Change to Dungeon Alert

[Ethril]

I actually like Stealthy Repo the way it is. One of the few pro-stealth quests in the game.

Quid-Pro-Quo doesn't have a stealth section, it has a timing section. Time the werewolves and yer golden.

It would still be stealthy if they implemented it correctly. Other mobs just wouldn't instantly red-alert if someone spotted you.

 

[Etitron]

1 Word.
LIES.
Speed Runs For life.
-Etitron.

 

[Thulsadoom]

1 Word.
LIES.
Speed Runs For life.
-Etitron.

LOL

 

[hanul]

also suggestion for dungeon alert:

make enemies run 15% faster for every level in place of some raw power so they can keep up to the player so they cant really be ignored as easily.

Edit: at dungeon alert red give everything devil teleport or something.

or a kinda funny one: every level of dungeon alert increases the chances of fear reapers spawning in reaper mode. if you ignore a pile of those the stacks build up stupid fast.

Yes to more chances of reaper! And better yet, chances for reapers to spawn also in elite. There are more zergs in elite than in reaper.

Distance/path/line of sight should be the key to mobs going inactive.

For example a stationary mob that uses missile either spell or attack should simply go inactive once line of sight is broken at a reasonable length of distance. Ie some archer in tear of dhakaan that is two rooms back should not still be firing arrows from their stationary position, make them
Inactive in the AI(takes effect 2 seconds after these conditions are met)

For example mobs that are chasing should go inactive if you cross some barrier(ie a ladder/a swim/a bunch of mario jumps) that the mobs are unable to maintain the pursuit and suddenly become equivalent to missile movs in the example above. Make this change to the AI(takes effect 2 seconds after these conditions are met).

And the final example is for those mobs chasing that continue to have a path, just simply rubber band them to their starting point once they are a certain distance from their spawn point, yes this might not be the most accurate of examples of realistic AI but players are going to continue to run past trash mobs to avoid wasting time and energy on trash, so for the sake of lag and the game make this change to the AI.

As a side note if the reason for the devs not to do this is to slow players down on loots runs to push the use of treasure rerolling with shards. Just put a count on AI deactivated mobs and once you hit a certain number the first pull of any chest in that quest will be void of named gear forcing shard rerolls for loot hunters.

This would eliminate a large percentage(not all but the majority) of the strain on the servers. The best part of it is that it is a two way solution some from the devs and some from the players change in questing.

I know how to solve lag. Let's change the game into 2d instead of 3d. This way there will be no lag and we can even have one megaserver Also the company will have to spend less resources in every area as a consequence everyone will be benefitted, and because it will be easier zergers will enjoy the game more and spend more money in the game. On top of that the system requirements of the game will be lower which will attract people with worse computers, which could give the company the opportunity to port it to smartphones
(I am ironic obviously)

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.

Then none would play most classes because you would only be able to complete the game in harder difficulties with a few builds and your trapper would be useless because it would kill nothing, healers could only heal, and casters would run out of mana, which means there would be only barbarians twohanded warforge and monks Chuck Norris running at the speed of light zerging even more.

 

[vryxnr]

There are two things related to this that have been bothering me since I first heard them, from the Fridays at Four VoD just before HCS8 started.

(mainly from 24 minutes through to 25 minutes)

"...some of the... lag reduction caused... a measurable... increase... in some, um, like zerging behavior and dungeon alert behavior that we're still working to resolve. So no one's placing blame on anyone for anything, although it appears... based on sorta what we can see... that the we saw a recent increase in some significant... dungeon alert... style behavior... uh that has been causing problems. Now it's important to remember that dungeon alert does not cause lag, it is simply a warning system that behavior which is causing lag is happening so, you know..."

First: This game incentiveses casters to gather up groups of enemies to take down all at once, by the very nature of casters having AoE attacks and limited resources to use those attacks. Elsewhere in the vod it's mentioned that gathering large groups of enemies is a behavior that is causing problems, but that is literally the strategy for effective caster play and has been for years, because the game systems that is casters (limited resources to cast AoEs), by it's very nature, incentivises casters to do this!

Second: DA is a "warning system that behaviour which is causing lag is happening"... And yet there are many places where DA is unavoidable if you simply play the quest! And I don't mean "like a caster", I mean taking your time, going very slow, killing all enemies the moment they aggro on you without moving on to the next area or group. I'm soloing HCLS8 going very slow and carefully and I STILL SEE DUNGEON ALERTS! Since dungeon alert is a warning system, even a green alert then means "hey, watch it, your behavior is something we've identified as a cause of lag". Even though I'm going slow, not pulling more enemies than what naturally aggro on me from taking one step forwards along a linear thin hallway with no other way to move forwards. WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?!

Am I supposed to bluff pull one enemy at a time and never move, so we both just stand there trading blows, until one of us dies, like some of the older, lower quality, and much more "dead" mmo's/games out there, and only ever play like that for the entirety of every quest? I'm pretty sure I'll still get DA doing that, as more than one enemy will still get alerted, especially if I fail the check. Being able to move while in combat is one of DDO's strengths, and yet, it's bad, because if you move while fighting, you might move into more enemies aggro range?

Take Ruins of Berez for example, the open field where your mandatory objective is to clear out packs of enemies. Unless you're in stealth and able to one shot everything without alerting nearby enemies, you're probably going to see some DA. Anyone not just blindly running in without any thoughts, after the first few times, will realize that there aren't so many enemies in this mandatory objective that aggroing more than one at a time is going to be deadly, AND that there are natural choke points right there where you can funnel them in to in order to complete the mandatory objective with greater ease. This is good strategy. This is dynamic and intelligent gameplay. This is good game design, having terrain that players can use to their advantage if they so choose to. This is dungeon alert behavior and is BAD and we need to be incentivesed to stop doing it?! WHAT?!

But as I said, even not doing that, trying to go slow and kill everything without aggroing more than is possible, I still see dungeon alerts, so I ask again, what am I doing wrong? Every time now when I see a DA pop up, I can't help but ask, what did I do wrong? Even when I'm resisting the games inherent incentivisation to gather large groups of enemies to be an efficient player, which has been alluded to be bad lag causing behavior, I still see the warnings (dungeon alert) that I'm doing bad lag causing behavior... WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?!

 

[Lotoc]

I imagine the issue causing lag isn't "casters bunch everything up to aoe" as much as it's "people just run passed everything aggroing the entire quest and never deal with anything, nuke the boss then ddoor" hence why the change to dungeon alert is that alert level is giving bosses increased damage reduction.

 

[The Narc]

I imagine the issue causing lag isn't "casters bunch everything up to aoe" as much as it's "people just run passed everything aggroing the entire quest and never deal with anything, nuke the boss then ddoor" hence why the change to dungeon alert is that alert level is giving bosses increased damage reduction.

I agree, thats why i am going to love it for this season of hardcore, the whales will need to purchase extra xp potions as they will be completing less legendary quests per potion with this change, bravo devs this is a boardroom decision that i can totally support. Now further decide that the double reaper xp in legendary quests is completely unneccesary and you will make even more money of the whales(also more money in general as more deaths will occur in hardcore).

Use this as a motto in your boardroom, spenders will keep spending for their ego,
Pay to win is an addiction and players like that cant help themselves. Its no different then the folks that buy full out ships on hardcore, they will pay twice as much for their ships, raise the prices, basic economics supply and demand, they will demand it so choke the supply. This is great profiteering!!

 

[Clumsyoof]

Seems to me DA was a Fernando implementation.......already tells ya it was a bad idea

 

[Buddha5440]

Dungeon alert has not changed except the fact that Bosses get further buffed if DA is active when you encounter them. NOTHING else has been changed.

The whole 'casters are made to goup mobs so they can AoE them' makes no sense, unless you are soloing or zerging. A good party will eliminate everything quickly even when a DA is automatic.

Also, the only Auto DA's really occur in a couple of quests (Subversion comes to mind.). If you are always seeing DA, you are likely running with a zerger, or a full group (which, if acting like a group, should be able to handle it), or you are running Reaper whatever, in which case, you ASKED for a challenge.

 

[Balvix]

So lag is our fault...again.

I think this is a change to discourage solo zerging in group play really.

 

[Natashaelle]

Would it be technically possible to get the DDO client to manage more of the AI pathing and so relieve the DDO server of a portion of that burden ?

I do realise that this would change the minimum specs for the game and increase bandwidth client-side -- so maybe for the 64-bit client only ?

 

[Phoenicis]

Would it be technically possible to get the DDO client to manage more of the AI pathing and so relieve the DDO server of a portion of that burden ?

I do realise that this would change the minimum specs for the game and increase bandwidth client-side -- so maybe for the 64-bit client only ?

Then each client in a group might (would probably) have different locations for mobs.

Seems like a bad idea to me.

 

[Natashaelle]

Then each client in a group might (would probably) have different locations for mobs.

Seems like a bad idea to me.

Not if it's a virtual machine run via cloud from the client(s).

 

[Xandrah]

The system as it is now, just seems to add lag. It is not preventing negative behaviors. Just take the damned thing out.

 

[Nokowi]

There is no DA system that can punish experienced players without crippling less experienced players. It is always going to be painting-yourself-in-the-corner design without ...
- Better implementation of agro with player tools for controlling agro.
- Better monster ability design so that grabbing more mobs makes the game harder rather than easier.
- Game design that places the player in a difficulty range that matches their play preferences (not RXP/min preferences)

It always goes back to good basic game design. A 2006 game can't have trouble with pathing or lag in 2023 without really poor design choices. The solution is to make better design decisions with respect to basic game design. SSG took a hard pass at discussing agro many years ago. There is no reason for this to be an issue many years later. SSG could be removing the DA system with better design choices.

 

[The Narc]

There is no DA system that can punish experienced players without crippling less experienced players. It is always going to be painting-yourself-in-the-corner design without ...
- Better implementation of agro with player tools for controlling agro.
- Better monster ability design so that grabbing more mobs makes the game harder rather than easier.
- Game design that places the player in a difficulty range that matches their play preferences (not RXP/min preferences)

It always goes back to good basic game design. A 2006 game can't have trouble with pathing or lag in 2023 without really poor design choices. The solution is to make better design decisions with respect to basic game design. SSG took a hard pass at discussing agro many years ago. There is no reason for this to be an issue many years later. SSG could be removing the DA system with better design choices.

This is very well spoken and really addresses the elephant in the room.

 

[hanul]

DA is fine as it is, imo.

 

[Buddha5440]

...
It always goes back to good basic game design. A 2006 game can't have trouble with pathing or lag in 2023 without really poor design choices. ...

That makes no sense... A 2006 game (coded by 1990-2006 people), now being coded by 2020+ people, will most definitely have problems with pathing and lag.

 

[The Narc]

Very well... Someone coding a game in 2006 will be using much different methods than the people coding the same game now, hence there will be definite issues. This game has gone through generations of coders and is what is called "Spaghetti Code".

It's similar to the old grapevine game that used to be played in elementary school or kindergarten where you have someone whisper something to the person next to them, and they repeat it to the person next to them, and so on...until you get around the room.

What you get is something like this...the original whisper (original coders) was 'All oranges taste orange' and the last person (new coders) come back with something like 'purple is delicious'.

I agree with the spaghetti code that is DDO currently.

I think what the poster you were commenting on was trying to say is that the new coders should have been aware of the old coding processes and made better design decisions that would not have been so game breaking. But i am purely speculating.

 

[The Narc]

It always goes back to good basic game design. A 2006 game can't have trouble with pathing or lag in 2023 without really poor design choices. The solution is to make better design decisions with respect to basic game design. SSG took a hard pass at discussing agro many years ago. There is no reason for this to be an issue many years later. SSG could be removing the DA system with better design choices.

I agree that they made some really poor design choices and changed the agro system which was a bad idea the first time they did it and has caused bad lag spikes from that day forward. In todays game it is easy to make movs freeze up in confusion by simply breaking all pathing.