New ATK and Accuracy value analysis

[Jibbatwinkers]

I put this together to figure out how the new values (atk and accuracy) work.

You can get the file here it's an excel file so hopefully most of you can get that open. Sorry that my setup isn't exactly awesome in terms of format.
http://zebserver.com/download/atkacctests.xls

All of the NPCs had a min damage of 100, max damage of 1000. Attackspeed value was -75, STR and AGI were set to 75 (default) and the level of the NPCs was 70. All NPCs were engaged by the same warrior with approximately 10,000hp and 2000AC. The actual values here aren't really as important as the general trend of the data.

I chose to measure the time it took this specific warrior to die at each different value. I feel like this is more important and less ambiguous that figuring out the average damage and hit rate. Also, the trend is more important here than any variable because any given tank has very different stats/AA.

First I tested ATK. I set all Accuracy values to 500. The general trend was hyperbolic. You can see from the graph that any ATK value past 1000/2000 has very little effect on the time to death where as very low 1/10 attack values cause a very large difference. Adjust your attack ratings as you see fit. My graph isn't especially accurate, but it gives you the right idea. Also note that it doesn't show up in the graph but with ATK set to 0 the time to death was 27 seconds, at 1 it was 51. I'm not sure if the code calculates an ATK value if there isn't one set.

After that I tests Accuracy with all ATK values set to 500. Again this is rough data. In the log it mentioned 10accuracy = 1%. The results seem a bit more linear. Again 0 Accuracy behaves much different than 1 Accuracy. 1000 and 2000 were basically the same, probably because it maxes it out at 100%. Also the NPC wasn't hitting 100% of the time (probably not even 50%) at 1000+ accuracy, just more often. The important relation here is the 1000 Accuracy is about 2x more DPS (at least in my tests) than around 10 Accuracy.

I hope this helps other server developers. Thanks to the EQEmu team and submitters for these great new variables I was very excited when I saw todays patch!

Zebuxoruk Server
Special thanks to Tiny the Troll Warrior for dying for me, a bunch.

[trevius]

Nice, that should save me some time with testing the new system when I get off work!

It sounds like there are defaults for these new settings depending on mob level as long as the setting is left to 0. I was hoping that was the case since it means you shouldn't have to redo stats for every mob in the database, just the ones you want to adjust, and mainly higher level encounters.

I wonder if KLS's spreadsheet factors this new stuff in properly. Here is a link to that:

openoffice
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?k...IWQ&output=ods
or excel
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?k...IWQ&output=xls

The combat system has made huge leaps and bounds lately and is really starting to seem finalized. Huge thanks to KLS for getting this stuff in the code. I know me and Jibba have been drooling for this stuff for quite some time now

[KLS]

Yeah I made it as a bonus, if it's set to 0 combat should be pretty much the same as it is now.

Accuracy isn't exactly right in that description. 10% = 1% but that 1% is then applied to the already existing accuracy. So you have say a 50% chance to hit and a 250 accuracy rating it would be 50% + (50% * 250 / 1000) or 62.5%

[ChaosSlayer]

Originally Posted by KLS

Yeah I made it as a bonus, if it's set to 0 combat should be pretty much the same as it is now.

Accuracy isn't exactly right in that description. 10% = 1% but that 1% is then applied to the already existing accuracy. So you have say a 50% chance to hit and a 250 accuracy rating it would be 50% + (50% * 250 / 1000) or 62.5%

Great work KLS!
I don't wont to start another thread, so my quetsion is regarding:

"KLS: Agility will now affect a defenders chance to be missed slightly."

what are the exact numbers?


Also - how about making DEX improve To Hit chance (for players mainly, and on related note- does DEX curently totaly useless for mobs?)? I am not looking for damage, just for ability to hit , cuase curently (for exmaple) caster/priest classes ability to score a hit is prety much non existant at higher levels

I mean, even if my wizard/druid will hit 2-3 times as often in melee, for a meager 10-20 dmg at lev 70 - that can't posibly break the game- can it? =)
But this will give people a purpose to build a DEX for something else other than procs/parry (specialy for classes who do not get such skills)


PERHAPS consider this - add a RULE which when turned ON, will make DEX to act as a BONUS to Hit chance. (so 0 is dex turned off, greater than 0 - how extra +1% to hit is gained per X dex specified as value)
and perhaps even same for agilty?

Oh another thing- a RULE for To Hit chance cap and to Dodge chance cap for ALL classes

[ChaosSlayer]

something else come to mind. In eq2 players stats keep rising continiusly every level. Essentialy there are no hard caps, only a cap in comparecen betwen player and a mob. So if hit your cap for say Dodge for lev 50 - this is only vs a lev 50 mob. As you go to lev 51, you will need MORE AGI, to maintain same dodge cap vs a lev 51 mob (cuase lev 51 mob automaticly ingnores soem of your Dodge). essentialy the system is based on comparecen betwen your level and stats and mobs level and stats. This way there is prety much NEVER a cap on anything - you will become inviciable to lower level mobs, and higher level mobs are invicable to you

[trevius]

If you want your druid or cleric to land hits more often, try adjusting your skill_caps table.

[ChaosSlayer]

Originally Posted by trevius

If you want your druid or cleric to land hits more often, try adjusting your skill_caps table.

thats not exactly the same thing - since I will eventuly run out of them (they capped at 400? so thats like lev 80, I need this work up to 200), and that not going to make DEX worth building up

[trevius]

So, after further testing, I am noticing that NPCs are now hitting for up to their max damage, which makes me think that mitigation isn't working the same as before. No matter how much AC/Skills/AAs I have, they can still land for their max damage. It seems like shielding is working normally so far. But I think this is a pretty major issue with the new version of the code. I am not sure what broke it exactly, but I doubt it is working as intended.

I will need to do more testing to see if the new AR and Attack settings are allowing NPCs to fully compromise player mitigation. I haven't adjusted them yet, so they are all still set to 0, which I believe should be default for their level.

Everything else seems great so far though.

[KLS]

Could you elaborate? NPCs are supposed to hit up to their max damage~ And there's always a chance to hit for max no matter how much defensive abilities you have. But if there's a problem here I'm not catching then feel free to explain and I'll try to see it's fixed.

[trevius]

Hmm, that is odd. Testing from the previous system showed that they never hit for their maximum damage. Aren't skills, AC, and AAs supposed to mitigate a certain amount of damage all of the time, or are they just a chance to mitigate damage?

If you look at the testing post I made in this post:

http://www.eqemulator.net/forums/showthread.php?t=24487

you will see that they never hit for the max damage that was set. All of my end game encounters have been balanced on that system. None of my NPCs ever hit for max on a level 70 player even with no shielding, or AAs. In the most current release, it doesn't matter how much skill/AA/AC you have, you will still get hit for max sometimes. Only shielding and shielding related discs reduce the max hit.

Here is a section of the testing of the previous system from the post I mentioned above:

NPC level 70 with 10000 Str 0min 1000max hit:

War level 70 no AA, 1511AC
Max hit around 920 min avg is 874/897
War level 70 no AA, 2893AC
Max hit around 850 and average min is 808

NPC level 70 with 1000 Str 0min 1000max hit:

War level 70 no AA, 2893AC
Max hit around 850 and average min is around 500ish with lots of range

NPC level 70 with 2000 Str 0min 1000max hit:

War level 70 no AA, 2893AC
Max hit around 850 and average min is around 600ish with lots of range
War level 70 no AA, 2097AC
Max hit around 850 and average min is around 700ish with lots of range

NPC level 70 with 2000 Str 0min 3000max hit:

War level 70 no AA, 2097AC
Max hit around 2487 and average min is around 2100ish with lots of range
War level 70 no AA, 2893AC
Max hit around 2487 and average min is around 1100ish with lots of range

I am not exactly sure what was causing the mitigation, but I can only guess it was defensive skill based. Since AC didn't seem to impact max hit, just the average hit of the NPCs. Is it possible that defensive skill is no longer being calculated?

If this is a permanent change I can readjust all of my encounters without too much difficulty, but as things are now my end game is considerably harder than before. This system may make encounters easier to tune, since max will be the real max instead of having to check the actual max the NPCs will land like I had to check before. I just don't want to go through and readjust everything again if something is messed up and will get changed.

Possibly they weren't able to land for max before because they were missing the new stats that they now have. I will have to do more testing.

Either way, I think the combat system is still making leaps and bounds towards being a really nice system for encounter balancing. The most recent additions should make a huge impact on what can be done for more consistent DPS from NPCs. I just wanted to mention that the outcome of the max hit setting has changed in case that wasn't an intended effect.

[KLS]

It's just luck of the draw, there's a chance to hit for max no matter what, this hasn't changed since I implemented the system and certainly didn't last patch. Though the more stats you gain the smaller and smaller that chance is really, I intended for it to never really disappear(I believe it's a 0.5% chance on an attack where defense is completely mitigating damage to 0 to hit for max though my math could be off a bit). Of course shielding and disc can make it impossible to ever hit max hit just how they're calculated though, but you already saw that. =p

Perhaps something that did change though is how the mitigation AAs were calculated (instead of a straight bonus they add to the AC component if you use it now). I mean I know you said no AAs but it's the only thing I can think of.

[trevius]

Weird, I did ALOT of testing on the last combat system and I never once saw any of them hitting for max. They always had another number that appeared to be the cap. Even setting the STR to insanely high of 10k would still yeild the same lower than max cap and never exceed that. It was probably close to 15% at level 70. Maybe I was doing something differently. I will just go ahead and retune my stuff some now, then.

As a note, the gear I was using to test only had AC and HPs. I then set the max for stats like STR AGI etc manually with the setstats command.

Hopefully GeorgeS will get the new stats into his tool sometime. That will speed up the process considerably for me I know he is in China right now, so probably pretty busy.