Spell DCs/saves...it's time, devs.

[630]

That's a valid argument and I share that feeling of hopelessness with the current development. SSG has moved to a really frustrating gear grind. Not only are you looking for rare items, you also need to farm rare augments on top of that.

Skill-based scaling might not be the right answer, but it is an answer that makes DCs more accessible for everyone.

 

[The Being]

And now, answering those who have asked why I don't want a system like AC or martial to-hit for casters. The answer is because they aren't systems that work particularly well, especially for spellcasting.

With those kinds of systems, you're going to have misses far too often, even with optimized toons, and casters can't afford that many misses. It's not just that we're subject to spell points instead of free attacks. It's the attack speed, which is much higher for martials than for spellcasters. Something like that would completely kill spellcasting.

As niknight suggested earlier

1. Make the chance for a mob to fail their saving throw = (your spell DC) / (mob's save + 10.5). This is a rational replacement of the current system, where your DC has to be higher than the mob's save just to get on the d20 roll in the first place. If you have a 75 DC, and the mob has a 140 save, they've got about a 50/50 chance at saving. If you're sitting at 100, then it's closer to 1/3 chance of saving.

Currently with a spell DC 80 and mob saving throw at 100, the mob would only fail 5% of the time (when it rolls a nat 1)
With suggested formula, that mob would fail 80/110.5 = 72.4% of the time

edit: notice on the following table that it shows actual Saving Throw Bonus on the left column, so 20 DC is being compared to 20 ST Bonus + 10.5 (average d20 roll). I didn't think carefully enough when making it.

save\DC	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100
20	66%	98%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
30	49%	74%	99%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
40	40%	59%	79%	99%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
50	33%	50%	66%	83%	99%	100%	100%	100%	100%
60	28%	43%	57%	71%	85%	99%	100%	100%	100%
70	25%	37%	50%	62%	74%	87%	99%	100%	100%
80	22%	33%	44%	55%	66%	77%	88%	99%	100%
90	20%	30%	40%	50%	60%	70%	80%	90%	100%
100	18%	27%	36%	45%	54%	63%	72%	81%	90%

The actual formula need not be quite as simple as that, but the idea seems like a good starting place for me.

I'm sure a great formula can be devised that:
- allows for high DCs to be no-fail, and
- does not absolutely gimp casters unless they get very close to the mob saving throw, and
- does not provide so much chance to land spells that gearing for DC becomes irrelevant.
- does not require devs to adjust entirety of DDOs gear system or each individual monsters' saving throws.

---

I'd personally look at
((DC)/(save+10.5))^3
which would penalise missing DC a bit more harshly (but not as harshly as current d20 system) while keeping the same no fail status.

20 DC vs 100 save (plus d20 roll averaged 10.5) drops down to 0.5% (currently 5% chance if mob can fail while rolling a 1)
20 DC vs 40 save drops down to 6.2% (currently 5% chance)
70 DC vs 120 save would be 15% chance to land the spell (currently 5%)
100 DC vs 120 save would be 45% (currently 5%)

This is a bit more forgiving in legendary levels than in heroics, but meeting DC requirements is also simpler in heroics so I'd be willing to try it out.

 

[Mnemor]

1/3 chance of saving is awful for spellcasting. Spellcasting is a lot slower than weapons.

No to change the system!

 

[LunaCee]

a bit more forgiving in legendary levels than in heroics

How about absolutely NOT. In heroics flubbing a critical cast often is 5-10% of your total spell points going up in smoke for no return. And unlike epics with items like the epic spell storing ring being or PA evergreen mantle effect around you don't have easy access to mana usage mitigation.

Melee get nice shiny hit super hard buttons on anything from a 5-20ish second cooldown and can line up four or five of them that can be woven in among regular attacks. Spell casters have a global 1 second cooldown between every single spellcast action they attempt. And failed actions mean they do next to nothing for that second. And with how the blue resource bar works? Attempting to land high spike damage to crush a dangerous foe fast. So that y'know they don't delete the squishy in a few hits... means turn on the meta-magics and let fly with 40-80+ mana cost per cast. And for a class like Wizard until you hit epic levels you are mostly coasting off of ~800-1400 total mana per shrine in the Gianthold and up part of the run. A Barbarian who's rage runs out gets fatigued but is all better after drinking a lesser restoration pot. And only does slightly less damage than normal. A Wizard who's blue bar runs out in heroics is suddenly a piker with chip damage unless they've got a gigantic stockpile of past life acquired mnemonic pots.

 

[Blerkington]

I don't support going to a skill based system for caster DCs either.

It would lead to monster saves being rebalanced to this standard and then other abilities such as assassination would be left behind, or they also would have to be rejigged.

It seems like an absurd amount of work to solve a problem that could be solved much more easily through a saner approach to gearing. What they did for ATs was a mistake and continuing it would be an even worse mistake.

 

[Balegdah]

Have you tried getting gud?

jokes aside, the heros journey is challenging but rewarding

 

[Fizzix]

MCL bottleneck needs to go away. if we have to retune the dice fine, but every spell should have an increased effectiveness based on the CL of the caster. whether it be spell die damage, duration of CC or maybe retune it like Turn where you get more HitDie per CL, or odds of landing a charm or IK.

School DCs could all be better handled by enhancement and ED CL bonuses. Rather than school DC put on gear. This would flatten some of the lockout that doesnt allow friends to play the same level of content.

Gear dictates cooldowns, spell duration bonuses, CL and individual spell powers

Delta between CL and mob CR could be the mitigating factor or the partial effectiveness or the chance to break the CC.

Gear could be more tailored to CL improvements with damage type being the tetris. Greens give minimal CL boost, Blues bring it up to just behing the last expansions Raid CL, current raid gear has max CL available.

CL limits could be tailored much easier by expansion and level set by max character level at the time of the expansion

Every spell should land. with some level of gauranteed minimal effectiveness. If its a group hold that fails, should hold for 1 sec not the full duration. and the CD should be short enough that if they need to reapply they can. Thats their job. it might be the only thing they get to do for that fight, but they can spam their holds and be group valuable. A caster with a much higher CL will have the ability to do more tricks, like spam short duration heals, hastes, shields/damage absorption, or dps since thier holds work better.

if its an IK that fails it should do damage based on the delta by which it failed etc.

 

[Wizard]

save\DC	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100
20	66%	98%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
30	49%	74%	99%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
40	40%	59%	79%	99%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
50	33%	50%	66%	83%	99%	100%	100%	100%	100%
60	28%	43%	57%	71%	85%	99%	100%	100%	100%
70	25%	37%	50%	62%	74%	87%	99%	100%	100%
80	22%	33%	44%	55%	66%	77%	88%	99%	100%
90	20%	30%	40%	50%	60%	70%	80%	90%	100%
100	18%	27%	36%	45%	54%	63%	72%	81%	90%

That system is way too punishing on the low end - heroics 66% chance if you match enemy DC ? And on the high end you can't even get 95% either if you match the enemy save...

I think heroics are mostly fine, problems starts in epic, and saves go crazy in legendary.

Maybe a uniform system doesn't work too well. How about different dice for heroic and epic? D20 and D100, for example.

And then update gearing, feats, enhancements that spells don't get lower values than tactic DCs.

 

[The Being]

How about absolutely NOT. In heroics flubbing a critical cast often is 5-10% of your total spell points going up in smoke for no return. And unlike epics with items like the epic spell storing ring being or PA evergreen mantle effect around you don't have easy access to mana usage mitigation.

Totally fair - I mentioned it because I did see it as a problem from using the formula.
But the main point was that a solution must exist that

- allows for high DCs to be no-fail, and
- does not absolutely gimp casters unless they get very close to the mob saving throw, and
- does not provide so much chance to land spells that gearing for DC becomes irrelevant.
- does not require devs to adjust entirety of DDOs gear system or each individual monsters' saving throws.

whether it's a clever formula, function or table.

That system is way too punishing on the low end - heroics 66% chance if you match enemy DC ? And on the high end you can't even get 95% either if you match the enemy save...

I could have thought about the table a bit more for sure, as what it is not showing is the +10.5 (average d20), just the actual bonus same as we see on our character sheets. The formula is definitely biased in favor of the higher numbers though.

And the formula should probably just use +10 anyway because it's easier for humans and you can't actually roll a 10.5 nor gain a 0.5 bonus to a saving throw or spell DC.

---

I modified niknight's formula to power of three because it seemed a little too lenient to me with the 18% chance of success with 20 DC vs 100 Saving Throw bonus as it seemed to devalue getting gear too much. But the drawback was that missing 10% of DC required to no fail hurts more when the target is low than when it's high and it really shouldn't.

In other words, having 20 DC when you need 21 should have equal fail chance to having 100DC when you need 105DC. And the numbers should be tuned so that it's 5% failure, not 25%.

 

[mikarddo]

Make 11-20 always hit - unless the mob is immune.
Martial dps still hit mobs even if undergeared.

That both help the undergeared very significantly and still offer a reason to gear up.

 

[niknight]

That system is way too punishing on the low end - heroics 66% chance if you match enemy DC ? And on the high end you can't even get 95% either if you match the enemy save...

I think heroics are mostly fine, problems starts in epic, and saves go crazy in legendary.

Maybe a uniform system doesn't work too well. How about different dice for heroic and epic? D20 and D100, for example.

And then update gearing, feats, enhancements that spells don't get lower values than tactic DCs.

1. It's significantly less punishing on the lower end than the current system is. Currently, if your spell DC is equal to the mob's save bonus, you're not even on the d20 roll (they save by rolling anything greater than 1). It doesn't matter if you have a 20 DC vs a +20 save bonus, or a 120 DC vs a +120 save bonus. Even a 66% chance for them failing their save is a significant improvement.
2. My suggested calculation is probably way too generous for heroic casters. By the time you hit a spell save DC of 20 (which should be around level 5 for most players), the saving throws for most mobs should be in the +10 to +12 range (going off of the general formula for 3.5, where the bad save = CR, and good save = CR + 2). This should cause them to fail 90-95% of the time (since percentages get rounded to the nearest 5%, and cap at 95%).

And now, answering those who have asked why I don't want a system like AC or martial to-hit for casters. The answer is because they aren't systems that work particularly well, especially for spellcasting.

With those kinds of systems, you're going to have misses far too often, even with optimized toons, and casters can't afford that many misses. It's not just that we're subject to spell points instead of free attacks. It's the attack speed, which is much higher for martials than for spellcasters. Something like that would completely kill spellcasting.

On the other hand, don't tell me that AC works well. AC really only works for tanks. For the rest of the characters, it's a stat to ignore (casters) or to have at the bottom of the layered defenses, because AC isn't going to be as important as other defenses like dodge or PRR that don't have that variance.

No, please, keep those systems away from spellcasting.

Yes, the developers should avoid creating differences too big between characters, which is one of the reasons why skill-DC for spell effects is so absurd. But the solution is to stop adding absurd things to the game (which includes making essential stats difficult to obtain on equipment), not to change the game system.

1. If you're no-fail now, you'll still be no-fail under my proposed formula. In fact, it will be even easier to reach no-fail. To do so currently, your spell DC has to be 20 above the mob's save bonus. With my proposal, you only need to be 11 higher. No matter where you are on the curve, your spells are going to be "missing" far less with my proposal than you are right now, unless you're currently at no-fail (then it's no change).
2. Needing less DCs to hit no-fail means that you don't need to slot as many channels of DC increases as you currently do, which solves one of your major gearing concerns.
3. If your spell "misses" against enough mobs, the distance between you and the mobs allows you to do something that melees can't... use the tried and true tactic of running away screaming.
4. A system, like the one I proposed, allows hybrids to actually do some spellcasting. The issue with the solutions your proposed is that we could drop mob saves by 15-20, and most hybrids would still only succeed if the mob rolls a 1. A percentage based system works for everyone. Full casters would still be at a greater advantage than hybrids, but everyone could function.
5. Dodge is very much a variable defense. AC, Dodge, Incorporeality, and Concealment are all variable defenses. PRR is a non-variable defense.
6. You seem to be equivocating the way that AC works as a part of a character's layered defenses with how an analogous formula would work in a system without layers. This approach is mistaken. If character defenses were only 1 or two layers, the to-hit formula would look significantly different than it does now (providing significantly more mitigation per additional point of AC).

 

[Konsumer]

I don't believe skill-based casting is worse than the current system. It will introduce some problems, but solving those problems might end up being a good solution overall.
Skill-based DC's will not fix the caster role but it can fix other challenges.

If you look at how the current skill-based casting has been implemented, it has been mostly well received because it brings new opportunities. A well geared lower life player can now contribute better in more difficult content. I don't mind that a low lifer is as strong as my completionist toons.

I see a lot of reluctance towards change, but most can agree something needs to change with endgame casting. It needs to be balanced along the way, but change is good.

Bringing skill-based DC's to the caster classes needs a lot thought before implementing. There still needs to be a reason to max out your main stat, so we dont end up with con based wizards(concentration) or int based sorcerers(spellcraft). The current way with skill-based DCs comes from the enhancement trees. I could see Hold Monster Mass and Finger of Death being in the wizard trees scaling with a skill.
This suggestion will not fix caster for sure, there are bigger problems. But I believe it will make it easier for newer players or veteran players starting an alt to enjoy more content.That sounds good but th

I don't believe skill-based casting is worse than the current system. It will introduce some problems, but solving those problems might end up being a good solution overall.
Skill-based DC's will not fix the caster role but it can fix other challenges.

If you look at how the current skill-based casting has been implemented, it has been mostly well received because it brings new opportunities. A well geared lower life player can now contribute better in more difficult content. I don't mind that a low lifer is as strong as my completionist toons.

I see a lot of reluctance towards change, but most can agree something needs to change with endgame casting. It needs to be balanced along the way, but change is good.

Bringing skill-based DC's to the caster classes needs a lot thought before implementing. There still needs to be a reason to max out your main stat, so we dont end up with con based wizards(concentration) or int based sorcerers(spellcraft). The current way with skill-based DCs comes from the enhancement trees. I could see Hold Monster Mass and Finger of Death being in the wizard trees scaling with a skill.
This suggestion will not fix caster for sure, there are bigger problems. But I believe it will make it easier for newer players or veteran players starting an alt to enjoy more content.

That sounds good but... The next biggest hurdle is spell pen. You need 60-70 for high reaper. I can't even imagine how in the world someone can get spell pen that high. A high DC with a low spell pen is a useless spell.

 

[The Being]

That sounds good but... The next biggest hurdle is spell pen. You need 60-70 for high reaper. I can't even imagine how in the world someone can get spell pen that high. A high DC with a low spell pen is a useless spell.

According to wiki during update 35 (2017), the maximum possible was 70, I expect that value to be a decent bit higher now.
On a quick look, Solar Gem of Spell Penetration is at least a new channel that didn't exist back then, for +3/+10 (artifact bonus also found in one vecna unleashed set and in the date with a mindflayer set)

If DC woes are eased, then there's more room to feat and/or itemize for spell penetration.
And at least all(?) pure damage spells don't check against spell resistance, and not every enemy has it (afaik, I don't know how R10 works or stuff).

However...
Spell Penetration will be very relevant for the upcoming expansion Out of the Abyss, since it sounds like it will involve Drow and various Demons.

 

[Konsumer]

According to wiki during update 35 (2017), the maximum possible was 70, I expect that value to be a decent bit higher now.
On a quick look, Solar Gem of Spell Penetration is at least a new channel that didn't exist back then, for +3/+10 (artifact bonus also found in one vecna unleashed set and in the date with a mindflayer set)

If DC woes are eased, then there's more room to feat and/or itemize for spell penetration.
And at least all(?) pure damage spells don't check against spell resistance, and not every enemy has it (afaik, I don't know how R10 works or stuff).

However...
Spell Penetration will be very relevant for the upcoming expansion Out of the Abyss, since it sounds like it will involve Drow and various Demons.

To the best of my awareness, every IK and CC spell is subject to spell resistance. I struggled and could only get to 45 while balancing everything else. 45 is far from no fail on high reapers. It's a crap shoot with loaded dice. It is 1 billion times easier to just go with a melee toon and declare DC casting as a dead end with an unbreakable glass ceiling.

 

[Bjond]

IMHO, all spells should simple work every time. They're not high-rate actions where a miss is either lost in the noise or a barely noticed hiccough.

DCs should not be a success-gate. They should instead be a scaling factor: up/down based on the roll; eg. Mass Hold that rolls a DC "failure" doesn't do nothing, it just holds for less time proportional to the DC. Same for damage. Roll low, get less, not nothing.

I'd also scale it UP for overachievers; roll over-threshold and your durations and damage increase rather than decrease.

It's the binary nature of casting combined with hidden DCs that hurt casters the most. Make DC a soft-scale rather than a hard-wall and casting will be MUCH more fun.

 

[Konsumer]

IMHO, all spells should simple work every time. They're not high-rate actions where a miss is either lost in the noise or a barely noticed hiccough.

DCs should not be a success-gate. They should instead be a scaling factor: up/down based on the roll; eg. Mass Hold that rolls a DC "failure" doesn't do nothing, it just holds for less time proportional to the DC. Same for damage. Roll low, get less, not nothing.

I'd also scale it UP for overachievers; roll over-threshold and your durations and damage increase rather than decrease.

It's the binary nature of casting combined with hidden DCs that hurt casters the most. Make DC a soft-scale rather than a hard-wall and casting will be MUCH more fun.

How does that effect instakills and spell resistance?

 

[vik]

To the best of my awareness, every IK and CC spell is subject to spell resistance.

You must not be using BoGW, Greater Shout, or Web for CC then. Good for annoying Drow or Mutated Crushers.

 

[Bjond]

How does that effect instakills and spell resistance?

Insta is easy: half DC is half dead. Over DC sprays fragmentation giblets proportional to the HP of the original target; ie. it would be better to over-dc on a 5k HP Ogre than a 10 HP rat.

Spell resist is harder, since once you add it to the mix you now have two separate mitigations and (even worse), they're both binary.

I prefer general hand-waving in the direction of a good solution to hammering out details in threads like this; they're fun, but ultimately pointless. SSG will do what they do and the one sure thing is that they'll ignore us when they do it.

 

[LurkingVeteran]

Insta is easy: half DC is half dead. Over DC sprays fragmentation giblets proportional to the HP of the original target; ie. it would be better to over-dc on a 5k HP Ogre than a 10 HP rat.

Spell resist is harder, since once you add it to the mix you now have two separate mitigations and (even worse), they're both binary.

I prefer general hand-waving in the direction of a good solution to hammering out details in threads like this; they're fun, but ultimately pointless. SSG will do what they do and the one sure thing is that they'll ignore us when they do it.

SR is less of a problem since it doesn't affect all mobs, and not most DPS spells either, so there is usually a backup option. It is also easier to raise but it is kind of unevenly distributed (e.g. magus and dhampir). I think they could just turn the DC system into something like the AC system, but maybe less spread as DC numbers are still at most half of AC.

I think the death spells could just do more damage on a fail, including on death immunes. They already put damage on fails, but the numbers are a bit inconsistent and a bit low in general.

 

[Akor]

Dev's are not going to do anything abought this.