Thread: Monster resistance rates in Book 1

Shortly after Mirkwood’s launch, we found an unexpected bug. Between the Moria and Mirkwood updates, monster resistance rates had been accidentally altered in strange way. From level 1 to 42, the resistance ratings were correct. These ratings translated to around a 1% resistance rate at low levels that slowly rose to the expected rate, which is around 10%. However, at level 43 the ratings dropped down by exactly half, and stayed that way all the way to level cap. This means players leveling with a tactical character would see monster resistance rates raise slightly as they leveled, even out at 10%, and then suddenly drop away at level 43. This is contrasted by classes that fight against Block/Parry/Evade for damage, who saw their rates stay the same.

Monster resistance rates have been fixed in Book 1 to stay around 10% for all levels past 43. There are a number of trait, gear and legacy options that can be used to reduce this number. B/P/E classes are in the same boat, but have always been dealing with higher rating numbers to fight against. Reports of resistance rates 20% or higher are likely caused by small sample spaces, fighting up-level or against creatures with specific resistance buffs.

Unfortunately, this fix was not properly documented, which led to its omission from the release notes. It was never our intention to hide this from players or perform any kind of ‘stealth nerf’. We apologize for the communications breakdown and will make every effort to avoid similar issues in the future.

Thank you for that insight and information, that fully clears up what we're seeing =)

Full disclosure FTW.

Originally Posted by LOTROSystems

Reports of resistance rates 20% or higher are likely caused by small sample spaces, fighting up-level or against creatures with specific resistance buffs.

Thank you for taking the time to respond. I would ask you to please keep monitoring the resist rates. They seem higher than 10% to this player.

Amazing.

This explains SO much.

Thank you much for the info.

Thanks for the info, but like everyone else, I'm seeing a rate higher than 10%, even on mobs 50 levels below me!

Wow. Fairly major change.

I noticed a 15-17% increase to resists in BG last night on my RK, and our burg had some trouble with Riddle as well.

Thanks for at least letting us know it's here to stay. At least the hunters are happy

Turdram urges you to consider the resist rates of "up level monsters" when you consider that most of what you fight in end game instances are leveled above the player.

This could be a game breaker for many people who spend all of their play time fighting said up level monsters.

Many thanks.

No way it is 10%. I ran the last few chapters of book 14 and all of book 15 and at times mobs were resisting 75 to 80% of my skills.

Originally Posted by dori_bolger

No way it is 10%. I ran the last few chapters of book 14 and all of book 15 and at times mobs were resisting 75 to 80% of my skills.

Um. If that were true, you could not possibly have completed them.

I agree with the posts about the resist being too high...i was resisted 8 times in a row for my tactical skills and had to blow 2 heal cooldowns to survive...all this against 1 white leveled baddy. Waaaaaay above 10% i'd say.

Originally Posted by HawtMama

I agree with the posts about the resist being too high...i was resisted 8 times in a row for my tactical skills and had to blow 2 heal cooldowns to survive...all this against 1 white leveled baddy. Waaaaaay above 10% i'd say.

Just because it's 10% doesn't mean it's only going to happen once every 10 skills. RNGs are notoriously streaky. Anyone who crafts knows that. Unless you use the same skill on the same mob 10,000 times in a row, you're not going to get an accurate count.

Originally Posted by LOTROSystems

Shortly after Mirkwood’s launch, we found an unexpected bug. Between the Moria and Mirkwood updates, monster resistance rates had been accidentally altered in strange way. From level 1 to 42, the resistance ratings were correct. These ratings translated to around a 1% resistance rate at low levels that slowly rose to the expected rate, which is around 10%. However, at level 43 the ratings dropped down by exactly half, and stayed that way all the way to level cap. This means players leveling with a tactical character would see monster resistance rates raise slightly as they leveled, even out at 10%, and then suddenly drop away at level 43. This is contrasted by classes that fight against Block/Parry/Evade for damage, who saw their rates stay the same.

Monster resistance rates have been fixed in Book 1 to stay around 10% for all levels past 43. There are a number of trait, gear and legacy options that can be used to reduce this number. B/P/E classes are in the same boat, but have always been dealing with higher rating numbers to fight against. Reports of resistance rates 20% or higher are likely caused by small sample spaces, fighting up-level or against creatures with specific resistance buffs.

Unfortunately, this fix was not properly documented, which led to its omission from the release notes. It was never our intention to hide this from players or perform any kind of ‘stealth nerf’. We apologize for the communications breakdown and will make every effort to avoid similar issues in the future.

While I understand the bug and why it was fixed I think you might have missed something. I'm assuming classes were balanced with this bug in place. I.E. - Tact classes being called OP after Moria seen later nerfs to balance them. Furthermore, new content was designed, tested, and released all with this bug in place. Fixing the bug is great and all but I think you need to look at everything that was balanced with this bug in place and rebalance it without the bug.

With all due respect -- if your math was messed up before, I have no faith that your re-done math isn't equally messed up now.

I'm curious what Hunters are supposed to do since we don't have any tactical resist reduction legacies, at least I can't ever recall seeing any. We get a Trapper line that depends on Tactical Resistances and no way to reduce the resist rate?

Originally Posted by LOTROSystems

This means players leveling with a tactical character would see monster resistance rates raise slightly as they leveled, even out at 10%, and then suddenly drop away at level 43.

Well, that explains why 40-43 felt so much harder on my RK than 43-50. Thanks for the update and the mea culpa.

This becomes a real issue with corruption removal in raid zones.
The encounters are designed around constant corruption removal by several classes.
Even before book1 resists and misses were common.

This should be looked into, I don't want to see the encounters made easier but they definitely do not need to be made indirectly harder through greater frequency of resists.

I'm not buying 10%, even on mobs I'm 5 levels higher than I get a good amount of resists. My burg's skills have been resisted more the last 2 nights than the previous year combined. My RK's corruption removal is basically non existant because it always gets resisted.

Originally Posted by wyldcyde

This becomes a real issue with corruption removal in raid zones.
The encounters are designed around constant corruption removal by several classes.
Even before book1 resists and misses were common.

This should be looked into, I don't want to see the encounters made easier but they definitely do not need to be made indirectly harder through greater frequency of resists.

Add to this the fact that the bosses are higher level and going to have an increase in resists anyway...

even if it is 10% on level... its going to be worse vs boss mobs seeing they are higher level.

instead of just fixing this bug they needed to think about current resist rates ingame pre patch.

I don't see how anyone can think corruption removals were not being resisted enough pre patch.

Originally Posted by wyldcyde

This becomes a real issue with corruption removal in raid zones.
The encounters are designed around constant corruption removal by several classes.
Even before book1 resists and misses were common.

This should be looked into, I don't want to see the encounters made easier but they definitely do not need to be made indirectly harder through greater frequency of resists.

agreed, this is my chief concern and for the CC on the Sorcerer's, Sunday night before the update at one point on the twins we got 3 straight resists on Cargaraf while we were range tanking her, even though we beat them I'd hate to see what it's like now or on the Lieutenant when we try and kill him tonight. I don't mind difficult raid bosses at all in fact I love them but difficulty due to our skills being unreliable is really lame. Also we were fighting the watcher and even on him my skills were getting resisted alot, even on the tentacles which are 5 levels lower

Originally Posted by KenR

While I understand the bug and why it was fixed I think you might have missed something. I'm assuming classes were balanced with this bug in place. I.E. - Tact classes being called OP after Moria seen later nerfs to balance them. Furthermore, new content was designed, tested, and released all with this bug in place. Fixing the bug is great and all but I think you need to look at everything that was balanced with this bug in place and rebalance it without the bug.

This CANNOT be emphasized enough. Changes to balance have been made to classes/legacies/skills etc. with the low resist rates as part of the testing/balancing. Correcting the resists rates without adjusting the items that have previously been lowered/balanced is a HUGE problem.

Yes, the resist rates were silly before, but there really needs to be adjustments to classes/skills/legacies to re-balance tact classes.

Acknowledging that this is a *fix* to make things *WIA* but it really doesn't appear that the development staff realizes the impact on their end game raid instances in game. With growing frustration over side grades and radiance gating already to stealth fix a resistance issue that's going to cause critical mezes and corruption removals to be resisted thus causing more wipes in an already suffering end game -- this was a really really really really bad idea.

DEVS - Please do a double or triple check on your 10% rating. I agree with most here, I was missing over 70% of my calls last night with battle of echos on. I would not mind a resistance rating of 10% but it is NO WHERE near that. I was easily missing 3 out of 4 calls last night for 2 straight hours. Devs need to do their some research because it is flubbed up somewhere in the code, trust me.

BTW We need to move this back to where it was pre March 1st release. Guards cant get aggro, bards arrow is useless, minnie can't solo skirmishes, LM's can't mez... the list goes on....

I understand some strange stuff can happen between updates and they might be hard to detect immediately, but this is a big change and should have been in the patch notes. This community is already wary of "stealth nerfs" and stuff like this doesn't help, it only re-enforces suspicion.

Originally Posted by KenR

While I understand the bug and why it was fixed I think you might have missed something. I'm assuming classes were balanced with this bug in place. I.E. - Tact classes being called OP after Moria seen later nerfs to balance them. Furthermore, new content was designed, tested, and released all with this bug in place. Fixing the bug is great and all but I think you need to look at everything that was balanced with this bug in place and rebalance it without the bug.

It's like giving someone glasses to correct bad vision, then giving the same person laser eye surgery to correct their bad vision but making them keep the glasses on. Their vision will be just as bad, but in a different way! Turbine needs to get it together and choose one or the other. All the rebalancing that happened is now totally out of whack!

Originally Posted by wyldcyde

This becomes a real issue with corruption removal in raid zones.
The encounters are designed around constant corruption removal by several classes.
Even before book1 resists and misses were common.

This should be looked into, I don't want to see the encounters made easier but they definitely do not need to be made indirectly harder through greater frequency of resists.

Originally Posted by Mark_J

Add to this the fact that the bosses are higher level and going to have an increase in resists anyway...

And add to this ramping dread in BG. So in the end it's greater resists (10%-more?) Fighting Higher level mobs AND -1 or -2 skill level? Really? That's extreme. This is such a major change that everything should be re-tested and re-balanced to these "true" resistance rates. I dread what our next BG attempt will look like. This is HUGE!

Originally Posted by Crissaegrim

With all due respect -- if your math was messed up before, I have no faith that your re-done math isn't equally messed up now.

You must not have faith in any MMO, then. Glad to see your lack of faith doesn't keep you from playing.

Originally Posted by danazc

I would not mind a resistance rating of 10% but it is NO WHERE near that. I was easily missing 3 out of 4 calls last night for 2 straight hours.

You have data on this?

Thanks for the acknowledgment, devs.

Was this change made after the last Bullroarer build? I did a quick search of that forum and saw nothing like the sort of complaints that have come up since V3B1 went live.

Originally Posted by LOTROSystems

Shortly after Mirkwood’s launch, we found an unexpected bug. Between the Moria and Mirkwood updates, monster resistance rates had been accidentally altered in strange way. From level 1 to 42, the resistance ratings were correct. These ratings translated to around a 1% resistance rate at low levels that slowly rose to the expected rate, which is around 10%. However, at level 43 the ratings dropped down by exactly half, and stayed that way all the way to level cap. This means players leveling with a tactical character would see monster resistance rates raise slightly as they leveled, even out at 10%, and then suddenly drop away at level 43. This is contrasted by classes that fight against Block/Parry/Evade for damage, who saw their rates stay the same.

Monster resistance rates have been fixed in Book 1 to stay around 10% for all levels past 43. There are a number of trait, gear and legacy options that can be used to reduce this number. B/P/E classes are in the same boat, but have always been dealing with higher rating numbers to fight against. Reports of resistance rates 20% or higher are likely caused by small sample spaces, fighting up-level or against creatures with specific resistance buffs.

Unfortunately, this fix was not properly documented, which led to its omission from the release notes. It was never our intention to hide this from players or perform any kind of ‘stealth nerf’. We apologize for the communications breakdown and will make every effort to avoid similar issues in the future.

Thank you for the response Systems Team. I would like to suggest, though, that you need to recheck the numbers. In the past there have been accidental increases in resist rates (SoA) and resist rates that were clearly above your described 10% target (Moria release). What people are reporting now isn't a 5% increase, or phantom problems from small sample sizes.

I would also like to point out that out of my primary characters I have the following tools available to decrease tactical resistance rates.

• Hunter: No legacies are available to reduce resist rates. No class traits are available to reduce resist rates. All of a Hunter's CC is subject to these resists; snares, fears, traps, and mez are all impacted.
• Guardian: One legacy available to reduce resist rates for taunts; this legacy is a very small one as well. ~460 does not stack up at all well when compared to what is available to tactical classes to mitigate resists. Moria release was quite a dark time for Guardians in large part due to how frequently their taunts were resisted, I don't want to go back there again.
• Burglar: One trait available to reduce resist rates on Riddle and Confound. Any other skill that has a tactical based resist chance is left high and dry.
• Rune-keeper: Easily in the best shape. -Resist on chisels, -Resist on a class trait, -Resist can fire off as an effect, and -Resist as a legacy.

So one class has quite a few tools available to combat tactical resists, while three have little to nothing available. Something to think about, especially when you look at Guardian.

PS: Another 'What about Corruptions?' from me. When you're fighting a +4 level mob, possibly with a Gloom imposed level penalty to boot, this is going to be pretty painful.

Originally Posted by rawlingsst7

Was this change made after the last Bullroarer build? I did a quick search of that forum and saw nothing like the sort of complaints that have come up since V3B1 went live.

Either that or no one ran any high level content to notice the change.

I Agree with the above pots, this changes the balance of the classes. As the most recent "balance" was done WITH the bug.

When you do a MAJOR change as this, you must be more carefull.

As stated, in the raid, resists are now terrible.

Turbine should revise this change. When you do a change like this, you must consider the impact on the classes.

Originally Posted by LOTROSystems

Shortly after Mirkwood’s launch, we found an unexpected bug. Between the Moria and Mirkwood updates, monster resistance rates had been accidentally altered in strange way. From level 1 to 42, the resistance ratings were correct. These ratings translated to around a 1% resistance rate at low levels that slowly rose to the expected rate, which is around 10%.

So let me get this straight... as our characters increase in level, we become more and more susceptible to resists?

If that's true, then what's the point of levelling up? To get weaker?

Originally Posted by KenR

While I understand the bug and why it was fixed I think you might have missed something. I'm assuming classes were balanced with this bug in place. I.E. - Tact classes being called OP after Moria seen later nerfs to balance them. Furthermore, new content was designed, tested, and released all with this bug in place. Fixing the bug is great and all but I think you need to look at everything that was balanced with this bug in place and rebalance it without the bug.

I haven't read the whole thread, but this post is 100% correct! Since things such as BG were tested and balanced with this bug in place they are going to become overly difficult due to this "bug fix". You either need to re-balance everything for this or just put it back to the way it was. The worst thing is the amount of corruption removal resists on boss mobs in BG. When you only have 2 ranged corruption removers for Cargaraf up until 50% health (then hunters can help) and 1 gets resisted you are all of the sudden in a world of hurt and you may not be able to recover. God forbid both your ranged corruption removals get resisted! You might as well just succumb to the wipe right then and there!

I remember the unintended effect the CU had when SoM launched. Devs finally acknowledged that repair costs were higher due to the CU's unforeseen effect on everything concerning battle. They adjusted repair costs in a later patch (3.1)

This sounds like the same symptom of unintended side effects, and one paragraph describing a WAI stealth fix just ain't gonna cut it - it didn't cut it last time. The devs arent perfect, but at least they fix stuff fast.

Somewhere between 10% and 75% is what I'm reading here and in-game.

How long before a dev can give us better news, ya think?
I do very much appreciate the team's transparency and involvement here in the forums - it let's us know that things like this wont doom our play experience for long.

I don't

Originally Posted by jmsgalla

Wow. Fairly major change.

I noticed a 15-17% increase to resists in BG last night on my RK, and our burg had some trouble with Riddle as well.

Thanks for at least letting us know it's here to stay. At least the hunters are happy

Just bear in mind that those mobs are also above level, as well as any dread will decrease your 'perceived' level as well

Originally Posted by Lohi

You have data on this?

For sure, I can put a video together, it was insane... I saw way more "resisted" over the mobs head than numbers.

Originally Posted by rawlingsst7

Was this change made after the last Bullroarer build? I did a quick search of that forum and saw nothing like the sort of complaints that have come up since V3B1 went live.

It wasn't made in a post-Bullroarer build. When we did some digging today to find out what was going on, we found the checkin for the change was made on December 11th. So this was indeed on Bullroarer. I just double-checked the bugs submitted on Bullroarer for "resist," "resisted," or "resisting," and don't get any results back.

Originally Posted by Patience

It wasn't made in a post-Bullroarer build. When we did some digging today to find out what was going on, we found the checkin for the change was made on December 11th. So this was indeed on Bullroarer. I just double-checked the bugs submitted on Bullroarer for "resist," "resisted," or "resisting," and don't get any results back.

Funny how Bullroarer didn't "net" that bug at all.. I have no idea what that means though lol

perhaps more grouping and end-game stuff needs to be tested in Bullroarer? weird

Anyway

Since it didn't "show up" in Bullroarer, and we're all aware of it now on the forums, is nothing else gonna change? Do we just have to learn to deal with these resist rates that adversely affect our battles, and assume that we always only have a 50/50 shot of a tact skill actually working from now on?