Change to Dungeon Alert

rabidfox

The People's Champion
Did a ToEE where multiple packs getting pulled at once is pretty much inevitable; instant orange/red alerts throughout. Mutliple dooms in those packs become super slow to kill until the other trash is dead (to reduce the alert) with these changes. So even with killing all trash between pulls, most fights last longer due to some mobs being harder to kill with alerts and this likely maintains stress on the server longer.
 

The Narc

Well-known member
And the end hypothesis is it is better to make sure you dont purchase any store bought tomes in hardcore as you are likely to be killed by an unpredictable lag spike. I see it ever season and just laugh at the foolish people that spend on them.
 

Dogbreath68

Active member
DA is a joke as it is. The only reason to stop and fight (not withstanding high skull reaper) is because a mob hit you and you can't move any more due to red DA.
I think it is a good thing to make DA more dangerous.
I as well. I like the dungeon alerts, its only fair if you run past everything you get jumped by all of them.
 

Chacka

Well-known member
This would be an EZ button.
It doesn't make logical sense, Dungeon Alert was only introduced to prevent lag. If the DDO code and server hardware can be optimized in a way that makes DA no longer necessary, then they should remove it from DDO unless there is another reason for it. According to the DDO developers, DA was never intended to make any encounter in DDO more difficult. The only intention was to prevent players from simply running through a quest, not because it's easy, but because it causes server performance issues. At least that's what SSG tells us.
In any case, Dungeon Alert is never acceptable if it can not be avoided, but in some quests (such as The Twilight Forge) and slayer areas (such as Wheloon), it is still unavoidable.
 

Natashaelle

Time Bandit
It doesn't make logical sense, Dungeon Alert was only introduced to prevent lag. If the DDO code and server hardware can be optimized in a way that makes DA no longer necessary, then they should remove it from DDO unless there is another reason for it. According to the DDO developers, DA was never intended to make any encounter in DDO more difficult. The only intention was to prevent players from simply running through a quest, not because it's easy, but because it causes server performance issues. At least that's what SSG tells us.
In any case, Dungeon Alert is never acceptable if it can not be avoided, but in some quests (such as The Twilight Forge) and slayer areas (such as Wheloon), it is still unavoidable.
What I meant is that reducing the range of a mob's spawn point as to how far it will pursue, or toning down the aggro, or both, would be an EZ button.

I almost always avoid DA in Wheloon, so not sure about your "unavoidable".

Mephits in AtDQ1 EE however ... instant red DA.

Sure it'd be nice if some much more streamlined and optimised AI could replace Ye Olde Spaggettie Codde of Yore and significantly reduce the root cause of the server stress and associated client-side lag -- but I don't know if that's even practically feasible without rebuilding the game from the ground floor up.

But apart from that, the various Devs, both Turbine and SSG, have otherwise stated multiple times over the years that zerging through every quest, and in most of them skipping everything except the end boss encounter, is not compatible with the normal styles of gameplays that they want by design.

Not that they're against it in small doses, nor in stuff like very over-levelled favour farming -- just not as a "normal" go-to playstyle by large numbers of players.
 
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The Narc

Well-known member
Any game where you have to grind out ingredients, loot, or favor/past lives would have a built in mechanic that would cause players to want to get to their grinded out goals as soon as possible. Not all player but certainly end gamers!! Thats were the biggest brag is, if they opened R12 the end gamers would be setting their goals there it is the natural progression. In most cases these are the folks that have paid for the game to remain open, at least them and the ones chasing that glory.
 

Chacka

Well-known member
What I meant is that reducing the range of a mob's spawn point as to how far it will pursue, or toning down the aggro, or both, would be an EZ button.

I almost always avoid DA in Wheloon, so not sure about your "unavoidable".

Mephits in AtDQ1 EE however ... instant red DA.

Sure it'd be nice if some much more streamlined and optimised AI could replace Ye Olde Spaggettie Codde of Yore and significantly reduce the root cause of the server stress and associated client-side lag -- but I don't know if that's even practically feasible without rebuilding the game from the ground floor up.

But apart from that, the various Devs, both Turbine and SSG, have otherwise stated multiple times over the years that zerging through every quest, and in most of them skipping everything except the end boss encounter, is not compatible with the normal styles of gameplays that they want by design.

Not that they're against it in small doses, nor in stuff like very over-levelled favour farming -- just not as a "normal" go-to playstyle by large numbers of players.
Wheloon presents a unique challenge due to its scaling mechanics. If a full group enters Army of Shadows and recalls out, then rushes to Thrill of the Hunt, it can trigger red Dungeon Alert and severe server lag. While this is not entirely unavoidable, it occurs frequently unless the group progresses through the quest cautiously, defeating all enemies along the way.

To prevent players from skipping fights, quests should be designed to make it impossible to do so. However, Flimsy Firewood (assuming the name is correct) has indicated that Dungeon Alert was introduced solely to address server performance issues and not to dictate how players should play quests.

If player behavior is causing excessive lag due to intentional aggroing of too many monsters, one solution could be to make it a requirement to eliminate all Dungeon Alert conditions before completing any quest. Additionally, increasing the reward for killing monsters could incentivize players to engage in combat.

However, the long-term solution should focus on optimizing DDO's code so that servers can handle players who skip fights. Alternatively, quests could be designed in such a way that players cannot bypass fights through barriers or locked doors.

To reduce the issue of Dungeon Alert and lag caused by aggroing monsters, one idea could be to make monsters in slayer areas ignore players on mounts, as it would make sense that the monster would know it can't catch up to the player.

But as usual, I could say a lot more but I wrote most likely already too much for the average forum reader....
 

Dendrix Deathblade

Well-known member
If I understand it correctly DA Red is putting load on the server and it's that that impacts other players because it causes lag in other instances

Players should not be allowed to impact other players through their actions and ruin the gameplay experience of other players.
If a dungeon stays in Dungeons Alert Red for more than 30 seconds then it should be instantly terminated at second 31, closing the instance and zoning all those players out of the dungeon.

Very simple solution to lag that affects the gameplay of the the people causing lag and not everyone else.
 

eshadowbringer

Well-known member
If I understand it correctly DA Red is putting load on the server and it's that that impacts other players because it causes lag in other instances

Players should not be allowed to impact other players through their actions and ruin the gameplay experience of other players.
If a dungeon stays in Dungeons Alert Red for more than 30 seconds then it should be instantly terminated at second 31, closing the instance and zoning all those players out of the dungeon.

Very simple solution to lag that affects the gameplay of the the people causing lag and not everyone else.
... And for the quests that by design spawn and aggro mobs to red alert?

How about in a group it means almost always staying together, no splitting up ever! It does not matter that it should be an allowed tactic!
because if 4+ people split up and aggro just a small handfull each you are in DA (Wizard King comes to mind)

So, I dont think it is actually a very simple solution at all.
 

calouscaine

Grouchy Vet
went through a dungeon yesterday, it had a green to yellow alert the whole dungeon. . .and we killed every single mob we came across. This alert thing is getting to be ridiculous.
 

Chacka

Well-known member
If I understand it correctly DA Red is putting load on the server and it's that that impacts other players because it causes lag in other instances

Players should not be allowed to impact other players through their actions and ruin the gameplay experience of other players.
If a dungeon stays in Dungeons Alert Red for more than 30 seconds then it should be instantly terminated at second 31, closing the instance and zoning all those players out of the dungeon.

Very simple solution to lag that affects the gameplay of the the people causing lag and not everyone else.
You, and seemingly many others, don't seem to realize that players acting "unfriendly" to the servers and causing lag by aggroing too many monsters is only one aspect of the problem. In my opinion, a much more important aspect is that the servers cannot handle even a relatively normal amount of monsters aggroed by players, due to insufficient hardware or software.

While it's true that if there's no other solution, SSG should try to bring players to reason (although I think your suggestion is a bit too harsh, especially since sometimes drawing aggro is unavoidable and primarily caused by quest design), the first priority for SSG should be to optimize the game code server hardware and quest design in a way that server load is not an issue.
 

Lotoc

Well-known member
if anything make dungeon alert buffs more intense but COMPLETELY REMOVE the increased aggro radius component.
A huge reason DA spikes from green all the way to orange/red is that everything nearby aggros as soon as DA starts kicking in and oftentimes green alert is unavoidable due to enemy placement.
If the goal with DA is to reduce server strain remove the aspect of DA which causes enemies to swarm the player.
 
If I understand it correctly DA Red is putting load on the server and it's that that impacts other players because it causes lag in other instances

Players should not be allowed to impact other players through their actions and ruin the gameplay experience of other players.
If a dungeon stays in Dungeons Alert Red for more than 30 seconds then it should be instantly terminated at second 31, closing the instance and zoning all those players out of the dungeon.

Very simple solution to lag that affects the gameplay of the the people causing lag and not everyone else.
lol no
 

Bjond

Well-known member
I'm sure y'all have noticed that the static default spawns in zones are very small -- perhaps 1/3rd to 1/5th of Elite/Reaper in number. If you run something Elite/Reaper, some spawns will be born targetable and others won't. If you run it normal, those born-targets will not be present at all. My assumption is that those born-targets are auto-generated by the game's difficulty scaling.

So, that there is a serious problem at all (too much agro for the server to handle) requiring DA, is in fact a 100% completely artificial problem that they have created for game with bad scaling. So, why not fix the SOURCE of the problem?

Why add more targets? Why not scale up the existing ones (hp, mitigation, damage, champ, extra runspeed), remove DA, and let them chase you forever (including zoning to chase)? That's a far more natural solution and one that permits rewarding sneaky play as well as slaughter.

DA is a meta-gaming hack that aims to make the PLAYER change his meta-gaming behavior. It's outright operant conditioning: "stop that right now or it's spanking time!" It pits devs & players against each other and worst of all outright tells the players "this isn't real and we don't care to even try to make it feel like it's real". It's actively toxic to MMO immersion, which should be the goal.

We need a solution that makes the CHARACTER want to change it's behavior. Making the player feel it's real is the ideal, but all it needs to do is give a nudge and a wink: it may not be real, but we'll help you get there if you want to come play with us inside the game world.
 

Natashaelle

Time Bandit
remove DA, and let them chase you forever (including zoning to chase)
That would significantly increase server stress, hence more lag. Mob rubberbanding makes them stop chasing, so decreases both stress and lag.

What people seem not to understand is that their own zergy behaviour creates lag for everybody else.
 

Bjond

Well-known member
That would significantly increase server stress

You conveniently failed to quote the part that reduces lag and permits the above to happen safely; ie. reduce the spawn count by 60~80%, THEN let it chase. You'd probably get less lag from agroing an entire zone that way than you'd get from agro'ing just 2~3 packs as they are now and much LESS lag overall, since the static spawns are not born awake (saltmarsh patch stated that sleeping spawns use far FAR less resources).

An ultra quick hack could simply spawn existing bonus targets asleep instead of awake (just like their static buddies) to save on server resources, but that still leaves the problem of groups wanting to dash past while agro'ing everything at once.

Increase spawn strength with difficulty, not spawn numbers. THEN let them chase, because the numbers aren't big enough to impact the server, but the mobs are now dangerous to players; ie. if you can SNEAK past without agro, you're good. If you dash past, you're going to be stuck killing them sooner or later, when is just up to you.

And, for spawn strength, I did mention run-speed. Elite default should be "player standard" (30%). Rx should bump that higher. Make it naturally hard or even impossible to dash past and stay ahead. This is ultimately the same thing DA does with it's ugly deus-ex-machina methods, but it uses the D&D rules instead of creating new ones.
 

MarkTatsu

Member
I believe the assumption that this caused by players zerging through dungeons without killing mobs is kind of misleading. Of course i am sure this happens sometimes (mostly when groups split up to cover multiple objectives, but nowhere frequent enough to be causing the lag we are experiencing. But do you know what happens all the time that produces this behavior ? Getting to quests in Wilderness areas, especially since mounts have been introduced.
1. Korthos - most people who do these quests, try to finish them as fast as possible, that entails pulling out mount and racing from quest entrance to quest entrance without stopping to kill mobs.
2. Cerulian Hills quests - same thing
3. Saltmarsh quests - same thing
4. Waterworks - no mounts but people can just run to quest entrance
5. Three Barrel Cove -mount up and run to quests
6. Searing heights - they can port you in from House D quest giver but not to the actual quest entrance, just the zone entrance.
7. Borderlands - mount up and run to quests
8. Tangleroot -oddly not affected as much because once at the quest area you can run all quests with only seeing 4 or 5 mobs between quests.
9. Isle of Dead -mount up and run to quests
10. Red Fens -mount up and run to quests
11. SorrowDusk -mount up and run to quests, and run 5 miles through mobs to keep advancing questline(brilliant idea)
12. Feywild
13. Barovia -- oddly not affected as much because you get ported directly to the quests (please give this person a raise)
14. Sands of Menechtarun - Epic quests here are great xp but a good distance through lower level mobs.
15. Orchard of the macabre -

I could go and on and list pretty much every wilderness area in the game, but I hope you get the point here. Other than Barovia, the ability to just reach the quests in these zones is generating the behavior and on a much larger scale than a group splitting up stuff in a single dungeon or a high level guy running through for favor. Maybe put some portal npcs in to allow people to port to the quest or allow questgiver to port the player to the quest. There are many ways to address this issue or at least alleviate the severity and frequency of occurrence without going down a side path that again will have no impact on the Lag.

So the proposed solution around the DA penalties or end boss buffs is really immaterial in the above examples and is really only going to impact the players who are responsible for 10% or less of the behavior.
Then a simple solution is to give wilderness enemies a very short leash range so they won't chance the player if they get too far away.
 

Valerianus

Former Captain Of The Rotten Shark
the game was never meant to be played exclusively by killing everything, and that's set in stone, this fact can be explained with no chance of denial with just 4 words : discreet\devious\insidious cunning.

sometimes i get the feeling that what players said over and over just to be right in the end get ignored on purpose, i get the feeling players just can't be right. everything but that and we get some weird adjustment about bosses, like a zerger could ever be in a situation where beating a boss no matter how beefed up will take longer than stopping to kill everything....lol what.

i have nothing against zerging btw like i have nothing against going slow, "just play your thing and have fun your own way" is my way.

this dates back to the changes that made stealth an unsupported playstyle. but had no effect on zerging. many posts and warnings by players that were turned away and never posted again in disgust about the problems of mobs sharing aggro\detection and how it provokes massive chain reactions.

the solution would be the same as it would have been years ago, fixing servers and coding, there is something wrong when mobs spawns and create aggro list and start detection and share info and start to pathing, bad AI, now at least please ssg hear some suggestions and at least comment on it.

i'm not saying roll back the stealth-killers protocols, that's a dead horse made undead and killed again, and a gust of wind was cast to blow away even the last grain of dust, but at this point you can try since they accoplished....nothing except damaging the game?

about horses, another thing the players suggested over and over, don't make us create alert in wilderness areas, we don't want it, it's far more than the one created on foot. you created more stress on the servers yourselves, your decision to forget ravenloft-like fast travels after adding mounts was wrong on every level, mounts would have been popular and desired anyway, now even the cerulean hills are in red alert. even korthos! every single wild area is in red alert by default with many more active mobs waiting to white dot than before. so please, travel-to-quest again, everywhere, retroactively. please.

another idea i did read above is make mounted characters totally undetectable. a good compromise.

also, if you want us to kill moar, make it worth it, up the kills bonus in some way, redirect the breakables bonus into the kills one, also the game would stop to be a little like diablo 1 and stop counting who did break how many things and stop rolling on some loot table the whole time.

it's not players fault.
 

Justfungus

Well-known member
Well, (yes I have given several suggestions already)
Just for fun, they could just do it like in PnP (at least like my old game).

2 simple states, monsters aware, not aware

monsters aware if they see you or a guard smacks an alarm gong ( triggering near by mobs ) or the PC does it.
if they are aware, they chase you at >>> their <<< max speed. Might catch the PCs, might not - a slime is not likely
to catch anything, however the PCs have almost no chance to out run a cave bat.

That is it.

no buffs (other than normal bonuses for a rear attack if appropriate)
no 'alert'
simple

if in doubt, keep it simple.
 
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