Humble Request: Could we give things like Vistani's "Rapid Attack" a 12-second duration?

[Drachmor]

I think it's pretty easy to understand the design philosophy on these kinda things (10-second buffs that are triggered when you use an attack, with a 10-second cooldown). It's supposed to reward really keeping on-top of your hotbar and playing actively to receive the maximum benefit.

If we could just bump it up to like, 11 or 12 seconds though, I think it would create a lot of peace of mind. As it stands, it's just a touch too... yeah. It's kind of stressful tbh.

I love how active the melee playstyle is, it's just a bummer that I feel more locked-down in an awkward key rotation than I am when I'm a caster (It sucks when the momentum and flow of play is kinda interrupted by needing to hit all of my buffs and boosts and everything before feeling "ready" to enter a fight. If anything, I think the melee playstyle should have the least of that kind of overhead). When I'm just slinging spells, I have a very solid rotation, and I can focus on things like positioning and moving forward. With a melee, being physical is even more important, and yet I feel even more micro-manage-y in my hotbar than in my play, because the duration of so many boosts is so small. I wish I could afford to use more interesting abilities that are out there, because there are a lot of them, but most of my key presses have to be about just keeping up these boosts.

Anyway, I've started to branch into two separate points - one much more humble than the other. I would love to see a minor overhaul of a few abilities like Vistani's Rapid Attack for peace of mind _during_ combat, and I think the devs could take a look at some of the things that affect how streamlined melee is to play overall (specifically at the duration of buff abilities, which I think currently have an overemphasis in the melee action economy). I mean, how many of us are halfway done with our first action boost by the time we finished activating our last action boost... I see this as a small, but legitimately felt design problem.

That's my take anyway! Curious what people think.

 

[droid327]

I kinda dont like the whole design in the first place...having to hit an attack every 10 seconds. And actually hit too since it doesnt apply the buff if you whiff, which can be annoying to try and keep in melee position as mobs run around AND keep on top of your hotbar rotation. I'd rather see it be a passive "proc-on-hit-with-dagger" ability with a 10s duration and a 10s ICD. Or just a passive "while wielding a dagger, +20 Dstrike", since that's basically the same thing. I just dont see the gameplay validation in making you push the button, particularly when you get so many other buttons to push. I'm generally for streamlining and reducing buttons whenever possible.

That being said...is 1-2 seconds of not having 20 Dstrike really that game-breaking?

 

[Catholicon]

It would be nice if there was a toggle to "auto-click" certain skills and abilities as soon as their respective cooldowns have finished.

Like how you can right-click a spell on your hotbar to apply whatever appropriate metamagics you have access to, being able to right-click on non-resource spending icons (so nothing that uses charges, spell points, or Ki) so that they can be toggled to activate automatically, might save on the ol' carpal tunnel.

Although you probably could use it with Ki-spending abilities as Ki is an easily renewable resource.

 

[seph1roth5]

I agree, same thing with EKs needing to hit with eldritch strike for more bonuses. The bonuses should last longer and/or not require a successful hit. I know someone brought it up before and (I think) severlin had seemed deadset against changing it to be easier, and thought that that's how it should work.

Problem is, like mentioned before, there are tons of targeting issues and whiffs and lag.

 

[droid327]

It would be nice if there was a toggle to "auto-click" certain skills and abilities as soon as their respective cooldowns have finished.

Like how you can right-click a spell on your hotbar to apply whatever appropriate metamagics you have access to, being able to right-click on non-resource spending icons (so nothing that uses charges, spell points, or Ki) so that they can be toggled to activate automatically, might save on the ol' carpal tunnel.

Although you probably could use it with Ki-spending abilities as Ki is an easily renewable resource.

I've wanted the same thing, but for resource cost buffs too. Have it trigger a recurring cost whenever it expires and auto-refresh. Anything that's self targeted should be auto renewable. It's up to you to set it or not depending how costly it is to you

I know I'd love to move my short term buffs like trance, death aura, prayer, the sacred fist ki buff, etc to my quest prebuff side bar and not in my valuable combat bar slots.

Micro management is neither fun nor truly skillful gameplay, so I don't think it should ever be required or incentivized when it could be streamlined, allowing us to focus on actual skillful tactical gameplay.

Also while I'm in full on rant at clouds mode, redundant skills should just reduce the cooldown of the primary skill and add functionality as necessary. I don't need three cleaves, I just need one cleave I can push three times as often.

 

[tolanj]

I don't need three cleaves, I just need one cleave I can push three times as often.

I like this conceptually, best way to do it IMO is as a hotbar setup option:

When I hit this hotbar button it pings cleave 1 if off cooldown, else cleave 2 if off cooldown else cleave 3 if off cooldown etc, graphic can update to show which would fire and if all on CD you have the CD graphic of the next to fall off cooldown.

Very flexible option and useful for casters for AOE spell rotations etc -> This would be truely awesome.

 

[Shiz]

Same for some of the trances. They have 0 cost to activate, last 2 minutes and the cooldown is less than the duration. Why isn't this just a MFing toggle?!

 

[misterski]

Same for some of the trances. They have 0 cost to activate, last 2 minutes and the cooldown is less than the duration. Why isn't this just a MFing toggle?!

Because they have charges.

 

[Pesh]

Rapid Attack is a super powerful tier 1 ability, i think any qol adjustment would force a rethink on the effectiveness, so i'm fine with it as is.

Blessed Blades on the other hand should at the very least give the good, silver & ghost touch passively.

 

[saekee]

How about an option for these short-term buffs?
for example, multiselector for Rapid attack:
1) you hot and get 20%DS
2) toggle for 10% DS continuous

Once you get epic strikes thrown in, it gets annoying managing a lot of buttons. Feat attacks, heroic enhancements, epic strikes—that is a lot to handle. Let people have an option that reduces dps for enjoyability.

I would add onto this a similar multiselector for blessed blades, the coin one ans mist stalker.

 

[Drachmor]

I kinda dont like the whole design in the first place...having to hit an attack every 10 seconds. And actually hit too since it doesnt apply the buff if you whiff, which can be annoying to try and keep in melee position as mobs run around AND keep on top of your hotbar rotation. I'd rather see it be a passive "proc-on-hit-with-dagger" ability with a 10s duration and a 10s ICD. Or just a passive "while wielding a dagger, +20 Dstrike", since that's basically the same thing. I just dont see the gameplay validation in making you push the button, particularly when you get so many other buttons to push. I'm generally for streamlining and reducing buttons whenever possible.

That being said...is 1-2 seconds of not having 20 Dstrike really that game-breaking?

Haha you have perfectly summarized sort of, "my own response" to my own post, here.

One, I really like the way you've summarized this. This is really exactly how I think of this issue, and I would like a different design.

On the other hand, if I'm really being honest? Alright, no; missing these shots doesn't really hamper my performance or anything, and to let something so trivial hamper my "enjoyment of the game" is silly. Nonetheless, I felt it was worth mentioning, if nothing else just to see how crazy or valid I felt after sharing with the community. Heheh. Sometimes you just need to check how others are feeling.

I'm glad the sentiment (and honestly, relatively low-severity) seems to be shared.

 

[droid327]

Rapid Attack is a super powerful tier 1 ability, i think any qol adjustment would force a rethink on the effectiveness, so i'm fine with it as is.

I agree with the idea that certain powerful abilities are justified because they take a certain measure of player skill to use successfully, and if they were easier to use they'd need to be dialed back

However, I don't think RA is one of those skills, because hitting a button every 10 secs is not skillful gameplay nor the kind of thing the game needs to incentivize. It's rote micromanagement, and that doesn't represent any kind of opportunity cost.

It is powerful, but I think it's justified by being dagger-only, since the whole point of the vkf tree was to elevate daggers to a useful melee weapon.

 

[Drachmor]

I've wanted the same thing, but for resource cost buffs too. Have it trigger a recurring cost whenever it expires and auto-refresh. Anything that's self targeted should be auto renewable. It's up to you to set it or not depending how costly it is to you

I know I'd love to move my short term buffs like trance, death aura, prayer, the sacred fist ki buff, etc to my quest prebuff side bar and not in my valuable combat bar slots.

Micro management is neither fun nor truly skillful gameplay, so I don't think it should ever be required or incentivized when it could be streamlined, allowing us to focus on actual skillful tactical gameplay.

Also while I'm in full on rant at clouds mode, redundant skills should just reduce the cooldown of the primary skill and add functionality as necessary. I don't need three cleaves, I just need one cleave I can push three times as often.

Wow. A lot of this is so interesting.

For one, your penultimate paragraph, it's so interesting remembering that the ddo wiki page for action boosts came out in... 2012. Like. Honestly, when elite or Epic Elite was the hardest difficulty in the game, yeah, I can see this idea that the only room a player has to be stronger is by maxing out their hyper-management of short-term abilities. But today, there is so much interesting, skillful, tactical gameplay that exists outside of hotbar management, that is frankly much more fun and interesting to engage in. Like, the single-weapon combat style genuinely *plays* so differently than the two-handed combat style in reaper in the endgame, it is fascinating. And I wish I just had the space to pay attention to it more.

I too would love to see a change that allows these elements of gameplay to be emphasized. I mean, just positioning, targeting, CC, it feels like fencing to try to strafe and manage a group of mobs on a SWF. Even on a THF you are constantly experimenting with your range, except with strikethrough you really have to "get in there" with a group of mobs, which already drastically changes your behavior and sentiment (and defensive requirements) towards combat, when compared to SWF.

On your last paragraph, I was totally brainstorming ways of improvement, too. My idea seemed too complicated, and I think your idea may have some issues too, but. Important to throw these things out there: I imagined other action boosts sort of momentarily buffing the duration of other, existing action boosts. I know that sounds BROKEN to like, just "infinitely chain" action boosts, but like... that's skillful, interesting, and could still be balanced properly. Trying to keep the old LD action boost going before the ED changes was fun lol.

 

[Drachmor]

Rapid Attack is a super powerful tier 1 ability, i think any qol adjustment would force a rethink on the effectiveness, so i'm fine with it as is.

Blessed Blades on the other hand should at the very least give the good, silver & ghost touch passively.

I do agree it's a strong ability, I guess I just don't like that we're scared to suggest a change in one area because we think it would have to be nerfed to do so.

I would be disappointed if they changed this to reduce its overall power, and I share your worries, actually. I just wish we didn't have to worry about that >.>

I do also want to acknowledge that the devs have a HARD time trying to please so many people, because frankly in ddo everyone does want something different out of the game. That's why feedback gets so intense and personal, because it pertains to each of our very unique experiences.

 

[Drachmor]

How about an option for these short-term buffs?
for example, multiselector for Rapid attack:
1) you hot and get 20%DS
2) toggle for 10% DS continuous

Once you get epic strikes thrown in, it gets annoying managing a lot of buttons. Feat attacks, heroic enhancements, epic strikes—that is a lot to handle. Let people have an option that reduces dps for enjoyability.

I would add onto this a similar multiselector for blessed blades, the coin one ans mist stalker.

I like the option (and they've done stuff like that before), I suppose I am just frustrated that that's how we've come to view things - a loss in dps for a gain in enjoyability being a fair trade.

 

[Pesh]

I agree with the idea that certain powerful abilities are justified because they take a certain measure of player skill to use successfully, and if they were easier to use they'd need to be dialed back

However, I don't think RA is one of those skills, because hitting a button every 10 secs is not skillful gameplay nor the kind of thing the game needs to incentivize. It's rote micromanagement, and that doesn't represent any kind of opportunity cost.

It is powerful, but I think it's justified by being dagger-only, since the whole point of the vkf tree was to elevate daggers to a useful melee weapon.

Oh I agree it's justified for daggers but as a tier 1 ability i feel the devs reasoning is there has to be some element of busy work involved to get it, and tbh having to use an attack to get a buff is one of the less intrusive apm taxes in ddo.

There is a slight opportunity cost in play if like me you use it as part of an opening volley- mobs wanting to get behind me has made it whiff so i have to play aware of this, also lag.

I do agree it's a strong ability, I guess I just don't like that we're scared to suggest a change in one area because we think it would have to be nerfed to do so.

I would be disappointed if they changed this to reduce its overall power, and I share your worries, actually. I just wish we didn't have to worry about that >.>

I do also want to acknowledge that the devs have a HARD time trying to please so many people, because frankly in ddo everyone does want something different out of the game. That's why feedback gets so intense and personal, because it pertains to each of our very unique experiences.

Honestly your suggestion isnt bad, maybe I'm too cynical lol

 

[droid327]

as a tier 1 ability i feel the devs reasoning is there has to be some element of busy work involved to get it

I'd be fine swapping it out with T3 Deadly Blades then, if that lets them just make it passive. That's honestly better all around, since it lets Monks center with Daggers at a far more reasonable cost, too - that should honestly be an "accessible from L1" ability, just like centering Shortswords is right there in the Ninja core.

 

[Drachmor]

Oh I agree it's justified for daggers but as a tier 1 ability i feel the devs reasoning is there has to be some element of busy work involved to get it, and tbh having to use an attack to get a buff is one of the less intrusive apm taxes in ddo.

There is a slight opportunity cost in play if like me you use it as part of an opening volley- mobs wanting to get behind me has made it whiff so i have to play aware of this, also lag.

Honestly your suggestion isnt bad, maybe I'm too cynical lol

No I agree at T1, 20% ds is super high. Frankly my ideal solution would be like, keep this ability just as strong as it currently is (20% doublestrike, essentially), but just. Maybe make it a little nicer, and higher in the tree? Maybe? Wait hm.

Also I really disagree when they put things like this in T5s. Like... it sucks when T5s just add more of this annoying stuff to deal with, like ;-;

Okay yeah: Literally I would have no issue with Rapid Attack if I didn't ALSO just have like, 5 other abilities just like it. Because then the action economy is just... ALL that. VKF's Blessed Blades should not be another one of these "10 seconds for 10 seconds" abilities. It adds up. I'm a pally so I'll have the smite evils to manage for buffs, too. And like. None of this is to say anything of actual cleaves or CC or higher-damaging abilities, or *defensive* abilities, OR action boosts, of which there are also a bunch! Like. I have to keep my trance up, short-term spells up, at least two action boosts (haste and reaper boost), I have yeah like, 3 or 4 things that I can't not keep up; you can't not keep up 20% doublestrike, or Blessed Blades which should at LEAST have the passive DR-breaking ;-; like. Come on.

All I want to be doing in combat is the fun stuff. Like. Maybe that "woosh!" of an action boost is fun when it's only one. Or that impact of an attack that gives you a special buff, ONE is fun to maintain, like Rapid Attack. I want to be cleaving and crowd-controlling if I am to be spending actions on my hotbar. And at the BOTTOM of the list, there's like... what I REALLY wanna be doing, which is not looking at a hotbar >.> just like. Running. In. The dungeon. You know?

Wow yeah I really want to emphasize that, during the leveling process, Rapid Attack HAS felt about where it needs to be. I should edit my original post.

I think some action boosts should be "added together," I think some of these strikes should be ONE strike. Like if Rapid Attack gained the T5 abilities, it would actually be better. Like if the VKF T5 "Blessed Blades" instead just... turned your Rapid Attack into that, I'd be happy. It gives 20% doublestrike, +10, and the DR breaking. Just. Ugh. You know lol.

 

[Drachmor]

I've wanted the same thing, but for resource cost buffs too. Have it trigger a recurring cost whenever it expires and auto-refresh. Anything that's self targeted should be auto renewable. It's up to you to set it or not depending how costly it is to you

I know I'd love to move my short term buffs like trance, death aura, prayer, the sacred fist ki buff, etc to my quest prebuff side bar and not in my valuable combat bar slots.

Micro management is neither fun nor truly skillful gameplay, so I don't think it should ever be required or incentivized when it could be streamlined, allowing us to focus on actual skillful tactical gameplay.

Also while I'm in full on rant at clouds mode, redundant skills should just reduce the cooldown of the primary skill and add functionality as necessary. I don't need three cleaves, I just need one cleave I can push three times as often.

Yeah. One cleave. MAYBE two. One "Rapid Attack"-like ability, MAYBE two. One trance, maybe two action boosts...

I think it's simple: the same source shouldn't be giving you too many *extraneous* active abilities. Vistani knife fighter wants to take up several high-priority places on my hotbar, but so does whatever my non-universal-tree is (in my case, sacred fist). And I'm a monk lol so like, the ki strikes are out of the question. It's a shame, would love to be able to do fun cute things like, the healing strike thing. Maybe I'll throw it on a boss here and there, but genuinely there is not much room in the rotation.

I would be so happy if a lot more of these abilities were consolidated. I would way way rather have this than even increase their duration. I'd be happy if their cooldowns were lower even, if there were fewer things to keep track of.

And I haven't even gotten to epic destinies yet :( I anticipate the power but I dread the. Overhead. It's just so not fun >.> it gets old. It makes me want to roll a caster again haha.

 

[Arsont]

I'd like to see a slight duration increase as well.

DDO isn't as fast-paced as something like a MOBA or brawler which require precise timing and multiple command inputs, and doesn't rely on rotations as much as something like WoW or Diablo. Having no real transparency or leaderboards to track dps gives combat a more casual feel (Even if it is still pretty skill dependent). A slight qol improvement on 1:1 cd:duration skills like this would be a simple way to increase the flow and improve the feel of combat. Add into the mix the shared internal cooldown of skills, and I don't see a real issue with a 2 second duration bump. (There's probably also an argument that can be made on how latency affects skills like these, but that's more subjective and not one I usually have to deal with.)

I don't have a problem with skills like these (Rapid Attack, Quick Strike, Dance of Death, etc.) requiring a confirmed hit to activate though, as it acts as a sort of progression gate. If you already hit on a 2, the 2 second increase doesn't really matter. I want the game to be more simple, but not necessarily more easy.