U49 Preview 3: 4/13 - 4/15

[DeltaBravo]

Dear Lynnabel and rest of the SSG staff.
It is absolutely gamebreaking. If you guys dont get this right.. There is no rush to put out the update 49. Make sure it is completely tested out, And that every single thing that will feel like a nerf does not.. even if that in some cases means makeing it a buff. You dont have to make the procs % higher.. but if numbers does not matter, then there is no need to not make the procs / enhancements / feats or whatever do what they do better.

You will loose many many players becourse of this-.

Imagine that this goes live and there is no markable change to the lagg.. And everybody will feel like this is just a stealth nerf.. The players in this game allready have it really hard with you guys dont seems to listen and cumstomer service not really your thing...

You guys used to make so many good and perfect things, but honestely the last 1-2 years it all feel so rushed, and each upfate bring more nerfs / buggs. then it ever fixes stuff.

Pretty please ( beggging on my knees) make this update a good one. Whilie both trying atleast to take care of some of the lagg, but also by makeing sure the things you change will have no negativ inpact.

[IBCrabin]

Dear Lynnabel and rest of the SSG staff.
It is absolutely gamebreaking. If you guys dont get this right.. There is no rush to put out the update 49. Make sure it is completely tested out, And that every single thing that will feel like a nerf does not.. even if that in some cases means makeing it a buff. You dont have to make the procs % higher.. but if numbers does not matter, then there is no need to not make the procs / enhancements / feats or whatever do what they do better.

You will loose many many players becourse of this-.

Imagine that this goes live and there is no markable change to the lagg.. And everybody will feel like this is just a stealth nerf.. The players in this game allready have it really hard with you guys dont seems to listen and cumstomer service not really your thing...

You guys used to make so many good and perfect things, but honestely the last 1-2 years it all feel so rushed, and each upfate bring more nerfs / buggs. then it ever fixes stuff.

Pretty please ( beggging on my knees) make this update a good one. Whilie both trying atleast to take care of some of the lagg, but also by makeing sure the things you change will have no negativ inpact.

Every few update, the changes they do the game makes the grind harder and longer for new players and people in the process of grinding out PLs. For the purpose tweaking the ED to work with the new doublestrike they seem to forget not everyone is loaded with gear and PLs to reach the 100% number.

200% from adrenaline is a huge nerf for people that cannot reach 100% double strike (multi hit). Even for the people with the gear and PLs, most do not reach the 100% double strike (multi hit) till they are at cap with at cap gear.

They should be adjusting the at cap gear, enhancement and feats instead of adjusting ED that affect all of epic levels.

[mikarddo]

200% from adrenaline is a huge nerf for people that cannot reach 100% double strike (multi hit). Even for the people with the gear and PLs, most do not reach the 100% double strike (multi hit) till they are at cap with at cap gear.

Lets take someone with 0% DS (melee).

Currently, they will regen 1/3 Adrenaline per vorpal and do 5x damage on a hit. Thats 5/3 = 1.67 combined.
With the proposed change they will regen 1 Adrenaline per vorpal and do 3x damage on a hit. Thats 3.00 combined.
In theory its an 80% buff.

That is only the real case though if you can use the adrenalines faster than you can recharge them so the actual change is anywhere from a 40% nerf (if you could not use all charges at the 1/3 regen rate, which I doubt with 0% DS) to an 80% buff (if you can use all the charges with the 1 regen rate, which is probably also not likely).

So, its definitely not clear to me if this change is a buff or a nerf to someone with low DS.

[DeltaBravo]

Probably just the fact that I as an example have been checking this every couple days and it's the 14th and I didnt know until right now that there was a 3rd pass going from the 13-15.
If I had put it off today and checked tomorrow for example.....
I would have missed literally all 3 Lam runs, despite checking for news every 3 or 4 days.

Announcing the dates on these things maybe a week in advance would be the minimum I would hope for.

As opposed to....you know... "ITS UP RIGHT NOW NO THERES NO OTHER NEWS ON THIS GET ON IT BECAUSE IT'S CLOSED AGAIN IN 2 DAYS!"

I don't attribute any malice to SSG, I'm sure they're doing their best.

But if I was their community point of contact, I would make sure that if I knew there was a Lam preview on the 14th of April, there would be a Lam post visible in the Lam Dev tracker report saying "Lam Preview 3 on 14 April" dated by the 7 April at the latest. I would also make it a Friday - Saturday - Sunday deal, and not a Tuesday - Wednesday - Thursday deal. But that's just me.

Go look at the Lam Dev tracker right now, you'll see the first mention of Lam 3 is on the 13th. For a run that starts on...
the 13th. Not everyone looks at this stuff every single day.

Iam with you there. Besides i just went to Lama. And there was 8 people on the server. How am i supposed to check if the lagg have been lowerd a bit in a raid when there aint even eough people on the server to go for a 12 man raid.. Its alot better to keep lamanian up trough the weekends.

[Malusny]

Lets take someone with 0% DS (melee).

Currently, they will regen 1/3 Adrenaline per vorpal and do 5x damage on a hit. Thats 5/3 = 1.67 combined.
With the proposed change they will regen 1 Adrenaline per vorpal and do 3x damage on a hit. Thats 3.00 combined.
In theory its an 80% buff.

That is only the real case though if you can use the adrenalines faster than you can recharge them so the actual change is anywhere from a 40% nerf (if you could not use all charges at the 1/3 regen rate, which I doubt with 0% DS) to an 80% buff (if you can use all the charges with the 1 regen rate, which is probably also not likely).

So, its definitely not clear to me if this change is a buff or a nerf to someone with low DS.

I don't know where do you see an 80% buff?
The damage from adrenaline is reduced by 200% (halved!), also no procs on doublestrikes.

Right now , it seems that the damage is about 20% less in general,

I don't care how fast the recharge rate is on it when you can still use it only every 6 seconds and it is not really a very strong hit it you don't comine it with some special attack, and even if you do - you can only do it once or twice per action boost.
I rarely run out of adrenaline charges in live right now.

It really feels that the changes that are being put in are not exactly transparent in sense of their purpose. It totally looks like a deliberate reduction of DPS for Fury of the Wild. Funny thing is that the Devs don't want to elaborate with specific numbers and examples on that.

And belive me when I say that those numbers , doubled by the multi-hit or multi-shot are looking a bit better just because they are combined together but the actual DPS is A LOT lower than before. period.

If people measure the time that they were killing some boss before the update and after the update it will be a more than considerable nerf.

I just feel sorry for players of levels 20-28 who will find it very hard to run something even on r1-r2 before they can get their end game gear.

The whole point of having the 7 adrenaline charges initially was to use them wisely because they are not supposed to recharge that easily. By nerfing adrenaline itself and adding the charges, Fury of the Wild becomes nothing fancy anymore. I really don't see a reason to play it anymore.

Think of it this way:
Fatesinger's Turn of the Tide grants you tons of extra dmg (40%) for EVERY HIT and it also gives you additional sonic damage which will also be doubled.

So what good is an adrenaline if it is only 200% percent now but can use it every 6 seconds. The autocrits aren't such a big thing anyway, The real big numbers only come from those speciall attacks +adrenaline that have 30 sec cooldown like Eldrich Tempest from EK (that is also nerfed somehow IMO).

Just go to lamania and test it yourselves, watch the nice big numbers on your screen but count the time you are actually killing the Kobold Boss and you will see what I am talking about.







Cheers.

[kanordog]

There they are:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...on-World-First
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ir-world-first
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ans-on-warlock
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...74-ET-R10-FoTP
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...71-ET-R10-ToDW
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...nd-the-Demigod
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...st-Acheesement
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...me-World-First


DEAL WITH IT!

[mikarddo]

I don't know where do you see an 80% buff?
The damage from adrenaline is reduced by 200% (halved!), also no procs on doublestrikes.

Right now , it seems that the damage is about 20% less in general,

I don't care how fast the recharge rate is on it when you can still use it only every 6 seconds and it is not really a very strong hit it you don't comine it with some special attack, and even if you do - you can only do it once or twice per action boost.
I rarely run out of adrenaline charges in live right now.

Cheers.

It depends on how you view things, as is often the case. I see it as:

Reducing from +400% to +200% does not mean half damage. You are reducing from (1+400%) to (1+200%) so from 5 to 3 (not 4 to 2).

If you are already not running out a charges with a low DS build with the 1/3 regen rate I agree its a nerf, as I did post. Its only if you can actually use the faster regen that it might become a buff.

The +80% buff is if you can actually use every single charge with the increased regen rate.

[SierraSilverfox]

currently action boost: haste seems to only be providing a 20% speed increase rather than 30% when using it with Aerania/Chaosbow, it was giving a flat 30% on preview 2, also damage type icons in the floaty damage text seems to be missing, it shows the normal string of numbers but the only actual icon is from multihit. there's also a lot of delay between manyshot animation and such where arrows being shot just don't register, i'm not sure if that's really connected to the animation, or if that's connected to the passive lag that's on lam, but figured i'd make this much noticed at least.

[ned_ellis]

How are we supposed to give feedback for 1) lag improvements and 2) bow changes if 1 is locked behind a myriad variables and is on a dedicated server and 2) all the changes are linked with the ED revamp and Horizon Walker tree of which we know...nothing!?!

All I can say is that, as a player with only caster toons and one longbow user, I am currently not particularly looking forward to playing my archer. This from someone who historically always 'rolls with the punches'...

In addition, if there isn't a sizeable improvement in lag on release, the number of builds you are rendering 'obsolete' (eg. monkchers, proc based, some CC, etc.) is going to come back and bite you in the a*se...

Whilst I comprehend this is essentially an 'engineering' pass, it was supposed to also be the 'bow pass' and what is greatly missing in any of it is one word : fun.

[anticlimax]

greatly missing in any of it is one word : fun.

This.

[Epicsoul]

I don't know where do you see an 80% buff?
The damage from adrenaline is reduced by 200% (halved!), also no procs on doublestrikes.

Right now , it seems that the damage is about 20% less in general,

I don't care how fast the recharge rate is on it when you can still use it only every 6 seconds and it is not really a very strong hit it you don't comine it with some special attack, and even if you do - you can only do it once or twice per action boost.
I rarely run out of adrenaline charges in live right now.

It really feels that the changes that are being put in are not exactly transparent in sense of their purpose. It totally looks like a deliberate reduction of DPS for Fury of the Wild. Funny thing is that the Devs don't want to elaborate with specific numbers and examples on that.

And belive me when I say that those numbers , doubled by the multi-hit or multi-shot are looking a bit better just because they are combined together but the actual DPS is A LOT lower than before. period.

If people measure the time that they were killing some boss before the update and after the update it will be a more than considerable nerf.

I just feel sorry for players of levels 20-28 who will find it very hard to run something even on r1-r2 before they can get their end game gear.

The whole point of having the 7 adrenaline charges initially was to use them wisely because they are not supposed to recharge that easily. By nerfing adrenaline itself and adding the charges, Fury of the Wild becomes nothing fancy anymore. I really don't see a reason to play it anymore.

Think of it this way:
Fatesinger's Turn of the Tide grants you tons of extra dmg (40%) for EVERY HIT and it also gives you additional sonic damage which will also be doubled.

So what good is an adrenaline if it is only 200% percent now but can use it every 6 seconds. The autocrits aren't such a big thing anyway, The real big numbers only come from those speciall attacks +adrenaline that have 30 sec cooldown like Eldrich Tempest from EK (that is also nerfed somehow IMO).

Just go to lamania and test it yourselves, watch the nice big numbers on your screen but count the time you are actually killing the Kobold Boss and you will see what I am talking about.

The Adrenaline change is a nerf to builds that aren't at 100% multi-hit. To builds that are, it's a buff. As for the cool down, who cares? At 100% double strike you're doing the same dmg and you can use it more during boss fights due to the increased regeneration. This post is so full of flaws and unsupported opinions.

There they are:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...on-World-First
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ir-world-first
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ans-on-warlock
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...74-ET-R10-FoTP
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...71-ET-R10-ToDW
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...nd-the-Demigod
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...st-Acheesement
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...me-World-First


DEAL WITH IT!

Our KT completion is my personal favorite! Thanks for sharing.

[IlmerSilverhilt]

Would it be possible to have all the various Active shots thats currently on a 20sec cooldown, become 18sec to pair nicer with Hunts End? Sniper is fine with 6sec then every third can be a Hunts End in perfect conditions

Thx for considering!

[Vish]

Repost

The upside to this we get damage floaty text real time?

[SpartanKiller13]

Many thanks for the updates to improve performance.

This one feels like my tempest is getting hurt at end game as I butting up against 100% doublestrike as a norm already. Thus it's taking 25% offhand doublestrike bonus to--in practice--a 5% offhand doublestrike boost.

Consider upping the melee power bonus from 10 to 20 instead.

Well, if you have 100% standing you'll now have 50% base off-hand right? So capstone is +5% offhand (given you're maxed main) instead of 35-41% OHDS (depending on Scourge PL's) you'll now have 55-57% OHDS, unless I'm missing something? Looks like a direct DPS buff to your character, unless I'm missing something (11-14% buff).

Lets take someone with 0% DS (melee).

Currently, they will regen 1/3 Adrenaline per vorpal and do 5x damage on a hit. Thats 5/3 = 1.67 combined.
With the proposed change they will regen 1 Adrenaline per vorpal and do 3x damage on a hit. Thats 3.00 combined.
In theory its an 80% buff.

That is only the real case though if you can use the adrenalines faster than you can recharge them so the actual change is anywhere from a 40% nerf (if you could not use all charges at the 1/3 regen rate, which I doubt with 0% DS) to an 80% buff (if you can use all the charges with the 1 regen rate, which is probably also not likely).

So, its definitely not clear to me if this change is a buff or a nerf to someone with low DS.

Being able to use Adrenaline faster than your recharge is largely only relevant for mass fights or raids; for most questing there's spaces between enemies. Also the duration of Adrenaline is 12s while the CD is 5s, so you can actually prep one before entering the fight and immediately follow it up with another.

If you have 0% Doublestrike and are raiding it's probably a direct nerf. For the rest of the occasions it looks to be a probable buff - more CC, less overkill waste, less resource management, DPS slightly worse to significantly better.

Will have to see how it shakes out though. Might be able to save a point in FotW by skipping Bloodbath for raiding though, which would be neat.

[neain2008]

Hopped onto Lamani in the ~15 minutes before the server shutdown and then in the time remaining went back to live to quickly compare. (as such I did not kill anything other than trash)

Build: Pure ranger dagger thrower. level 29 with subpar gear for that level.
Quest: (EE) A small problem

Lamania:
Killed the wolves and lions at the start in three throw animations if I wasn't using a cooldown or getting a crit right off the bat
Live:
Killed the wolves and lions at the start in three throw animations if I wasn't using a cooldown - crits didn't do much as a crit only makes a single number jump a little bit

Things I noticed:
1. all my proc damage (flaming, frost, etc) was not showing its icons and I was only getting the triple hit icon (that's where my Doubleshot is solidly at)
2. Definitely more spiky, if I got a crit the mobs lost most of their hp and I was able to kill them in 1-2 hits
3. Hunts end is still saying that its cooldown is 24 seconds (in the tooltip), but when used the cooldown is 18 seconds as stated in the release notes
4. Despite not having as many chances to proc, my improved deception was still happening often enough for me to notice it from the start of the quest to where Brawnpits is standing.

5. Archers Focus. On live, I hit ~10 stacks once when I was able to stand still to attack multiple mobs. On Lamania in the same spot, I had ~2. As this is one of those 100% proc things, could we please get the number of archers' focus stacks multiplied by the double shot? You (one of the devs at least) stated that you don't want to change how things are working as much as possible, but this is a fairly large change. In my example (and a lot of the time I get to 25 stacks when the monsters aren't as spread out and in small numbers) I would be missing out on 40 ranged power and more in most cases. Yes, that's not a super large portion of my ranged power at 29. But is a large chunk of it in low epics and even more in heroics when I don't have all the shiradi cores.

Will be going back to check on some more boss-like monsters once the servers go back up

[Discpsycho]

Well, if you have 100% standing you'll now have 50% base off-hand right? So capstone is +5% offhand (given you're maxed main) instead of 35-41% OHDS (depending on Scourge PL's) you'll now have 55-57% OHDS, unless I'm missing something? Looks like a direct DPS buff to your character, unless I'm missing something (11-14% buff).

You're not missing anything.

During preview 2, folks were worried because no replacement had been suggested; it was just "offhand doublestrike will be removed from all sources". The doom-and-gloom crowd started posting, and since devs aren't going to (and shouldn't) constantly check in on a 20-page post, it created the illusion of peer consensus. Devs didn't say "we're working on a suitable alternative" because they were busy actually doing so, but it was still a lack of reassurance/response.

That's not entirely independent from this preview because so many people approached this one from the mindset of "they're ruining my shiny thing" before the patch notes were released. The P3 changes are a buff, but they're also fairly underwhelming compared to what the capstone used to be; +25% offhand feels a lot more special when only ~15% was otherwise available. Personally, +5% offhand damage isn't particularly compelling compared to the utility of two levels of splash (eg, Rogue and one of Barb/Fighter/FvS), though it'll still be important to min-maxers

[Elearim]

[*]Bow Combat Style Revamp

• Bow Strength has been rebuilt to work closer to other Ability-Score-To-Damage abilities in the game; you should now see it on examining bows you have equipped, and we fixed an issue where it would disappear if you had other Ability-Score-To-Damage abilities.
• Half Elf Dilettante: Ranger's "and can add up to 2 points of your Strength bonus to bow damage" portion now instead grants "+1 to Damage with Longbows and Shortbows". The feat otherwise remains the same, granting the other things that feat currently grants.
• Half Elf Improved Dilettante Ranger enhancements that granted additional points of strength to bow damage now grant +1 to Damage with Longbows and Shortbows instead; they otherwise remain the same, granting the other things they currently grant.
• Arcane Archer Final Strike now has its additional AOE damage scale with Ranged Power.
• The first hit of additional AOE damage from Arcane Archer Final Strike no longer scales with Ranger level, both on the Ranger and Elf versions; it is instead a static number of dice, scaling with Ranged Power, like the others. (It was the only effect on Final Strike using Ranger level to scale).
• Ranger Arcane Archer Final Strike no longer adds an erroneous extra +250 damage to its bow attack.
• Elven Arcane Archer Final Strike no longer adds an erroneous +10% Doubleshot.

Well, this perfectly shows

• 1. that you do not take feedback into account, since with preview #2 there was plenty feedback on how you kill monkchers, and
• 2. that your statements are utterly implausible, since altho you stated in your goals, that you dont want to make any build less usefull as it is on live compared to others you do kill monkchers for good (another e.g. the maxlevel cap of 30 statement a few years back).

Its just obvious, that noone should ever believe anything you state somewhere anymore.

You killed my monkcher which i was happy playing for 7 Years as main. I will just Tr him and do some more PL grinds, that will give me a steady inflow of TP, so i dont need to spend any more money as well. Maybe thats the reason you plan on "mini expansions", so ppl are forced to spend money instead of using their earned TP?

And with this Update im forced to ask if your goal is to just agitate your players and bully them out of the game, so in the end you can turn down DDO for the last few players left and concentrate your effords on LotR?

[mikarddo]

5. Archers Focus. On live, I hit ~10 stacks once when I was able to stand still to attack multiple mobs. On Lamania in the same spot, I had ~2. As this is one of those 100% proc things, could we please get the number of archers' focus stacks multiplied by the double shot? You (one of the devs at least) stated that you don't want to change how things are working as much as possible, but this is a fairly large change. In my example (and a lot of the time I get to 25 stacks when the monsters aren't as spread out and in small numbers) I would be missing out on 40 ranged power and more in most cases. Yes, that's not a super large portion of my ranged power at 29. But is a large chunk of it in low epics and even more in heroics when I don't have all the shiradi cores.

This is a very good and very important point. Just like +dmg both from hits and from procs is multiplied so should Archer Focus stacks. As posted those are already 100% proc rate so its a simple thing to multiple the stacks by the number of hits. With that I think Bows might even be semi-viable.

[slarden]

If you are going to nerf Adrenaline at least make Hunt's End equal to it or bring Adrenaline up to 300% although to equalize things Hunt's End should be a lower multiplier than Adrenaline. The devs clearly don't realize just how much more ranged burst dps is doing than melee. Hunt's End is able to hit multiple targets in a line while Adrenaline has only ever been single target. Hunt's End also has the advantage of still working extremely well if you roll a miss whereas with Adrenaline you lose a massive amount of damage if you miss on your big attack. With these changes ranged burst dps is far ahead of melee. I will probably be switching out of melee burst damage as a playstyle because there will just be better options. Honestly they were fine and didn't need a nerf, especially not Adrenaline. Sure you could hit really hard but it wasn't game breaking. They were fun and I feel like the theme lately is reduce all fun and good build options.

Did you actually test on Lamannia because your assessment is way off.

[Logicman69]

****... I guess its the THF builds that are getting the nerf bat this time around. First you reduce the damage from primary stat, now you just our big hits in half (no, it doesn't matter that it recharges faster. I never ran out before).

Who's next? I'm going to guess bards...