Blunted criticals is weird

[kmbogd]

As far as I see, some ranged weapons (arbalest, arquebus, pistol and blunderbuss) have the so called "Blunted Criticals" feature which is worded as "-25% dmg with crits". One of the benefits of a crit attack resolution in Deadfire is that it has +25% dmg. So, my understanding is that the designer wanted to negate this additional benefit with Blunted Criticals type of weapons. Unfortunately, due to the way damage is calculated in Deadfire, this is not the case. In reality you have the situation where a crit does less damage than if it was a hit (given the same rolled dmg). 

 

I will simplify a bit the very detailed explanation of MaxQuest(https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/94713-compilation-thread-balance-classes-feedback-game-mechanics/?do=findComment&comment=1974567), and say that damage modifiers are computed in steps and then summed up.

 

What is the step of the crit extra damage? Since it's a supra-unitary modifier, with value >1 (in this case 1.25), its step is 1.25-1=0.25

What is the step of the "blunted critical" feature? Since this is a sub unitary modifier, with value <1 (in this case 0.75), the formula is: 1-1/0.75=-0.33

 

As it can be seen, the sum of these 2 steps is not 0 but negative. Which I am not sure that it's the intention of the designer. If it was intended, it makes no sense to me from a functional perspective. Attached are some in-game situations which show that a lower rolled dmg with hit resolution translates to more final damage than a higher rolled dgm with crit resolution.

 

In order to alleviate the problem, "Blunted Criticals" should be "-20% dmg with crits". In this case the "Blunted Criticals" step would be: 1-1/0.8=-0.25.

Edited April 21, 2018 by kmbogd

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Haha, I had no idea the effect was that bad.

 

I hope this is something that gets fixed before release. I really dislike this effect anyway, because it means it's a lot harder to make crit-build gun users, and it's especially annoying given that the crit bonus in Deadfire was already reduced from 50% to 25% anyway.

 

edit: note that that's a big nerf relative to the first game: in PoE 1, guns had a negative -.3 crit damage modifier, but the critical bonus was +.5, so there was still a benefit from critical hits; the penalty didn't zero out the bonus completely even then. Even if Deadfire changed the gun critical penalty to be even with the critical bonus, that would still be a significant nerf vs. the first game.

Edited April 21, 2018 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[hilfazer]

Why do we even have those blunted criticals?

 

I can see why it existed in PoE where damage reduction was absolute, but in the sequel? Is it just a result of translating PoE1 into PoE2?

[Boeroer]

Could you post it in the bug forum as well? I'm pretty sure OBS (or devs) is not aware of this. They sometimes seem to be overwhelmed by their own mechanics.

[kmbogd]

Ok, I reported it.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Is the basic issue that (1 X 1.25) X .75 = .93, not 1? Essentially? 

 

 

 

 

Why do we even have those blunted criticals?

 

I can see why it existed in PoE where damage reduction was absolute, but in the sequel? Is it just a result of translating PoE1 into PoE2?

 

It's not *just* that because the penalty in the first game was 30% blunting on a 50% critical, which ended up netting (again, running it through the above math, (1*1.5)*.7) = 1.05, so a slight bonus, remaining, and different values throughout. 

 

I've never really *liked* it though. It's always seemed like an unnecessary penalty on gun users. I think the rationale was to moderate high critical damage on high-base-damage-weapons, but it's always felt like overkill to me, and it feels like it's even less necessary in this game given that the critical bonus has been reduced by 50% anyway.

 

Edited April 21, 2018 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[kmbogd]

In a very simplified form, yes. But note that this simplified way of looking at it is not exactly identical to the above: the game uses additive modifiers, not multiplicative. Only might modifier is multiplicative.

Edited April 21, 2018 by kmbogd

[dunehunter]

Hahahah Obsidian’s math

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Hahahah Obsidian’s math

 

 

As an aside, this is why I really hope someone is working on a DPS calculator. The attack speed and damage calculations are so byzantine that there are probably a lot of other cases like this in the math that we just havent' found yet because there's no visible DPS calculation.