Lower the Out-of-Combat timer to 4 sec, and add an OOC UI indicator

[droid327]

Right now I think its at 6 sec?

That's more time than you need to establish you're no longer in active combat. 4 secs is really enough - if nothing attacks you for 4 secs, nothing's going to attack you.

6 secs is long enough that you're often into the next fight before you're out of the first fight. That forces you to stop and wait for the timer before you can do things like self-heal in Reaper. There's just no need to make players do that, its just not fun. A 4 sec timer would let you make better use of the time between encounters to prep for the next fight, without forcing you to slow down your pace.

Also, since you just introduced a new element for Tumble...I'd love to have an option for just one little pip like that, that lit up red when you were in combat and went dark when you're out of combat. Its frustrating trying to manually time your heals when there's no visual indication of when the self-heal penalty is lifted...a lot of times you waste SP on a penalized heal and then have to wait 3 secs to hit it again with no penalty. Even worse in Epic when you rely on the proc heal from EA to top off, and you have to wait another 5 secs to try again.

 

[Stoner81]

/signed.

Stoner81.

 

[seph1roth5]

I like having more charges and the seamlessness being fixed mostly. But I still miss flipping around in town, and would love if the timer were shortened while in a public space. Not sure if 4 sec in general is enough to let me flip around while waiting for afk-ers, but it'd be a good start.

 

[droid327]

I like having more charges and the seamlessness being fixed mostly. But I still miss flipping around in town, and would love if the timer were shortened while in a public space. Not sure if 4 sec in general is enough to let me flip around while waiting for afk-ers, but it'd be a good start.

I think you're confused

I'm not talking about the Tumble recharge timer (which is 8 secs, both in and out of combat). I'm talking about the 6 sec wait after a fight before the game considers you "out of combat" and you can self-heal in Reaper without penalty, among other things.

 

[Ying]

It's pretty silly there's no visual indicator for being in/out of combat. The code to detect it is obviously there already.

 

[Jack Jarvis Esquire]

/signed

 

[Vox]

Adding say, a inwards facing ring of red spikes to the characters portrait window UI element could be a nice display for being 'in combat'. The avatars themselves already get too busy with all the various buffs & effects.

 

[Hobgoblin]

maybe also add a max distance to counted as in combat? so if a mob spawns in a wall and you cant kill it eventually goes away?

 

[Kobay]

/signed

This would be such a useful QoL addition.

Even just the UI indicator would be awesome.

 

[Dunspartacus]

/signed

Honestly not sure why the UI indicator isn't a thing, especially after that change they did to reaper self healing a while back.

 

[Balegdah]

/signed
I know otc stance is my character lowers their weapons, but a red ring around our hp bar would be nice

 

[droid327]

/signed
I know otc stance is my character lowers their weapons, but a red ring around our hp bar would be nice

The stance change happens considerably after you actually drop out of combat status, otherwise that'd at least be something you could look for

 

[Elfishski]

The timer of 6 seconds isn't that unreasonable - it's an extra two seconds of pause if you need to wait for a self-heal-without-penalties, which is fine. If you need to heal having to take your hand off of running straight ahead for a second is appropriate. A subtle visual indicator of being in/out of combat would be presumably easy to implement and a nice quality of life change.

 

[TavernTails]

Great suggestion. This frustrates me sometimes, too

 

[Xgya]

There's already SOME kind of indicator (character changes stance), but we all know it's not definitly sync'd and I agree some kind of (optional) UI would be very welcome.

I don't think the timer needs to change though. The 6 second one is especially meaningful given it's one whole tabletop round out of combat. If it takes you less than one round to get to the next fight, you were never out of combat.

 

[droid327]

There's already SOME kind of indicator (character changes stance), but we all know it's not definitly sync'd and I agree some kind of (optional) UI would be very welcome.

I don't think the timer needs to change though. The 6 second one is especially meaningful given it's one whole tabletop round out of combat. If it takes you less than one round to get to the next fight, you were never out of combat.

And a full rest is, what, 24 hours? But your DM doesn't make you wait and come back the next day

D&D has always been about moving players from encounter to encounter, not about making you experience the downtime between encounters

 

[Mokune]

It's was a welcomed change and I agree with the OP. A timer or UI alert when out of combat would be great.

However...my experience has been, if you leave one aggroed monster behind/alive, it seems you will not be "out of combat" for the rest of the quest.

 

[Elfishski]

And a full rest is, what, 24 hours? But your DM doesn't make you wait and come back the next day

D&D has always been about moving players from encounter to encounter, not about making you experience the downtime between encounters

A literal 2-4 second pause that is only necessary if you are on a very high difficulty AND don't have any friends to heal you is hardly the same as a 24 hour break.

 

[Wizard]

A literal 2-4 second pause that is only necessary if you are on a very high difficulty AND don't have any friends to heal you is hardly the same as a 24 hour break.

Actually, even on R1 many specs cannot heal well in combat and the game's population is very low. So that pause comes up quite often.

 

[droid327]

A literal 2-4 second pause that is only necessary if you are on a very high difficulty AND don't have any friends to heal you is hardly the same as a 24 hour break.

Some fights only last 4 seconds, so that's not a trivial amount when you're talking about the pace of play in DDO. 4 secs * ~15 fights in a quest = 1:00 added to a quest that might only take 5 mins otherwise, that's a meaningful addition of time

Also R1 is not really high difficulty, it's standard difficulty for leveling, and solo is a fully valid way to play so that shouldn't be treated as an exception