Dungeons and Dragons Online - Fair Codexia Dead - DDO NEWs Thread!

[Ninjerk]

*Rubs eyes* 15th anniversary? We're getting old boyos

 

[Zurat-Yarkuch]

*Rubs eyes* 15th anniversary? We're getting old boyos

Game was released in 2006. Personally didn't start till 2019. They were lucky enough to get Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson before they passed away to narrate quests for them (Delera's Tome and Ruins of Threnal respectively.) It was great hearing Gygax's voice during Delera's Tomb since I recognized it from Futurama when he did a guest spot in the first season. Very comfy.
Also, the Quiver has to be upgraded before it provides the +30% movement speed boost, so I won't really get to enjoy it till my next life. It will be super worth it though for that speed throughout heroic levels.

 

[Cromwell]

As someone who isnt well versed in DnD I am a bit overwhelmed by all the Class stuff. I started with a barbarian and one of the premade paths and played a bit, just to look into the game. That got me to subscribe for 3 months. Now I want a character I would like to really play. Ideally I want something I can reasonably solo with, doesnt have to be the best but should be able to do it without being an absolute cripple. I want to use 2 Handed Swords and at least a bit of magic, more is better. I thought about a 2 Handed Paladin? Or an Eldritch Knight? Is this doable with any class or Should I just stay with the barbarian? Would I need levels in Rogue to find traps/secrets or can I somehow go around that?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

As someone who isnt well versed in DnD I am a bit overwhelmed by all the Class stuff. I started with a barbarian and one of the premade paths and played a bit, just to look into the game. That got me to subscribe for 3 months. Now I want a character I would like to really play. Ideally I want something I can reasonably solo with, doesnt have to be the best but should be able to do it without being an absolute cripple. I want to use 2 Handed Swords and at least a bit of magic, more is better. I thought about a 2 Handed Paladin? Or an Eldritch Knight? Is this doable with any class or Should I just stay with the barbarian? Would I need levels in Rogue to find traps/secrets or can I somehow go around that?

EK is pretty good
AFAIK the premade character builds aren't very good btw

Would I need levels in Rogue to find traps/secrets or can I somehow go around that?

barbarians get around traps by running through them
there are spells like detect secret doors & true seeing that let you find secret doors

 

[Cromwell]

Now that I am hooked, is it advisable to buy expacs for a first character? There seem to be a fuckton of quests already even without them especially as a subscriber were I can play the adventure packs. But I am also anal about missing cool stuff.

 

[Reinhardt]

Wait until anniversary - maybe they will do it again.

 

[Nim]

Quest quality MotU/Shadowell/Raveloft > Sharn >> Feywild
Items Sharn is the clear winner

I only regret buying Feywild, piece of shoddy shit that one

 

[Zurat-Yarkuch]

As someone who isnt well versed in DnD I am a bit overwhelmed by all the Class stuff. I started with a barbarian and one of the premade paths and played a bit, just to look into the game. That got me to subscribe for 3 months. Now I want a character I would like to really play. Ideally I want something I can reasonably solo with, doesnt have to be the best but should be able to do it without being an absolute cripple. I want to use 2 Handed Swords and at least a bit of magic, more is better. I thought about a 2 Handed Paladin? Or an Eldritch Knight? Is this doable with any class or Should I just stay with the barbarian? Would I need levels in Rogue to find traps/secrets or can I somehow go around that?

Two Handed Paladin is awesome. I should know, I'm playing one right now. Here is how I've planned my build up to level 20 (I'm at level 7 right now).

Spoiler

Classes: 20 Paladin, 10 Epic
Race: Human · · · · · · · ·Alignment: Lawful Good

· · ·Start Tome Final · ·
Str:· · 16· · 0 · ·23 · · ·
Dex:· · ·8· · 0 · · 8 · · ·
Con:· · 16· · 0 · ·16 · · ·
Int:· · ·8· · 0 · · 8 · ·
Wis:· · 10· · 0 · ·10 · ·
Cha:· · 14· · 0 · ·22 · ·
DR:
Immunities: Natural Disease, Magical Disease, Super-Natural Disease, Fear, Energy Drain

Class and Feat Selection
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Level Class · · · · · ·Feats
1 · · Paladin(1)· · · ·Standard: Two Handed Fighting
· · · · · · · · · · · ·Human Bonus: Magical Training
· · · · · · · · · · · ·Follower of Faith: Follower of the Sovereign Host
2 · · Paladin(2)· · · ·
3 · · Paladin(3)· · · ·Standard: Child of Faith
4 · · Paladin(4)· · · ·Strength: +1 Level up
5 · · Paladin(5)· · · ·
6 · · Paladin(6)· · · ·Standard: Improved Two Handed Fighting
· · · · · · · · · · · ·Deity: Unyielding Sovereignty
7 · · Paladin(7)· · · ·
8 · · Paladin(8)· · · ·Strength: +1 Level up
9 · · Paladin(9)· · · ·Standard: Improved Critical: Slashing Weapons
10· · Paladin(10) · · ·
11· · Paladin(11) · · ·
12· · Paladin(12) · · ·Standard: Greater Two Handed Fighting
· · · · · · · · · · · ·Strength: +1 Level up
13· · Paladin(13) · · ·
14· · Paladin(14) · · ·
15· · Paladin(15) · · ·Standard: Empower Healing Spell
16· · Paladin(16) · · ·Strength: +1 Level up
17· · Paladin(17) · · ·
18· · Paladin(18) · · ·Standard: Toughness
19· · Paladin(19) · · ·
20· · Paladin(20) · · ·Strength: +1 Level up
21· · Epic(1) · · · · ·Epic Feat: Empty Feat Slot
22· · Epic(2) · · · · ·
23· · Epic(3) · · · · ·
24· · Epic(4) · · · · ·Epic Feat: Empty Feat Slot
· · · · · · · · · · · ·Strength: +1 Level up
25· · Epic(5) · · · · ·
26· · Epic(6) · · · · ·Epic Destiny Feat: Empty Feat Slot
27· · Epic(7) · · · · ·Epic Feat: Empty Feat Slot
28· · Epic(8) · · · · ·Epic Destiny Feat: Empty Feat Slot
· · · · · · · · · · · ·Strength: +1 Level up
29· · Epic(9) · · · · ·Epic Destiny Feat: Empty Feat Slot
30· · Epic(10)· · · · ·Epic Feat: Empty Feat Slot
· · · · · · · · · · · ·Legendary: Empty Feat Slot

Granted Feats
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Knight's Training
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Skills
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Skill Points· · · 8 ·2· 2 ·2· 2 ·2· 2 ·2· 2 ·2· 2 ·2· 2 ·2· 2 ·2· 2 ·2· 2 ·2
Skill Name· · · ·01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20· Total Buffed
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Balance · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 0.0 · ·9.0
Bluff · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 0.0 · 16.0
Concentration · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 0.0 · 13.0
Diplomacy · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 0.0 · 16.0
Disable Device· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 0.0 · ·9.0
Haggle· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 0.0 · 16.0
Heal· · · · · · · 4 ·1· 1 ·1· 1 ·1· 1 ·1· 1 ·1· 1 ·1· 1 ·1· 1 ·1· 1 ·1· 1 ·1· ·23.0 · 33.0
Hide· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 0.0 · ·9.0
Intimidate· · · · 4 ·1· 1 ·1· 1 ·1· 1 ·1· 1 ·1· 1 ·1· 1 ·1· 1 ·1· 1 ·1· 1 ·1· ·23.0 · 39.0
Jump· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 0.0 · 16.0
Listen· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 0.0 · 10.0
Move Silently · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 0.0 · ·9.0
Open Lock · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 0.0 · ·9.0
Perform · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 0.0 · 16.0
Repair· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 0.0 · ·9.0
Search· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 0.0 · ·9.0
Spell Craft · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 0.0 · ·9.0
Spot· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 0.0 · 10.0
Swim· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 0.0 · 16.0
Tumble· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 0.0 · ·9.0
Use Magic Device· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 0.0 · 16.0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Available Points· 0 ·0· 0 ·0· 0 ·0· 0 ·0· 0 ·0· 0 ·0· 0 ·0· 0 ·0· 0 ·0· 0 ·0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enhancements: 80 APs
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Knight of the Chalice - Points spent: 41
1 Core ·(1) Slayer of Evil I
2 Tier1 (2) Holy Combatant I
3 Tier1 (1) Improved Second Strikes
4 Tier1 (1) Improved Second Strikes
5 Tier1 (1) Improved Second Strikes
6 Core ·(1) Courage of Heaven
7 Tier2 (2) Adept Combatant
8 Tier2 (2) Exalted Attack: Exalted Cleave
9 Core ·(1) Slayer of Evil II
10 Tier3 (2) Holy Combatant II
11 Tier2 (1) Divine Might
12 Tier2 (1) Divine Might
13 Tier2 (1) Divine Might
14 Tier2 (1) Action Boost: Melee/Ranged Power
15 Tier2 (1) Action Boost: Melee/Ranged Power
16 Tier2 (1) Action Boost: Melee/Ranged Power
17 Core ·(1) Improved Courage of Heaven
18 Tier4 (2) Knight's Training
19 Tier4 (1) Censure Demons
20 Tier4 (2) Vigor of Life I
21 Tier3 (2) Ability I: +1 Charisma
22 Tier4 (2) Ability II: +1 Charisma
23 Tier5 (2) Ascendancy
24 Tier5 (1) Censure Outsiders
25 Tier5 (2) Vigor of Life II
26 Tier5 (2) Avenging Attack: Avenging Cleave
27 Tier5 (1) Holy Retribution: Holy Retribution
28 Core ·(1) Slayer of Evil III
29 Tier1 (1) Extra Smite
30 Core ·(1) Champion of Good
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sacred Defender - Points spent: 39
1 Core ·(1) Holy Bastion
2 Tier1 (1) Improved Sacred Defense I: Durable Defense
3 Tier1 (1) Improved Sacred Defense I: Durable Defense
4 Tier1 (1) Improved Sacred Defense I: Durable Defense
5 Tier1 (1) Sacred Armor Mastery
6 Tier1 (1) Sacred Armor Mastery
7 Tier1 (1) Sacred Armor Mastery
8 Core ·(1) Sacred Defence
9 Tier2 (1) Bulwark Aura
10 Tier2 (1) Bulwark Aura
11 Tier2 (1) Bulwark Aura
12 Core ·(1) Divine Righteousness
13 Tier3 (1) Resistance Aura
14 Tier3 (1) Resistance Aura
15 Tier3 (1) Resistance Aura
16 Tier3 (1) Greater Sacred Defense I: Hardy Defense
17 Tier3 (1) Greater Sacred Defense I: Hardy Defense
18 Tier3 (1) Greater Sacred Defense I: Hardy Defense
19 Tier2 (1) Improved Sacred Defense II: Resilient Defense
20 Tier2 (1) Improved Sacred Defense II: Resilient Defense
21 Tier4 (1) Reinforced Defense I: Reinforced Armor
22 Tier4 (1) Reinforced Defense I: Reinforced Armor
23 Tier4 (1) Reinforced Defense I: Reinforced Armor
24 Tier4 (1) Swift Defense
25 Tier4 (1) Greater Sacred Defense II: Strong Defense
26 Tier4 (1) Greater Sacred Defense II: Strong Defense
27 Tier4 (1) Greater Sacred Defense II: Strong Defense
28 Core ·(1) Redemption
29 Tier2 (1) Improved Sacred Defense II: Resilient Defense
30 Tier3 (2) Ability I: +1 Charisma
31 Core ·(1) Glorious Stand
32 Tier4 (2) Ability II: +1 Charisma
33 Tier1 (1) Extra Lay on Hands
34 Tier1 (1) Extra Lay on Hands
35 Tier1 (1) Extra Lay on Hands
36 Tier3 (1) Improved Sacred Defense III: Inciting Defense
37 Tier3 (1) Improved Sacred Defense III: Inciting Defense
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[/font]

With a cleric hireling you will very easily be able to do quests on Elite difficulty. I recommend avoiding the Reaper difficulties unless you are in a group. They designed that difficulty setting for the express purpose of challenging a party of players. The character planner I exported that from is here.

 

[Zurat-Yarkuch]

Cromwell You mentioned not being too familiar with D&D rules so here are some tips to help you out:

• This game is loosely based on D&D 3.5 rules. Because of this, it follows the tabletop rule of bonuses of the same type not stacking. For example, lets say you have an item that gives you a +4 bonus to strength and another item that gives a +2 bonus to strength. It will apply the highest bonus +4, but it will not add the the two bonuses together. They put this rule in the table top game since they knew they would release a bunch of supplements and books in the future adding new abilities and feats, and they didn't want a level one character starting 40 strength or something ridiculous. The exception is if it is a different kind of bonus. If an item gives you +4 bonus to strength and another gives you a +2 insight bonus to strength, then these two bonuses will stack to apply a +6 bonus to your character. This applies to every type of bonus and buff in the game, so make sure you read the description telling what type of bonus it is.
• The D20 system. Dungeons and Dragons is a dice based game and uses many different dice for weapons and spells. If a weapon does 1D8 damage that means an 8 sided dice is being rolled and you'll deal anywhere from 1 to 8 damage. If a weapon does 2D6 damage that means two six sided dice are being rolled and you'll deal anywhere from 2 to 12 damage. The most important dice is the D20. When attacking you will roll anything between 1 to 20. If you roll a 1 it is an automatic critical failure no matter how high your attack bonus or skill is it will fail. If you roll a 20 it is an automatic critical success and the ability or attack will succeed no matter how low your skill or attack bonus is. It is also an automatic critical hit for weapons (and spells if you have the magical training feat which pure spellcasters like wizards gain for free.)
• In the Korthos island quests there is a quest called Sacrifices and at the end of it you can get a reward called Anger's Step. This lets you cast the spell Expeditious Retreat on yourself which gives a +25% bonus to move speed for 5 minutes. You can use this twice per day (which means you can use it twice before having to rest at a shrine.) If you farm this quest three times you will get three pairs of boots for a total of 6 Expeditious Retreats or +25% movement speed for 30minutes before having to rest. Will speed things up a ton for you. Also, keep an eye out for boots that give the Speed Bonus, which provide a bonus to movement speed and attack speed. Attack speed is very important for melee characters, you get a +1 bonus to attack speed every 5 BAB (base attack bonus.) So boots that provide a speed are very good.
• When doing quests in order to get maximum experience, do the quest at the same effective level as your character. For example, say the quest is level 2. On hard difficulty it will have an effective level of 3 and on elite/reaper it will have an effective level of 4. So to get maximum experience on Elite you will have to do the quest at Level 4. You can do it at Level 5 if you want since doing 1 above the effective level provides no penalties to experience but forgoes what is called a bravery bonus . Never repeat a quest for experience on the same difficulty. The game is designed so that you get the most experience by not repeating quests on the same difficulty. If you ever did want to repeat a quest for experience (you won't need to since you have access to a ton of quests) you would get the most experience out of it by going Elite/Hard/Normal since it would be your first time for each difficulty. More detail here on the DDOWiki.
• Favor is awesome. Favor provides free DDO points every 100 favor and faction reputation which provides extra benifits as well. Only the highest difficulty level completed counts toward your favor total; repeating a quest on the same or lower difficulty will not increase your favor. So completing a quest on elite will provide you the maximum favor possible for that quest. More detail on DDOWiki.

You can find tons of information on the DDOWiki or ask people on the DDOForums for help too in the new player advice and guidance. You can also find character builds in the Classes sections of the forums. Good luck and hope you have a lot of fun.

 

[Cromwell]

When doing quests in order to get maximum experience....

Is there a reason my questjournal despicts teh epic levels? For example I have BUgbear bandits to do in Borderlands keep. Going by the wiki the quest is L1 for hero characters, but the Journal says 21 which is the epic level. So at Character Level 3 I should do it on Elite? That may kil me without hireling.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

When doing quests in order to get maximum experience....

Is there a reason my questjournal despicts teh epic levels? For example I have BUgbear bandits to do in Borderlands keep. Going by the wiki the quest is L1 for hero characters, but the Journal says 21 which is the epic level. So at Character Level 3 I should do it on Elite? That may kil me without hireling.

A lot of quests have both a normal and epic version, especially newer ones.

 

[Cromwell]

A lot of quests have both a normal and epic version, especially newer ones.

Yeah I noticed but why is the normal level not also mentioned?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

A lot of quests have both a normal and epic version, especially newer ones.

Yeah I noticed but why is the normal level not also mentioned?

It should be, been a while since I played so I don't remember the UI exactly.

 

[Zurat-Yarkuch]

Yeah I noticed but why is the normal level not also mentioned?

In the quest journal it goes by epic levels for some reason. However, you can view a list of the quests by level by hitting the "p" key I believe. If you check the key bindings it has a list of the different menus you can bring up. Once you sell some randomized loot treasure you will have more than enough platinum for buying hirelings. You can go to the wilderness area of Keep on the Borderlands and some of the rare encounters there will provide treasure.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Cromwell
There's an overtuned level 1 barbarian hireling that can easily carry you for a few levels btw.
https://ddowiki.com/page/Byron_Scoutsword

 

[Cromwell]

Cromwell
There's an overtuned level 1 barbarian hireling that can easily carry you for a few levels btw.
https://ddowiki.com/page/Byron_Scoutsword

nice but I am the Guy with the axe and the anger management issues, I will look for a cleric hireling next time I log in. On anither note, why is there no Greatsword early in the game? I can always chose from a variety of weapons but it seems the only 2hander is always an axe, I want a big manly sword

 

[Norfleet]

nice but I am the Guy with the axe and the anger management issues, I will look for a cleric hireling next time I log in. On anither note, why is there no Greatsword early in the game?

They do this obviously so people will axe that question.

 

[Zurat-Yarkuch]

Found this guy's channel and it is awesome. This guy has found creative ways to solo quests that were designed for multiple people. For solo player's like me this is awesome.

Spoiler

These are just some of his quest guides. He's got a lot of cool videos.
Enjoying my two handed paladin. They are starting Hardcore Season 4 but not interested in perma death on an online game with lag. Just doing quests and enjoying the game.

 

[Zurat-Yarkuch]

Found someone else to play with in a guild I joined. We are setting up times and playing together now. I'm going to be reserving my paladin for playing with him. So I created a new character for when I'm soloing on my own for farming maximum favor and tomes.

1 Rogue/19 Ranger for disabling traps and dual wielding. Don't need to take a second level of rogue for evasion since rangers get it at level 9. It is so good being able to disable traps. Using a 32 point build with regular elf my stats are:
STR: 10
DEX: 18
CON: 14
INT: 14
WIS: 10
CHA: 8
I grabbed Weapons Finesse in the Deep Wood Stalker tree at ranger level 2 for dexterity to hit and Damage with light weapons and got scimitars as light weapons with the Tempest core at level 3. Spend my skill points on disable device, search, spot, heal, and balance. Can do elite with a cleric hireling just fine.

 

[Zurat-Yarkuch]

So they recently did a post about improving game performance in the next patch.

Spoiler

Changes Focused on Boosting Game Performance
In Update 49 we are making significant changes to how melee and missile combat is calculated to address long-term community and development team concerns about game performance. If you're curious, we've included a long form explanation as to what these changes entail on the back end, but if you're interested in just the changes and the results, here's what we've found:

Before this change: Simulations of a raid group proccing on-hit effects use approx 99.965% processing per-instance and produce an effects queue, which causes combat processing lag for all players on the same server while the queue is processed.
After this change: Simulations of a raid group proccing on-hit effects use approx 50% available processing per-instance (still well within the green zone of server frames per second) and rarely if ever hit an effects queue.

An important thing to note when going into this is that when an effects queue happens, it does not only affect your instance, but every other instance on the server that your instance is being processed by. Server in this case does not refer to world, such as Ghallanda or Sarlona or Wayfinder, but the actual machines that process DDO and share the load of each instance between them.

This also alleviates a source of client lag (floaty text queue), so if you play with floaty text off to alleviate client strain, this will prevent that strain by removing pressure from the floaty text queue.

Background Information

We've dedicated a lot of time to investigating and alleviating specific sources of reproducible lag within DDO in recent months. One of the most frequent causes of lag happens when an Effects Queue forms. This means that players have applied a ton of on-hit effects to a monster and the game has reached a buffer and must clear its queue in order to continue processing new information.

You can see this happen in raid groups; the party jumps in, opens up with a ton of active attacks and on-hit effects, and the game begins to degrade in performance almost immediately. It is also worth noting that this kind of lag has two separate portions: Client Combat Lag (which can be alleviated by turning off Floaty Text in your settings) and Server Combat Lag. We are specifically targeting Server based lag with this change. Behind the scenes, the server crunches damage, effects, and debuffs in a big queue. We can measure how efficient the server is at processing this queue by measuring the server frames.

To begin researching and addressing the root causes we put together simulations of a standard raid group and their on-hit profiles. Simulations of a raid group attacking a single target quickly ran into the same kind of performance problems that have become prevalent in raid groups, so we knew we had a reliable test case. What we found was that the amount of damage dealt didn't matter, it was about the frequency that effects were being applied. It didn't matter if a simulation was against one target or many - if the effects queue was in trouble the rest of the instance had its performance significantly impacted. That means lag for not just you and your group but for other people on the server.

What's Changing

• Doublestrike and Doubleshot will no longer apply a full subsequent "attack" as part of your attack chain. Instead, when a player Doublestrikes or Doubleshots (for brevity, we will call this a multi-hit from now on, just remember that this applies for all melee and all ranged) the game will instead multiply the base amount of damage dealt (first number and sneak attack) by the amount of multi-hits generated. This means that a player who deals an average of 100 damage on their first hit will now deal 200, or 300 damage, or however many multi-hits multiplied by their base damage, when their multi-hit goes off.
• When a multi-hit happens, you'll see an icon of two swords next to your damage in the floaty text, similar to how Point Blank Shot provides its feedback.
• Abilities that apply additional ranged projectiles (Shuriken Expertise and Advanced Ninja Training) no longer apply multiple hits or projectiles. Instead, just as if they had been purely Doubleshot scalars, they will simply be additional chances to multi-hit.
• Effects that trigger on-hit will also have their damage multiplied comparatively. This means that if you deal 10 Law damage on each hit, on a doublestrike, it will deal 20.
• Repeating Crossbows and the Dual Crossbow style still fire 3 or 2 full projectiles (so you'll still see 3 numbers or 2 numbers, respectively) and are still affected by their Doubleshot penalties of 66% and 50%, respectively.
• A player's 100% effective Doublestrike cap still applies in this system.
• Offhand strikes will still be a separate "hit" and will roll their own damage from their own weapon and can still Doublestrike. However, we have removed the stat Offhand Doublestrike from the game. Your offhand now Doublestrikes at 50% of the Doublestrike of your mainhand. This means that if you have a 50% chance to produce an offhand strike, and 100% Doublestrike, your offhand will hit 50% of the time for 50% Doublestrike (so a 50% chance to deal double damage). Abilities and enhancements that used to provide Offhand Doublestrike no longer do so.
• Shields still cannot Doublestrike.
• Strikethrough attacks still proc their own Doublestrike roll individually per target struck.
• The main reasoning behind these changes (letting repeaters and offhand strikes still proc rather than fully condensing) is that we want to keep our damage numbers appropriate to the amount of animations that a player actually produces.

A major effect of this change is that you will see much spikier damage across the board. The multi-hit calculation takes the original roll into account when determining damage, which means that you'll see much higher highs and much lower lows. Attacks that crit will multiply that increased damage, so you'll see much higher numbers on those attacks. Attacks that miss will deal no damage, as before, but rather than a multi-hit giving a chance for a second strike to deal damage, they will still deal no damage, as the original strike has missed.

These changes eliminate the Floaty-text queue in practice. Players who are used to seeing damage numbers scroll by on a delay will see the system replaced with numbers that are current. This will make DPS easier to estimate from a series of hits, and there will simply be fewer numbers to add up and adjust.

The Crunchy Details

Curious as to what's actually happening when a player attacks? Currently, when a player Doublestrikes or Doubleshots, we actually handle those types of attacks through very different flows. Both melee and missile attacks use something that we call a detect-attack to deal their regular damage, but how they get there is very different. Right now, a player “Doublestrikes” when their attack scripts use their Doublestrike stat to determine if they fire off another detect-attack. A player “Doubleshots” when the Missile Attacker code gets to the part in the code where we determine how many "Missiles" are a part of the projectile. From there, the scripts use the number of missiles to determine how many times they use a detect-attack.

Now, when a player “attacks” (from the detect-attack callback or elsewhere) the determination to Doublestrike or Doubleshot is made within that single attack call. The appropriate stats are queried, even the weird ones like the Shuriken multi-throw feats, and the appropriate adjustments to the chances are made such as the Doubleshot penalty from using a repeater or dual crossbow. From there, we determine how many “extra attacks” you have rolled, and if you have any bonus “attacks,” we multiply the damage you would deal by that amount.

We also have to do some funky stuff to get the damage of procs to double or triple or quadruple, and that starts in the same place where we calculate the number of effective hits. The combat code saves the number of hits and passes it down the chain until it gets to the place where effects actually deal their damage. From there, the effect will understand how many times it needs to be multiplied.

So, for comparison: Before, a melee character swings with his weapon, and Doublestrikes, which would be two detect-attacks, two damage rolls, and two series of on-hit effect triggers. Under these changes, the player attacks, Doublestrikes, and double damage is dealt, but only one set of on-hit-effects trigger because, to the game, only one “attack” took place.

What this means in practice is that no matter how many projectiles a shuriken thrower uses, or a dual-crossbow player fires, the maximum rate of an on-hit effect is now directly linked to your actual attack speed, and therefore, is significantly reduced. This has the potential to greatly reduce the amount of actual “attacks” in DDO without greatly disrupting player behavior.

Summary

The end result of this change should be improved gameplay on the performance end. Furthermore, the numbers you see while dealing damage will more accurately reflect what's happening in the moment, and you should be able to make calculations more quickly. We hope that you'll give this a solid try on Lamannia and look forward to your feedback, both on the usability of this change and any change in performance therein.

TLDR is too many effects hitting enemies, so now when any multi hit like doublestrike/shot happens instead of calculating two separate attacks it adds the result of two separate attacks. So instead of two 10 damage hits you would get one 20 damage hit when a multihit effect happens. It will be interesting to see if this helps reduce lag.

 

[Reinhardt]

No free quests this year? Cheap.

 

[Zurat-Yarkuch]

No free quests this year? Cheap.

They added one Free to Play Quest last year, The Promise of Fire. But yeah if anyone wants to just start this game out now, it probably best to get a VIP subscription to access all the quests. And maybe save the points you get from VIP to buy packs in the future.

But it really sucks they don't accept payment from your country. Is there any reason given on the forums as to why their payment processor doesn't serve it?

 

[Kruno]

It is hilarious how I was reading the performance improvement section a few posts above and thought that I was in the Path of Exile thread, and I was thinking "Finally, after many years of whinging, Grinding Gear Games are fixing the shitty performance issues.", and then I moved to the top of the page and found "Dungeons and Dragons" in the title.

 

[Reinhardt]

So they added mimics to hardcore...

 

[Reinhardt]

Reinstalled, did 100 favor run on hardcore, deleted again.