U60 Lammania Preview 1 - Dungeon Alert Changes

[Torc]

We are updating Dungeon Alert to put some bite back in the system which has not scaled well against the ever increasing player power over the years. Most of these changes focus on red alert which is really the alert we want you the player to avoid.

We are aware some content has some trigger issues and we are working through the feedback we've already received on those dungeons which will be tracked in a different post.

Changes:

1. Monsters movement speed bonuses have been increased for all dungeon alert levels by about 20% because players have access to a lot more movement effects than they did back in the day.

2. On red alert all monsters will gain True Sight just like bosses do.

3. On red alert all monsters will gain 25% dodge penetration and a very large hit bonus while flanking. To be clear this hit bonus only applies if the monster is behind you.

4. On red alert monsters who have been Crowd Controlled will break free in 6 seconds, and will break free faster and faster for every time that particular monster is CC'd.

 

[seph1roth5]

Not a fan of any of this. Feels like playing d&d with a gm who keeps punishes you for not doing what they want? You want to leave town? A giant sandstorm appears. You can counter that with magic? Someone stole all your gear and you just noticed. Oh you can just buy more? The shops are all closed. You want to break in? No they take their stuff home and have hired djinni guards.

People don't want to spend 30 min doing a quest they can get through in 10. It's not about not wanting to play the game or being too strong, it's about the game being about a reincarnation loop. Most people don't have infinite free time and want to accomplish more in the time they DO play.

I like the monster AI changes (in theory, haven't tested) and sounds like it'll lead to less DA issues. Why also throw a pile of other stuff? It's like inquisitive nerfs (and many other changes) where a ton of stuff was changed and then declared a success, when you probably only needed 1/4 of them to get the desired results.

 

[Shagarot]

Once a few problematic dungens will get revised I think I will love those changes. Personally I always hated zerging in DDO and those changes will punish zerging with both harder time and less exp earned. Just hope that issues with quests like ToEE where you can get red alert instantly will be fixed before this is actually implemented.

 

[seph1roth5]

There's a big difference between zerging and not wanting to hunt down a zillion enemies for conquest. Some quests are just huge like ToEE, where you didn't NEED to explore the whole damn thing. Other quests have a giant bulk in optionals, like tear of dhakaan. Now if you don't do all the optionals you're also missing a lot of xp.

 

[Goldy]

There's a big difference between zerging and not wanting to hunt down a zillion enemies for conquest. Some quests are just huge like ToEE, where you didn't NEED to explore the whole damn thing. Other quests have a giant bulk in optionals, like tear of dhakaan. Now if you don't do all the optionals you're also missing a lot of xp.

That by itself is not a bad thing.

 

[Misadventure]

If you going to do this, are you going to fix hire AI? Hires are one of the reasons why we get red alerts.

 

[MSC]

Adding all of these changes before all quests that auto red alert are fixed is kinda iffy.

First two changes would be fine before the quests that auto red are fixed, but the following two make quests that auto red significantly harder. (Doesn't help that a decent chunk of the auto reds also happen in boss fights which trigger the other DA buffs on the boss too). If all four of these changes go through without fixing quests, things like the final fight in What Goes Up or Lesson In Deception will be a nightmare.

 

[KylerrTheMajty]

We are updating Dungeon Alert to put some bite back in the system which has not scaled well against the ever increasing player power over the years. Most of these changes focus on red alert which is really the alert we want you the player to avoid.

We are aware some content has some trigger issues and we are working through the feedback we've already received on those dungeons which will be tracked in a different post.

Changes:

1. Monsters movement speed bonuses have been increased for all dungeon alert levels by about 20% because players have access to a lot more movement effects than they did back in the day.

2. On red alert all monsters will gain True Sight just like bosses do.

3. On red alert all monsters will gain 25% dodge penetration and a very large hit bonus while flanking. To be clear this hit bonus only applies if the monster is behind you.

4. On red alert monsters who have been Crowd Controlled will break free in 6 seconds, and will break free faster and faster for every time that particular monster is CC'd.

So rogue assassin can be deleted

Just delete assassin and ad arcane trikster a casting rogue , that's the only thing you can support and balance

 

[GolargoSturdyfeet]

Not a fan :mad:

 

[Xgya]

The changes to Conquest alone should (hopefully) help with zerging.
I totally agree with the movespeed bonus too. It pairs well with monsters simply stopping chasing you once they've lost your trace from the AI thread.
So the monsters that think they can still get to you chase even harder, and the ones you've lost get to catch their breaths.

 

[Jack Jarvis Esquire]

No problem with this in principle Torc, though on balance you also need to look at those quests that can/do spawn "false" red alerts from spawning.

Now, how about those Ravager bugs..?

EDIT - sorry just seen your response on the Ravager bugs. THANK YOU!

 

[Ahpuch]

The changes to Conquest alone should (hopefully) help with zerging.

Not really. It is still faster to get as many mobs as you can rounded up and use AOE to take them all down than to fight them as you get to them.

Conceptually I am not against DA but my problem has always been that it is a blanket system built to cover other weak systems (mob ai, pathing). There are some changed to mob agro announced that might help but more effort should go into that before more work on DA.

 

[SpartanKiller13]

So rogue assassin can be deleted

Just delete assassin and ad arcane trikster a casting rogue , that's the only thing you can support and balance

From the thread on XP system adjustments:

Note On Stealth - It is its own subset of game play and one that doesn't actually hit our perf problems. We would like to eventually get to some "stealth" game play bonuses to offset the Conquest adjustments but we want to do stuff that isn't exclusive from killing monsters or about just about walking through the quest without engaging anything. We're thinking about Assassinate bonuses (not the enhancement per say but just killing a mob from behind before it aggros on you), never triggering dungeon alert or maybe we'll even introduce picking pockets (but I warn you most monsters are full of pocket lint with the occasional rubber ducky, or a ring of power, that thing is sooo cursed). These things won't make it into this pass though as we'd probably want to do a focused pass on stealth and fix a lot of other rough edges while were at it.

 

[Crell_1]

4. On red alert monsters who have been Crowd Controlled will break free in 6 seconds, and will break free faster and faster for every time that particular monster is CC'd.

Will dropping to yellow and green reset this timer and stop the break? Will the 'faster and faster' counter be reset to 0 when that happens?

 

[Crell_1]

What will happen with quests like ToEE Air which you basically walk into and instantly red-alert as you fail the jump mechanic. I'd say clear things out and move ever slower but all of those wisps respawn like crazy.

 

[peng]

I have always hated dungeon alert. I understand that it's a way to make the players directly feel the consequences of zerging on the ddo servers, but it has a lot of (I assume) unintended consequences:

• alert often disproportionately affects players left behind a zerger. eg player 1 zergs ahead, player 2 gets killed by alert
• alert affects melees significantly more than ranged, and both significantly more than casters
• alert makes mobs harder to kill, which makes it harder to clear alert once you get it
• instant red alert

If I could wave a magic wand, I'd fix the underlying server load issues that make the devs feel that alert is necessary, but in the meantime:

• the AI adjustments are a good move in the right direction
• maybe add a flag to the player(s) that trigger alert, causing them to draw and keep more aggro
• I'd change the true seeing to see invisibility (only on red alert) and scaling concealment bypass
• that dodge bypass hits certain builds a lot more than others. maybe a boost to doublestrike/shot or melee/ranged/spell power instead?
• reduce or remove the extra defenses mobs get with alert
• no more than 1 alert level gained every 6 seconds or so. give us *some* time to deal with alert before instantly going to red
• in wilderness areas only, reduce the range at which monsters aggro and increase the time it takes for them to aggro

 

[The Narc]

Seems like a change that could lead forward to a positive change in quest design, some quests would certainly need adjustment right away.

Definitely will need to tame down wilderness area scaling it is absolutely lame and boring to get danger alert and have to deal with it while running to a quest entrance and people are going to continue to zerg there as there is absolutely no benefit to killing wilderness monsters. (Check that, unless you are trying to speed run levelling using xp pot and slayer pots so a change in scaling spawns in encounter area benefits SSG)

 

[rabidfox]

I like to put up LFMs when I'm leveling to let anyone in. This is pretty big stick to the point where I might not let pugs join late in certain quests for risk they run off the wrong way and trigger an alert.

 

[The Narc]

We are updating Dungeon Alert to put some bite back in the system which has not scaled well against the ever increasing player power over the years. Most of these changes focus on red alert which is really the alert we want you the player to avoid.

We are aware some content has some trigger issues and we are working through the feedback we've already received on those dungeons which will be tracked in a different post.

Changes:

1. Monsters movement speed bonuses have been increased for all dungeon alert levels by about 20% because players have access to a lot more movement effects than they did back in the day.

2. On red alert all monsters will gain True Sight just like bosses do.

3. On red alert all monsters will gain 25% dodge penetration and a very large hit bonus while flanking. To be clear this hit bonus only applies if the monster is behind you.

4. On red alert monsters who have been Crowd Controlled will break free in 6 seconds, and will break free faster and faster for every time that particular monster is CC'd.

You need to also add a saving throw/AC bonus for each level of dungeon alert, this game is about to get fun again!!

Loving you guys, SSG

 

[Gavaleus]

I like these changes. The thing to keep in mind is that the vast majority of gameplay has no dungeon alert, and especially no red dungeon alert. And even then, it's not like these changes are that strong.

The main focus of course should be nailing down the unintentional dungeon alert situations like Inferno of the Damned, where enemies can aggro from behind the flame walls and will constantly try to path to you, even if you have gone through a teleporter, or in ToEE where the mob density is so high that aggro'ing one pack of enemies can aggro several packs leading to an instant red alert.