Should Might stay multiplicative or return to additive?

[Madscientist]

Great job MaxQuest.

You found the damage formula.

 

I think I understood the formula of PoE1:

damage done = ( base damage * ( 1 + sum of all modifiers) ) - DR

In PoE1 all modifiers are equal (not their value but how they work). So a graze (-50%) and a sneak attack (+50%) together lead to the base damage.

 

Even though you have written the formula for PoE2 above, I still have problems understanding it.

When you have several bonusses and penalties I cannot tell which one has the biggest effect on the end result.

The double inversion of penalties makes it almost impossible to calculate things without a calculator, and even then its not easy. In PoE each modifier was a number and you could compare them without problems. Now you have to look if it is a bonus or penalty and what type of bonus is it.

 

The only problem in PoE1 for me were unarmed attacks (fist, shapeshift). reason: for weapons you could right click them to see a description with the numbers. There was no description when you right click your fist. Would be nice if they add a fist/claw description in PoE2 (if it does not exist already, I just realized that I did not look)

 

bonus question: What about lashes? From which number is the +x%damage taken?

I have learned that lashes are good because they are not lowered by underpenetration. So the +50% from lightning strikes will be much higher than your physical damage if you have low penetration.

The tooltip for dots has not improved since PoE1, so I know nothing about this as well.

 

Edit: corrected the formula. behind " base damage" must be a *, not a +

Edited January 15, 2018 by Madscientist

[Bazy]

I like the simplicity of the POE1/v1 style. 

 

But another option is to tone down the percentages. Not everything needs to be a 10-30% buff. 

[MaxQuest]

I think I understood the formula of PoE1:

damage done = ( base damage * ( 1 + sum of all modifiers) ) - DR

In PoE1 all modifiers are equal (not their value but how they work). So a graze (-50%) and a sneak attack (+50%) together lead to the base damage.

That's correct.

 

Even though you have written the formula for PoE2 above, I still have problems understanding it.

When you have several bonusses and penalties I cannot tell which one has the biggest effect on the end result.

The double inversion of penalties makes it almost impossible to calculate things without a calculator, and even then its not easy. In PoE each modifier was a number and you could compare them without problems. Now you have to look if it is a bonus or penalty and what type of bonus is it.

Agreed. Current system is mushy, and hard to comprehend.

 

The only problem in PoE1 for me were unarmed attacks (fist, shapeshift).

The reason why they didn't go full additive, is likely because they have stumbled upon negative numbers.

 

In PoE1 even if you had only 2 MIG you wouldn't go below 0 on graze: mult = 1 + (0.76 - 1) + (0.5 - 1) = 0.26

Now imagine full additive in PoE2 (2 MIG, graze, underpen): mult = 1 + (0.76 - 1) + (0.5 - 1) + (0.25 - 1) = -0.49; how do you interpret that? So they have introduced the conditional double inversion, which circumvents this, but actually has no meaning, it's basically a trick because resultant coefficients are not proportional neither to rolled damage, neither to final damage, nor to the intermediary damage value at the moment these coefficients are applied.

 

 

bonus question: What about lashes? From which number is the +x%damage taken?

Good question. I didn't have yet the time to explicity test them.

 

This is how I would expect them to work:

Example:

- you have 5 PEN, and make a slash attack with 50% fire lash.

- target has 6 AR vs slash, and 4 AR vs fire

- system computes as if there was a under-pen attack with slash PEN vs slash AR.

- system computes as if there was a normal-pen attack with fire PEN vs fire AR. After that multiplies the result by 0.5 (the lash perc)

- so in provided example, let's say you could deal 20 slash damage (40 x 0.5, due to PEN-AR=-1), and 20 fire damage (50% lash) (PEN-AR=1)

- that's it

- ah, and if the damage type (of attack or lash) is raw - it doesn't take penetration bonus into account. Meaning it won't under, nor over-penetrate. 

 

I have learned that lashes are good because they are not lowered by underpenetration. So the +50% from lightning strikes will be much higher than your physical damage if you have low penetration.

It would be hilarious if lash damage would indeed ignore penetration.

Need to check that.

 

The tooltip for dots has not improved since PoE1, so I know nothing about this as well.

Haven't tested them yet.

 

In PoE1 each tick was going vs 1/4 of respective DR.

In Deadfire I would expect each tick to check for PEN vs AR, in order to multiply the resultant tick damage by x0.25, x0.5, x0.75, x1.0 or x1.3. But is it so or not - don't know yet. Need more free time

 

I like the simplicity of the POE1/v1 style.

v1 is indeed the simplest. But pure v1, won't work in Deadfire, because of ambundance of various damage maluses, that would quickly lead to negative multipliers.

That's why I brought the v5 as a workaround. It keeps the spirit of PoE1, and avoids going into negative, by making modal and penetration bonus/malus an postAdditive multiplier (without inversion) (plus it better matches the plyer expectations; e.g: you have under-penetrated? your damage is multiplied by 0.25) (but again: v5 might be better than v0; but it's also not perfect; unlike v4, in v5 might bonus is diluted by crits and weapon quality)

Edited January 15, 2018 by MaxQuest

[theBalthazar]

Lash = always on final value ?

[AndreaColombo]

Still a v4 fan myself, but I could live with v5 to avoid unnecessary over complication of damage calculation.

[Madscientist]

You have written that the formula is:

FinalDamage = (RolledDamage * DamageMultiplier + AdditiveDamageBonus) * PostAdditiveDamageMultiplier

and they used inversion to avoid negative numbers as end result.

 

Well, in PoE1 they had the 20% minimum damage rule. ( It was against DR, not against negative multiplier, but hey )

Why not use the same thing in PoE2?

Take the formula from above and make all modifiers additive like in PoE1.

If the end result is below 20% of base damage ( or even negative ), you cause 20% of base damage as minimum damage.

 

Edit:

In PoE1, was it 20% of the damage before DR no matter if this was smaller or bigger than the base value?

Anyway, since base damage is the only thing in the formula that can never be negative we need to take x% of base damage. X might be different than 20.

Edited January 15, 2018 by Madscientist

[Bazy]

v1 is indeed the simplest. But pure v1, won't work in Deadfire, because of ambundance of various damage maluses, that would quickly lead to negative multipliers.

Good chance I am missing something, but didn't POE1 get around that with minimum damage? Such as when DR > Damage.