Change to Dungeon Alert

[Eryhn]

I have some general doubt about the notion of more zerging taking place:

I play on and off the last year or so, sometimes take a break a week, sometimes a month, whenever I return after a break to play for a while again by and large the lfm situation looks roundabout same old same old. Mostly r1 speed pugs as in, almost always up in several level ranges, some fewer R1-4 or EE lfms, some yet fewer R5+ or R10 lfms and the odd singular EH that pop up here and there now and then.

My argument being: It does not seem likely that player behaviour has greately changed recently.

So with that in mind the most far I can go on the side of it'ss the players fault is - maaaybe - like some have said, a lot of people that normally are all over the place recently rented an appartement in minotaur city for a week or two of loot holidays ...

___

Now if that is what boggs servers down so much... idk, it shouldn't really, should it?
So that notion of looking at more fundamental code that allegedly is on the table. Yeah - DO leave it on the table. maybe, even, like CAREFULLY ... poke it with a stick and see what happens

I agree with those that said DA is just a crude bandaid. It is also unfair unless the quests and mobs get balanced to the changes. It punishes less experienced players that die on their hard and elite runs where they would not have before. It punishes not only zergers that leave mobs up but also groups that display good teamwork by splitting up over the map to do objectives at same time. So with all due respect I am inclined to call cow dung on that

Reducing mob number while buffing mobs sounds sensible if you cannot figure out where the backend goes wonky. Since you say you have data ... do this bit by bit starting with the quests that are top of the list in terms of alerts. As some said, it would also serve as a more natural less punitive nerf to AOE nuke while at the same time increasing meaningfulness of single target dps and CC ...

Rethink slayer areas. for starters, delete all those deer, squirrel, foxes, birds, frogs and whatnot critters unless in slayers where they are tied to opts or kill count. In terms of added immersiveness their purpose ranges from negligible to cringeworthy so it is no big loss. that aside, they DO move when players get close to them, in that regard they act like mobs. they also can be accidentally targeted and shot, this is also like a mob, we do attack roles on them. just prune this away - less computing interaction.

Since a while, in slayers, some groups of mobs spawn inactive, and cannot be activated by shooting or casting at them, only by entering range. I assume this was done with the intent to reduce number of mob interactions. this doesnt WAI for ranged. for ranged what happens is you run at them, target them, don't hit them, instead accidentally hit a group BEHIND them, pull it, by the time you do enter group 1 range and activate it, you end up with a double pull due to a coding that initially was supposed to reduce the pull amount. seems not right?

transport to quest is also an option. you could even redo slayer area entry window in a way that sets it as EITHER do slayers OR get to quest ... personally I feel this would be sad as it is nice to get some minor slayer count on the way here and there but well, if it helps I'd eat this one ...

Like others mentioned, in quest, reapers cascading aggro on is a problem. has always been. the full spawn behind the wall coming running after you barely tickeled the sole mob in front of the corner also is. Somehow work on that, more, too, maybe.

I also agree stuff got funky with u59. I remember me talking in guild chat about weird dumb death due to weird mobs. I remember mobs falling of ledges like lemmings. A guildy ran a complete quest in wheloon with all of the mobs remaining inert.


Just, like, backtrack your stuff over last few updates and try find what indirectly got done broke? ty?

AFTER that, we can talk carrot vs stick ...

P.S. IF you do try to get creative, which I think is needed ... please please please with a lot of Mr.Wolf atop, DO run it through Lam at least twice before you dump to live ...

 

[The Narc]

You guys should do an AI pass for mobs... your AI is overconsuming resources. You don't even need to instigate DA to see it, big crowds can be toxic to performance without it.

Lengthen the polling interval, or do less stuff per AI update, or do it more efficiently.

I also whole heartedly agree with this, the AI is a massive contributor to the lag, making mobs smarter has had a noticable effect on the lag over the years, there was much less lag when mobs simply aggroed based off damage, and could easily be intimidated or diploed. Now they dont just take a straight path to their agro they calculate which target to go after sometimes switching randomly if their target is too far away or if there are easy extra mobs to targets to kill like summons/hires. The constant calculations mobs need to make so they spread out in a vanguard as to prevent straight line sttacks like lightning bolt or improved precise shot, as if these things needed the extra mob calculations to avoid mass mob destruction. We already have mass mob destruction with most AOE casters, this change to AI calculatiins was completely unnecessary and burdensome to the servers.

 

[calouscaine]

One way that would reduce alert zerging would be to make optional's worth something like they use to. I.e. a chance at the named gear. Or a bonus for killing mobs in increasing increments for xp. Stuff like that. Something simple so that the system isn't needed and doing a quest all the way is rewarded instead of the only worth while reward being the end chest.

And on a side note the ai has sucked for years. . .from mobs to hirelings. It's extremely basic.

 

[Thulsadoom]

I like the idea of increasing conquest bonus xp and increasing the buffs on the end boss ideas the best. This has to be done so new players don't have to go as fast and can learn the quests easier. I would also like to see less reapers in quest, so it doesn't take away from the content, maybe buff the reapers a little more instead?

 

[Natashaelle]

I would be ok with this. The old saying used to be that Ghallanda had a special lag over other servers.

Many old Euro-DDO players who transferred to G-Land had much experience of playing the solo or low-man game, in an environment where the difficulty level of the quests had been increased after the introduction of F2P and the Store ; except in the Euro servers we had the extra difficulty, but no F2P nor Store.

Also, Dungeon Scaling was never really implemented as such in Euro-DDO, so that if you solo'd something, you were up against full 6-man party difficulty.

Prior to the introductions of Reaper and Hardcore, it was the most difficult version of the game ever to be live ; and from that, many ex-Euro players currently on G-Land had to learn how to cope with "punitive" measures as a matter of course, which mechanically led to zerging in spite of the difficulty. We did have Dungeon Alert.

Hence, lag-causing behaviour -- except our population numbers were so low, the lag was predominantly instanced, not extensive to the whole server ; though Marketplace could be quite bad.

 

[dunklezhan]

I'm beginning to agree with the more cynical players here, here's why:

1.) I just re-read the original post. They already made changes to DA by buffing monsters to be even harder on higher levels of DA. But, this makes absolutely no sense. It wouldn't even slowdown the "DA speedrunners" just annoy them a bit due to more HP of red nameds. (as for boss damage most speeders are ranged killers)

2.) There exists ways to make DA absolutely unacceptable and really take care of this behavior once and for all. Such as the key idea to advance through the dungeon or a flat out XP penalty for DA triggering. The fact they essentially made it so DA is still doable just a bit harder tells me they don't quite want to remove the behavior altogether but rather deliberately make it more challenging which supports the idea that this isn't really about lag.

3.) They immediately went negative. Try incentivizing or rewarding good behavior instead of just continuing to "nerf until the morale improves". Ideally you would want both. You , the dev, want to seriously just end people zerging through quests. Just simply add a -10% DA penalty for each level of DA and a +10% flat bonus for never triggering DA. It's pretty darn simple. The fact you're moving toward buffing monsters (adding more bad to an already bad and failed idea) is just very telling as to motive.

Anyway, this post got pretty negative but it had to be said. BUT, let's see SSG's next move on this matter before we throw away the keys.

The logic doesn't hold together in terms of 'best way to get players to change behaviour', no. At least not for me.

But I don't believe it's malice (this is how I think of ulterior motives in general largely because thinking that way keeps ME honest, but to be clear what I mean in this context is the idea that there's anything here "...which supports the idea that this isn't really about lag").

I think it's just rather illogical/wrongheaded.

I think SSG are overcomplicating it, looking for complex solutions where a simple one will do, classic Too-Much-Wrong-Expert situation* if you ask me: if DA hasn't worked after all this time... try more carrot, less stick.

*by which I mean: this sounds like the sort of solution a Dev came up with - i.e. system thinking. Not a psychologist/PR person, i.e. people thinking.

 

[dunklezhan]

Thus they make it harder for you by barring the doors so they must be broken down, making sure everyone is as well equipped and prepared (buffed, etc.) as possible. Entirely logical and within the game.

I don't really like that option very much:
- There are plenty of doors with no mobs behind them, and the mobs in the quest itself would have no logical in game way to have done it.
- Plus there's far far too much 'kill everything before a door unlocks to allow progress' in this game once you get into post 2010 content, it already makes being an actual sneaky rogue nearly impossible in a lot of quests, let's not embrace it as a standing design.

I'm good with 'alarm goes off, mobs drink potions, buffers buff, everyone hits their action boosts...' I don't think the general effect is in any way wrong.

The core issue I see is it triggering unpredictably, and it isn't actually slowing down people intent on full zerg. Whether due to skill or power creep doesn't actually matter much at this point: DA is not disincentivising them. BUT on the other hand, yellow or higher DA is absolutely disincentivising ME even if it kicks in legit - although the way the static groups I'm in play we should NEVER see DA at all. But whaddya know we see it *all. the. time.*. We slow down, deal with mobs. Disincentive is in fact functioning fine, except when someone WANTS to zerg and deal with it, in which case the disincentive is not working now, and I can tell you has never worked because the community has always normalised xp/min over 'flower sniffers', as the term goes.

So my central thinking really is: if DA stick didn't and has not worked for the target audience after 14 years, how on earth is more stick going to help? Try carrot. Trying doing something *we* will enjoy AND which will help the game. Win Win.

 

[Altra]

Rethink slayer areas. for starters, delete all those deer, squirrel, foxes, birds, frogs and whatnot critters unless in slayers where they are tied to opts or kill count. In terms of added immersiveness their purpose ranges from negligible to cringeworthy so it is no big loss. that aside, they DO move when players get close to them, in that regard they act like mobs. they also can be accidentally targeted and shot, this is also like a mob, we do attack roles on them. just prune this away - less computing interaction.

Since a while, in slayers, some groups of mobs spawn inactive, and cannot be activated by shooting or casting at them, only by entering range. I assume this was done with the intent to reduce number of mob interactions. this doesnt WAI for ranged. for ranged what happens is you run at them, target them, don't hit them, instead accidentally hit a group BEHIND them, pull it, by the time you do enter group 1 range and activate it, you end up with a double pull due to a coding that initially was supposed to reduce the pull amount. seems not right?

I hate this change!
You have to walk up to the mob, give them a hug, THEN shoot them with an arrow to the face.

 

[Phoenicis]

I hate this change!
You have to walk up to the mob, give them a hug, THEN shoot them with an arrow to the face.

That text you quoted is not mine.

 

[Lorrgar]

Getting rid of DA in slayer zones would be a big help if that is possible. Also, the idea of going from no alert to a red alert in a quest almost immediately simply by entering a room or opening a door is a bit ridiculous. Cut back on mob number and increase individual monster difficulty in that situation. Some of the sharn quests in particular do this. The one with all those pesky artificers in a stairwell is a pain....Best Laid Plans. It seems to me that more lag due to monster spawns occurs when SSG has an area such as in coalescence chamber or best laid plans that has a vertical spawn area where monsters are both above and below the party. Just my observation.

 

[calouscaine]

I agree with Altra there. There is a lot of 'don't be ranged' going on lately - where in mobs are immortal and unharmable at a distance in some of the newer stuff. Dino island is a good example of that, where you have to go up and stand on top of mobs to make them hostile, and some times they won't even turn hostile - bullywog dungeon on the isle of dread - forcing you to restart the entire dungeon in the hopes that they will trigger and turn hostile just so you can get through a friggin door to finish the dungeon. By far it, is absolutely absurd that any mob would be immortal at a distance, or that a caster or archer would go right up in their face to fight them.

 

[Chacka]

Just my opinion of course but I try to be constructive:

First and foremost, if Dungeon Alert was originally introduced to address server performance issues, it shows a wrong attitude from the developers from the start because this makes only the players responsible for the problem.

The right attitude would be to try at first to optimize the game's code in a way that monster AI does not cause a problem when they aggro many monsters. The second way would be to change the monster AI in a way that prevents this problem, for example, make them lose aggro when the player is already too far away and when they cannot reach the player anyway.

There are many other ways the game can handle players' behavior when they decide not to kill everything other than punish them when they behave not "server friendly".

Of course, encounters in dungeons should not be designed in a way that server-unfriendly consequences, including Dungeon Alert, are unavoidable.
And I'm aware that the SSG developers have already done a good job changing many quests to ensure that Dungeon Alert is no longer unavoidable. Ijust hope you keep up the good work here.

However, if you currently have no other solution, and players who just run through dungeons cause lag, which causes server performance issues for everyone, I would suggest a quite radical solution. A quest should simply not finish when you have a red or even only yellow dungeon alert active. This would ensure that causing dungeon alert will slow you down more than not doing it because then you have to go back and kill monsters after the quest is already basically done.

To show goodwill, it would be good to increase the bonus for killing monsters so that players do not feel dumb when they behave "server-friendly."

But again, if you have no problem (by game design) if players solve a quest without killing monsters, it is SSGs duty in the first place to make that possible with better code and server hardware that can handle the additional server load by such players.

And just to mention it, I am NOT a player who usually causes Dungeon Alert. Most of the time, when I have to deal with Dungeon Alert, it is in quests where this is not avoidable because of bad encounter design. My playstyle is usually to kill all monsters on the way to the quest finish because this is also fun for me and my style of how I play DDO.

 

[jotmon]

The DA system is already flawed with seemingly random Red DA due to some Reaper or other mob aggro'ing on players from who the[expetive] knows where.
Now the concept of adding a mechanic to beef up the boss because of DA when the already flawed DA mechanics don't work cleanly in the first place is asinine.

I would rather see the boss not become active/accessible until the DA is resolved assuming DA is really the cause of game wide lag.
This way players may need to go back and clear DA or wait until the timer clears before facing the boss instead of adding some BS boost to bosses that OP players will still blow past and regular players will still get screwed over and fail.

 

[calouscaine]

The ai coding could be changed to line of sight instead of a blanket aoe detection. Just saying, things see through walls and floors, but if the ai were adjusted it would remedy some of the issues. Though judging by ranged and spell casting, line of sight isn't this games strong suit. . .

 

[Natashaelle]

The right attitude would be to try at first to optimize the game's code in a way that monster AI does not cause a problem when they aggro many monsters. The second way would be to change the monster AI in a way that prevents this problem, for example, make them lose aggro when the player is already too far away and when they cannot reach the player anyway.

This would be an EZ button.

 

[rabidfox]

Lag has still been quite bad (at times) since this work was done, locked in place for a good 30s to 1m yesterday at one point. I still play the game because I love it, but I can't percieve any improvement on my end as a result of this DA change.

 

[eshadowbringer]

Lag has still been quite bad (at times) since this work was done, locked in place for a good 30s to 1m yesterday at one point. I still play the game because I love it, but I can't percieve any improvement on my end as a result of this DA change.

I share your frustration. For the past three nights, I've chosen not to play the game due to the persistent lag and unexplained increase in physical damage. It's disappointing to say the least! As far as I know this post has yet to be acknowledged or addressed by any developers.

It all adds up to sad for me!

 

[Ahpuch]

I agree with Altra there. There is a lot of 'don't be ranged' going on lately - where in mobs are immortal and unharmable at a distance in some of the newer stuff. Dino island is a good example of that, where you have to go up and stand on top of mobs to make them hostile, and some times they won't even turn hostile - bullywog dungeon on the isle of dread - forcing you to restart the entire dungeon in the hopes that they will trigger and turn hostile just so you can get through a friggin door to finish the dungeon. By far it, is absolutely absurd that any mob would be immortal at a distance, or that a caster or archer would go right up in their face to fight them.

The really stupid thing is that they have 2 implementations of this behaviour. The first is that the mob is not targetable nor damageable requiring some game logic to change their status. The second is that the mob is not targetable but it can still be damaged which activates them. If you use a ranged weapon you can use the target reticule to hit them from far away. A non targetted spell can also activate them. Some mobs in both Saltmarsh and IoD work like this but it seemed more common in Saltmarsh.

Both are bad and should have been avoided but the first one can be game breaking and should never have been used when the second form is clearly possible.

 

[Nimueh]

I would like to take note that since this change I have noticed a MASSIVE increase in lag, and I believe most of this is caused by the fact that since we need to kill the trash to reduce dungeon alert before we kill the boss and that is what aoe abiltiies are for, the goal of this was completely negated by the fact the new optimum path is zerg to the absolute maximum and then put down every aoe in existance which means now not only are we getting NPC's aggro we are also spamming much more spells.

Would have thought that would have been predictable but... whatever.

 

[Batman]

I would like to take note that since this change I have noticed a MASSIVE increase in lag, and I believe most of this is caused by the fact that since we need to kill the trash to reduce dungeon alert before we kill the boss and that is what aoe abiltiies are for, the goal of this was completely negated by the fact the new optimum path is zerg to the absolute maximum and then put down every aoe in existance which means now not only are we getting NPC's aggro we are also spamming much more spells.

Would have thought that would have been predictable but... whatever.

...