Balance Discussion

[Sensuki]

Probably a bug

[ushas]

I really enjoy how everything this game tells you is a lie.  Is Superb Plate really the cheapest Superb armor?  

 

Sorry for misleading. I actually cannot summon Superb armors by AddItem. So there are done some interpolations, namely all the prices of superb items. Now you mentioning, wasn't there actually info that the Superb Plate Armor wouldn't be in game at all?... Or I may mistake it with something.

 

 

My guess is that the Exceptional Plate can cost 800cp instead of 600cp (as it's now in game)...

Edited March 18, 2015 by ushas

[Sensuki]

There are no superb armors by default, you have to enchant it or find a unique that has that property.

 

GOOD NEWS FOR 1H STYLE

 

I can look at 1H again but,

 

The 1H Talent is now a 30% convert and, practically speaking, a Graze > Hit usually winds up being more than a 50% increase in damage done unless the target has low DR.

 

Some of the QA guys specifically do "conversion" builds, but I don't really want that to be the entire basis of a viable weapon style.

Edited March 18, 2015 by Sensuki

[aeonsim]

Ok so maybe I'm making a mistake somewhere with my logic but I'm getting a different conclusion for the use of Penetrating Shot with the Hunting and War bow.

 

Assumptions:

I'm using average damage per shot (half way point between min & max)

No Might/DMG/Dex modifiers

Frames per attack + recovery from roguelikes previous graph (HB 90, WB 135), and assuming 30fps for animations

20% Penalty for Penetrating Shot (so frames HB = 90*1.2=108, WB=162)

The minimum damage that can be dealt is 20% of the attack.

 

If I do that I get the following graph of average DPS:

 

Which shows with out penetrating shot:

That when enemy DR is less than 8 the Hunting bow is better than the Warbow.

The Warbow is slightly better when enemy Damage resistance is between 8-13.

For Damage resistance >13 the Hunting bow is slightly better with a higher DPS of ~0.2.

 

Once Penetrating shot is enabled:

The Warbow is only better than the hunting bow at between DR 14-17.

Penetrating shot is worse than the normal attacks when enemy DR is less than 3.

Penetrating shot is better for both weapons for enemy DR's from 3-17 or so then it is worse.

 

This seems to disagree with the previous conclusion that penetrating shot is always worse, in general it seems Hunting bows are slightly better than WB's except against higher DR enemies, and once enemy DR gets over 3 it is generally better to have Penetrating shot enabled.

 

Secondly as the DMG modifiers increase Penetrating shot becomes less useful as less time is spent at minimum damage, while as damage modifiers decreases it's importance increases as more time is spent at min damage.

 

So if this is wrong where am I making a mistake in my assumptions?

 

Edited March 18, 2015 by aeonsim

[Sensuki]

I *think* Roguelike may have had some incorrect info, but I'm not sure. I've found that Penetrating Shot is always useful simply because if the enemy has 5+ DR, it's a flat +5 damage nearly every time, YMMV.

Edited March 18, 2015 by Sensuki

[Sensuki]

flames of devotion: now 2/enc, less damage, melee & ranged. bleak walker arquebusier: still powerful, less insane #pillarsofeternity #murder

overall Deflection bonuses and corresponding Accuracy penalties for larger shields have been reduced.

Edited March 18, 2015 by Sensuki

[aeonsim]

I *think* Roguelike may have had some incorrect info, but I'm not sure. I've found that Penetrating Shot is always useful simply because if the enemy has 5+ DR, it's a flat +5 damage nearly every time, YMMV.

 

Yeah that was my conclusion as well and what I didn't understand about Roguelikes previous post as long as the DR reduction increases the damage by greater than 20% it's always better.

 

I was slightly surprised to see though that as the overall damage gets higher Penetrating shot becomes less useful (though it does make some sense).

[Bazy]

 

 

overall Deflection bonuses and corresponding Accuracy penalties for larger shields have been reduced.

I'm assuming this was to make shields feel not so necessary and not so punishing. But doesn't this just mean tanks take more damage now and do slightly more dps?

[Sensuki]

That's a nerf to all shields I think, I'm not sure if that was a good idea. We'll see how it goes.

Edited March 18, 2015 by Sensuki

[IndiraLightfoot]

Roguelike: I'm addicted to your graphs now. Thx!

[roguelike]

Ok so maybe I'm making a mistake somewhere with my logic but I'm getting a different conclusion for the use of Penetrating Shot with the Hunting and War bow.

...

 

Hmm, what are you using for a damage formula?  I'm not sure if it makes up for the whole discrepancy, but if you aren't compensating for grazes, you might be undervaluing the hunting bow slightly for some of those midrange DRs because both the hunting bow and the warbow grazes will be doing min damage, but the hunting bow will be attacking faster.

 

I think my damage formula is along the lines of .35([average graze damage] - DR) + .5([average hit damage] - DR), just assuming acc-def = 0

 

EDIT:  Also those charts were made when I thought DEX didn't influence reload speed, so ignore the small gains that they're getting from 20 dex, it should actually be huge.

Edited March 18, 2015 by roguelike

[Luckmann]

For these (truly excellent, excellent) graphs, could you get into the habit of marking down the version info?

 

Because as things change (maybe due to the graphs, after all) this could really, really confuse new people that'll show up just around release or that isn't keeping up with the thread(s).

 

I really enjoy how everything this game tells you is a lie. Is Superb Plate really the cheapest Superb armor?

I think that they felt that there'd been too many games these past decades that were clear on what was going on under the hood and said "Eh, **** it." Who needs transparency?

 

 

And people complain about THAC0 and the IE rules. At least you could trust what it told you.

 

 

There are no superb armors by default, you have to enchant it or find a unique that has that property.

 

GOOD NEWS FOR 1H STYLE

 

I can look at 1H again but,

 

The 1H Talent is now a 30% convert and, practically speaking, a Graze > Hit usually winds up being more than a 50% increase in damage done unless the target has low DR.

 

Some of the QA guys specifically do "conversion" builds, but I don't really want that to be the entire basis of a viable weapon style.

 

Eh, 20%->30% won't really change that much, I imagine. Also, it doesn't even address the fact that duelist style (not the Talent specifically) is still majorly underperforming compared to the alternatives.

 

Even if the change from 20% to 30% would make it viable compared to dual-wielding or two-handers once you get the talent, which I sincerely doubt, you'll be objectively better off not doing it at all until you get the talent.

 

And I love that he says "I don't really want that [conversion of Miss-to-Hit/Graze-to-Hit/Hit-to-Crit] to be the entire basis of a viable weapon style [duelist]", just to confirm that he hasn't seen any of the suggestions on the forum discussing alternative buffs or changes to the duelist style or the concerned Talent.

 

 

But I'm sure the echo chamber is satisfied.

 

Edited March 18, 2015 by Luckmann

[Odd Hermit]

I kind of wonder how Cipher's Biting Whip factors into the War vs. Hunting Bow situation. I have an Island Aumaua cipher build that uses 2 guns then switches to Hunting Bow. I'm not using Penetrating Shot and the damage still seems pretty decent even on higher DR stuff. I've got 21 might on the character though.

[aeonsim]

Hmm, what are you using for a damage formula?  I'm not sure if it makes up for the whole discrepancy, but if you aren't compensating for grazes, you might be undervaluing the hunting bow slightly for some of those midrange DRs because both the hunting bow and the warbow grazes will be doing min damage, but the hunting bow will be attacking faster.

 

I think my damage formula is along the lines of .35([average graze damage] - DR) + .5([average hit damage] - DR), just assuming acc-def = 0

 

EDIT:  Also those charts were made when I thought DEX didn't influence reload speed, so ignore the small gains that they're getting from 20 dex, it should actually be huge.

 

 

Halving the damage (graze) actually improves penetrating shot because PS increases the amount of time for which DR is ignored. I've no idea what your trying to do with that formula if you want to calculate the actual average damage over 100 attacks then it becomes (((15*0x)+(35*0.5x)+(50*1x))/100) or 67.5x where x is average damage. This just lowers the actual damage and thus makes penetrating shot even better (assuming ACC - DEF = 0).

 

 

I kind of wonder how Cipher's Biting Whip factors into the War vs. Hunting Bow situation. I have an Island Aumaua cipher build that uses 2 guns then switches to Hunting Bow. I'm not using Penetrating Shot and the damage still seems pretty decent even on higher DR stuff. I've got 21 might on the character though.

 

Conversely after increasing the damage by 300% penetrating shot becomes less and less useful as what is happening there is that the decrease rate of attack has a much bigger impact when each attack does more damage. The Biting whips 1.2x (stacking with might etc) has little overall effect on the conclusion it just increases the total damage and slightly shifts the enemy DR at which PS + the HB or WB becomes better than just the weapon by them selves.

[Veevoir]

It's hard to show changes like that nicely on a chart.  Just to pick an arbitrary point, most weapons need about a 50% damage increase to do the same damage as an arquebus against enemies with 8 DR.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A more useful graph might be the number of times that DR gets applied in a given period (basically the inverse of attack speed), which is roughly how quickly a weapon goes from being 'good' to 'bad' as DR increases.  Blunderbusses have an increidbly sharp dropoff since they fire 8 projectiles, hunting bows attack 4 times for every 1 time that an arquebus so they fall off quickly too.  Everything else falls into this mediocre middle ground where they have fairly sharp decline as DR increases but not enough damage to deal decent damage to low DR enemies.

I'm a bit lost with this chart.. Why does hunting bow require less +dmg to be competitive than War Bow? I thought it is pretty established that big dmg + slower is more viable than fast and weak.

And the speed difference between those bows is 1 tick.

Except for pistols of course, because they suck compared to other firearms competition.

Edited March 18, 2015 by Veevoir

[aeonsim]

Here is a version showing the Pistol as well:

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's hard to show changes like that nicely on a chart.  Just to pick an arbitrary point, most weapons need about a 50% damage increase to do the same damage as an arquebus against enemies with 8 DR.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A more useful graph might be the number of times that DR gets applied in a given period (basically the inverse of attack speed), which is roughly how quickly a weapon goes from being 'good' to 'bad' as DR increases.  Blunderbusses have an increidbly sharp dropoff since they fire 8 projectiles, hunting bows attack 4 times for every 1 time that an arquebus so they fall off quickly too.  Everything else falls into this mediocre middle ground where they have fairly sharp decline as DR increases but not enough damage to deal decent damage to low DR enemies.

I'm a bit lost with this chart.. Why does hunting bow require less +dmg to be competitive than War Bow? I thought it is pretty established that big dmg + slower is more viable than fast and weak.

And the speed difference between those bows is 1 tick.

Except for pistols of course, because they suck compared to other firearms competition.

 

 

Pistols are better than the Bows for moderately (DR 8+) enemies, though weaker against lightly armoured enemies.

Edited March 18, 2015 by aeonsim

[Sensuki]

War Bows definitely need a bump. You can probably partially blame me for that as I did a 6 War Bow video in v392, and it got nerfed after that

[aeonsim]

War Bows definitely need a bump. You can probably partially blame me for that as I did a 6 War Bow video in v392, and it got nerfed after that

Yeah war bows need either a couple of points extra damage or a shorter recover period.

[Sensuki]

Extra damage IMO.

[Veevoir]

So basically the chart I quoted is weirdly true - both bow are with damage low enough that hunting bow wins by sheer virtue of speed?

On another note - interesting that penetrating shot for pistol is more of a hindrance than gain - at least at the cost of a precious talent. Seems like gunner would be a much better choice here.
I'd love to see some charts on influence of gunner on ranged dps. This talent seems like something worth taking (especially for firearms) but hard to put a finger on it.

Edited March 18, 2015 by Veevoir

[aeonsim]

So basically the chart I quoted is weirdly true - both bow are with damage low enough that hunting bow wins by sheer virtue of speed?

 

On another note - interesting that penetrating shot for pistol is more of a hindrance than gain - at least at the cost of a precious talent. Seems like gunner would be a much better choice here.

I'd love to see some charts on influence of gunner on ranged dps. This talent seems like something worth taking (especially for firearms) but hard to put a finger on it.

It's useful for high DR enemies, the version above is a bit of an approximate seeing I was applying the speed penalty to shot time, recovery time and reload time, when I think it ay only be supposed to effect shot and recovery. Either way once DR is greater than 8-10 (depending on exact model used) Penetrating shot provides an advantage.

 

If gunner just reduces the reload time by half it provides about a 30% boost the DPS for the Pistol.

[Veevoir]

Unfortunately it is just x1.2 reload speed, so 20% faster. So it is about 12-15% mroe DPS for pistol.

I'm more interested in other weapons though - it would seem that gunner, being a % speed upgrade should favor faster weapons which in turn reload more often.

Can a bow or crossbow be turned into a machingun  by using Gunner and 20 dex? - The Munchkin within me needs to know.

[roguelike]

 

Halving the damage (graze) actually improves penetrating shot because PS increases the amount of time for which DR is ignored. I've no idea what your trying to do with that formula if you want to calculate the actual average damage over 100 attacks then it becomes (((15*0x)+(35*0.5x)+(50*1x))/100) or 67.5x where x is average damage. This just lowers the actual damage and thus makes penetrating shot even better (assuming ACC - DEF = 0). 

 

I don't think you can pull 'x' out like that since grazes get full damage penetration, are fully subtracted from DR, and benefit from min damage.

 

Anyway, I have long explanation why that matters, but I'm not actually sure what we disagree about.  I think we both agree that there are some values where war bows do more damage (though, compensating for graze damage is probably going to make that range narrower on my chart than yours).  

 

I think the the main points to take away from that graph is that arquebuses and blunderbusses are the dominant ranged weapons, do we agree on that at least?

[Sensuki]

I have the correct attack speed formulas

 

There is still a global recovery mult of x1.2, but recovery penalties for style were reduced

 

Assume 10 Dex, No armor

 

1H Fast, single = 20 frame animation, 36 frame recovery 

1H Normal, single = 30 frame animation, 54 frame recovery

2H = 30 frame animation, 54 frame recovery
Dual wield fast = 20 frame animation, 24 frame recovery, 20 frame animation, 24 frame recovery
Dual wield normal = 30 frame animation, 36 frame recovery, 20 frame animation, 36 frame recovery

 

 

The non-dual wield (1H, weapon & shield, 2H) recovery is 50% longer. There's also the global recovery modifier, which is 1.2. 30 * 1.2 = 36 frames. 45*1.2 = 54 frames.

 

Over 20 seconds, assuming no armor, 10 Dex.

 

0 Sec = Attack A
2.2 Sec = Attack B
4.4 Sec = Attack A
6.6 Sec = Attack B
8.8 Sec = Attack A
11 Sec = Attack B
13.2 Sec = Attack A
15.4 Sec = Attack B
17.6 Sec = Attack A
19.8 Sec = Attack B

 

Weapon A attacks 5 times.

 

0 Sec = Attack A
2.8 Sec = Attack A
5.6 Sec = Attack A
8.4 Sec = Attack A
11.2 Sec = Attack A
14 Sec = Attack A
16.8 Sec = Attack A
19.6 Sec = Attack A

 

Weapon A attacks 8 times.

Edited March 18, 2015 by Sensuki

[anameforobsidian]

I'm a huge Josh fan, but this kind of information seems like it should be available in the game, and not from private / SA messages.