U66 Preview 2: Tumble Changes

[Sneakywink]

Paladin to Rogue "Can you tumble through those traps and disable them?" Rogue "No I'm out of charges!"

 

[Lazuli]

Paladin to Rogue "Can you tumble through those traps and disable them?" Rogue "No I'm out of charges!"

Well, rogues still have improved evasion with very good reflex saves. They don't need to tumble through traps.

 

[Sneakywink]

Well, rogues still have improved evasion with very good reflex saves. They don't need to tumble through traps.

That was just humor. Though, I think it should be based on Max Dex Bonus.

 

[Scrag]

Well, rogues still have improved evasion with very good reflex saves. They don't need to tumble through traps.

My fighter has HORRID saves. Straight 20.

I would die for two levels of rogue and maxed out tumble, or even just maxed out tumble and lots of +dex skills (morgrave skeleton key for example I believe) + dex if it gets me enough reflex saves + dodge to not be murderized by traps.

 

[Kritikal]

Nice change.

Thief-Acrobat capstone should also have either +1 maximum tumble charge (as well as core 3), and/or lower the re-charge cooldown to 5 seconds.

 

[Nokowi]

This is the kind of design that makes gameplay fun. You really should have made this kind of thing the focus of Shadowdancer, where people could twist in or take as much active gameplay as they enjoy.

Be careful not to add too many charges too easily - it's easy to out-design your own limitations and 95% miss chance is very powerful.

 

[DDO Gaming]

Well, rogues still have improved evasion with very good reflex saves. They don't need to tumble through traps.

for a moment I thought the sole reason for playing rogue was to disable those traps so the rest of the team doesn;t get killed by them

 

[Griglok (Karatemack)]

This is a great solution. Many thanks!

 

[Sormiron]

I tested this a bit and I realy like the idea of this usefull tumble while limiting experimental tumbles movementspeed buff it gives.
there are some issues though.
I only see the charges when I hold in shift and then I have already put myself in a position where tumble is needed by defualt. It becomes an awkward shield block staying in place while mobs gather around me while I curse myself for not counting cooldown seconds in my head. Becouse if I play as I usualy do and move around a lot It does not come naturaly to check tumble by staying in place and block . it´s not like a runearm you charge up while moving, you trigger tumble by moving and then the charge is there or not.

I think it is an "easy" solve though. depending on how much work it causes you.
It would be to put small green dots around the portrait or movable somewhere so you know when they are up and not when you need to trigger it.

Then I actually think something should happen when you use tumble anyways and that would be the old style of tumble without the extra movement speed or dodge bonus. I have a hard time accepting the block instead tumble I guess. it doesnt feel right.

there are a couple of things I think might be good ideas and that would be to add 1 charge to the tumble skill or 1 sec cd reduction or so when you get above a number. let´s say 50 for 1 sec less cd, 60 for 1 charge or something and let further increases come from feats and enhancements.
it´s a bit odd that the skill feat tumble/epic tumble itself doesnt increase anything. It would be darned costy in feats to get it all so I dont know if it would be imbalanced or not adding more stuff.
Making the dodge bonus linked to the skill itself is not a bad idea either, that would kinda make sense to me and reaching 95% is not that difficult and it scales from heroic to epic leveling, making the tumble spells and such a bit usefull.

Edit: if you give recharge reduction and and charges to the tumble skills and give theif acrobat these feats in the cores you´d not have to worry about people stacking it up too much too easy. other classes "can" get it but at a heavy, heavy cost of feats.

 

[mikarddo]

Paladin to Rogue "Can you tumble through those traps and disable them?" Rogue "No I'm out of charges!"

More like Rogue "Sure, I just need a moment to catch my breath then I will get right on it"... 8 seconds later...

Seems to make perfect sense to me - and I do appreciate your humour here

 

[Zvdegor]

My heads up display has room for a few more pieces of data...

Well my Vistani ROBOT build will have the same icons + a purple and a yellow converter above his head. Maybe I should rename my build to Vistani X-mas tree build

 

[Xgya]

Have to say I like to see the switch to active gameplay.
I'm probably not going to benefit from this AT ALL, but that's because of my notoriously bad twitch reflexes.

I'll miss being able to roll around while maintaining invisibility on my palemasters, but it was never that big a deal.

 

[Sneakywink]

Add charges to Shadowdancer as Spell Focus does nothing for non-casters?

Shadowdancer Spell Focus: Multiselector:
Shadowdancer Spell Focus Abjuration +1/2/3 Abjuration DCs
Shadowdancer Spell Focus Enchantment +1/2/3 Enchantment DCs
Shadowdancer Spell Focus Illusion +1/2/3 Illusion DCs
Shadowdancer Spell Focus Necromancy +1/2/3 Necromancy DCs
Shadowdancer Tumble Focus +1/2/3 Tumble Charges

 

[droid327]

I was levelling today (fire caves, with that long run up the tunnel from the second shrine) and realized... Once the nerf goes live, every time I have to run through a long tunnel like that, which exists only to make you take more time, I'm going to remember how much better it was when we could turbo tumble, and how much it sucks not having something like that anymore.

You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube now, and it's not going to just go away. It's going to be an open sore for players from now on, until a new turbo button is added

 

[Zvdegor]

I'd say

I was levelling today (fire caves, with that long run up the tunnel from the second shrine) and realized... Once the nerf goes live, every time I have to run through a long tunnel like that, which exists only to make you take more time, I'm going to remember how much better it was when we could turbo tumble, and how much it sucks not having something like that anymore.

You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube now, and it's not going to just go away. It's going to be an open sore for players from now on, until a new turbo button is added

I'd say Sprint Boost should be given to everyone with 3-5 charges and longer cooldowns in between uses cause every toon can run but not every toon can sprint which is dumb.
Sprint Boost should be your turbo button!!!!
In those Enhancement Trees where Sprint Boost a part of it, should be swapped to something else and more useful thematically of that tree (like Barbarians get another type of charge attack) or just turn old Sprint Boost into extra charges.

 

[droid327]

I'd say

I'd say Sprint Boost should be given to everyone with 3-5 charges and longer cooldowns in between uses cause every toon can run but not every toon can sprint which is dumb.
Sprin Boost should be your turbo button!!!!
In those Enhancement Trees where Sprint Boost a part of it, should be swapped to something else and more useful thematically of that tree )like Barbarians get another type of charge attack) or just turn old Sprint Boost into extra charges.

The opposite, actually - Sprint Boost should be given to everyone, but simply as a button you can press and hold on demand, no cd or fixed duration. Part of the problem with Sprint Boost right now is the lack of granularity...it can last longer than you need it many times, but you cant use it as often as you'd want to. What was great about Tumble Turbo is that it was completely seamless. You had it when you needed it, immediately, and you had it until you got to where you're going. Also I think it should probably be 50% runspeed, thats closer to what Tumble gave you, and the game could obviously handle that.

I'm fine if you want to enforce an "out of combat" limitation on whatever turbo button there is, like the self-healing penalty in Reaper, but really that's the only limitation that needs to be enforced.

 

[mikarddo]

I was levelling today (fire caves, with that long run up the tunnel from the second shrine) and realized... Once the nerf goes live, every time I have to run through a long tunnel like that, which exists only to make you take more time, I'm going to remember how much better it was when we could turbo tumble, and how much it sucks not having something like that anymore.

You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube now, and it's not going to just go away. It's going to be an open sore for players from now on, until a new turbo button is added

That run takes 20 second and the tumling may have saved you what, 7 sec? The entire quest takes 2 mins with a duo and 3 mins solo...

I think you are grossly exaggerating the "pain" of having to run for 20 seconds instead of 13 seconds

I will just brush my teeth and go on having fun playing DDO, which is really a pretty fast game with zero long runs at all.

 

[droid327]

That run takes 20 second and the tumling may have saved you what, 7 sec? The entire quest takes 2 mins with a duo and 3 mins solo...

I think you are grossly exaggerating the "pain" of having to run for 20 seconds instead of 13 seconds

I will just brush my teeth and go on having fun playing DDO, which is really a pretty fast game with zero long runs at all.

It's not just the one example. It's all the hallways and tunnels in all the quests. Every one is going to be a constant reminder that it used to not suck as much, and the devs made it suck again just because they want it to suck

Also 7 secs out of 180 is still almost 4% of the time. If they added a 4% damage penalty to everyone, people wouldn't just consider that negligible and not care. And that's just that one tunnel

The pace of the game is integral to the qualitative play experience. And the game supports a very fast pace of play, for vets. Stuff like long runs breaks that pace, so yes it is very noticeable. You spend more of a quest not fighting than fighting.

If they want to slow down the pace of play for levelling, this isn't the way. They need to add another 50% bonus xp per skull or something so r1 speed runs aren't the most optimal xp/min

 

[Shear-buckler]

So remove all corridors? Only one-room quests from now on. Moving is boring!

 

[droid327]

So remove all corridors? Only one-room quests from now on. Moving is boring!

Reductio ad absurdum is rarely a productive argument...

No, not every quest needs to be a one-room arena battle. Though those are fun, I do wish we'd get more (that were scripted, not timed).

However, every quest should be designed with a sense of pacing, like I mentioned above. There shouldnt be long forced breaks in the action. The breaks should balance with the time it takes to do the action itself (action meaning anything interactive - fights, puzzles, etc.). It should feel like you're constantly in action, never like you're waiting to get back to the action. When in doubt, err on the side of less forced downtime between fights - players can always slow themselves down if they need to.

But its far too late to redesign all the existing quests to improve their pacing...so improving our out-of-combat move speed is a far simpler solution.