Update 69 Preview 3: New Feats

[Neain]

I think my issue with the new feats is that they just don't feel... epic. at all. you get a small boost for a tiny amount of time, but overall the feat slot gets wasted? I will probably be taking the leg hp% on most of my toons until I can slot it into a new piece of gear for them, but most of these feats will never be grabbed by any of my characters.

 

[droid327]

Changing feats is very easy. That is a dumb reason to kill off a massive design space.

Feats should never be a net negative. If a feat can potentially be a net negative, then it should be buffed so its at least neutral for everyone, and then potentially good for some.

That's the proper design philosophy I'd shoot for

 

[Shear-buckler]

It is? How do you change 5 feat without spending ddo points, waiting many days or doing a full tr?

Its not 5 feats, its just one. You get basically 2 free feat respecs every life. If you want to respec 5 feats you can ETR, no need for a full TR.

 

[Shear-buckler]

Feats should never be a net negative. If a feat can potentially be a net negative, then it should be buffed so its at least neutral for everyone, and then potentially good for some.

That's the proper design philosophy I'd shoot for

Why? Any other reason than "fool trap"?

 

[Torc]

Is the plan still to try and get a new build out so we can try the new feats?

There were issues that prevented us from making a new build this week :(

 

[rabidfox]

There were issues that prevented us from making a new build this week :(

Cordovan had mentioned this was likely this would be last lam preview before MD launch. Is that still the case or plans do a lam 4 (or still being discussed internally what to do)?

 

[Tilomere]

• Patience
  • Your attack speed is reduced by 10%, but you gain +1 Critical Multiplier with all weapons.

Since weapon builds are ahead of casters, just feel free to put a global 10% reduction in attack speed in across the board (1% per epic level) for balance and to reduce lag, without any feat or bonus critical multiplier.

Also keep in mind the feedback here from others, which is to implement it as an attack speed reduction, and an attack speed cap reduction, so that it hits everything.

 

[Ahpuch]

I think my issue with the new feats is that they just don't feel... epic. at all. you get a small boost for a tiny amount of time, but overall the feat slot gets wasted? I will probably be taking the leg hp% on most of my toons until I can slot it into a new piece of gear for them, but most of these feats will never be grabbed by any of my characters.

They are not very epic. And in fact they should have been legendary. This was an opportunity to create feats at the legendary level allowing them to be interesting without a risk of breaking epic leveling. It could have been an opportunity to make legendary actually feel, well, legendary. Instead they are available early in epic leveling and fairly meh.

 

[droid327]

Why? Any other reason than "fool trap"?

Its bad design, because there's no upside to that, but there's downside.

What argument are you making that people *should* be allowed to shoot themselves in the foot? What benefit does having that ability bring to the game? Its not like its necessary to have more freedom of choice. You can still have good feats without the potential to hurt yourself.

 

[Skjoldofr]

I wanted to check and see if the Patience feat affects shields, however the Lam build isn't allowing me to check and it sounds like we may not have a new build before the release.

Would one of the devs be able to chime in and let me know if the +1 crit multiplier will affect shields? Or will patience be similar to Imp Critical: Bludgeon and not affect shields?

 

[SpartanKiller13]

Its bad design, because there's no upside to that, but there's downside.

What argument are you making that people *should* be allowed to shoot themselves in the foot? What benefit does having that ability bring to the game? Its not like its necessary to have more freedom of choice. You can still have good feats without the potential to hurt yourself.

Leaves space for more options without massively powercreeping the game?

Just giving +1 Crit Multi would be huge powercreep if there were no drawbacks. Even if it consumed Overwhelming Crit. There's no design space for it without sweeping changes to crit profile. Can argue the size of the drawback (-20% AS is too much, -1% is too little, but where's reasonable?) but I'd rather have an option with a drawback vs not having the option. I want to use it at -10% already on at least a handful of builds, so if it gets buffed due to popular opinion I'll be even happier.

Making feats with huge positive upside and no drawback narrows design flexibility, converges build paths, and is direct powercreep. Imagine if Trick Shot was: whenever you Tumble, for 30s you gain +40 Ranged Power. You'd have to take it on every ranged build, forever, and you'd be forced to tumble or gimp yourself.

The worst case is some new person with no fort bypass and a terrible crit profile on a proc build taking Patience, right? In which case they lose like 8-9% DPS? Doesn't exactly feel like it's game-breaking any more than allowing them to take 4 levels of Wizard on their Sorc build, or having Snakeblooded in the game, or starting with max Dex & Int on a Cleric. DDO does not prevent you from making huge mistakes in your build; maybe it should do more, but that's not the current state of the game and so I don't think it has to be required going forward.

 

[mikarddo]

Its not 5 feats, its just one. You get basically 2 free feat respecs every life. If you want to respec 5 feats you can ETR, no need for a full TR.

You wrote that it is easy to change feats - plural. 2 yes, more not so much.

I am leveling a tank and I would have loved to level with dps feats but cannot as it is not easy to change feats without paying points.

 

[in4theride75]

Leaves space for more options without massively powercreeping the game?

Just giving +1 Crit Multi would be huge powercreep if there were no drawbacks. Even if it consumed Overwhelming Crit. There's no design space for it without sweeping changes to crit profile. Can argue the size of the drawback (-20% AS is too much, -1% is too little, but where's reasonable?) but I'd rather have an option with a drawback vs not having the option. I want to use it at -10% already on at least a handful of builds, so if it gets buffed due to popular opinion I'll be even happier.

...

The problem is this feat as it is currently is more downside than upside and is not necessary to implement it like this to get the same outcome. If given the choice between getting an outcome that buffs activatables and ranged builds by nerfing auto-attack builds or buffing activatables and ranged builds while being net neutral for auto-attack builds which is more beneficial to the game? I would think it's fairly obvious that getting the exact same outcome while being net neutral is superior.

 

[Shear-buckler]

You wrote that it is easy to change feats - plural. 2 yes, more not so much.

I am leveling a tank and I would have loved to level with dps feats but cannot as it is not easy to change feats without paying points.

I am sorry you missed the context of my post.

 

[Shear-buckler]

Its bad design, because there's no upside to that, but there's downside.

What argument are you making that people *should* be allowed to shoot themselves in the foot? What benefit does having that ability bring to the game? Its not like its necessary to have more freedom of choice. You can still have good feats without the potential to hurt yourself.

Nothing is necessary.
It creates an interesting choice and adds depth to the character customization. Its a much more interesting feat than the "auto include" overwhelming critical.

"Do I want to take the feat and made my character aspects in some situations and weaker in others" is an interesting and meaningful choice and if the trade-offs is only in the opportunity cost of not getting another feat it will by principle be a lot less impactful.

As spartankiller pointed out there is already numerous ways to hurt your character in far worse ways than this and the game does nothing to prevent it.

 

[Shear-buckler]

If given the choice between getting an outcome that buffs activatables and ranged builds by nerfing auto-attack builds or buffing activatables and ranged builds while being net neutral for auto-attack builds which is more beneficial to the game? I would think it's fairly obvious that getting the exact same outcome while being net neutral is superior.

Its not obvious at all. Why would that be more beneficial to the game? Interesting, meaningful choices and depth of character customization is beneficial if you ask me.

Have you guys never played another game? This is not something groundbreaking they are doing here. This is a very common, and always very well recieved, mechanic.

 

[in4theride75]

Its not obvious at all. ....

And that is why I've stopped responding to you. I'm not going to explain years of game design theory to you in a forum thread.

 

[Shear-buckler]

And that is why I've stopped responding to you. I'm not going to explain years of game design theory to you in a forum thread.

Alright. So it's inexplicably obvious that it is bad and every game where it is done to great success and praise simply sucks.

I am more than happy to leave it at that, and look forward to more of these feats!

 

[Kitty2Meow]

There were issues that prevented us from making a new build this week :(

Hi Torc,

Since Preview 4 is very unlikely to happen, and the new build may not be even available, would you kindly let us know if there is any change or improvement on the proposed feats before release?

If everything is basically set in stone, would you re-visit this thread later after release, and see if there can be any improvement based on the feedback here?

Thanks.

 

[Rull]

More thoughts about Patience:

Although I personally like the Patience feat for the short term (it'll be fun to figure out, for a while) I'm leaning towards the "feats shouldn't give negative stats" camp. I know it is exactly like Power Attack and Power Attack never caused any issues, but I just don't think it's a good design pattern to use.

For the people saying "at least it's more interesting than must-includes like Overwhelming Critical": That feat is only uninteresting because it has no competition. If there were also feats like +5% attack speed, ánd +2 imbue dice, ánd +2 W ánd 10% doublestrike to compete with it, the choice between them *would* be interesting.

The tradeoff doesn't need to be written on the feat. The system of feats already had this build in.


With casters you can see this clearly. You did a great job on that. They have to choose between intensify, burst of glacial wrath, embolden or legendary focus. With two feats locked for ruin, that give 6 different combinations of two feats to take. I'm enjoying that balance a lot. Melee just needs *more* epic feats at the power level of overwhelming critical to reach this interesting tradeoff territory, they don't have to be shocking.

With destiny feats this is already accomplished. Great job also. Doublestrike, perfect fighting, crush weakness, harbinger of chaos/law, deific warding and legendary toughness are competing for 4 slots, in a way. Or 3 if you do arcane warrior. Epic feats for a melee is just a barren land because after overwhelming your shrug at what to take at 24 and at 27 you can take 10 prr I guess but at 30 there is once again nothing. You'd need 4 more competitive feats to reach a tradeoff state, not 1 feat that is probably an auto-include on some builds and an auto-not-include on others.


Besides, we all know this has huge power issues. Any feat that gives +13% X and -10% Y will be broken by a build that ignores Y so you have a feat that just plainly gives 13% more dps. In magic the gathering that's the whole point of the game, but in DDO it's more often a side-effect of bugs or ill-documented animations (no active attack ever specifies it's duration, all it says is +50% damage but it doesn't disclose how much slower exactly it is).

We've already had crossbows with longer load time than attack time mentioned, and hidden mysterious speed caps.


In short, this is not the route you want to go with your feats. Just make more 'boring' epic feats and interesting choice *will* arise.

I reluctantly advise against Patience as proposed.