U45 Preview 1: Balance: Ranged Combat Changes

[Thar]

For clarity (and apologies if I'm misunderstanding your words here), the Doubleshot reduction is specific to the Dual Crossbow style, not to ranged overall.

if it's specific to inquisitive tree, why wasn't the DS removed in the tree rather than a after the fact reduction? it's like false advertising. here is a great bonus you get a, b and c but then you lose X if you use it.

[Steelstar]

Let me correct you here. I am on the PC and I cannot see any threads on nerfing inquisitive. I did not scroll through the pages of topics, but nothing in your face.

HOWEVER, where the discussion did happen is in Steelstar's discord chat. Yet another channel of information that is not readily made available for folks where awful decisions like this are brought up. There you saw all the casters whining about how inquisitive. I for one had no knowledge of the chat until I saw it posted on other sites and saw with my own eyes what was going down.

Also saw where Steelstar was discussing how IPS is in the way of longbow fixes somehow. My interpretation is that it was too hard to figure out how to fix things with longbows, so they decided just to nerf everything and hope people just stop playing so they don't have to fix something they hate anyway.

Clearly, all the love goes to casters. Melee is there to provide meat shields. Ranged has no value.

Take it for what it is, the devs will back track on everything they say, but the truth is what we see in the game.

So... 1) there’s still a players council? How often has that roster been updated? And 2) only a select few favorites get to participate in a separate discord with steelstar where feedback is actually impactful?

If true... then it would explain the disconnected design goals and developer confidence they’re getting it right.

Wow, ok. A lot of misinformation to clear up here.

1. Yes, there's still a Player's Council. The roster is public (found here on the forums), and members are rotated in/out on an occasional basis.
2. I don't have any secret Discord channel of any sort. I participate in the public player-run Discord channels (open to anybody) and a Player's Council channel (open to Player's Council members, and used for smaller feedback that doesn't warrant an entire thread, but essentially the same purpose as the Player's Council Forum threads - Gathering early feedback from a smaller group under NDA).
3. Not every change gets run by the PC ahead of time. Sometimes it's things that don't need the early feedback, sometimes it's changes that came in too late to get meaningful feedback from the PC before they went to Lamannia. There are a lot of reasons things might not go there first.
4. We don't make balance decisions based on "forum whining". If there's chatter that something is out of balance, we do internal work to see if those claims have any merit in fact. If they don't, we ignore it. If they do, we analyze what is happening, why it's happening, if a change needs to be made, and if so, what change needs to be made. Nothing here was done without weeks of careful consideration first, and nothing here is without specific reason. If you don't see the reason, it isn't because there isn't one. Ask, and listen when we explain things. There are a lot of questions still being asked that we've already answered in detail in these threads.
5. Barecm, your interpretation is wrong. Flat out. It's a hyperbolic interpretation, and is actively harmful to what you seem to be trying to accomplish.

[Zogid]

We want to shake up builds and strategies, and it makes sense to align these game-wide changes with the release of new seasons of the Hardcore League.

Thanks SSG. I'm happy that you are taking this approach. It will be fun each season to try new builds and team strategies. Great thinking!!

[barecm]

We're going to evaluate these changes on Lamannia and make tweaks if needed. We'll keep an eye on things once U45 goes live as well, and keep making tweaks if needed. Our goal isn't to invalidate builds, it's to make an ecosystem where melee and ranged are more balanced. Our initial approach with Inquisitive was to pair it to Great Crossbow in terms of DPS; our mistakes were not realizing sooner that Great Crossbows were stronger (on a broad level) than they should be, and underestimating certain multiclass options that really minmax Inquisitive.


*What about bows???

We recognize that some of the overall-ranged changes in this update reduce the amount of AOE damage that Bows can produce. However, between Archer's Focus (being a boon to Bow builds' single-target damage) and updated Deepwood Stalker, there are some boosts in this update as well. We recognize this is not an overall solution to Bows, as a combat style, having few options to help them become competitive DPS builds. We've got plans coming soon for that.


-SteelStar.

Re-reading this....

Our goal isn't to invalidate builds, it's to make an ecosystem where melee and ranged are more balanced.

I have an issue with the above statement. You have indeed invalidated some builds. 20% less dps for longbows who were already in a bad place WITH fully functioning IPS. What about casters? How come their dps is never touched despite being able to blast things for tens of thousands of damage, cast holds, instakill, etc.. ? No dev EVER comments on that. If we are balancing, lets balance things. Let's nerf the casters and see how fast this game melts down.

Then this in general:

We recognize that some of the overall-ranged changes in this update reduce the amount of AOE damage that Bows can produce. However, between Archer's Focus (being a boon to Bow builds' single-target damage) and updated Deepwood Stalker, there are some boosts in this update as well. We recognize this is not an overall solution to Bows, as a combat style, having few options to help them become competitive DPS builds. We've got plans coming soon for that.

Let's take a look at this part.
-Recognizing this update will reduce AOE damage for bow
-Boosted only single target damage in a stance
-Ranger: Deepwood Stalker's Heavy Draw no longer reduces Attack by 5 when toggled on, and now also grants a +1 Competence Bonus to Critical Multiplier to Longbows and Shortbows while toggled on.
-Ranger: Deepwood Stalker's Strikes Like Lightning now also adds 10% Ranged Alacrity with Longbows and Shortbows when you do not have Improved Precise Shot enabled.
(this invalidates shadow arrows)
-Not an overall solution but help coming soon.

It looks like you were in such a rush to fix Inquisitive that you either did not think through the overall changes very much or simply do not care. I do not want to continue being a VIP for an admittedly broken game.

Remove the VIP subscription or fix this mess.

[Edwardt]

[...]
To be very clear, the change to IPS does not specifically have to do with Inquisitive overperforming. It is the result of evaluating the way that Ranged Weapon Users interact with the overall build meta and (especially) melees.

Like many others already pointed out 20% damage loss is a HUGH loss. IPS is the only AOE dps ranged builds can perform and in most cases they don't hit as many targets casters, or melee would hit. Sure there are exceptions, but rarely. It needs some level of skill to use it effectively on the top.
I'm afraid a lot of people will get hit hard by this nerf hammer and drop their current build, or suffering to get to the cap to do so just because a minority seems overperforming simply due to IPS while they are not.

The other thing I just don't get is why anyone would compare the AOE damage output to that of a melee instead of a caster. Maybe I need a little bit more detailed walk through on that idea with some examples.

I would like to see IPS stay untouched for now.
If there are valid numbers regarding the dps of using IPS in relation to melee AOE and caster AOE in various situations showing that they are overperforming, I would suggest tweaking it in small steps like 1%-5% per patch until a sweet-spot for ALL ranged builds is hit.

[scut207]

Sorry, this screams bait and switch and poor planning.

if your going to nerf a build, changes made should only affect that build. Is there anyone out there saying IPS is too powerful on AAs?
Bows need a lot more help.

How about making 2-3 IPS feats.

IPS bows: Unchanged
IPS Gxbows/repeaters : Some Change
IPS Heavy/Light: Some Change

Allows you to tune stuff incrementally without massive sweeping changes that extend beyond what your attempting to tune.

Archers focus dropping completely on target switch is huge nerf. Prior if I stood still and was able to build stacks it made me more powerful at the cost of potential survival. This change wont affect my survival, but will never let me build up power to a point that its useful on anything but a giant sack of hit points.

[scut207]

Quote Originally Posted by Steelstar View Post
[...]
To be very clear, the change to IPS does not specifically have to do with Inquisitive overperforming. It is the result of evaluating the way that Ranged Weapon Users interact with the overall build meta and (especially) melees.

By this logic you're going to have remove almost every caster from the game sans clerics.

[droid327]

How about making 2-3 IPS feats.

IPS bows: Unchanged
IPS Gxbows/repeaters : Some Change
IPS Heavy/Light: Some Change

Seems like a good place to bring up a previous suggestion of mine...create some variations on IPS that change the geometry, the same way Warlock does. Each one is a mutually exclusive Stance feat with the same prereqs as IPS.

IPS: Linear AOE, works for every Ranged weapon. Maybe limit the number of pass-throughs to restrict its geometry a bit, but dont reduce single-target damage so you're forced to stance dance.
Ricochet Shot (Chain): Works for Bows, Throwers, Repeaters. Your attacks will ricochet to a second enemy, as with Chain Shape in Warlock.
Shattershot (Area): Works for Bows. Your attacks will affect every mob within a small target-centered circular AOE.
Fan Shot (Cone): Works for Throwers, Repeaters. Your attacks will hit all mobs within a short frontal cone.

That way you're changing the way each style of ranged combat can play, rather than just making it a pure DPS comparison. Bows have the best and most options, making Archer more of a broad strategic choice while Repeaters get a little rolespace as "assault" weapons and NRXBs are restricted to just doing linear fire.

I think these changes would validate the kind of across-the-board reductions in Ranged DPS they're trying to implement, too, because then you're trading overall DPS for situational geometry - no one style would be universal BIS, but there would be situations where each style offered a lot more practical DPS.

[Qeistalan]

Why do game updates (touted as "improvements"), more often than not, ultimately result in being detrimental nerfs to the whole of DDO gameplay?

SSG: STOP selling players -- YOUR CUSTOMERS -- a bill of goods; make this game better instead of making it worse!

[Carpone]

The wind up animation added to No Holds Barred is a deal breaker for me to ever consider Inquisitive again. [For what it's worth, I've done 30+ lives as Inquisitive since U42p4.] The lack of a wind up animation on Inquisitive compared to the Endless Fusilade animation is what lured me in the first place. Obviously the OP DPS cemented my choice.

DDO is already sluggish from a user experience perspective due to client and server lag, with activations not registering. Adding the wind up animation crosses the usability line into unsubscribing from this frustrating experience.

I don't understand why you won't remove the wind up and compensate by making the boost time shorter. That way you maintain an improved user experience but have the same desired DPS outcome.

[Jerevth]

U46

Introducing Cultist Enhancement tree!
-Cult Rituals benefit from all metas without increased cost!
-Cast on the run T1
-Spell alacrity T2 -10/20/30% casting time
-Core1: Force armor (no ASF) gives +10/20/30% AC/PRR/MRR
-Charisma/Intelligence/Wisdom to damage selector
-T2: Pet Baby Beholder
-T3: Pet becomes Standard Beholder
-T4: Pet becomes Elder Beholder that can clear the dungeons for you, controlled by you.

etc.

U47

Improvements made to Casters
-SLAs must pay for metamagics now
-AOE is limited to 3 targets
-We've introduced a hard ceiling on damage to cap at 1500 for Heroics, 3000 for Epics.
Great new level 1 spell: Turpitude 2d6 untyped damage per level, no limit, imposes lag for 1 minute per level.
-Pets no longer benefit from Player spells

-Removed Warlocks from the game

-Lag Fixed for solo players

Like I said, tongue in cheek. I can either make jokes about this situation or quit. I'll decide when the update goes live.

[kelavas]

u46

introducing cultist enhancement tree!
-cult rituals benefit from all metas without increased cost!
-cast on the run t1
-spell alacrity t2 -10/20/30% casting time
-core1: Force armor (no asf) gives +10/20/30% ac/prr/mrr
-charisma/intelligence/wisdom to damage selector
-t2: Pet baby beholder
-t3: Pet becomes standard beholder
-t4: Pet becomes elder beholder that can clear the dungeons for you, controlled by you.

Etc.

U47

improvements made to casters
-slas must pay for metamagics now
-aoe is limited to 3 targets
-we've introduced a hard ceiling on damage to cap at 1500 for heroics, 3000 for epics.
Great new level 1 spell: Turpitude 2d6 untyped damage per level, no limit, imposes lag for 1 minute per level.
-pets no longer benefit from player spells

-removed warlocks from the game

-lag fixed for solo players

like i said, tongue in cheek. I can either make jokes about this situation or quit. I'll decide when the update goes live.

who told you about our next expansion universal tree? Nobody was supposed to know that! D*mnit!

[karatemack]

Wow, ok. A lot of misinformation to clear up here.

1. Yes, there's still a Player's Council. The roster is public (found here on the forums), and members are rotated in/out on an occasional basis.

The last time Cordovan updated the roster (as of this post) was December of 2018. That’s a very liberal use of the word “occasional” and any reasonable person would understand confusion as to whether or not this group was actually still active.

2. I don't have any secret Discord channel of any sort. I participate in the public player-run Discord channels (open to anybody) and a Player's Council channel (open to Player's Council members, and used for smaller feedback that doesn't warrant an entire thread, but essentially the same purpose as the Player's Council Forum threads - Gathering early feedback from a smaller group under NDA).

That’s good to hear!

We don't make balance decisions based on "forum whining". If there's chatter that something is out of balance, we do internal work to see if those claims have any merit in fact. If they don't, we ignore it. If they do, we analyze what is happening, why it's happening, if a change needs to be made, and if so, what change needs to be made. Nothing here was done without weeks of careful consideration first, and nothing here is without specific reason. If you don't see the reason, it isn't because there isn't one. Ask, and listen when we explain things. There are a lot of questions still being asked that we've already answered in detail in these threads.

It must be quite useful to label forum feedback you don’t like as “forum whining”. In reality, the best changes to DDO have always been shaped by player feedback.

Your internal testing does not (frequently does not) match the player experience. When these inconsistencies happen and players ask you for more details (testing methods, numerical results, video of performance, etc) we are ignored. Players, however, frequently provide the development team with this level of detail in their “forum whining”. When the results don’t match we’re asked to blindly trust the development team despite our actual gameplay experience.

Many of us just can’t bring ourselves to compliment the emperor on his new outfit. Sorry.

[Carpone]

Since the "splitting" error with throwers on gear vendors hasn't been easy to solve in the three years it's been on Lam, perhaps the dev team would consider adding a raid rune vendor so players can purchase runes to then purchase the raid throwing daggers. Seems like a huge oversight with an update focused on thrown weapons.

[Steelstar]

It must be quite useful to label forum feedback you don’t like as “forum whining”. In reality, the best changes to DDO have always been shaped by player feedback.

I only used the term as that's the term that's been used frequently by others in these threads for what they think our decision-making is entirely based on.

We work very hard to find useful, actionable feedback - there's quite a lot of it in these threads - and make use of it.

Your internal testing does not (frequently does not) match the player experience. When these inconsistencies happen and players ask you for more details (testing methods, numerical results, video of performance, etc) we are ignored. Players, however, frequently provide the development team with this level of detail in their “forum whining”. When the results don’t match we’re asked to blindly trust the development team despite our actual gameplay experience.

Many of us just can’t bring ourselves to compliment the emperor on his new outfit. Sorry.

When our internal testing does match player experience, it tends to go unnoticed (or, at the very least, under-noticed). Which is fine, and expected. Not looking for or expecting compliments. Criticism, when it is accompanied by reason, is both more wanted and useful than compliments. That doesn't always mean it'll compel a change, but it is useful to us anyway in that it pushes internal discussion & consideration.

[hit_fido]

Change to Archer's Focus is a buff in the limited scenario of a lone Epic/Legendary boss with zero (or inconsequential) adds. The fact that I can focus fire and move at the same time and still stack up to +45 RP is a positive for many end boss fights. For almost all other situations, it's either break even or a nerf. For me personally, the fat bags of hp in Epic/Legendary are often the most challenging, or at least the most time consuming, so overall will be somewhat positive from my experience. I can see how this could go the other way for other players depending on how you play, build, etc.

Change to IPS is (obviously) a nerf in all possible situations.

From a game play mechanics standpoint, once I acquired IPS, I'd leave it on and only swap stances for certain end boss fights (or certain inanimate fat bags of hp) where mobility wasn't needed. I don't know if this is the best way to play, it's what I do. How I see this changing my game play is that I'll more consistently switch back to Archer's Focus for bosses since movement will no longer reset the stacking bonus.

Two arguments for a different approach to IPS nerf:

1. There's a risk in over-nerfing, so just reduce the nerf to 15% or 10% and re-evaluate. It's a single number, so if you decide it still needs to be 20% later it's a simple change for a future patch. It's a global nerf to almost all ranged builds, and all ranged build are not equally over-performing; some are even under-performing. Nerf lightly, re-evaluate.

2. IPS is a feat with steep requirements. IMO it's fair for a player to expect a feat that you acquire in a series and with increasing requirements (Precise Shot, then Improved Precise Shot) doesn't actually penalize you for using it versus the earlier feat in the series. You can adhere to that sort of rule if you apply the 20% penalty only to the 2nd..nth mobs that are hit. First mob still takes full damage. For players who aren't as adept with swapping stances fast and so on, this would hit them less harshly. They could leave IPS on and not be penalized when they're attacking one target. I think that's a better design than having the latter feat/stance end up being frequently worse than the earlier feat/stance.

[Arkat]

just for a little background, some numbers that not a lot of people know.

as an inquisitor on my build, i was hitting monsters on elite difficulty at level 30 for over 2000 damage per hit and hitting very very quickly with 120 doubleshot and 400 range power, much more quickly than even a pure ranger with 100% offhand/mainhand doublestrike. All that power while also having 3000 HP and 220 PRR/100MRR and a good dodge in reaper mode. I have seen screenshots of friends with up to 508 range power with stars aligned buffs. The biggest hit I ever had was 4 shots of 77,000, 72,000, 68,000, 68,000. This was vs the mage fire cannon on the ship that cannot go helpless. this is too much DPS for this game.

on reaper 10, my inquisitor build is base hitting for around 200 damage per hit + law damage and sneak attack and critting for 7-10k+ with full IPS, when buffed and ready I can take out a doom reaper on r10 within 3-5 seconds, and clearing entire hallways on r10 in just a few seconds, from miles away. bosses with full debuffs, I am base hitting for over 300 base damage + law damage and sneak attack making r10's no challenge at all.

the game got easy, I could solo r10's. I left at Christmas time and have not played since, I hate my over performing build and am super glad it is getting nerfed so that i can go back to playing what I want to play! thanks for the changes! many people will be sad that they have to change builds back but I for one am very thankful

I don't suppose having all of the past lives and 115 Reaper points has anything to do with how easy your Inquisitive had it?

Devs, I suggest taking a look at the OPness of past lives and Reaper points before you start to balance the rest of the game around exceptional toons like the poster's.

Don't nerf the classes and such as a reflex action. I guarantee that the VAST majority of players aren't getting zappy's results.

[Ashlayna]

I only used the term as that's the term that's been used frequently by others in these threads for what they think our decision-making is entirely based on.

We work very hard to find useful, actionable feedback - there's quite a lot of it in these threads - and make use of it.


When our internal testing does match player experience, it tends to go unnoticed (or, at the very least, under-noticed). Which is fine, and expected. Not looking for or expecting compliments. Criticism, when it is accompanied by reason, is both more wanted and useful than compliments. That doesn't always mean it'll compel a change, but it is useful to us anyway in that it pushes internal discussion & consideration.

My issue with this is that I've played way too many MMOs to buy it. BioWare nuked a skill called Orbital Strike, and claimed it wasn't based on feedback from the PvP forums. The problem is, there's a version of Orbital Strike available on what's called Heroic Moment. It remained unchanged. The difference? The Heroic Moment version required a companion to work, and you can't use companions in War Zones, the main PvP format. I could go on, there's a big list, there are also other games I could run with, but I think that makes the point I'm going for plainly: Of course it's based, at least in part, on player feedback, whether we call it whining or not. The issue here is, in part, "we know bows are underperforming, and we're going to fix that "Soon", but we're going to nerf them anyway" along with a claim that it's not just about Inquis. I disagree, but I get it, you're about to release another ranged class, and you're taking some preemptive steps. The problem is, some of us actually play classes that have been "underperforming" for a considerable amount of time, and just about the time you start to address that, you negate it, and nerf it even further.

How does this not effectively kill a FvS AA? Druid AA? What about a 14/6 Druid/Ranger split? If it's "well, you're going to be fine for single target", I'm going to have to respond with "that's great, for Explorer zones, and a few quests", but is going to have a lot of negative impact in quests where there are lots of mobs in a single room, or areas like Epic GH, where the aggro radius is roughly 1/3 of the map. Being able to move around looks good on paper for Archer's Focus, but if you're having to kite a lot of mobs, and IPS is reduced 20%, you're in trouble if you're not using Paralyzing Arrows, or if Paralyzing Arrows won't work, such as undead. So maybe instead of nuking from orbit, you fix what actually needs to be fixed, and leave other stuff alone until you find a way to fix things that you know are already broken, instead of breaking them to fix something else?

[hit_fido]

Separate question: Are you able to get real data re: IPS with regards to how often shots hit multiple targets & how many targets? Seems like that is too much information to capture, but maybe not?

There's a widely varying set of anecdotal observations - on one end IPS is too easy and you're hitting many mobs all the time; on the other end IPS takes great skill and you still are rarely able to hit more than 2 mobs at a time.

I'd love to know what some real data says about that over a wide range of players.

I also think it's hard to estimate how a -20% dps on IPS will affect overall quest completion. It certainly doesn't translate to finishing quests 20% slower. But maybe 5%-10% slower (thinking of times when I'm solo)?

[Ashlayna]

Separate question: Are you able to get real data re: IPS with regards to how often shots hit multiple targets & how many targets? Seems like that is too much information to capture, but maybe not?

There's a widely varying set of anecdotal observations - on one end IPS is too easy and you're hitting many mobs all the time; on the other end IPS takes great skill and you still are rarely able to hit more than 2 mobs at a time.

I'd love to know what some real data says about that over a wide range of players.

I also think it's hard to estimate how a -20% dps on IPS will affect overall quest completion. It certainly doesn't translate to finishing quests 20% slower. But maybe 5%-10% slower (thinking of times when I'm solo)?

My actual experience with it is that IPS is great when you can maneuver around well enough to hit lots of targets. However, as happened to me yesterday, I was doing rares in Menechtarun, and was only hitting randomly on hyenas based on where they were in relation to running up to me. This on a pure ranger AA, and I was using PA, so not as big an impact as it could otherwise be if I were farming the undead with Force Imbue on, for example.