U66 Preview 2: Tumble Changes

[Noite Talo]

There is a mechanical reason for increasing your Tumble skill within this overhaul:

Yes, but the scope of application is fairly narrow imo.

Generally speaking, characters who care about saves will already have enough, and other characters will be far enough off saving it would require a hefty investment in the skill, competing with other universally high value skills or augments.

At 8s cd it is viable to utilise the reflex boost vs say a trap (unlike uncanny dodge's reflex boost), so it has potential use cases.
Admitably when I first read the proposed change I completely wrote of the reflex as irrelevant but I can see one use case I might care about the bonus, though I don't know if I would actually burn skill point/augments on boosting it more than the 1 point as skill points are very valuable.

I would expect the main use of this mechanic to be in pushing difficulty on a raid where reflex is useful for most/all of the group, and for trap jaunting in high difficulties where it means the difference between save or not (irrespective of evasion)

side note, I never checked but the tumble skill description should reflect any changes made to how tumble works, or the info should be visible during char gen for new players.

 

[Elminster]

--Tonquin,

Not really my jam, but Rogues/Monks I think really deserve a way to cut down on the Cooldown on this new tumble mechanic. Maybe add a -2 CD at the capstone for a pure monk/rogue or whatever or even a solid -3 second CD.

It's not overpowering as both classes need a boost imho and need to be more attractive. But I also see both monks and rogues as a "twitch-y", "arcade-ish" class where perhaps a gamepad is more appropriate than a keyboard.

Basically, more tumble = more FUN !

 

[Putti]

There is a mechanical reason for increasing your Tumble skill within this overhaul:

Ah cool. Was so focused on the dodge that I missed that part

 

[Putti]

This isn't a bad idea. We know that there's something that triggers in Reaper mode that determines if we're in combat or not. Would it be possible to apply that to trigger between normal use of Tumble that doesn't use charges, and Tumble whilst in combat?

Might be a bit of work though...

J1NG

I feel like this would just incentivise people to keep mobs alive to stay in combat so they can move faster

 

[Celtic]

A lot of melee I know already run light armor just for the dodge. Evasion + spell absorb covers a lot of stuff and then 130 MRR + a good healer covers the rest. Heavy armor is already kinda niche usage and if there's dodge differences between armor types when tumbling, it's just going to make things even more extreme. The fun (sad?) part will be that the average player will wear whatever armor sounds appealing, "Oh, I'm a fighter, I should wear heavy armor" and then be confused why their character doesn't survive as well as the min/maxers who all swapped to light armor for 95% dodge on tumble.

The main issue i find on my mage, who has evasion, is the DOTs when soloing - the damage outdoes my healing rate. A lot of the DOTs you can't evade unfortuantely.

 

[Elminster]

 

[J1NG]

I feel like this would just incentivise people to keep mobs alive to stay in combat so they can move faster

I can see your concern. Although you might have misunderstood a bit with what I said, as if you keep enemies alive, you'll be stuck in the charges per tumble mode, and thus you won't be moving faster at all since it's 8s per recharge. So if you're moving only by the use of Tumble, I'm sure an unhasted or movement speed increased character will probably be able to keep ahead of you.

But, I totally agree that it might then revert players to wanting the speed boost and then clearing trash more (is that actually something the devs want?). And it might also be something the devs don't want players to have. Hard to say, but definitely agree that this is likely unsuitable. But the detection of players being in battle or about to engage in battle is definitely there, so it could be used if this idea is liked and developed on.

J1NG

 

[Frybri73]

Ah cool. Was so focused on the dodge that I missed that part

Problem is though that with the characters that care about tumble I already have no fail reflex anyway

 

[Phaaze]

Suggestion change 95% uncapped dodge and 1 reflex per tumble to 1% uncapped dodge, 1 reflex and 1 ac per point of tumble for 1 second.

 

[Putti]

I can see your concern. Although you might have misunderstood a bit with what I said, as if you keep enemies alive, you'll be stuck in the charges per tumble mode, and thus you won't be moving faster at all since it's 8s per recharge. So if you're moving only by the use of Tumble, I'm sure an unhasted or movement speed increased character will probably be able to keep ahead of you.

Oh yeah, total brainfart by me. I was reading the guy you were replying to who wanted tumbling to only be available in combat as a way to stop people from zooming through the dungeons like they do now. Now I see that you were theorising kind of the the opposite, though.

 

[Putti]

Problem is though that with the characters that care about tumble I already have no fail reflex anyway

I agree that it probably isn't that great a boost, since saves are kind of an all-or-nothing thing and many people would fall in one of two categories: Either they already have so much reflex that this won't do anything or they won't have enough to make it matter anyway.
For those where it would make a difference I can only really see this being useful for traps, since it can be very difficult to react to spells due to the delay between visuals and effects. Another option could be to reduce trap damage by 1% (or whatever number) for each point of tumble. This would at least make it more useful for anyone who doesn't have improved evasion and no-fail reflex.

 

[Woulfswift]

Howdy all! With Update 66 we're going to be adjusting the gameplay flow and mechanical benefits of Tumbling.

Design Philosophy​

So, to begin - Tumble was never meant to replace your standard methods of locomotion. Tumble is instead meant to allow characters to react to telegraphed damage or traps to escape from certain doom. However, thanks to our efforts to making tumbling more reactive and more fun, we inadvertently introduced specific scenarios in which a character tumbling can generate a pretty impressive (if unintended) amount of land speed.

Our first attempt at fixing this problem was to simply remove the experimental controls, locking players to the old Tumble flow. That being said, after noodling on it as a team, we realized that while this might solve the locomotion problem, it made tumbling less reactive AND didn't do anything to actually help Tumble be relevant in combat. To that end, we think we've come up with a solution that preserves the active nature of Tumble, prevents players from using it to generate too much speed, AND lets them use it to prevent damage on their own terms.

Tumble Charges​

First thing's first - Experimental Tumble Controls has been re-enabled for this preview. Assuming nothing seriously explodes, we expect it to stay enabled going forward.

Tumbling is now limited by charges. If you don't have at least one Tumble charge, you cannot tumble. By default, you have 2 maximum Tumble charges, and one Tumble charge returns every 8 seconds.

Certain feats and abilities can boost your maximum Tumble charges and quicken their rate of return. For this preview, the following abilities have been adjusted:

• Thief-Acrobat's 3rd core, Tumbler, now grants +1 maximum Tumble charge.
• The Mobility feat now grants +1 maximum Tumble charge.

You may view your Tumble charges by holding your Block key, default left shift. Each green pip displayed represents one Tumble charge.

Tumble Benefits​

Tumble now grants you defensive benefits during part of the tumble animation. These bonuses only apply if you are actually tumbling - the shuffle half-step won't trigger these bonuses.

For this preview, Tumbling now grants the following:

• 95% uncapped dodge for 1 second.
• A bonus to Reflex saving throws equal to your Tumble skill for 1 second.

Note that these bonuses apply to you from the moment you begin your Tumble, regardless of how long the animation takes to complete.

We hope very much that these changes further encourage players to actively tumble to dodge large attacks or dangerous traps, and look forward to your passionate feedback!

Keep nerfing the game, we love it !!!
P.s. that’s sarcasm

 

[Elminster]

Keep nerfing the game, we love it !!!
P.s. that’s sarcasm

Why would it be nerfing? I f()@!ing hated it when people tumbled their way through a quest or raid it looks absolutely stupid.

-Tonquin

Is there anyway to increase the "invincibility frames" from 1 second to 1.5 or even 2 seconds? Reasoning is in order to account for the latency and lag. @2secs it'll effectively become 1 second.

Or, alternatively, lower the recharge to 6 seconds instead of 8 to get in more tumbles to again account for missed rolls due to lag/latency from an online game.

 

[Elminster]

Keep nerfing the game, we love it !!!
P.s. that’s sarcasm

Why would it be nerfing? I f()@!ing hated it when people tumbled their way through a quest or raid it looks absolutely stupid.

-Tonquin

Is there anyway to increase the "invincibility frames" from 1 second to 1.5 or even 2 seconds? Reasoning is in order to account for the latency and lag. @2secs it'll effectively become 1 second.

Or, alternatively, lower the recharge to 6 seconds instead of 8 to get in more tumbles to again account for missed rolls due to lag/latency from an online game.

 

[paddymaxson]

This isn't a bad idea. We know that there's something that triggers in Reaper mode that determines if we're in combat or not. Would it be possible to apply that to trigger between normal use of Tumble that doesn't use charges, and Tumble whilst in combat?

Might be a bit of work though...

J1NG

The whole point of where they started with the tumble changes was to fix the fact experimental tumble controls introduced a movement speed exploit where tumbling endlessly so they don't want you doing that either in OR out of combat.

It'd be nice to throw players a bone though, maybe upon exiting combat you get all your charges restored? I assume that would be relatively little work as it's already an event that fires and presumably does some actions.

 

[J1NG]

The whole point of where they started with the tumble changes was to fix the fact experimental tumble controls introduced a movement speed exploit where tumbling endlessly so they don't want you doing that either in OR out of combat.

Ah, that is true. I was originally only thinking for those using the experimental tumble system however and in terms of possibly solving if a player is in combat or not (to which there is a system in place akin to this). If you're not using it, you won't move faster due to the delay between activations. Given there is a distinction between the two, the devs could go this way to preserve those who wish to utilise either system.

That's just the problem solving thinking part, going over over it more in functionality, I agree, that a player could also simply switch between the two systems and there'll be nothing to stop players taking advantage of both that way. So this likely wouldn't be a great idea to do.

It'd be nice to throw players a bone though, maybe upon exiting combat you get all your charges restored? I assume that would be relatively little work as it's already an event that fires and presumably does some actions.

I like this idea too. But this would be reliant on the "in combat" system being able to be altered to perforum such a function and hopefully be able to properly detect combat properly. We know after all, if you leave an enemy behind but still triggered, you're still in combat. This could be problematic if it's something you can't reach (other side of wall, etc), but it could also lead to players killing everything they trigger rather than just moving on by.

J1NG

 

[John3000]

A possible change so that your actual tumble skill matters also:

If its currently 95% in cloth
75% in light
50% in medium
25% in heavy

Make it 95% always in cloth
Make it 3* tumble skill in Light, capped at 75%
Make it 2* tumble skill in Medium, capped at 50%
Make it 1* tumble skill in Heavy, capped at 25%

Expanding on this, it seems like we're missing a "no armor" category :

25% in heavy
50% in medium
75% in light
95% in cloth
100% if no armor or clothes (1st roll has chance to Agro / 2nd roll has chance to Confuse / 3rd and 4th roll have chance to Blind / Will Save DC 20 + Tumbling Skill)

On a more surreal note, DDO should make a Tumbler Archetype versed in the sacred art of the Roly Poly like this one :

 

[seph1roth5]

Still haven't heard any response to tumbling in towns or bardsongs. I think the new tumble system sounds/could be interesting, but what about if I just want to backflip on my airship for fun? Can we get the cooldown/recharge cut down drastically in public areas please?

And bards...people have been bringing it up for years. The aria was a nice update but lots of stuff isn't included in it, so people still have to single-target song EVERYONE if they're a bard basically. Either bundle in everything you have into inspire courage, or make IC mass.

It feels like you guys think that # of songs are in any way hindering us and that's why you don't want to make it easier to mass-sing. But um...I don't think anyone anywhere has ever run out of songs unless they're ultra new. Or are a raid party of ultra new people running lolth in lv 2 gear or something. Could even have it cost more songs, 6 in a quest, 12 in a raid, it'd be a giganto QoL. Pets/summons blow, please don't factor them into any sort of balancing when it comes to songs either.

 

[Mary]

I'm sure there's potential to make this tumble system very rich - my ideas after spitballing:

Ability
Dex - Starting at 15, the ability dexterity, every 10 points (so 25, 35, 45 etc) should add to the tumble cap and reduce the cooldown by -1

Skills
Tumble 1, 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 add to the amount of tumbles you can string together, throwing all on cool down for 8 seconds.
balance - Every 10 points of balance should reduce the cooldown of tumble -1

Race
Tabaxi should receive a bonus +1 tumble charge and -1 cooldown as a racial
gnomes(all), elves (all), and halflings, should receive +1 tumble charge -1 cooldown as a racial

Class
Rogues, Monks, alchemists, and rangers should receive +1tumble -1 cooldown per 10/lvls with additional bonuses added per particular enhancement lines and/or archetypes
Bard song should add +1 and -1 cooldown when trained at lvl 10

Feats
Acrobatic -1 second tumble cooldown
Dodge -1 second tumble cooldown
Mobility +1 tumble charge
Skill focus tumble +1 tumble charge
spring attack -1 second tumble cooldown
Defensive Roll +1 tumble charge
Evasion +1 tumble charge
improved evasion +1 tumble charge -1 cooldown

Spells
Tumble grants temporary ability to tumble even if untrained, +1 tumble and -1 cooldown
feather fall +1 tumble charge and -1 cooldown

Subtractors
things like Tower Shields and Full Plate greatly reduce the number of tumbles and also add to the cooldown times
tower shield -10 tumble +10 cooldown
Full plate -10 tumble +10 cooldown
Half Plate -5 tumble +5 cooldown
Large shield -4 tumble +4 cooldown
Medium Armor -3 tumble +3 cooldown
etc

certain items like the stone boots make tumble impossible

You could even get creative with particular raid gear and set gear and filigrees but we'll save that for another

 

[PraetorPlato]

I'm sure there's potential to make this tumble system very rich - my ideas after spitballing:

Ability
Dex - Starting at 15, the ability dexterity, every 10 points (so 25, 35, 45 etc) should add to the tumble cap and reduce the cooldown by -1

Skills
Tumble 1, 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 add to the amount of tumbles you can string together, throwing all on cool down for 8 seconds.

balance - Every 10 points of balance should reduce the cooldown of tumble -1

Race
Tabaxi should receive a bonus +1 tumble charge and -1 cooldown as a racial
gnomes(all), elves (all), halflings, should receive +1 tumble charge -1 cooldown as a racial

Class
Rogues, Monks, alchemists, rangers should receive +1tumble -1 cooldown per 10/lvls with additional bonuses added per particular enhancement lines and/or archetypes
Bard song should add +1 and -1 cooldown when trained at lvl 10

Feats
Acrobatic -1 second tumble cooldown
Dodge -1 second tumble cooldown
Mobility +1 tumble charge
Skill focus tumble +1 tumble charge
spring attack -1 second tumble cooldown
Defensive Roll +1 tumble charge
Evasion +1 tumble charge
improved evasion +1 tumble charge -1 cooldown

Spell Tumble
grants temporary ability to tumble even if untrained, +1 tumble and -1 cooldown

So if you have 95 dex you can perma-meld?