Request for School Bugs/Issues

[AmonGwareth]

I'd like to ask for people if they get a chance to list the issues they have with various bipedal schools. In particular bugs or abilities that don't work right, ones that conflict. Feel free to use this thread. If you want inspiration for what can be included, look to the fantastic Monk status thread http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=16883

[Trust]

May be working as intended, I'm not sure... skin like thornwood doesn't carry over to Ranger, even though the Ranger gets the skin like X line.
I thought skill lines that were shared by schools carried straight across. While I was leveling Guardian, I had skin like yew from Ranger until I got skin like thornwood. when I went back to Ranger, I dropped back down to skin like yew.

[gopher65]

General Ranged School Issues::

Multishot, Coordinated Shot, Envenom Arrow, Powershot, Headshot, Heart Seeker, Pinion, and Longshot are our damaging abilities (Envenom Arrow might be Ranger only?). But, unlike with Melee classes they are all on one of 2 linked timers. This severely limits the already low damage output of the archer classes.

Linked timers:

• Timer 1: Headshot, Heartshot, Powershot, Longshot, Coordinated Shot
• Timer 2: Multishot, Pinion, Envenom Arrow

That ^^^ is how it is right now. I think we need a third timer. This is how I'd set it up:

Linked timers:

• Timer 1: Headshot, Heartshot, Powershot
• Timer 2: Pinion, Envenom Arrow, Coordinated Shot
• Timer 3: Longshot, Multishot

I chose this configuration because of the types of abilities that are in each catagory. Pinion and Longshot are both longer range abilities, and thus can't be on the same timer (else one of them is useless, and might as well be removed). Pinion, Coordinated Shot, and Envenom Arrow are debuffs, so I put them on the same timer, so that people would have to choose which debuff they placed on a particular mob at a particular time. I figured you wouldn't want us heavily debuffing mobs. Headshot, Heartshot, and Powershot are all direct damage abilities, so I placed them together. I'll note that in melee schools Cleave and Crit Strike (Headshot and Heartshot respectively) aren't linked like they are on Archer. No idea if that's a bug with melee or an oversight with archers.

Also, Pinion has no associated animation. This has been a twitching point for me since launch. This was the very first bug report I made, back in early 2004.
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School Specific Issues:

• Crossbowman:
  
  • Crossbows have no arrow flight animation, and no animation associated with their specials (although for some of the specials, like Heartseaker, the mob-hit effect animation plays - a pinkish glowly effect in the case of Heartseaker).
  • Crossbowman have no significant unique abilities. I know, not really a bug. More of a design flaw. But they have nothing to set them apart from other archers. Perhaps an increase in their strength, or give them Banish Armour as an unmasterable ability. That might make people take a second glance at the school before they dismiss it as pointless.
  • Mauls are a high damage, slow weapon. Cool. Bows are a low damage, fast weapon. Cool. Crossbows are a low damage, slow weapon. Not cool. Not cool at all. These need a significant damage increase across the board to make the viable. There is a reason why I am the SINGLE PERSON on Chaos who uses a crossbow on a regular basis. It's cause they suck. I only use them because I'm stubborn.

• Ranger:
  
  • There are a few cool things about Ranger. It is part Druid, so it can use many Druid specific spells and abilities. However, many of the abilities that make Ranger an interesting school are masterable, meaning that there is little incentive to play a Ranger once you've obtained all the neat abilities. Fleet of Foot and Nature's Path are the main examples of this (for this class). They are class defining abilities that are easily masterable. I have nothing against masterable abilities. I like them. But the ones that define the class should be class-only, like in the ELAR school.
  • Envenom Arrow has 2 problems with it: first off, it sucks. It does diddily squat for damage, so there is no point in using it right now. Second it doesn't have combat feedback for the initial hit. The subsequent DoT that it places on the mob has feedback, but the initial hit doesn't. I've reported this 2 or 3 (dozen) times before, but it's never been fixed.

• Elemental Archer:
  
  • Burning Archer needs a damage adjustment. Sweet animation, neat quest, but not worth using. You're better off doing some other school that has a REAL epic. Triple the damage (~1000 damage) and I'll think about using it, every now and then. It still won't be as good as a simple Multicast III Flame Bomb (2000+ damage AoE, Boouyah!), but I could live with that.
  • Spirit Arrows/Flame Arrows/ Ice Arrows/ Lightning Arrows
    These are neat. They are the only really unique aspect of the school, and they are what define it. The very name of the school is based on these 4 abilities. But they're a wee bit unbalanced. Once I got Lightning Arrows I saw no point in using the other Arrow attacks except on Nature immune mobs. I have a couple of possible fixes for this, and they aren't mutually exclusive:
    • 1)
      • Increase the direct damage of the Ice Arrows (+X damage, delay adjusted),
      • Increase the DoT strength of Flame Arrows,
      • Increase the healing strength of Spirit Arrows.
    • 2)
      • These abilities all start in tier II. I realize that the tier II revamp is likely still quite some ways off, but when you do it, it might be a good idea to institute a policy of giving many mobs major resistances and wards, not just anti-nature wards/resistances, or the occasion bullet-proof mob ability (harden shell). Instead give many different mobs heavy resistances against different types of damage. Make some mobs virtually immune to various types of physical damage.
      • Right now it is often all or nothing in the immunity/ward/resistance department for physical damage. There are no mobs out there that are say, Slash immune but can still be hit with Crush and Pierce. Sometimes mobs have wee little pierce resistances or something, but those resistances aren't high enough to make me change my damage type. Make other mobs Spirit immune, others Nature immune, and still others elemental immune (Ice, Flame, Energy). This would give people a reason to cycle through their arrow types and their available weapons, instead of always using either 1) The highest damage weapon their school can use, or 2) Spirit Bolt (boooooooooo. Not a fan of that, even though I do it too (by necessity).

• Scout:
  Scout seems ok, once the issues that plague all archers are taken care of. One major issue that all schools have to deal with, but one that is particularly trying to Scouts (and Monks) is the way the damage reduction calculation of armour/resistances is done. Right now it is *always* better to use a high damage, high delay weapon than it is to use a low damage, low delay weapon, even though their DPS should be about the same (unless the mob in question has no armour or resistances, like Skulks, then it doesn't matter either way).
  
  I think that this might be because (and I'm just wildly guessing here, so take this with a grain of salt) armour is a value that directly reduces incoming damage by a flat amount, instead of being a value that does a %reduction of incoming damage. If this is the case, it would explain why low delay low damage weapons suck so much. The flat damage reduction truly hurts them, but it does far less to a weapon like a maul.
  
  Important bit
  As an example:
  Maul does 200 damage, and takes 4.5 seconds to do it,
  Bow does 133 damage, and takes 3 seconds to do it,
  Both weapons have ~44 base damage per second.
  
  If mob has 500 armour, and 10 armour reduces 1 base damage (as a hypothetical):
  200-50 = 150/4.5 = 33.3 DPS Maul
  133.3-50 = 83.3/3 = 27.7 DPS Bow
  
  So you see, even though both weapons have the same base DPS, the low damage, low delay weapon does less damage per second in the end. The higher the level of the mob, the more armour it has. The more armour it has, the worse this discrepancy becomes. At low levels (level<20) this isn't really noticeable, but at high levels bows and fists do waaaaaaaaay less damage than the slow, high damage weapons. It doesn't scale in a linear fashion as level increases; the damage discrepancy increases geometrically.
  
  I realize that you might not want to fix this, because then you'd have to rebalance the whole game. But fixing this design flaw would go a long way toward making the archer and Monk/disciple schools viable.

[Deth]

Gopher65. Long long long ago Smeg pulled back the amour veil and told us how it worked. I can not remember the exact values but was something like every 10 points of armour and I think reisist, the magic armour, reduced damage by 1 point. I think the thread may be around here some where. It is the one where he talked about all the stats. I.E. Str increasing melee damage, Dex to hit, Power spell damage, Focus Spell to hit and healing.

[gopher65]

May be working as intended, I'm not sure... skin like thornwood doesn't carry over to Ranger, even though the Ranger gets the skin like X line.
I thought skill lines that were shared by schools carried straight across. While I was leveling Guardian, I had skin like yew from Ranger until I got skin like thornwood. when I went back to Ranger, I dropped back down to skin like yew.

That's because Druid and Ranger would get SLThornwood at level 102, and we can't level up that high. Guardian gets that ability early, at level 98.

Other examples of this:

Field of Growth and Growth. I have Growth 5 from Druid and Growth 3 from Ranger. If you level druid all the way up, then you start Ranger, you will start with all the unmasterable (and masterable) abilities that they share, up to the highest level ability in the current school you are in. So because Ranger gets Growth 3 as it's maximum version of the Growth line of abilities, you'll start off with Growth 3, even though you have Growth 5 from Druid. Any other school will only get Growth 2, because that's as far up as you have it mastered.

Another example is Multicast II and III in Mage, Battlemage, and Conjurer. Mage and Conjurer get Multicast III as their highest member of that line, while Battlemage only goes up to II. If you take mage up to level 100, you get multicast III (unmastered of course). If you then start the Battlemage school, you'll start with Multicast II, even though you don't have it mastered. But if you start the Conjurer school, you'll start with Multicast III.

[AmonGwareth]

The linking thing... You may be right. Fighting classes have three categories of linked abilities.

Melee 1 (Standard)
Melee 2 (Crit)
Melee 3 (Emergency)

And I think Ranged just has the equivalent of the first two.

[Trust]

There was an old thread somewhere about this, I remember reading that blight adept (shaman) was next to useless because no blight spells did any damage.
*E* found it http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...ead.php?t=7640 not sure how relevant it is now, but its a place to start.

When I played an El AR two things that stood out were 1) Elemental Arrow I II III were just plain worthless and 2) there was no Energy attack. My suggestion is this:

Remove Elemental Arrow and in its place put 'Energy Arrow' I II III which does Energy dmg. and has the same mechanics as the 4 existing elemental attacks with a scaled chance (5%, 10%, 15%?) to proc a dmg. kicker like the old Western Deadlands Stones, scaled to tier. The Glowing Beveled Stone, for example, was a lvl 55 crystal, gave 96-131hp extra dmg on 5% of hits. Just using that as an example because its the only stone I have access to, and because 3 of 4 existing El Ar attacks duplicate to some extent effects from the WD crystals.

And Gopher, thank you for the clarification.

[Kulamata]

Gopher65. Long long long ago Smeg pulled back the amour veil and told us how it worked. I can not remember the exact values but was something like every 10 points of armour and I think reisist, the magic armour, reduced damage by 1 point. I think the thread may be around here some where. It is the one where he talked about all the stats. I.E. Str increasing melee damage, Dex to hit, Power spell damage, Focus Spell to hit and healing.

Smeglor's and related posts; to provide some of the data from that time. This was put together at the time to reconstruct the original posts when there was a thread about Smeglor's data having gone missing.

From Smeglor: To help guide you in your spending of training points as well as your pursuit of techniques, here is a breakdown of how the various statistics relate to each other.

Attributes:
Note that all skills are slightly increased by some or all of the four main attributes, so they have that value in addition to the specifics below.
Strength: Increases damage with physical attacks. It is 50% more effective than attack skill in this respect.
Power: Increases damage with magical attacks. It is 50% more effective than casting skill in this respect.
Dexterity: Increases chance to hit with physical attacks, and decreases chance to be hit by physical attacks. It is 1/3 as effective in these roles than attack and evasion skills.
Focus: Increases chance to hit with magical attacks, and decreases chance to be hit by magical attacks. It is 1/3 as effective in these roles than casting and magic defense (which is being renamed to magic evasion) skills. Also increases friendly healing spell amounts by 1/2 as much as does the casting skill for the healing spell (usually Life).

Skills:
Offensive skills (including weapon-using skills as well as spellcasting skills for attack spells): Competes equally against the evasion or magic defense of the target for chance to hit. Weapon skills also compete equally against incoming attack skills for initial Parry checks. Also adds to damage by 2/3 as much as Strength or Power.
Defensive skills (evasion and magic defense): Competes equally against incoming attack skills. Evasion is also re-checked equally against incoming attack skill for initial Dodge checks.
Healing skills (mostly Life): Adds to healing amounts by twice as much as Focus. Note that the healing amount cannot exceed double the healing spell's specified range.
Shield skill: Competes equally with incoming attack skills for initial Block checks.

Armor: Reduces incoming non-ethereal damage at a slightly better rate than Strength and Power add to such.
Ethereal Armor: Same as Armor, but against ethereal damage.
Resistances: Add to Armor and Ethereal Armor against attacks of the resistance's type.
Wards: Add to Evasion and Magic Defense against attacks of the resistance's type.
Parry/Dodge/Block bonuses: These "active defenses" use a two-check system. The first check is a skill contest, as outlined in the skill section above. If that check succeeds (from the defender's point of view), then there is a flat 20% chance of the defense working. Parry, Dodge, and Block bonuses add to that 20%.

Other stats (such as Armor Use and Augmentation) are simply for meeting requirements.
Crafting skills are used to determine the number of resources required to make an item.
Gathering skills are used to determine the number of resources gathered per "hit".
Attributes are not used in crafting/gathering beyond their increase of such skills.

Given the above, you can see that skills are generally more effective than attributes. However, attributes have a much wider application.

I'll endeavor to improve the in-game descriptions to match the above.

Edit: Rephrased Armor description to clear up confusion.


< Message edited by Smeglor -- 7/8/2004 6:23:55 PM >

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zanne92
US Beta Tester
Posts: 101
Joined: 10/3/2003

More info that Smeglor posted, from that thread

75% of the increase to skill from attributes comes from Dex for one handed attack skills, while 50% of the inrease is from Dex for two-handers.

It's not telling you exactly how much percentage of Dex is added to the skills, but since an interpid soul could figure that out on their own anyway, I'll go ahead and tell you they always add up to 10%. So 5% of Dex and Strength is added to two hand weapon skills, for instance.

-------------------------------------------------

I'll try to hit all the questions here, let me know if I missed any.

Bows/Crossbows are treated the same as any other physical attack. Their only difference is they have range. Well, another small difference is ranged attacks cannot be parried.

Here's the basic flow of things in a combat "round":

% To-Hit calc: Comparison of attacking skill * 3 + Dexterity/Focus against defender's Evasion/Magic Defense * 3 + Dexterity/Focus. Any attack chance to hit bonuses (i.e. Aura of Command) are added to attacking skill prior to this calculation. The result of this calculation modifies the base chance to hit.

Hit check: A random percentage is "rolled". If it is above the %To-Hit calculated above, the attack misses and this process ends.

Note that the following Block, Parry, and Dodge checks only apply if the attack (including spells) is from the currently engaged target. This means a target that you have engaged with the attack button, or have cast a repeat spell on. And obviously, you only get these checks if you have the corresponding ability and equipment (i.e. a shield for Block, a weapon for Parry).

Block "contest" % calc: Comparison of defender's Shield skill against incoming attack skill modifies base chance to be eligible to block. No bonuses nor other attributes apply.

Block "contest" check: A random percentage is "rolled". If it is below the % calculated above, the attack is eligible to be blocked.

Block check: If eligible, a random percentage is "rolled". If it is below (20% + Block bonus), the attack is blocked.

Parry only applies if you have a melee weapon equipped and the incoming attack is not a ranged attack.

Parry "contest" % calc: Comparison of defender's equipped weapon skill against incoming attack skill modifies base chance to be eligible to parry. No bonuses nor other attributes apply.

Parry "contest" check: A random percentage is "rolled". If it is below the % calculated above, the attack is eligible to be parried.

Parry check: If eligible, a random percentage is "rolled". If it is below (20% + Parry bonus), the attack is parried.

Dodge "contest" % calc: Comparison of defender's evasion skill against incoming attack skill modifies base chance to be eligible to dodge. No bonuses nor other attributes apply.

Dodge "contest" check: A random percentage is "rolled". If it is below the % calculated above, the attack is eligible to be dodged.

Dodge check: If eligible, a random percentage is "rolled". If it is below (20% + Dodge bonus), the attack is dodged.

Damage: Weapon/Spell damage + Strength/Power * Attack Delay + Attack Skill * Attack Delay - Target's Armor * Attack Delay
All the modifications are divided by values that I'm not going to reveal at this time, but as stated originally, Strength/Power is 50% more valued than Skill, and Armor is slightly more valued than Strength/Power.
The above result is then put through a Gaussian randomizer to give greater variety.

When damage is being calculated for a damage over time effect or a damage shield, the Strength/Power and attack skill are inherited from the values used to give the target that effect. For instance, the Engulf effect will have damage based on the Power and flame skill of the caster, because that was the attribute and skill used in the Engulf attack itself.

Edit: Clarified parry's requirement for a melee weapon.
Edit 2: Added mentioning of randomizing of damage.


< Message edited by Smeglor -- 7/9/2004 1:24:09 PM >

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Let's do this simply. Basically, because strength, skill, and armor are all delay adjusted, Alacrity doesn't affect them at all. So let's just focus on the weapon damage.

Say you do an average of 30 damage (from the weapon/spell) every 5 seconds. By taking 30/5 you get 6 damage per second, or DPS.

With Alacrity of 10%, now you're doing 30 damage every 4.5 seconds. That's 6.666 DPS.

That's an 11.1% increase. Depending on how much of your damage is coming from Strength/Power and Skill, the percentage of total damage increase is, of course, less than that. Even if only 1/4 of your damage came from the weapon, you'd still be enjoying a more than 2.5% increase in damage thanks to Alacrity. That's pretty good. Gift of Strength II's +26 Strength probably gives about the same increase, though that totally depends on how much Strength you used to have (to determine the percentage benefit). Plus, healing spells, abilities, and such (where delay doesn't affect the effect) are quicker, allowing me to get more attacks in per fight.


As for Druid healing, forgive me for not being too familiar with the spells we have now (I played a Druid in Beta), but if the spell description states Life as the skill used, yet the requirements state Life or Nature, then unfortunately you're not going to get increased healing with more Nature skill. If there are Druid-specific healing spells that are based on Nature (and the Druid abilities like Regrowth, which I know are), then those will properly scale. Focus still helps, regardless.


< Message edited by zanne92 -- 7/17/2004 7:10:07 PM >

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Azura Ismitta
Storm Disciple and Tailor
<Silent Avengers> of Dawn Report Abuse | Date 7/17/2004 7:09:28 PM
Nazgutek
EU Beta Tester
Posts: 708
Joined: 11/7/2003
From: The Day before the Patch of Doom!
More Info:

Delay modifiers stack multiplicatively. That is, each delay mod is subtracted from 1, and then the base delay is multiplied by all these numbers. For example:

Delay 30 weapon with Gift of Alacrity V (-25%), Energize II (-15%), Rapid Fire Stance (-10%)

Final delay = 30 * (1 - 0.25) * (1 - 0.15) * (1 - 0.1) = 30 * 0.75 * 0.85 * 0.9 = 17.2125

This might or might not be rounded up or down.

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[Kulamata]

Nice, Gopher. A question about your proposed linkage:

Linked timers:

• Timer 1: Headshot, Heartshot, Powershot
• Timer 2: Pinion, Envenom Arrow, Coordinated Shot
• Timer 3: Longshot, Multishot

I chose this configuration because of the types of abilities that are in each catagory. Pinion and Longshot are both longer range abilities, and thus can't be on the same timer (else one of them is useless, and might as well be removed). Pinion, Coordinated Shot, and Envenom Arrow are debuffs, so I put them on the same timer, so that people would have to choose which debuff they placed on a particular mob at a particular time. I figured you wouldn't want us heavily debuffing mobs. Headshot, Heartshot, and Powershot are all direct damage abilities, so I placed them together. I'll note that in melee schools Cleave and Crit Strike (Headshot and Heartshot respectively) aren't linked like they are on Archer. No idea if that's a bug with melee or an oversight with archers.

I agree with the reasoning for pinion and longshot, putting them on the same timer renders one or the other effectively useless. Why does the same reasoning not apply to, say, your timer 1?

Couldn't agree more about envenomed arrow. I did the quest very soon after it was available; lousy spider hardly ever spawned; OH BOY! Tried it about three times, and put it away, never to be used again. A major disappointment, given it's billing as recompense for the string of archer nerfs that had preceded it.

[Guaran]

That's because Druid and Ranger would get SLThornwood at level 102, and we can't level up that high. Guardian gets that ability early, at level 98.

Other examples of this:

Field of Growth and Growth. I have Growth 5 from Druid and Growth 3 from Ranger. If you level druid all the way up, then you start Ranger, you will start with all the unmasterable (and masterable) abilities that they share, up to the highest level ability in the current school you are in. So because Ranger gets Growth 3 as it's maximum version of the Growth line of abilities, you'll start off with Growth 3, even though you have Growth 5 from Druid. Any other school will only get Growth 2, because that's as far up as you have it mastered.

Another example is Multicast II and III in Mage, Battlemage, and Conjurer. Mage and Conjurer get Multicast III as their highest member of that line, while Battlemage only goes up to II. If you take mage up to level 100, you get multicast III (unmastered of course). If you then start the Battlemage school, you'll start with Multicast II, even though you don't have it mastered. But if you start the Conjurer school, you'll start with Multicast III.

Mostly correct.

Guardian gets skin like thornwood at 98.

Druid would get it at 102

Ranger wouldn't get it till 112 or 114. So perhaps there is some limit to how far along an ability is useable. Or perhaps it really is bugged, in that the Druid school has this ability planned out and in place at lvl 102 already, whereas the Ranger doesn't not have future abilities planned out as far as 112. That might explain why it doesn't master.

[AmonGwareth]

As an example:
Maul does 200 damage, and takes 4.5 seconds to do it,
Bow does 133 damage, and takes 3 seconds to do it,
Both weapons have ~44 base damage per second.

If mob has 500 armour, and 10 armour reduces 1 base damage (as a hypothetical):
200-50 = 150/4.5 = 33.3 DPS Maul
133.3-50 = 83.3/3 = 27.7 DPS Bow

Damage: Weapon/Spell damage + (Strength/Power * Attack Delay) + (Attack Skill * Attack Delay) - (Target's Armor * Attack Delay)

Couple things here.

1. Armor includes resistance and is delay-adjusted just like damage.
2. Armor is 10% more valued than Strength/Power.
3. Strength/Power is 50% more valued than the Weapon Skill.
4. Strength/Power and WeaponSkill are delay-adjusted and add to the base damage. Armor reduces from the base damage.

Using arbitrary numbers for the values since I don't have your stats.

Level 15 Warrior (Rating 23)
Strength = 230
AttackSkill (Generic) = 180
Armor = 212
Multiplying delay by 10 to get whole numbers.

Maybe I'm calculating it incorrectly, but I get 6.733 for both Bow and Maul.

[gopher65]

Maybe I'm calculating it incorrectly, but I get 6.733 for both Bow and Maul.

That is just my guess as to what is going on. I don't know if that is actually the case.

Whatever the ultimate cause, fast damage weapons do less damage overall than slow weapons.

[AmonGwareth]

Except that in this case, the fast damage weapon isn't doing less damage than the large weapon.

[gopher65]

Except that in this case, the fast damage weapon isn't doing less damage than the large weapon.

Are you taking into account casting delay?

According to Smeglar, this is what general weapon damage looks like, after it is adjusted:

Total Adjusted Damage = Base Weapon Damage + (Strength/Power * Attack Delay) + (Attack Skill * Attack Delay) - (Target's Armor * Attack Delay)

However, he's forgetting the Time factor in there. Effectively, Weapon Damage = Base Weapon Damage / Casting Time. For weapons, Casting Time = Attack Delay. So really, if usage time is included in the formula, the end result is this:

Total Adjusted Damage = (Base Weapon Damage / Attack Delay) + (Strength * Attack Delay) + (Attack Skill * Attack Delay) - (Target's Armor * Attack Delay)

I tried to figure this out on my own, but I kept making silly mistakes, so I give up for now.

[AmonGwareth]

Total Adjusted Damage = (Base Weapon Damage / Attack Delay) + (Strength * Attack Delay) + (Attack Skill * Attack Delay) - (Target's Armor * Attack Delay)

No, that is incorrect. The base damage is not delay-adjusted. Base Damage, by the way, is calculated using a simple number generator between the min and max.

Maul:
Damage = 200 + ((230/50)*4.5) + ((180/75)*4.5) - ((212/45)*4.5)
200 + 20.7 + 10.8 - 21.2
Damage = 210.3
Adjusted = 210.3/4.5 = 46.733

Bow:
Damage = 133 + ((230/50)*3.0) + ((180/75)*3.0) - ((212/45)*3.0)
133 + 13.8 + 7.2 - 14.13
Damage = 139.87
Adjusted = 139.87/3.0 = 46.623

So, I redid my calculations. Multiplying the delay was wrong as its a float. Here are the final. So, technically yes the Maul does 0.110 more damage per second than the bow. I should note, however, that the one part I am not taking into account here is the Gaussian deviation applied to the final damage total (but it can go no more than 10% either direction for standard damage).

[tjl]

the Gaussian deviation applied to the final damage total (but it can go no more than 10% either direction for standard damage).

while we are on that subject... I feel that spells (and perhaps melee abilities as well) might suffer a bit too much from this gaussian randomization. my tier 4 spells often hit about as hard as my tier 5 spells, and I feel its a combination of the randomization, and too much "overlap" between the base damage between tiers.

Improved Flame Bolt IV   Damage: 58 - 96 flame (38 dmg range)
 +- 10% on that range is approx 4, so the spell is 54 - 100

Improved Flame Bolt V    Damage: 71 - 119 flame (48 dmg range)
+- 10% on that range is approx 5 so we get 66 - 124

stat modified of course.

so the max damage of tier 4, falls well into the t5 range... and is this intended?

[gopher65]

Ok, cool. Armour doesn't effect it then. I really thought it did.

I went and got some real numbers in the game from actual level 95 items:

Fine Mithril Maul: 118-137 damage, 50 delay (127.5 average damage)
Damage = 127.5 + ((230/50)*5.0) + ((180/75)*5.0) - ((212/45)*5.0)
127.5 + 23 + 12 - 23.6
Damage = 186.1
Adjusted = 186.1/5.0 = 37.21

Fine Yew Composite Bow: 45-85 damage, delay 30 (average damage 65)
Damage = 65 + ((230/50)*3.0) + ((180/75)*3.0) - ((212/45)*3.0)
65 + 13.8 + 7.2 - 14.13
Damage = 71.87
Adjusted = 71.87/3.0 = 23.96

Fine Yew Heavy Crossbow: 92-102 damage, delay 43 (average damage 97)
Damage = 97 + ((230/50)*4.3) + ((180/75)*4.3) - ((212/45)*4.3)
97 + 19.78 + 10.32 - 20.258
Damage = 106.84
Adjusted =106.84/4.3 = 24.85

Maul = 37.21
Bow = 23.96
Crossbow = 24.85

So.... I guess it is just the damage on the weapons themselves that is off. Huh. I wouldn't have thought that. Weird. At least it will be easy to balance them I guess. I was kinda hoping it would be a problem with the way damage was calculated.

[AmonGwareth]

Tjl, there is going to be some overlap, yes. But since they are using a Gaussian distribution for damage that means they will tend to favor the average (think of the bell curve).

[Creme]

ok..this seems to be mostly an adventuring thread; HOWEVER....

I cannot understand how a level 100 gatherer with a potion, teched gear, etc. can get 1 yield on a swing off any resource node (and this can be off tier 1 materials).

1...

How is this even possible?

[AmonGwareth]

Which resource node? That makes all the difference.