U82 Lammania Preview 1 - Reaper Player Damage Adjustment

[Torc]

Reaper Damage Adjustment Overview: We are adjusting the rate reaper effects player outgoing damage in the following ways.

• Caster Damage is going up to nearly where everyone else is in high skull reaper
• Everyone else is coming down to equalize with casters to offset imbue buff halo and to help keep the top of reaper challenging for full parties
• The player damage being increased across the board in high reaper in raids so the raw time it takes to complete a raid on high reaper is greatly reduced, and the build DPS meta is less extremely focused on the very top builds.
  
  
  
  Current Reaper Damage Mods:

Skull	Damage Mod Melee	Damage Mod Ranged	Damage Mod Spell
1	.77	.77	.77
2	.67	.67	.67
3	.56	.56	.55
4	.45	.45	.45
5	.37	.37	.37
6	.30	.30	.30
7	.25	.25	.23
8	.20	.20	.19
9	.17	.17	.15
10	.15	.15	.10

New Quest Numbers

Skull	Player Damage Mod ALL %
1	77%
2	67%
3	56%
4	45%
5	37%
6	30%
7	25%
8	20%
9	16%
10	13%

New Raid Numbers

Skull	Player Damage Mod ALL %
1	77%
2	68%
3	60%
4	55%
5	50%
6	45%
7	41%
8	36%
9	30%
10	23%

 

[Venatori d' Argonnessen]

I would very much like to see higher skull quests be made even harder than this. On release in r10 you did about 7.5% of your damage outside of reaper mode. It was since nerfed to make the content more accessible, however there has been significant power creep since then and the challenge feels limiting.

Unpopular perhaps, but reaper mode is supposed to be the challenge difficulty, and the upper difficulties should reflect that. I would not mind seeing lower skull being made easier and high skull being made harder. Reaper xp as a whole is also significantly more available with a huge range of quests, and more people comfortable running the difficulty as a whole.

r10: 5%
r9: 9%
r8: 15%
r7: 24%
etc

Likewise, raids should reflect the challenge. While making them less of a slog is appreciated, I doubt it will change the groups from minmaxing their builds for this content. Leaving raids at the current scaling (15% on r10) seems reasonable.

What are the chances of a larger scope reaper change with a pass on damage dealt, t3 champs, new reapers (maybe a purple named reaper in r10?), possible a t6 in the trees to reflect the increasing level cap, and generally a more thorough shakeup at some point?

Either way, thank you for doing a reaper pass, it is both needed and appreciated! Cheers!

 

[Sarlona Raiding]

This is not going to be make reaper more challenging, but I have no strong opinion on this change.

In general to make the top end challenging you would need to have 2 curves. 1 curve from R1 to R6 (or 4) and another from there up to R10.

 

[Ben]

I'm very excited we are addressing overall reaper mode and like the direction we are going with these changes, but we need to take this even further. Let's focus on what reaper mode was designed to be before we get into any numbers. This game mode is designed for veteran players to get extra challenge out of the game. Here is a snippet from the initial release notes from U34 when reaper mode first came out "Warning: Reaper difficulty is meant for players who enjoy a serious challenge. You have been warned!"

I don't think there is any argument that R10 quests have become too easy to complete depending on which veteran players you talk to. There has been lots of power creep over the years since it's initial release, and there is a need to make reaper mode more difficult, specifically the highest difficulties where all reapers are able to be spawned (R7-R10).

Now the important question is "How difficult should high reaper mode be?" My answer to that is extremely difficult.

It should encourage groups to slow down the zerg and encourage more party-based gameplay. I want players to think more strategically about how they enter into boss fights and address reaper spawns. If the party wants to zerg there are lower skull options available to them. Balancing the damage output for physical and magical is a great step towards encouraging more diverse parties.

Here are my suggestions for player outgoing damage for quests:
R10: 6%
R9: 10%
R8: 15%
R7: 24%
R6: 30%

For raids, I think it is fair to increase the player damage so it feels less of a slog, but I think the numbers are too generous. Players who are attempting this level of content will always be looking to squeeze as much damage as possible, and generally a lack of DPS is not a fail condition in most modern raids that have been released the last few years anyways.

I would prefer the following player outgoing damage for raids to match what is live today:
R10: 15%
R9: 17%
R8: 20%
R7: 25%
R6: 30%

Would love to hear others opinions on how difficult they would like quests and raids to be!

 

[Monkey_Archer]

13% is going to be barely noticable. Please make r10 5% damage mod.

I think nerfing r10 raiding is just sad. There's so few areas of DDO that really push to top end players and builds. The top guilds have been getting first day r10 completions already... I'm just flabbergasted as to why this would even be getting changed or who is asking for it.

 

[Synalon]

I agree that 13% will make little difference. It should be something like 7.5% for all. Its being equalised is great, though!

 

[Thebento]

These changes are a dream for anyone who loves playing caster... but in my humble opinion as someone who plays DND, there shouldn't be ED healing unless you're a divine class based on healing, Druid, Cleric, Fvs, Bard, etc.
Today anyone heals, controls, etc., which is very annoying. Each class should have its own function. Everyone should need someone controlling the monsters and healing the group. The game would be much cooler.

 

[Gavaleus]

I'm glad that physical characters and spell casters will be affected the same again. I do agree with others that higher Reaper could be harder still, but that could always be saved for a more comprehensive Reaper balance pass. This is a good, simple change for now.

I'm not sure how I feel about the high Reaper raid changes. I understand the intent is to make them not such a huge time sink, but without any other changes, shorter does equal easier to an extent. I think this could also be saved for a comprehensive Reaper balance pass.

 

[Teh_Troll]

Rethink the raid changes please. Rest looks good.

 

[Torm]

Melee is getting double nerfed with the DR flag changes making weapon damage be 50% effective while in reaper mode.

 

[Ying]

Rethink the raid changes please. Rest looks good.

I for one welcome not spending two hours to complete the latest R10 raid. It's not just the completion time, but the cumulative time spent getting to that point to then fail before succeeding. R10 Skeletons broke me so bad I quit our R10 push raid and didn't play the game for nine months. DOV wasn't much better especially after the build nerfs shortly thereafter.

Melee is getting double nerfed with the DR flag changes making weapon damage be 50% effective while in reaper mode.

A completely solvable problem.

 

[Abramax]

I love it, not every players or characters can do R10 or push Raids in reaper, great changes for a PVE game
As there is a big 50% damage reduction against monsters if we can t bypass their DR, I feel that 13% in R10 is good

 

[woq]

1) Loving the equalisation of damage and going to 13% on r10 from 15% - could go lower, power creep has been significant and continues to increase

2) The quest/raid reaper damage adjustment seems backwards to me. Low reaper raids were a colossal jump in difficulty to a lot of people - think low dps raids not being able to go from LH Den of Vipers to R1 Den of Vipers, while being able to complete R10 questing, or even older raids on maybe R5-R8 like Baba or Strahd. It is not the high reaper raids that needed to be easier, if anything low reaper raids needed to be ever so slightly easier and high reaper as hard as currently but less focused on stacking the best dps builds.

A better way to achieve that would be to add group utility to underperforming classes (debuffs like Warlocks Soul Eater capstone having higher uptime, adding similar but less powerful to other trees, adding abilities like For Cormyr to non-racial grouping/support oriented trees that also help casters, not martial restricted) - stuff like that. The casuals and generic pug raid groups that struggle because they don't run meta builds are the ones that need help more than the minmaxers, this does the opposite.

This will keep low reaper raiding in a bunch of raids inaccessible, while making the nolife tryhard raiders have less challenge - the opposite of what should be the goal I'd imagine? I can not see this raid adjustment as a good change no matter how I look at it.
---
High reaper really could include more interesting things for us to figure out and deal with in general. Horrid does negative now so vengeance reapers are less scary - probably a good change? Cyclo blasts are less stupid, good change. But they do make reaper easier.

The DR change might reduce available player damage for less prepared or fleshed out builds, and some popular meta builds that steamrolled are less able to do it (Dragon Lords and crossbows) but other builds that steamrolled it will do it even harder than before since we have more enhancement points available, attacks that aren't animation cancelled are better and DS uncapped so many builds that could cover DR breaks look to be a lot stronger than before and will just steamroll even harder... A lot harder in fact. Unsure about casters.

It'll be hard to gauge the impact of all these changes since there are so many, but I think there will be need for another perhaps larger reaper adjustment later.

 

[Oliphant]

Of all the threads so far, this is the one that is not horrible.

 

[Grimscore_Riffstorm]

the build DPS meta is less extremely focused on the very top builds.

This seems like the slippery slope to avoid. You need to increase the ceiling and performance of those builds, not reduce difficulty to make them viable. The very top builds are the standard you need to work on bringing the non-meta to. If you want to go grow horizontally do it with cosmetics, not with balancing.

 

[nix]

• Caster Damage is going up to nearly where everyone else is in high skull reaper
• Everyone else is coming down to equalize with casters to offset imbue buff halo and to help keep the top of reaper challenging for full parties
• The player damage being increased across the board in high reaper in raids

Maybe I'm not fully getting it but this sounds like a contradiction in terms ... pick any two?

 

[vryxnr]

• Caster Damage is going up to nearly where everyone else is in high skull reaper
• Everyone else is coming down to equalize with casters to offset imbue buff halo and to help keep the top of reaper challenging for full parties
• The player damage being increased across the board in high reaper in raids

Maybe I'm not fully getting it but this sounds like a contradiction in terms ... pick any two?

Raids at the moment have the same reaper scaling as quest. If this goes through as is, Raids will have different scaling, so that instead of doing 13% damage in R10 raids, R10 raids will only result in a reduction to 23%, which is apprx a 53% increase compared to R10 raiding today.

 

[rabidfox]

Raids at the moment have the same reaper scaling as quest. If this goes through as is, Raids will have different scaling, so that instead of doing 13% damage in R10 raids, R10 raids will only result in a reduction to 23%, which is apprx a 53% increase compared to R10 raiding today.

I like the idea of the change for raids. New pushes can be multiple hour long ordeals to complete (done over many many many many tries that fail); so it being a bit quicker timewise to complete could be nice (without it effecting the times of easier difficulty settings). I mostly love that by them uncoupling the reaper modifiers for quests & raids, SSG can balance both seperately going foward without effecting the ease or difficulty of the other.

 

[handofgood]

For all the folks suggesting further nerf to dmg , please read the other nerf threads first .

 

[Lominal]

As someone that actively push raids, thank you. For those that don't- most r10 raids are easily 2-3+ hours, and the time barrier is often the biggest issue. not the dps, not the skill, not the strategy. This is necessary to ensure push raids are actually about skill/strategy/teamwork rather than scheduling 12 people for 3-5 hours.

I also further welcome nerfs to higher skull questing (seen a lot of people like the 5% in r10, add me to them)