Balance Polishing Mod Release 1.0

[Not So Clever Hound]

27 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

Ok, I will let it be.

I should try to stop my modditisis anyway.

Well it's just one dude's opinion so let's see what others have to say.

And as very bad team-building / performance improvement consultants tend to say, "never apologize for being a driven, purposeful over-achiever".

[Not So Clever Hound]

@Elric Galad the Familiar passive bonuses for the Conjurer when they use Conjure Familiar don't seem to appear at all in BPM but they do work in CP.

[Elric Galad]

55 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

@Elric Galad the Familiar passive bonuses for the Conjurer when they use Conjure Familiar don't seem to appear at all in BPM but they do work in CP.

Are you sure it doesn't even work for the first summoned familiar ? Each Familiar beyond the first purges prior Familiar buffs.

I had tested it. But I could check anyway.

Anyone else has this issue ? On this particular function, what I fear the most is a non deterministic behavior.

Edited January 7, 2022 by Elric Galad

[Not So Clever Hound]

27 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

Are you sure it doesn't even work for the first summoned familiar ? Each Familiar beyond the first purges prior Familiar buffs.

Yes I'm sure, I tested it several times with and without BPM enabled. I do get the 3 bonuses and the buff line appear in the Char sheet without BPM, but nothing shows up with BPM.

Thanks-

[Elric Galad]

2 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

Yes I'm sure, I tested it several times with and without BPM enabled. I do get the 3 bonuses and the buff line appear in the Char sheet without BPM, but nothing shows up with BPM.

Thanks-

Mmm

Now that I'm thinking. The purge functionnality was based on the fact that the purge happens BEFORE the new familiar is summoned.

Since then I tweaked casting/recovery time. Maybe this affected synchronisation of both effects.

[Not So Clever Hound]

Thanks to this I realized that the Non BPM version can stack all effects together which I didn't know.

My Blood Mage permastole Conjure Familiar from a Conjurer and activated all the buffs - pretty cool, because they are passives!

Everytime we take a closer look at Wizard, we find something to make it more awesome .

Edited January 7, 2022 by Not So Clever Hound

[Elric Galad]

On 1/6/2022 at 7:57 PM, Not So Clever Hound said:

Well it's just one dude's opinion so let's see what others have to say.

And as very bad team-building / performance improvement consultants tend to say, "never apologize for being a driven, purposeful over-achiever".

Well, the issue there is that I've identified that there is no satisfying solution.

And a deep rework of a working ability is a bit bad.

Which is why I was so easy to convince.

11 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

Thanks to this I realized that the Non BPM version can stack all effects together which I didn't know.

My Blood Mage permastole Conjure Familiar from a Conjurer and activated all the buffs - pretty cool, because they are passives!

Everytime we take a closer look at Wizard, we find something to make it more awesome .

Yeah, unfortunately, the bug is not reproductible.

Which is a rare an annoying problem.

What can I ask ? Do you play TB ? Something specific that could affect synchronization of effects resolution.

 

By the way, I slightly buffed "Reny Daret's Ghost Spake, "I'll Catch you, Ben Fidel" to 20s. Same for the upgrade. The effects were good (especially on a Skald) but I felt it wasn't that great in comparison to the other Chanter (Hard) CC.

[Elric Galad]

On 1/7/2022 at 10:00 AM, Not So Clever Hound said:

Yes I'm sure, I tested it several times with and without BPM enabled. I do get the 3 bonuses and the buff line appear in the Char sheet without BPM, but nothing shows up with BPM.

Thanks-

cl.wizard.persisting_familiar_glitch.gamedatabundle

SInce the bug isn't on my station, I fear I have to ask you to test this correction yourself (it is a BPM nerf component).

I hope it works. I delayed the familiar summon half a second to make sure the purge effect takes place before the new familiar exists.

Edited January 8, 2022 by Elric Galad

[Not So Clever Hound]

10 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

What can I ask ? Do you play TB ? Something specific that could affect synchronization of effects resolution.

Thanks Elric. No I play RTwP, I have the latest CP version, your latest BPM. Oh well.

13 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

I hope it works. I delayed the familiar summon half a second to make sure the purge effect takes place before the new familiar exists.

Unfortunately the file you sent isn't a .gamedatabundle extension but a weird file (639AF25D15C52419DBC4EBD26CFEACE5 File) - as the last time when you had sent me the Screaming Souls fix... so nothing happens when I place it in override\BalancePolishingModNerfs\design\gamedata.

If you don't get the bug on your end... maybe someone else could infirm/confirm the bug on their end before you put more efforts into this? Maybe for some reason it's just my game, dunno.

[Not So Clever Hound]

10 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Yeah, unfortunately, the bug is not reproductible.

While doing more testing about the bug I noticed something else: not only am I not getting the buffs but when I keep casting the spell over and over, I end up with an army of familiars. One cast does not replace the other. And of course I can have a summon on top.

[Elric Galad]

26 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

While doing more testing about the bug I noticed something else: not only am I not getting the buffs but when I keep casting the spell over and over, I end up with an army of familiars. One cast does not replace the other. And of course I can have a summon on top.

This is intended. But they have super bad stats.

I think the zipped version is more robust.

cl.wizard.persisting_familiar_glitch.gamedatabundle.zip

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

If you don't get the bug on your end... maybe someone else could infirm/confirm the bug on their end before you put more efforts into this? Maybe for some reason it's just my game, dunno.

So to explain,

The modded Summon Familiar does 2 things :

1) Applies a self status that purge all preexisting familiar buffs to Conjurer

2) Summon a familiar

 

There is no delay between the 2. So it works only if 1) applies first.

During my testing 1) always applied first. Systematically.

So I though "hey cool, something that works on the first try. I have no clue why but it works"

 

But in your case, it seems that 2) applies first and 1) purges the newly summoned familiar bonus.

But I have no idea why it works like this in your case.

 

What I did now is to introduce a slight delay (0,5s) between 1) and 2).

So 1) should always applies first, and the result should be predictable, and this time I will know why.

[Not So Clever Hound]

7 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

What I did now is to introduce a slight delay (0,5s) between 1) and 2).

So 1) should always applies first, and the result should be predictable, and this time I will know why.

It did work! Thanks for the fix and the explanation Elric. You rock.

[Elric Galad]

3 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

It did work! Thanks for the fix and the explanation Elric. You rock.

Thanks, it's nice to be able to correct a bug that you can't even reproduce.

 

By the way, Clear Out is really a degenerate ability. 

1) You get an initial attack.

2) Then you get a second roll per target (including the first) just to determine if you can actually perform an attack (this roll push and interrupt)

3) You get an extra attack if succeeded second roll.

This means that all missed target of roll 2) won't be attacked, and you need to succeed roll 2) and 3) to actually do the damages + debuff from the weapon (initial target might be covered by roll 1) though). At least the Push/Interrupt only requires roll 2).

 

Clear the Path has its own implementation and, as far as I get, you won't get the AoE if you fail roll 1)

 

This is the reason why I got the feeling that this ability failed so often. Sure fighters have decent Accuracy, but these rolls are vs Fortitude so the chances to miss aren't that low on many targets.

 

I get the impression that they use "gamedata tricks" to make the ability looks OK instead of adding the couple of hardcode lines that would have made the whole thing clean.

And now I'm here scracthing my head thinking how to make things clean with the tools I have.

Edited January 8, 2022 by Elric Galad

[Not So Clever Hound]

12 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

This is the reason why I got the feeling that this ability failed so often. Sure fighters have decent Accuracy, but these rolls are vs Fortitude so the chances to miss aren't that low on many targets.

Thanks for the explanation, that explains some weird resolutions I've seen with Clear Out.

The fact there are so many rolls creates nice interactions with other abilities but indeed it seems broken. That said, it also interacts really nicely with your implementation of Break the Bell, and of course Body Blows (especially Willbreaker's Miss-to-Graze but Saru Sichr is great too), Sanguine Blade too, of course WotEP, Spirit Lance, Assassinate and other ACC buffs...

Don't get me wrong I agree it would be better if it was cleaner, but I'm ok with the idea that you have to work a bit to make great use of it given this is the only weapon AoE ability that you can get as multiclass, before Tier8. I don't know if it needs to be more powerful.

[Elric Galad]

10 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

Thanks for the explanation, that explains some weird resolutions I've seen with Clear Out.

The fact there are so many rolls creates nice interactions with other abilities but indeed it seems broken. That said, it also interacts really nicely with your implementation of Break the Bell, and of course Body Blows (especially Willbreaker's Miss-to-Graze but Saru Sichr is great too), Sanguine Blade too, of course WotEP, Spirit Lance, Assassinate and other ACC buffs...

Don't get me wrong I agree it would be better if it was cleaner, but I'm ok with the idea that you have to work a bit to make great use of it given this is the only weapon AoE ability that you can get as multiclass, before Tier8. I don't know if it needs to be more powerful.

Clear Out would be perfect if :

- It didn't have an extra attack vs main target

- It didn't need an extra roll to hit extra target

- AoE was displayed.

 

I think these are all rather reasonable and balanced requests. And also super straightforward.

But can't even be modded.

 

Higher Tier ones (Heart of Fury, Whirling Strikes, WotW) get their weird double scaling (that by the way can't be corrected easily either) and are Full attacks.

 

It seems every ability that triggers weapon attack esp with AoE is implemented in its own way with its own glitches.

Have you ever tried Heart Seeker with a blunderbuss  (and this ability is the cleanest) ? I'm not even sure what it does.

Video game industry is such an unforgiving far west for devs...

Edited January 8, 2022 by Elric Galad

[Avaritica]

11 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Higher Tier ones (Heart of Fury, Whirling Strikes, WotW) get their weird double scaling (that by the way can't be corrected easily either) and are Full attacks.

You can just disable power scaling. That way they will scale only to weapon.

Quote

 

Clear Out would be perfect if :

- It didn't have an extra attack vs main target

- It didn't need an extra roll to hit extra target

- AoE was displayed.

I think these are all rather reasonable and balanced requests. And also super straightforward.

But can't even be modded.

 

Maybe try to implement it like Whirling Strike ? That way , it will

- no extra attack vs main target

-Nothing can be done about this

- AOE will be displayed.

Edited January 9, 2022 by Avaritica

[Elric Galad]

5 hours ago, Avaritica said:

You can just disable power scaling. That way they will scale only to weapon.

This can't be done easily. You can only leave it as it is or remove completely all power scaling. Ediiting Gamedata files have some subtle limits and I'm facing one here. But I want their damages to scale with power level, this is legit. Also, Heart of Fury and WIldstrike don't really require a nerf, they are rather expensive abilities, so...

5 hours ago, Avaritica said:

Maybe try to implement it like Whirling Strike ? That way , it will

- no extra attack vs main target

-Nothing can be done about this

- AOE will be displayed.

It can't be done. Clear Out belongs to a class of objects called WeaponAttackAbility. HoF is a GenericAbility. This is not a simple parameter. 

And even in this case, there will be the scaling PEN and Acc issue.

 

The issue is not to find design proposal, the issue is to cope with the various constraints of the gamedata files.

 

The extra roll required to hit secondary target can be fixed quite easily, though.

 

But guess what : for Clear the Path only, the AoE is triggered only if the first hit to initial target gets a Graze / Hit / Crit. This isn't true for Clear Out and Clean Sweep...

Edited January 9, 2022 by Elric Galad

[Avaritica]

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

This can't be done easily. You can only leave it as it is or remove completely all power scaling. Ediiting Gamedata files have some subtle limits and I'm facing one here. But I want their damages to scale with power level, this is legit. Also, Heart of Fury and WIldstrike don't really require a nerf, they are rather expensive abilities, so...

Well, what I meant was to remove all power scaling. Heart of fury and WotW are just weapon attack implemented using statuseffect. Removing PL only serve to remove double scaling. They still perform fullattack with damage/acc/pen of the equipped weapon. So unless you want +5% damage per PL on your "FullAttack"(but not pen and acc ?), removing power level have no downside.

For Whirling Strike, you can argue that DoT will suffer if no PL scaling. But it is already an Lv-8 ability so scaling won't make a huge difference.

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

It can't be done. Clear Out belongs to a class of objects called WeaponAttackAbility. HoF is a GenericAbility. This is not a simple parameter.

It can be done. You can change "Clear out" to GenericAbility and edited affected components in attackdata(attack animation, cast speed, recovery etc). There is no issue with scaling. It will scales like WotW, whirling strike, HoF etc.

In fact, I modded mine that way because I feel it is more "clean" and intuitive .

^ Clear out with visible AOE

The only downsides are that since it is now an "active ability", recovery speed is fixed instead of depending on weapon and that initial "fortitude" attack to push and interrupt doesn't benefit from weapon scaling(since you are not using weapon at that instance)

Edited January 9, 2022 by Avaritica

[Elric Galad]

22 hours ago, Avaritica said:

Well, what I meant was to remove all power scaling. Heart of fury and WotW are just weapon attack implemented using statuseffect. Removing PL only serve to remove double scaling. They still perform fullattack with damage/acc/pen of the equipped weapon. So unless you want +5% damage per PL on your "FullAttack"(but not pen and acc ?), removing power level have no downside.

For Whirling Strike, you can argue that DoT will suffer if no PL scaling. But it is already an Lv-8 ability so scaling won't make a huge difference.

It can be done. You can change "Clear out" to GenericAbility and edited affected components in attackdata(attack animation, cast speed, recovery etc). There is no issue with scaling. It will scales like WotW, whirling strike, HoF etc.

In fact, I modded mine that way because I feel it is more "clean" and intuitive .

^ Clear out with visible AOE

The only downsides are that since it is now an "active ability", recovery speed is fixed instead of depending on weapon and that initial "fortitude" attack to push and interrupt doesn't benefit from weapon scaling(since you are not using weapon at that instance)

Thank you for your sharing.

The mere knowledge that you can mod an ability type is worthy.

 

Now the issue is it would be impossible to make the actual weapon attack roll Vs fortitude.

One can either make an additional roll Vs fortitude as you did (that I want to avoid) or make a normal attack vs deflection and a parallel roll Vs fortitude for the interruption an push.

This would be an issue for builds that specifically debuff Fortitude (Morningstar mostly).

 

Now don't get me wrong your solution is great especially because of the AoE display. I could even say that it is better.

But BPM objective is to remain close to the original.

So I can't use this one.

 

I went with the following changes :

- changed the AoE hit to auto hit. So you only get the weapon attack roll for secondary attacks.

- applied -25% damages. This reduces a bit damages Vs single target (since Clear Out shall not be a Single Target damages dealing attack). Vs other targets, the elimination of misses to the first fortitude roll does compensate.

- Clear the Path push distance rised to 6m to compensate for the risk of initial roll missing. This would be the "more specialised upgrade" of the 2.

[Avaritica]

4 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

- changed the AoE hit to auto hit. So you only get the weapon attack roll for secondary attacks.

That will make the interrupt a "guarantee ". Isn't that too strong ?

[Elric Galad]

3 minutes ago, Avaritica said:

That will make the interrupt a "guarantee ". Isn't that too strong ?

Indeed.

That's why I removed the Interrupt (and the push) from it 

Only the Weapon attacks carry the Push and Interrupt effect now (it is redundant between the AoE and weapon attack in the unmodded game).

Edited January 10, 2022 by Elric Galad

[Avaritica]

10 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

Indeed.

That's why I removed the Interrupt (and the push) from it 

Only the Weapon attacks carry the Push and Interrupt effect now (it is redundant between the AoE and weapon attack in the unmodded game).

Wait! How did you do that ?

Secondary AOE targets are attacked by using statuseffect with attackoverride where you can't assign push/interrupt value.

I know for main target, push/interrupt is applied twice but how about those AOE targets ?

[Elric Galad]

1 minute ago, Avaritica said:

Wait! How did you do that ?

Secondary AOE targets are attacked by using statuseffect with attackoverride where you can't assign push/interrupt value.

I know for main target, push/interrupt is applied twice but how about those AOE targets ?

The funny thing is that for ability that are Weapon Attacks (such as Clear Out), the additional attacks use the properties of the initial attack.

So you can have the secondary attacks also target Fortitude, Push, Interrupt (and have -25% damages). It isn't even tedious to implement.

I'm not even sure the devs knew it. That would explain the weird implementation.

[Elric Galad]

Now I have a small doubt : maybe the Auto-Hit attack AoE also carries the property of the initial attack. It isn't even displayed in the logs, so maybe no.

False alert

(I remember Power Strike raw damages cones does benefit from power Strike +200% damages, so I had a doubt.)

Don't hesitate to experiment a bit yourself

Edited January 10, 2022 by Elric Galad