Flanked stacks diffrently when the source changes

[Frykas]

As in the title, I've found something odd while testing what stacks with Rust's poingard bring low effect on crit. Fighting a cre_dummy with 49 native deflection, flanked from Persistant Distracion gives expected -10 Def, that always stacks with -10 Def from stunned.

So a the dummy has now 29 Def and things get weird.

With Bring Low that gives us nice stacked -30 Def and dummy now has 19 Def.

But when adding Confounding Blind (or gouging, I thought it might be an issue with the mechanic behid the stacking bonus of -3 Def/hit), we get a floater indicatig that flanked and distracted (from PD) gets canceled  and a new flanked and blinded are now in effect (from CB).

Now the bonus from stunned doesn't stack and we get a dummy with 39 Def (or 29 Def if Bring Low is active) effectively increasing it's Def until hit a few times. 

So, am I correct in assuming that the stacking rules change for flanked regarding it's source when it changes from a passive (PD) to an active one (CB)?

[coralzombie]

Could it be that some of the effect is wearing off due to time?  I have been manipulating the on-hit effect of Bring Low and the duration is set to 6 seconds, however this is not constant even when testing on a dummy. The effect will randomly last longer than 6 seconds or as little as 3 seconds.

[Frykas]

Definately not the Bring Low, tasted it with bare fists, the issue persists unfortunately.

On a side note, it is very interesting how Bring Low is considered a positive effect of all things.

EDIT: also tested with chilling fog, it also does NOT stack with -10 Def bonus from stunned and overwrites the effects of PD

Edited April 28, 2020 by Frykas

[Frykas]

So, does anyone maybe know how could I fix this so that flanked from blinded stacks with stunned but eg. is simply suppresed by gradually increasing bonus from confounding blind? I tried looking at statuseffects.gamedatabundle but no luck so far.

[Elric Galad]

8 minutes ago, Frykas said:

So, does anyone maybe know how could I fix this so that flanked from blinded stacks with stunned but eg. is simply suppresed by gradually increasing bonus from confounding blind? I tried looking at statuseffects.gamedatabundle but no luck so far.

Community Patch makes the confounding blind Deflection malus stacks with everything (but decreases its value to -2 Def per shot).

Edited April 28, 2020 by Elric Galad

[Frykas]

25 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

Community Patch makes the confounding blind Deflection malus stacks with everything (but decreases its value to -2 Def per shot).

Already seen that, and thank you for the info, but I was wondering how I could try to mess with it myself anyway as this gives me more flexibility reagarding what it stacks with.

Edit: to maybe explain better as to what I'm after, it's not just about the confounding blind, more as to make deflection stack with everything, or is that the case in community patch? I don't mind it being weaker or same as long as it stacks properly. ^^

Edited April 28, 2020 by Frykas

[Elric Galad]

Probably you should check the change in the CP file ? Since the files are per ability, it is usually easy to find a particular change.

Edited April 28, 2020 by Elric Galad

[Frykas]

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

Probably you should check the change in the CP file ? Since the files are per ability, it is usually easy to find a particular change.

OOOH, I outdumbed myself, figured that with this much changes they made a single file for it or sth, thank you very much.

[Frykas]

Unfortunately, that doesn't work confounding blind's flanked still stops to stack with stunned -10 Deff debuff

[Boeroer]

Persistent Distraction is indeed a passive so that might explain why its deflection malus stacks with any other deflection malus in the first place (which normally - when looking at active effects that should not be the case). Persistent Distraction is one of the few passives that use afflictions - maybe it just slipped through the net. With other passives (for example Reflexive Mirror) they made sure it wouldn't stack with the same effect from actives (in case of Reflexive Mirror: it doesn't stack with Mirrored Images or other active deflection bonuses). 

Also Confounding Blind's deflection malus doesn't stack with the deflection malus from the Blind/Flanked effects since usually both are active affects (applied by actuve abilites).

Bring Low is a "passive" weapon effect (you don't trigger an ability from the action bar yourself) and those should stack with everything afaik.

Another example for obscure stacking rules. It's a lot better than in PoE but still not very clear.

 

Edited April 28, 2020 by Boeroer

[Frykas]

Thanks for the sum up Boeroer.

 I suppose at this point it would be easier to just remove the erroneous stacking of PD flanked with stunned, as suposedly that's not supposed to happen in the first place. Or maybe it can't be fixed because it's a passive. Ehh, not a good moment to be bordering on OCD. Thanks anyway guys!

[Boeroer]

I personally would remove the "flanked" effect from all PER afflictions. It's the only affliction-stack that includes two afflictions in one and thus immediately unlocks Deathblows. This would solve several problems. Not only the Persistent Distraction problem but also Streetfighter/Blunderbuss cheese, insta-unlock of Deathblows and so on. Flanked should be reserved for actual flanking and spells like Phantom Foes (where enemies indeed think they are flanked). 

If the PER-afflictions feel too weak after that simply raise their numbers. 

[Frykas]

I figured I might be able to fix this as there is a line in abilities.gamedatabundle: StackingRuleOverride. But I have no idea what a conditional there can be entered aside from Default that is used commonly. Any idea on what conditions can be entered there?

[Elric Galad]

18 minutes ago, Frykas said:

I figured I might be able to fix this as there is a line in abilities.gamedatabundle: StackingRuleOverride. But I have no idea what a conditional there can be entered aside from Default that is used commonly. Any idea on what conditions can be entered there?

What did they use for CP's Confounding Blind ?

[Frykas]

52 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

What did they use for CP's Confounding Blind ?

"GameDataObjects": [
		{
			"$type": "Game.GameData.WeaponAttackAbilityGameData, Assembly-CSharp",
			"DebugName": "Confounding_Blind",
			"ID": "a54896f9-19fe-4edc-9d56-45fa753fa1fa",
			"Components": [
				{
					"$type": "Game.GameData.GenericAbilityComponent, Assembly-CSharp",
					"ShowStatusEffects": "true"
				}
			]
		},
		{
			"$type": "Game.GameData.StatusEffectGameData, Assembly-CSharp",
			"DebugName": "Flanked_SE_Armor",
			"ID": "9ced31c6-345b-4dc7-954d-4032edf99dcc",
			"Components": [
				{
					"$type": "Game.GameData.StatusEffectComponent, Assembly-CSharp",
					"ApplicationBehavior": "StackWithAllSimilarDataEffects"
				}
			]
		},
		{
			"$type": "Game.GameData.StatusEffectGameData, Assembly-CSharp",
			"DebugName": "Flanked_SE_Deflection",
			"ID": "d7d4ee02-a23b-434c-bf14-5d3ca0195cf5",
			"Components": [
				{
					"$type": "Game.GameData.StatusEffectComponent, Assembly-CSharp",
					"ApplicationBehavior": "StackWithAllSimilarDataEffects"
				}
			]
		},
		{
			"$type": "Game.GameData.StatusEffectGameData, Assembly-CSharp",
			"DebugName": "Confounding_Blind_SE_Deflection",
			"ID": "b9362648-2d0d-4f57-b67b-a3be15d12f30",
			"Components": [
				{
					"$type": "Game.GameData.StatusEffectComponent, Assembly-CSharp",
					"StatusEffectType": "Deflection",
					"OverrideDescriptionString": -1,
					"OverrideDescriptionStringTactical": -1,
					"UseStatusEffectValueAs": "Child",
					"BaseValue": -2,
					"TriggerAdjustment": {
						"TriggerOnEvent": "OnDamaged",
						"TriggerOffEvent": "None",
						"ValidateWithAttackFilter": "false",
						"ParamValue": 0,
						"ValueAdjustment": -2,
						"DurationAdjustment": 0,
						"ResetTriggerOnEffectTimeout": "false",
						"MaxTriggerCount": 11,
						"IgnoreMaxTriggerCount": "false",
						"RemoveEffectAtMax": "false",
						"ChanceToTrigger": 1
					},
					"PowerLevelScaling": {
						"UseCharacterLevel": "false",
						"BaseLevel": 2,
						"LevelIncrement": 1,
						"MaxLevel": 0,
						"ValueAdjustment": 0,
						"DurationAdjustment": 0.75

Seems to me that they only changed the stacking of flanked_SE_deaflection and armor to stack with CB malus. 

I managed to fix the issue kind of, simply changing persistent distraction in abilities.gamedatabundle "IsPassive": to "false", it no longer stacks with stunned but it moves it to the left side of levelup screen so it's not ideal. I would prefer to allow for stacking with the stunned penalty because even if a bit op it deos make logical sense. But at this point it is becomig annoying so I'd settle for a clean fix that Def just goes down once by -10 and not up and down, that's just wrong.

EDIT: managed a cleaner one, setting StackingRuleOverride to "never" in abilities.gamedatabundle fixes the issue of stacking -10 Def from stunned and PD's flanked. Not as nice as having stacked flanked with stunned regardless of their source but as the issue goes, this can be considdered fix. If i figure out how to do that in a clean way, Ill post it here but now it's more of a vanity project. Any help is of course most welcome. Thank you all again!

Edited April 28, 2020 by Frykas

[Frykas]

Ok, after lot of trial and error, I have not solved this one but found what follows:

1. Changing Flanked_SE_deflection "ApplicationBehavior" parameter to: "StackWithAllSimilarEffects" doesn't work, possibly because it's overwritten by general rules of stacking (regarding passive and active effects)

2. Changing Confounding blind's "StackingRuleOverride" to "Always" does make it stack with -10 Def from stunned but that would make it stack also with eg. Arduous Delay of Motion extremaly increasing enemy recovery time and therefore cannot be considered a clean fix
Also, while testing, for the first time I've witnessed a decrease in enemy deflection in increments of -3 (Comunity Patch not installed). What happened was: with or without CP installed, after the initial -10 Def from flanked(blinded), to see a further change in Def I still had to hit the enemy 5/4 times (with/without CP), meaning that the malus didn't stack and had to be overcome as it always was. That only changed when the ability's stacking rules were overriden to allow for instant stack. Furthermore, with CP total decrese in Def only amouted to -24 Def as it simply overmatche deflection malus from flanked (CP changed the value and amouts of stacks of CB to be 12 stacks of -2, hence -24 total as it didn't stack with flanked, 49 Def dummy reduced to 25 Def and no further). Showing that CP's solution to CB issue was not actually solved.

3. Status Effect enties do not have a "StackingRuleOverride" entry point and adding one has no effect. I do not have in depth knowledge of Assemby-CSharp or entry points in Unity engine but testing showed no effect whatsoever. Unfortunately. That could mean that while you can change if the effect stacks with other passive efefcts or itself, there is now way of choosing a specific effect to stack with everything or another active effect except for making the whole ability (and all of it's components) stack with everything and that is very prone to being way OP.

That's it, for now it seems I've hit a brick wall, and seems I might just be easier to add another effect that kicks in when one is both flanked and stunned. This is indeed very frustrating.

Anyone that could critique my findings or testing results, or maybe propose some idea for solution would be most welcome. 

[Elric Galad]

22 minutes ago, Frykas said:

2. Changing Confounding blind's "StackingRuleOverride" to "Always" does make it stack with -10 Def from stunned but that would make it stack also with eg. Arduous Delay of Motion extremaly increasing enemy recovery time and therefore cannot be considered a clean fix

Also, while testing, for the first time I've witnessed a decrease in enemy deflection in increments of -3 (Comunity Patch not installed). What happened was: with or without CP installed, after the initial -10 Def from flanked(blinded), to see a further change in Def I still had to hit the enemy 5/4 times (with/without CP), meaning that the malus didn't stack and had to be overcome as it always was. That only changed when the ability's stacking rules were overriden to allow for instant stack. Furthermore, with CP total decrese in Def only amouted to -24 Def as it simply overmatche deflection malus from flanked (CP changed the value and amouts of stacks of CB to be 12 stacks of -2, hence -24 total as it didn't stack with flanked, 49 Def dummy reduced to 25 Def and no further). Showing that CP's solution to CB issue was not actually solved.

 

Do you mean that CP changes make confounding blind cap at -24 all included ? or do you mean the -24 penalty satcks with Flanked but not with other deflection maluses ? 

[Frykas]

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

Do you mean that CP changes make confounding blind cap at -24 all included ? or do you mean the -24 penalty satcks with Flanked but not with other deflection maluses ? 

Unfortunately, it makes CB cap at -24 all included. Testing was: dummy with native 49 Def after hitting over 20 times got reduced only to 25 Def meaning that total malus was -24 Def, He was flanked from blinded (CB) and then hit repeatedly. (had to use eder with bare fists and xoti cause my shadowdancer just mauled it to death too quick xD)

Edit: That was with only CP part that includes changes to CB meaning: cl.rogue.confounding_blind.gamedatabundle file. I am very surprised by this as they seem to know what they're doing but maybe it just wasn't tested.

Edited April 29, 2020 by Frykas

[Elric Galad]

49 minutes ago, Frykas said:

Unfortunately, it makes CB cap at -24 all included. Testing was: dummy with native 49 Def after hitting over 20 times got reduced only to 25 Def meaning that total malus was -24 Def, He was flanked from blinded (CB) and then hit repeatedly. (had to use eder with bare fists and xoti cause my shadowdancer just mauled it to death too quick xD)

Edit: That was with only CP part that includes changes to CB meaning: cl.rogue.confounding_blind.gamedatabundle file

Could go from -12 to -34 then. It would be closer from CP intention. Just require replacing -2 per -12 as base value.

The ability would be a bit better vs Perception immune, but that's a good mitigation I think.

It doesn't solve the issue of Persistent Distraction stacking.
Cleanest way would be to replace it by a clean Deflection malus, as it is done for Distracting Training. Sounds like a nerf but situationally better since stacking effects are precious. And Persistent Distraction is extremely strong passive anyway.

I think it's the only passive with an attribute affliction, apart Enervating Blows. But I guess Healing Reduced is rare and so is Enfeebled, so it is less a problem.

Edited April 29, 2020 by Elric Galad

[Frykas]

5 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

Could go from -12 to -34 then. It would be closer from CP intention. Just require replacing -2 per -12 as base value.

The ability would be a bit better vs Perception immune, but that's a good mitigation I think.

It doesn't solve the issue of Persistent Distraction stacking.
Cleanest way would be to replace it by a clean Deflection malus, as it is done for Distracting Training. Sounds like a nerf but situationally better since stacking effects are precious. And Persistent Distraction is extremely strong passive anyway.

I think it's the only passive with an attribute affliction, apart weakening strike. But I guess Healing Reduced is rare and so is Enfeebled, so it is less a problem.

As for fixing Persistant distraction stacking that is easy for deflection malus, just changing the ability's StackingRuleOverride to Never fixes the "jumping" def when stunned first stack with -10 from flanked (applied by PD) but then increases (as it doesn't stack with -10 from stunned) when enemy is flanked from blinded or disoriented (any other acrive ability that causes flanked). But that causes the AR malus from persistant distraction to also not stack with anything else (eg. body attunement)-that last part I assume as I have not tested this one yet (have been focused on Def for now)

If we assume that -10 Def malus from stunned should stack with -10 Def from flanked (it makes logical sense to me as those are tacticaly diffrent effects, being attacked from both sides while being stunned should really make it difficult for you to defend yourself) that makes it much more difficult to make it work. As I have found no way to force a single effect to ignore the rules of stacking that apply to the ability (no matter if it's passive or active) that causes that effect. 

Now as Distracting Training is a passive (right side of leveling screen) ability, it's effect will surely stack with everything, but Flanked has the problem of being aplied both by active and one passive ability hence the "jumping" of stacking and not stacking depending on which ability (passive or active) aplied flanked. 

[Elric Galad]

14 minutes ago, Frykas said:

As for fixing Persistant distraction stacking that is easy for deflection malus, just changing the ability's StackingRuleOverride to Never fixes the "jumping" def when stunned first stack with -10 from flanked (applied by PD) but then increases (as it doesn't stack with -10 from stunned) when enemy is flanked from blinded or disoriented (any other acrive ability that causes flanked). But that causes the AR malus from persistant distraction to also not stack with anything else (eg. body attunement)-that last part I assume as I have not tested this one yet (have been focused on Def for now)

If we assume that -10 Def malus from stunned should stack with -10 Def from flanked (it makes logical sense to me as those are tacticaly diffrent effects, being attacked from both sides while being stunned should really make it difficult for you to defend yourself) that makes it much more difficult to make it work. As I have found no way to force a single effect to ignore the rules of stacking that apply to the ability (no matter if it's passive or active) that causes that effect. 

Well, I wouldn't go that far. Flanked did stack with everything in PoE1 for some reasons (it was the only status to do so), but I think it's may be complicated to do for PoE2.

Flanked should either always stack or never stack IMHO. I don't really care about which one.
 

Quote

Now as Distracting Training is a passive (right side of leveling screen) ability, it's effect will surely stack with everything, but Flanked has the problem of being aplied both by active and one passive ability hence the "jumping" of stacking and not stacking depending on which ability (passive or active) aplied flanked. 

Yes, I know, but is there any other Passive Ability that apply Flanked ? Or is an "actual Flanking" is considered as a passive source of flanking ?

If Persistent Distraction is the only exception, I would tend to remove flanking from it to clarify the rules.

I guess it might not be what you want. There are plenty of case of "different causes" that do not stack.

Edited April 29, 2020 by Elric Galad

[Frykas]

Sorry for the confusion, but this is becomig a long topic with lots of fluctuation due to more and more testing and my understanding of how stacking works in code slowly increasing. 

I absolutely agree that flanked should either stack with everything or not at all. As I said couple posts before, to stop the stacking altogether is easy by just setting stackingruleoverride to never.

What is now an issue for me (found while testing how to make flanked stack with everything, what I called a vanity project) is that there seems to either be something wrong that I'm doing or something doesn't make sense. That's because changing "AplicationBehaviour" (that's effects file not abilities, diffrent types of entiries there) to StackWithAllSimilarEffects seems to have no effect (and therfore reason for existance) on how the effect stacks, insted that is decided by rules od passive/active ability stacking, that can be altered at the level of "ability entry" not the "effect entry" that is aplied by that ability. I have no idea why that is or why is this conditional even in place if that's the case.

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, Frykas said:

Sorry for the confusion, but this is becomig a long topic with lots of fluctuation due to more and more testing and my understanding of how stacking works in code slowly increasing. 

I absolutely agree that flanked should either stack with everything or not at all. As I said couple posts before, to stop the stacking altogether is easy by just setting stackingruleoverride to never.

What is now an issue for me (found while testing how to make flanked stack with everything, what I called a vanity project) is that there seems to either be something wrong that I'm doing or something doesn't make sense. That's because changing "AplicationBehaviour" (that's effects file not abilities, diffrent types of entiries there) to StackWithAllSimilarEffects seems to have no effect (and therfore reason for existance) on how the effect stacks, insted that is decided by rules od passive/active ability stacking, that can be altered at the level of "ability entry" not the "effect entry" that is aplied by that ability. I have no idea why that is or why is this conditional even in place if that's the case.

There are some dead code in the GamData files, such as the "CanGraze" parameter which is always false but means nothing since all abilities can graze.

So StackingRuleOverride should be set to Never for Flanked, and probably setting Confounding Blind to -12 to -34 as I said will finally make it as planned in CP.

That's the 2 changes I would keep in mind, I think for my own modding.

[Frykas]

32 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

There are some dead code in the GamData files, such as the "CanGraze" parameter which is always false but means nothing since all abilities can graze.

So StackingRuleOverride should be set to Never for Flanked, and probably setting Confounding Blind to -12 to -34 as I said will finally make it as planned in CP.

That's the 2 changes I would keep in mind, I think for my own modding.

That's good to know about the dead code. Puts things in perspective. 

Setting flanked to never stack I agree but about confounding blind both it's initial value (it turned out it actually stacked 11x -3 caping at -33 Def) and CP rework (suposed to stack with flanked -10 and then add 12x -2 to give -34 Def total) was at around -33 so now im thinking maybe 5x -6 (or -7), as when dual wielding, both CB attacks from full attack already aply the additional malus, this way we do get something more at when it is aplied but not that much, then quite fast but not in just next full attack (if it hits) we get the full potential of CB. And as it doesn't stack with the only only Def malus (from stuned) it can only be lowered further with -10 to all defences hostile effect.

Would you concider that balanced? (question mostly to you Elric Galad, as I am greateful you took some interest here, but also to anyone who might stumble here)

[Elric Galad]

2 minutes ago, Frykas said:

That's good to know about the dead code. Puts things in perspective. 

Setting flanked to never stack I agree but about confounding blind both it's initial value (it turned out it actually stacked 11x -3 caping at -33 Def) and CP rework (suposed to stack with flanked -10 and then add 12x -2 to give -34 Def total) was at around -33 so now im thinking maybe 5x -6 (or -7), as when dual wielding, both CB attacks from full attack already aply the additional malus, this way we do get something more at when it is aplied but not that much, then quite fast but not in just next full attack (if it hits) we get the full potential of CB. And as it doesn't stack with the only only Def malus (from stuned) it can only be lowered further with -10 to all defences hostile effect.

Would you concider that balanced? (question mostly to you Elric Galad, as I am greateful you took some interest here, but also to anyone who might stumble here)

5 x -6/-7 would be fine. It's a power increase, sure, but I would not consider it especially OP.

if - all defenses is used, it becomes something like -5x6 all defense plus -10 deflection for a total of -30 to all defenses and -40 to deflection. That sounds potentially a bit too much. - all defense worths about twice more than - deflection. I think something like -20 all defenses cap would be enough (-2 x 10 for example) and even a bit strong.