U82 Preview 1 - Monster DR Rework

[Blaster]

I'm fine with a flat 20-30% across the board. That's enough that it's noticeable but not so much its insurmountable. You wanna scale it? Add 1% per reaper skull, on top of the already reduced damage; again it'll be noticeable but not insurmountable.

 

[The Narc2]

At the end of the day, this is going to punish new players and flavor builds HARD, especially while leveling.

Veteran players running optimal DPS builds will likely have enough DPS surplus to just plow through it without slowing down all that much.

Veterans might have to lower the skulls by 1 while leveling if they usually run R2+, but it won't be that big of a deal. Newbies and flavor builds that were already struggling with elite/R1 will get wrecked.

Well its a good thing I quit playing first life non twinking permadeath then., but these types of changes have been happening for years beating down flavor builds, so by now players should be used to it and new players should have been forewarned by those that they play with.

If they are truly new players then they are likely going to have to drop their challenge rating down to normal or hard and accept they wont be earning as many DDO points to make store purchases and real spending will be required. This game has very little retention of new players already so this will have little to no impact.


On the other hand those that fully rely on a single sentient weapon will be having to spend time or money to stay competitive with others for raid spots in end game and that will drive important revenue for the game to keep the lights on. Whales have been keeping this game on life support for sometime now and that needs to continue.

 

[Terpilar]

Another suggestion :

P/B/S => current DR×0.5%, capped at 25%
Metalline/Aligned => current DR×1%, capped at 50%

That way the current proportionality is kept and so is the essence of this present rework.

After all, the blanket 50% damage reduction comes from D&D 5.0, which simplifies much of the math from 3.5 to speed play because "math is hard" – but math shouldn't be hard for a game engine.

 

[Lordpiglet]

Completely agree. Another way to say this is, there are two ways to play A) just show up b/c it doesn't matter OR B) be in a elite invitation only group. From my experience, once you've completed A to the point of boredom the hurdles of getting into the B group are as much social as they are gearing/past-lives/skill and it's not like the B groups holds open trials for admission...so it's easy to get bored with the game...YMMV.

When I used to push raid there were some players who were welcoming and recruited other players outside of their circle. I moved from a more casual guild to an exclusive one so it is possible. Pre-64 bit some of them would show up in causual groups and give advice. We also have people like Lominal who share their knowledge. They are just like any other group and are a mix of personalities.

 

[rabidfox]

Another suggestion :

P/B/S => current DR×0.5%, capped at 25%
Metalline/Aligned => current DR×1%, capped at 50%

That way the current proportionality is kept and so is the essence of this present rework.

There's a ton of mobs with stuff like DR 1/something which would make DR still meaningless. The blanket static % means they can make DR matter with a simple update; anything more complex probably means going thru every quest/mob and manually adjusting DR for everything.

 

[rabidfox]

I was literally talking in guild chat a week or two ago how in the olden days people needed to get DR breaker weapons to get around monster DR, and how the first quest in Korthos even teaches about the DR of skeletons and zombies with the rusty weapon chests.. but DR had in most cases in casual play become not significant enough reduction to damage to be worth switching weapon for.

The tutorial section will be relevant again for teaching folks DR stuff. It's kinda like how when doing 'Protect Baudry's Interests' that Tambor gives advice on how to deal with Kobolds (like getting resists for dealing with lightning bolts) while he's setting up his traps.

 

[Terpilar]

There's a ton of mobs with stuff like DR 1/something which would make DR still meaningless.

Well you'd still get a yellow floaty, wouldn't you ?

So perhaps in addition to the cap values of 25% or 50% we could get minimum values of 5% and 10% respectively.

 

[rabidfox]

So perhaps in addition to the cap values of 25% or 50% we could get minimum values of 5% and 10% respectively.

5% or 10% would just be ignorable. The 25/50% they're proposing will make me actually care about DR and breaking it. I'm neither for nor against them adding this DR, but if they're going to do then it needs to be impactful so I interact with the changes and care about DR again. I'll adapt as a player, bring swaps, select DR bypass feats, slot augs, scroll bypasses, etc. to deal with it. My only personal concern is hires/pets/summons as there's no easy way for them to really adapt to the changes right now.

 

[mikarddo]

5% or 10% would just be ignorable. The 25/50% they're proposing will make me actually care about DR and breaking it. I'm neither for nor against them adding this DR, but if they're going to do then it needs to be impactful so I interact with the changes and care about DR again. I'll adapt as a player, bring swaps, select DR bypass feats, slot augs, scroll bypasses, etc. to deal with it. My only personal concern is hires/pets/summons as there's no easy way for them to really adapt to the changes right now.

True, hirelings will likely be in a bad spot. I never use hirelings except the level 3 cleric so I am not personally concerned - but I think hirelings need to be helped somehow.

 

[Terpilar]

True, hirelings will likely be in a bad spot. I never use hirelings except the level 3 cleric so I am not personally concerned - but I think hirelings need to be helped somehow.

Their guild's in-house artificer better get busy, and fast !

 

[Kimbere]

+20-60% melee DPS, with -25-50% sometimes that is often avoidable with build and gearing choices?

You're saying it like every enemy will have 25-50% completely non-bypassable DR. Is that your contention? Okay.

Leveling will still be a stomp, endgame will be generally a net gain but sometimes worse. Which I will build around if we're pushing specific raids, and ignore for questing lol.

The majority of melee DPS builds aren't cracking >100% doublestrike with 100% uptime until pretty late into epics/endgame. They'll encounter the 50% DR damage reduction far more frequently while leveling than they'll have >100% doublestrike to compensate for it.

 

[Terpilar]

5% or 10% would just be ignorable.

No it will still be noticeable (as would any other source of a 5-10% loss of DPS), and the moreso as you go up in levels and monster DR ramps up. That way the onus on gearing up remains but high damage resistance is less prevalent. Trying to find a middle ground here.

 

[Ilvati]

No it will still be noticeable (as would any other source of a 5-10% loss of DPS), and the moreso as you go up in levels and monster DR ramps up. That way the onus on gearing up remains but high damage resistance is less prevalent. Trying to find a middle ground here.

Pretty sure the B/P/S and Bane at 25% is the "middle ground"

 

[The Narc2]

5% or 10% would just be ignorable. The 25/50% they're proposing will make me actually care about DR and breaking it. I'm neither for nor against them adding this DR, but if they're going to do then it needs to be impactful so I interact with the changes and care about DR again. I'll adapt as a player, bring swaps, select DR bypass feats, slot augs, scroll bypasses, etc. to deal with it. My only personal concern is hires/pets/summons as there's no easy way for them to really adapt to the changes right now.

I think your suggestion to tie it to augment summoning is a good one, it ties a spend to something that is productive, otherwise hires could be used for utility or buffing.

 

[SpartanKiller13]

The majority of melee DPS builds aren't cracking >100% doublestrike with 100% uptime until pretty late into epics/endgame. They'll encounter the 50% DR damage reduction far more frequently while leveling than they'll have >100% doublestrike to compensate for it.

Which I did mention earlier, but am happy to mention again: in heroics, there's no sentience = vastly reduced weapon swapping penalties. In epics, it's sprint boost + Quick Cutter, at least everywhere I see - YMMV.

Also can just use your boosts to get >100% when fighting the mob with DR, no? Same thing I do when smacking through a Stone Guard's DR lol.

Probably will also be more Metalline/Aligned weaps and more bypass augs/enhancements being used as well.

But like what's the alternative? Put the DS cap back on and revert DR? That seems terrible to me; I'm gonna be stuffing DS everywhere I can, it's gonna be great!

Or what about reverting DR back to completely ignorable and just getting a huge DPS buff? Because damage is very low in current DDO, and we're really struggling to clear content? DR being relevant brings variety and tradeoffs to the game - are you going to use a DR breaker or a debuffer? Is it worth -7 SAD to get a relevant bypass? If DR is like 5-10% I'm just gonna ignore it as a mechanic, and I guarantee 95% of DDO's playerbase will as well. Maybe adjust for a life or two, or for pushing a specific raid, but like all the usual tools are gonna clear quests almost as well.

 

[Bjond]

There's nothing stopping you or anyone else from running your own raid if you're so concerned about being excluded.

Lemme expand on this for folks to understand it fully: this is a problem for both sides! It's not simply a matter of being excluded. It's a matter of needing to exclude. Our guild mostly runs lowest-common-denominator style with very slight push when we can.

We provide all essential roles so we don't need to gatekeep. It makes forming a raid oh so incredibly easy. If you join a Silver Legion raid, we've got it all covered -- just bring your dps and hang with the herd or bring your tank and I'll swap to dps or .. etc..

We won't be able to do that. We have some few with strong dps that can half carry a hard~r1 raid, but omg do we NOT want to take 30~60m per raid because people don't have DR breakers. It's a fun challenge taking just about anyone and figuring out strategies to lead 'em to success regardless. Having newbies along is like bringing kids to Disney Land. It's fun.

BUT, I won't be able to do that with non-breaking dps. I'll have to start gatekeeping and punting folk. I won't be able to accept anon joins. I'll have to insist on people linking their DR breakers. If you think it's annoying to need to link YOUR breaker, imagine having to wade through invites and make people link theirs -- that's like 5+ chats per open spot!

It's insane. No one wants that.

Give hires/pets/summons ghost touched too. Seeing their incorp message in floaty text always makes me think I forgot to equip my ghostly gear.

Heh, I never got around to thinking about hires & pets. 'Course half of nothing is still nothing, but oh yeah that incorp floaty drives me crazy. That one really has to go. They could give hires & pets full bypass on everything, including MPRR and they'd still be unable to contribute and still die within 1~2 encounters.

It's not a reasonable expectation for the common LH/R1 LFMs to be a teaching raid, especially if it's been out for a while

Maybe not a teaching raid the way Vooduu does it, but we like to make sure newbies aren't utterly lost. If you join as a newbie and speak up ("hey, I'm new"), we'll chat more -- hopefully even about the raid!

DDO folk are a lot more helpful in game than the forums might make it seem, especially with folk that are trying to learn.

Those people, because *yes they exist and should matter*, are who these changes are going to hurt most.

IMHO, it will hurt vets more and the leaders the most, but the pain newbies experience will be perplexing and thus more distressing. Vets/etc have the knowledge to see what's happening, see that there's no workaround or that the workaround is too painful to bother doing, and then can decide if it's worth doing or punt the game.

Newbies? That's like torturing kittens. They don't understand and can't figure it out.

 

[Maeloz]

Seems a bit harsh considering how hard it is to gear against all damage types. Maybe 25-35% would be more appropriate if it needs to be a flat rate. Maybe scaling differently based on quest difficulty.

 

[Ilvati]

BUT, I won't be able to do that with non-breaking dps. I'll have to start gatekeeping and punting folk. I won't be able to accept anon joins. I'll have to insist on people linking their DR breakers. I

I think that's the concern @Honkin raised by going through each raid to check for B/P/S and Bane. Tonquin confirmed there's nothing in a modern raid with that so your solution is to either add an arti to your group for buffs (you probably had on already on repeater) or bring scrolls to use on PUGs. I don't think its that big of a deal for moderately coordinated pugs. For uncoordinated ones yeah I could metal/algin being an issue.

 

[Kimbere]

Which I did mention earlier, but am happy to mention again: in heroics, there's no sentience = vastly reduced weapon swapping penalties. In epics, it's sprint boost + Quick Cutter, at least everywhere I see - YMMV.

Also can just use your boosts to get >100% when fighting the mob with DR, no? Same thing I do when smacking through a Stone Guard's DR lol.

Probably will also be more Metalline/Aligned weaps and more bypass augs/enhancements being used as well.

But like what's the alternative? Put the DS cap back on and revert DR? That seems terrible to me; I'm gonna be stuffing DS everywhere I can, it's gonna be great!

Or what about reverting DR back to completely ignorable and just getting a huge DPS buff? Because damage is very low in current DDO, and we're really struggling to clear content? DR being relevant brings variety and tradeoffs to the game - are you going to use a DR breaker or a debuffer? Is it worth -7 SAD to get a relevant bypass? If DR is like 5-10% I'm just gonna ignore it as a mechanic, and I guarantee 95% of DDO's playerbase will as well. Maybe adjust for a life or two, or for pushing a specific raid, but like all the usual tools are gonna clear quests almost as well.

The alternative is a more reasonable implementation of DR. There's a happy middle ground between negligible DR and 50% but 50% is far too much.

Maybe make it a scaling % that is based on quest difficulty with 10% on casual/normal, 15% on hard, 20% on elite and 25% on R1 with +1% per skull above that.

That's one of the problems with SSG's design philosophies in general. Any time they try to correct something, they typically swing the pendulum much too far to the other side and end up creating the opposite of the problem they were fixing.

 

[Fallout47]

Haven't read all of this long thread, sorry.

Just wanted to say that I really don't like the idea of going back to Golf Bag days. It was annoying then, and it'll be even more annoying now with sentient.

Also, 50% for all different DRs seems... bland. Would be more cool with different numbers for different mobs/mob strengths.

They (SSG) seem to be on a kick lately of reducing QoL in game, adding animations to teleport/removing Quicken, f’n with tumble x2, adding obnoxiously long cut scenes in every possible location.

This change is ill conceived and will touch every corner of the game. We know their track record of breaking things they mess with. It hasn’t been asked-for nor complained about iirc and yet, so many bugs and other QoL requests just go ignored.

My recommendation is to shelve this half baked idea to avoid pissing off even more of your dwindling player base.