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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
So the base damage of your weapon matters a LOT (they call it base damage but in some games it is actually factoring your STR or Power somehow too, so, apologies for using the misleading term, even if it is the common one).
It's just that sSt is basically 'how many buffs to your skill damage you can get' (in terms of the part that normally changes).
pDif is something close to 'checking the attack vs Def values and then using that division'. The one you keep talking about because it's the one you're used to. Not all games work like that, at all.
This is partially why if you try to have a conversation about balance with an EQ2 or BDO or AA-first player, they don't understand what you're talking about (relative to this topic).
Do we know if critical hit chance (CHC) will affect a direct multiplier for critical hits?
by this I mean:
30% CHC to apply a 2x multiplier
vs
30% CHC to apply increased damage and effectiveness
also i think this is what the devs were talking about having the weapons as just stat sticks or if the weapon have a primary role in the formula.
In diablo games as an example, the higher dmg your weapon did, the bigger the multiplier for the formula. didn't matter if it was a common or legendary. The higher the damage the better in most situations.
If both systems use base damage of the weapon as the spring board for their power calculations, that means that both systems rely on the existence of said weapon as a catalyst for said power, right?
So, in a way, the weapon gives you "100%" power, because w/o that weapon you wouldn't be able to do shit, for your atk values would be non-existent.
That's what I was trying to get at.
I think I'm still too dumb to fully understand the example you gave for the difference between the two systems' final result, but I think that particular part of my understanding is not required for my tiny unnecessarily pedantic argument against what Noaani said
Either way, this whole thing has just been a yet another portion of George notification spam and ultimately doesn't matter. I appreciate the attempt to make me understand the differences in perspectives and in time I hope I will (or maybe just after some thinking).
in pDif games, crit output is part of the pDif.
So basically, if you were way stronger than the thing already (pDif of 2.59 or higher), when you crit, you'll only get something like +1 to that.
You'd go from doing 259 damage to 359 damage on a crit.
If you were weaker than the enemy (in that it has high defense) so your pDif is in the gutter at 0.5, you'd go from doing 50 damage to 150 damage (depending on where exactly in the pDif the critRatio goes).
It's a stylistic choice, both are equally easy to implement, calculate, etc. Games with a lot of 'basic attacks' tend to favor the second of the options you gave (increased effectiveness as described above, rather than direct multipliers), games that are very skill heavy tend to favor the first.
The physical weapons stats is the base damage, then the character stats in the formula such as strength, then crit chance etc.
weapon damage, main stats, then abilities and secondary stats like crit.
or
everything just feeds off character stats without the physical weapon stats which is just:
this is how much attack power you have, then abilities and secondary like crit.
that's fair. I was curious if they had discussed it yet. I didnt see anything about it on the wiki. I know some games (depending on class) have it different. Some classes have a flat out multiplier like 2x output vs a increased effectiveness.
Thank you
@Noaani @George_Black we did it
What you said didn't help me, because this Doesn't make sense to me
To me this is a contradiction. And I know that I'm just misunderstanding it, but I feel like I'd need to play a game with the other system extensively to properly comprehend it.
The reason there's a gap is because pDif games don't draw power from the weapon base damage in the same way.
But you obviously know that there are 100 page threads of number and formula crunching out there for multiple games, before you'd even start to understand it.
All I can tell you is that a pDif game has many more stats it can give you tiny bonuses to, and the base damage of weapons, base damage done, and HP values of all targets, tends to be lower than sSt games.
This is partially because the progression systems in the two games are different, yada yada...
The one thing a pDif game cannot reasonably do is give the result George wants, but in return, they're better at 'people being able to punch up'. Which, as George pointed out at the beginning, might not suit Ashes at all. So we'll see.
But what really matters here is if there's any STR or Power part of your base damage, and if those stats affect things in some other nuanced ways. FFXI and L2 differ slightly here, which is what gives some of the result you see. So, to put it in useful-to-thread terms, expand...
My additional STR from gear if I gear fully for 'additional STR' is also around 76.
What exactly that STR is doing, doesn't contribute to the same things as my base weapon damage, but it gets factored in, a bit, and without enough STR, my base weapon damage isn't entirely applied.
Therefore gear is 50% of my character's STR, but not her power, because that extra 76 STR is not giving me twice as much damage. The 'twice as much damage' comes from factoring Haste, Crit Rate, Dual Wield bonuses, Weapon Skill modifiers, etc, and it still isn't probably even up to there.
If I take off that 76 bonus STR, I think I lose 20% damage (but not raw weapon swing damage). But if I did that, it's probably because I'm switching mode to doing Ninjutsu damage so I stacked Haste and INT to increase that, while dropping STR, P.Acc, and Attack.
If I didn't have anything but bonus STR gear, then if I had to switch to Ninjutsu then I'd probably be at least 40% weaker in damage output (for example, against an enemy who is immune to melee damage or shouldn't be hit too much for some reason).
My base weapon damage stops mattering at all if I'm doing Ninjutsu damage, but I have a weapon that gives +10% to that (which gets then multiplied by the Haste again, etc). I retool my build in various ways to get this. But the player who only has the bonus STR, still has base INT of like 88. Their Ninjutsu still does, let's say 120 damage. Mine does 132 if I was standing around naked other than the main weapon bonus. Then I put on 66 INT and 20% Haste and increase Evasion so I never have to worry about getting hit and having to stop doing Ninjutsu and I'm doing 144, but casting one more jutsu every 4-5 seconds and not worrying about melee accuracy at all anymore.
Good luck with it.
I just meant you're probably overthinking it is all.
If the weapon has 3000-3500 damage + 200 strength 15% CHC, that's essentially your main contributor to the formula which means it's going to be 3000-3500 multiplied by X of total main stats based on ability function and output with a chance to critical strike in the equation.
The weapon damage has a significant role in the formula:
3000-3500 dmg > main stats > ability function > crit chance
OR
the weapon just gives main stats like +200 strength and your strength if primary stat just acts as your primary base damage. this method just pools all your gear together in replacement to a weapon.
main stats > ability function > crit chance.
It obviously gets more in-depth but im just keeping it simple depending how many stats you want to balance around on gear. They're very similar but different in how the formula functions in relation to gear. Option A is similar to option B but option A has significant weight to one item slot over a balanced weight all around as a stat stick. I know, it sounds stupid lol
My lack of playing other mmos impacts me here the most. I couldn't even comprehend that a weapon could give only base stats instead of having a direct patk value
Or maybe I'm still not getting it, or you're giving an example from a different game, cause bdo has attack and defense points, and I don't remember if those are considered base stats or if there's still str/dex/etc in the game.
Don't even try when it comes to BDO. Seriously.
BDO set out with the goal of making the simplest stat flow they could and worked backwards. Their system actively works against itself to the point where entire statblocks are just noob traps.
So I'll give you the short version with less derailing into Ninjutsu. This is not exactly how it works, this is an example of how pDif games in general work.
-I have a 20 damage sword.
-I have 15 STR, which gives 15/7 'fSTR' which is enough to unlock full damage on the 20 damage sword. Great
-I have 100 attack and this rabbit has 100 defense
-I now do 22 damage per swing.
-I can add 15 more STR. This will give me another 2 fSTR. I already have full damage on the sword, so it only raises my actual damage by 2.
-I now do 22 damage per swing to the same rabbit.
-I can use skills though, which scale more directly off STR.
-I don't add the extra 15 STR, I do a skill, the skill does 1.5x (WeaponDMG+STR)
-The skill does 54 damage.
-I now add the extra 15 STR, and do the skill, it now does 90 damage.
-I downgrade my sword to one that does 16 damage but hits faster
-I definitely still unlock full damage on this sword, so I do 18 damage per swing to the same rabbit (without STR +15 bonus)
-My skill now only does 45 damage, but I'm making up for it by hitting faster, so my main damage has changed from skill damage to basic attack damage, and I can get more procs or whatever
By contrast most sSt games are moreso:
-I have a 40 damage weapon
-I multiply that 40 by some skill damage value. If STR matters at all, it's probably factored the same as above
-I do 480 damage per swing
Whether or not they even include attack and defense other than the weapon, is optional. BDO implies that it does this, but it just treats your main weapon's damage value as part of your generic 'physical attack' value, so it's even more bizarre. It also had hidden defensive stats, counts your Evasion stat as part of your Damage Reduction Thresholds, but not when you're CCed, and has hidden Attack stat thresholds that then add more Attack, so you tweak everything around that and getting more attack speed.
This is partially why for many people, BDO can get away with never showing any damage numbers. They don't matter for build creation for most of the player base.
"Bigger number better? If same attack speed and accuracy, yes."
It's just a psychological thing to be honest...
I'll give some basic examples with items at max level:
Scenario A
weapon 1 has 1000 damage
weapon 2 has 2000 damage
which do you choose?
Scenario B
weapon 1 has 1000 main stat
weapon 2 has 1200 main stat
which do you choose?
Scenario C
Weapon 1 has 1000 dmg and 1000 main stat
Weapon 2 has 1100 dmg and 900 main stat
which do you choose?
Scenario D
Weapon 1 has 1000 dmg, 1000 main stat and 5% increased weapon damage
Weapon 2 has 1000 dmg, 900 main stat and a 10% increase weapon damage
which do you choose?
It just depends if you want the weapon to have a significant impact or if the weapon just acts like another piece of armour.
all these things can contribute to an attack power value in various ways which contribute to player power and gear powers role.
My entire hope here is that we finally have another game where I need to think about this per area/encounter/group composition.
Since I'm certain about at least one of our shared game experiences:
If BDO worked like this/was more like my main game...
I'd choose a faster weapon with the tradeoff of weaker skills for fighting Red Nose, and a slower weapon with stronger skills for Dastard Bheg/Katzvariak, and even that would just be playstyle, because I think the more obvious answer is the other way around (since Bheg backdashes or does AoE during the big windows and Red Nose is actually just on the ground taking hits).
To me, the reason I make the choice in the way I do is that if I'm in a group against these bosses, I'm the distraction/tank/debuffer. So my teammates would choose the other way to maximize damage and I'd choose this way to maximize control, same as we always do.
I saw they added in that false range equaliser for short weapons which I thought was weird AF but that's just me. Short weapons shouldn't have the same range as long weapons...
Will have to see how haste plays a role in abilities and GCD vs animation pacing etc.
I'm not sure haste works with basic attacks. I'm also not convinced short ranged weapons should have the same range as long range weapons. Hence why I'm pleased Crossbow was removed. The benefit of Short Weapon is you can use it mounted but there's no mounted combat in Ashes. However, in AA basic attacks for Ranger could be rapid and dependant entirely on ping.
Pretty much what I was getting at. If anything haste should affect things such as GCD, cast time, empowered abilities etc. Haste doesn't affect instants because there literally no point to have haste for it.
When I said short weapons I meant daggers, long weapons as in swords. Range is range.
Oh my bad. I had ranger on the mind. I referred to Short Bow vs Long Bow lol.
no worries haha