


repeater: 169/m --> 253/m
non-repeater: 88/m --> 176/m
"dual"-style: 153/m --> 306/m

Do you understand now why I said that INQ is insane? Anyone playing a ranged martial character should be playing an INQ, because otherwise they are gimping themselves significantly.

2) Furthermore, that's just looking at ROF, the rest of the tree is by no means insignificant.

This has become very obvious to players who, besides engaging in some forum PVP, have massive flocked towards INQ.

[Zretch]

No, even in crappy trinity games like you like, ranged does slightly less dps than melee due to the safety factor being at ranged affords. And thank god, but this is not a trinity game outside certain end game raids and the game is much better for it. The disadvantages melee face need to be made up for in order to maintain balance. Just because you like playing ranged does not mean you shouldnt face balancing factors, such as being at range being the ultimate defense in this game. Once again, for the same reason vanguards shouldnt have the same dps through put as 2hf kensai, a ranged player should not have the same dps throughput. You want to go ranged and the advantages that brings, you should also face several penalties to offset those bonuses.

I don't like playing ranged, I don't play ranged on any of my characters. I prefer melee. I do have the ability to look past my own self interest, however, and realize that when you intentionally gimp ranged players because "they're more safe", you automatically make ranged characters 2nd class DPS, and thus less desired to fill roles in raids and end game questing. That's not balance. DPS classes, whether ranged or melee, need to be competitive with one another. Stop with the self-pity and the "I'm entitled to more damage because I'm melee" b.s. and realize that all DPS classes need to be effective at their primary jobs.

[BigErkyKid]

realize that all DPS classes need to be effective at their primary jobs.

If the DPS is mathematically the same, then ranged pulls ahead.

1) mechanics (reduce DPS uptime of melee with jumping mobs, wing buffet, and explosions, and what not)
2) distance (first shot advantage)
3) burst potential (capacity to DBs adrenaline / shiradi boom shot)

Do you agree?

[Pyed-Pyper]

If the DPS is mathematically the same, then ranged pulls ahead.

1) mechanics (reduce DPS uptime of melee with jumping mobs, wing buffet, and explosions, and what not)
2) distance (first shot advantage)
3) burst potential (capacity to DBs adrenaline / shiradi boom shot)

Do you agree?

If you are strictly comparing damage output, then maybe yes.

But.

There's more to combat than damage output. There's crowd control, territory control, and so on. To paraphrase some general, airplanes are fine but you still need infantry to hold land.

But.

Now we're really discussing how well the AI and coding work....

[Karthunk]

If the DPS is mathematically the same, then ranged pulls ahead.

1) mechanics (reduce DPS uptime of melee with jumping mobs, wing buffet, and explosions, and what not)
2) distance (first shot advantage)
3) burst potential (capacity to DBs adrenaline / shiradi boom shot)

Do you agree?

Do you have a quote from a Developer stating that melee and ranged dps are suppose to be the same?

[Tyrande]

If the DPS is mathematically the same, then ranged pulls ahead.

1) mechanics (reduce DPS uptime of melee with jumping mobs, wing buffet, and explosions, and what not)
2) distance (first shot advantage)
3) burst potential (capacity to DBs adrenaline / shiradi boom shot)

Do you agree?

/agree

but such is the nature of modern combat. You do not want to only bring a knife to a gun fight...

but Melee excels more in tanking ?

[BigErkyKid]

If you are strictly comparing damage output, then maybe yes.

But.

There's more to combat than damage output. There's crowd control, territory control, and so on. To paraphrase some general, airplanes are fine but you still need infantry to hold land.

But.

Now we're really discussing how well the AI and coding work....

I am confused by this comment, we were talking about DPS in DDO. I mean, I love RTS games, so we can discuss that if you'd prefer it. For example, assault squad 2. Yes, tanks are powerful, but I have seen so many rookie players get wrecked by good commando work that they can be a trap for them in multiplayer matches (given the cost).

[BigErkyKid]

Do you have a quote from a Developer stating that melee and ranged dps are suppose to be the same?

No, I do not. This is in reply to the comment by a poster that said that ranged DPS has to be the same as melee DPS, since otherwise ranged have no role in a party.

[Zretch]

If the DPS is mathematically the same, then ranged pulls ahead.

1) mechanics (reduce DPS uptime of melee with jumping mobs, wing buffet, and explosions, and what not)
2) distance (first shot advantage)
3) burst potential (capacity to DBs adrenaline / shiradi boom shot)

Do you agree?

I think mechanics can cut both ways. Mechanics in 2h2h can actually favor melee as the Titan has two different attacks that are only applied to characters who are a certain distance away. At what point is DPS imbalance starting to influence the mechanical design of raids (melee do too much DPS, so we need to have the boss do something to slow them down)?

First shot advantage is seriously one of the things that annoy me most about this game. Seeing arrows fly over your shoulder as you're trying to gather the mobs into a group so the CC can hit them all is 100% detrimental to the group, but try getting any DDO ranged toon to see that in a PUG. First shot advantage only applies to encounters that are trivial as any encounter of a reasonable duration will have that first couple shots watered down so much by the end that they will be insignificant.

Burst is another factor that very much depends on the encounter. Short encounters that end before the cooldown of the burst skill are heavily influenced by those types of skills. Encounters that last through 2-3 burst cooldowns are not.

The first of these points is the responsibility of the raid designers to account for (stop being sucks ****s to melee and put in mechanics that slow ranged down as well). The last two are more related to the pace of combat in DDO, which is very fast. Burst DPS and range will have an outsized impact on encounters were mobs die in a few hits. DDO is full of those encounters as you level up, especially in low skulls.

I don't believe you should balance your game for the most trivial content in it. There should be lots of ways to deal with trash packs, utilizing lots of different class mechanics that make characters feel powerful and playing them feel satisfying, whether that be bringing the boom of a sorc, turning a row of things into pin-coushins from a distance, or slicing and dicing up close and personal. The game should be balanced for the hardest encounters and highest difficulties. There, ranged DPS firing off shots early or using burst DPS before tanks establish agro or the CC has the crowd pinned down should lead to the death of the ranged toon. Melees entering too early and getting the attention of a stray trash mob should be equally deadly. Max potential DPS should never actually be hit in a game that's well designed and balanced, as mindlessly doing that much damage should be "self correcting", turning you into a soul stone for the rest of the encounter.

In much the same way folks are banging the drum over the loss of tactical decisions in the nerfing of stealth play, there is a loss of tactical decisions when you allow DPS to do 100k bursts to open a fight without drawing instant agro and getting stomped into paste.

[BigErkyKid]

/agree

but such is the nature of modern combat. You do not want to only bring a knife to a gun fight..

And that's why we no longer use pointy sticks or blades in wars, and instead blast each other from range. Is that applicable to DDO though?

but Melee excels more in tanking ?

That's true, but people want to DD as a melee, hence the fuss.

[hit_fido]

2) Furthermore, that's just looking at ROF, the rest of the tree is by no means insignificant.

Same questions tho - how? By how much is it over performing versus whatever you're comparing with? You actually got a dev's attention, so make an argument that's actionable, is what I'm suggesting.

Personally, my meta is I'll play whatever SSG throws out that looks like it's fun to play. I looked at Inquisitive and the first thing I took note of was the Watchful Eye style enhancement for auto searching traps. That looks like "fun" to me. The mobs are going to die sooner or later, and if SSG adjusts the double shot to be "fair" to repeaters (I definitely wouldn't criticize them for adjusting that), I guess they'll die slower. Make it too slow and it definitely starts becoming not fun. Make it too fast and, I don't know man, I've never had less fun because of that but I do appreciate and empathize with your efforts at advocating for balance of dps performance. But regardless of the dps, once I get a chance to play with some Inquisitive, I'm convinced I'm still going to have fun auto searching some traps.

[BigErkyKid]

I think mechanics can cut both ways. .

The point of my comment was to bring down to the basics the discussion.

Let's begin with a simple discussion about uptime, and ignore everything else (risk of death, first shot, and what not). We can bring those in later.

Assume that:

You ignore the risk of melee combat
Mechanics disfavor melee DPS uptime

Then, if the goal is to have equal DPS across styles, it follows that melee DPS has to be higher.

Is your rebuttal that mechanics don't overwhelmingly disfavor melee DPS uptime? Do you really want to go in that direction?

[BigErkyKid]

Same questions tho - how? By how much is it over performing versus whatever you're comparing with? You actually got a dev's attention, so make an argument that's actionable, is what I'm suggesting. .

It is OP wrt any other ranged tree. By how much? If I had to make an informed guess, I'd say probably 30-40% ahead of the second tier ones (rogue mechanic with a Gxbow).

It is also OP wrt to other DPS options, such as melee, and this is the result of a combination of the new shiradi and this OP tree.

It is hard to judge the convenience in the tree, though, but the tree is certainly loaded beyond DPS.

Anything beyond this is asking me to do the dev's job without: i) being paid or recognized, ii) any guarantee that they'd actually listen. It is too much, I already showed you it is imbalanced and that should be enough to ask from a player.

[J-mann]

I think mechanics can cut both ways. Mechanics in 2h2h can actually favor melee as the Titan has two different attacks that are only applied to characters who are a certain distance away. At what point is DPS imbalance starting to influence the mechanical design of raids (melee do too much DPS, so we need to have the boss do something to slow them down)?

First shot advantage is seriously one of the things that annoy me most about this game. Seeing arrows fly over your shoulder as you're trying to gather the mobs into a group so the CC can hit them all is 100% detrimental to the group, but try getting any DDO ranged toon to see that in a PUG. First shot advantage only applies to encounters that are trivial as any encounter of a reasonable duration will have that first couple shots watered down so much by the end that they will be insignificant.

Burst is another factor that very much depends on the encounter. Short encounters that end before the cooldown of the burst skill are heavily influenced by those types of skills. Encounters that last through 2-3 burst cooldowns are not.

The first of these points is the responsibility of the raid designers to account for (stop being sucks ****s to melee and put in mechanics that slow ranged down as well). The last two are more related to the pace of combat in DDO, which is very fast. Burst DPS and range will have an outsized impact on encounters were mobs die in a few hits. DDO is full of those encounters as you level up, especially in low skulls.

I don't believe you should balance your game for the most trivial content in it. There should be lots of ways to deal with trash packs, utilizing lots of different class mechanics that make characters feel powerful and playing them feel satisfying, whether that be bringing the boom of a sorc, turning a row of things into pin-coushins from a distance, or slicing and dicing up close and personal. The game should be balanced for the hardest encounters and highest difficulties. There, ranged DPS firing off shots early or using burst DPS before tanks establish agro or the CC has the crowd pinned down should lead to the death of the ranged toon. Melees entering too early and getting the attention of a stray trash mob should be equally deadly. Max potential DPS should never actually be hit in a game that's well designed and balanced, as mindlessly doing that much damage should be "self correcting", turning you into a soul stone for the rest of the encounter.

In much the same way folks are banging the drum over the loss of tactical decisions in the nerfing of stealth play, there is a loss of tactical decisions when you allow DPS to do 100k bursts to open a fight without drawing instant agro and getting stomped into paste.

If the mechanics of a fight favor melee range.... guess what ranged tons can do..... FIGHT IN MELEE. Melee does not get this option. In nearly every game ranged fighters are balanced by either less damage throughout or by being incredibly squishy and immobile. Since ranged tons are neither squishy nor immobile in ddo that leaves you with less damage to balance the tremendous advantages ranged toons get. Just like in every other game out there.

[Zretch]

The point of my comment was to bring down to the basics the discussion.

Let's begin with a simple discussion about uptime, and ignore everything else (risk of death, first shot, and what not). We can bring those in later.

Assume that:

You ignore the risk of melee combat
Mechanics disfavor melee DPS uptime

Then, if the goal is to have equal DPS across styles, it follows that melee DPS has to be higher.

Is your rebuttal that mechanics don't overwhelmingly disfavor melee DPS uptime? Do you really want to go in that direction?

I'm saying that if melee DPS can't actually do DPS because of the mechanics of the game, then the mechanics of the game are unbalanced. The way you correct that is not to make melee DPS superior, as you completely and utterly unbalance any and every encounter that allow for high melee DPS uptime. Not every fight in the game screws over melee. My melee can successfully stand and deliver DPS in the vast majority of main fights in the game.

All you have to do is look at the META prior to inquisitive. Nothing but CC, monks, and wolves. Ranged DPS was 2nd tier (and not 2nd tier as in just a little behind tempests and rogues, but they were behind all well built melee DPS), and while people played them, they just weren't a big part of a raid strategy for taking down a big bag of hitpoints quickly. Increasing ranged DPS to be competitive with melee offers more viability in DPS builds, more varied tactics to be used in raids, and far less pressure to "make a raid melee so you can be useful". I don't think the game should go back to that place.

[BigErkyKid]

I'm saying that if melee DPS can't actually do DPS because of the mechanics of the game, then the mechanics of the game are unbalanced. The way you correct that is not to make melee DPS superior, as you completely and utterly unbalance any and every encounter that allow for high melee DPS uptime. Not every fight in the game screws over melee. My melee can successfully stand and deliver DPS in the vast majority of main fights in the game.

All you have to do is look at the META prior to inquisitive. Nothing but CC, monks, and wolves. Ranged DPS was 2nd tier (and not 2nd tier as in just a little behind tempests and rogues, but they were behind all well built melee DPS), and while people played them, they just weren't a big part of a raid strategy for taking down a big bag of hitpoints quickly. Increasing ranged DPS to be competitive with melee offers more viability in DPS builds, more varied tactics to be used in raids, and far less pressure to "make a raid melee so you can be useful". I don't think the game should go back to that place.

And how is the meta looking now?

I think it is fine to make mechanics challenging as long as there is some form of compensation. I leveled an INQ to test it, and quick frankly, I fall asleep in groups as much as I did with the blaster sorc.

If I were a ranged DPS, I would be asking for mechanics more engaging for my style.

[Emerge2012]

I don't like playing ranged, I don't play ranged on any of my characters. I prefer melee. I do have the ability to look past my own self interest, however, and realize that when you intentionally gimp ranged players because "they're more safe", you automatically make ranged characters 2nd class DPS, and thus less desired to fill roles in raids and end game questing. That's not balance. DPS classes, whether ranged or melee, need to be competitive with one another. Stop with the self-pity and the "I'm entitled to more damage because I'm melee" b.s. and realize that all DPS classes need to be effective at their primary jobs.

Every characeter's main job is to stay alive. Soul stones do zero DPS and ranged characters are much easier to keep alive.

The ranged safety net should absolutely have a penalty. Because if they don't then there's no balance like the current iteration of DDO.

[Aelonwy]

If the mechanics of a fight favor melee range.... guess what ranged tons can do..... FIGHT IN MELEE. Melee does not get this option. In nearly every game ranged fighters are balanced by either less damage throughout or by being incredibly squishy and immobile. Since ranged tons are neither squishy nor immobile in ddo that leaves you with less damage to balance the tremendous advantages ranged toons get. Just like in every other game out there.

I just want to say, yeah ranged can fight in melee but it would probably work out about the same as a mainly melee DPS switching to ranged... except most likely squishier. I mean... seriously in most cases this game rewards specialization to the point that a mainly ranged or melee character is going to take feats, and enhancements that support mainly or only their preferred style. It is also highly unlikely that they would farm for a great weapon in an opposing dps style, so subpar weapon too. Likely, only a ranger could reasonably switch between styles... and even then I doubt it would be halfway decent. Also most ranged focused characters wear med to no armor, so likely good dodge but otherwise one good hit and dead. Their best defense is not being in melee range, melee often get more PRR, MRR, AC, and in the case of barbs dmg abs. That would be balanced okay if the devs didn't keep upping mob to hit/dmg to the point that even through melee defenses mobs could 1-shot melee.

I don't disagree that Inq could use some lowered effects; I'd start with their doubleshot bonus. I just disagree that ranged could switch to melee for particular fights but somehow melee can't do the opposite. It goes both ways due to the heavily encouraged specialization of this game.

[BigErkyKid]

I don't disagree that Inq could use some lowered effects; I'd start with their doubleshot bonus. I just disagree that ranged could switch to melee for particular fights but somehow melee can't do the opposite. It goes both ways due to the heavily encouraged specialization of this game.

He means move to melee range.

[Aelonwy]

He means move to melee range.

I apologize, I completely misread his statement then.