about item materials (vamp, blackrock etc) - split from drops

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Gulnar
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Tints

Post by Gulnar »

IMO, vampyric is way overpowered.

This stems from having some multiplicative bonuses applied before additive bonuses in the damage formula.

As far as I've been able to determine, the forumula for damage dealt is:
((base damage *tint bonus * damage type bonus)+bonus from stats+enchant AS)*(speed scale*weapon wear).
Tint bonus is extra damage from BR/copper/silver
Damage type bonus is piercing/bludgeoning/slashing versus certain mobs

HP given back from vampy weapons are about 20-25% of the total damage dealt from the above forumula. Having the bonus for BR/silver/copper multiplied before the AS and stat bonuses are added in means that the actual % bonus for BR goes down as more and more of your damage comes from AS and stats.

I'd like to see the AS and stat bonuses added to the base damage before any of the multiplier bonuses are applied. Vampy could be nerfed by having the HP returned calculated at the same step as the BR bonus, but that would lead to very minor differences between tints. I'd rather have major differences between tints with different tints useful in different situations. In the interests of weapon diversity, piercing/slashing/bludgeoning bonus would also have a greater effect if it were applied after AS and stat bonuses.

A drawback is that making this change would primarily benefit high level players (with high AS weapons and large stat bonuses). Lvl 1 players do get (almost) 50% bonus damage with a BR weapon (actual bonus slightly lower due to rounding). The exact point that BR sucks vs vampy depends on the base weapon damage (lower base damage=sucks sooner). Once you can get +7 damage from AS and stats (around lvl 47), all 1 handed fighter BR weapons do less than 20% bonus damage (i.e., less than the % HP gained from vampy). However, I'd still rather use vampy if I was getting a 5-10% higher bonus from BR. BR Rogue weapons do less than 20% bonus at +5 combined AS/stat bonus (lvl 40ish). So, changing this would help high levels players, but even low level players see the utility of BR dropping pretty quickly under the current system.

Analysis of specific tints:

Vampyric:
Gives 20-25% of damage dealt back as HP. The best tint, IMO. The other tints should do at least 20% extra damage on average to be competitive with vampy. However, I'd prefer to get HP back versus dealing more, so other tints would have to do more like 30% extra damage for me to use them.

BR:
See above. Slower wear is nice, and certainly more important now that repair scrolls are gone. Maybe 50% bonus and slow wear is too powerful? I'd like to see the BR bonus consistent across different levels as discussed above, but it could be less than 50%.

Silver:
Same issue as BR vs. vampy. Tint bonus should come after AS/stat bonus.

Copper:
Fine as it is if this is intended to be the crappy tint that nobody ever uses. Same issue regarding tint damage bonus as for BR and silver. I'm assuming copper bonuses haven't been looked at in a long time. With speed scaling in place, copper does less than 20% extra damage, even for a lvl 1 character (copper UA weapons actually do less damage than untinted). Copper weapons do attack faster of course. I'm not sure what the bonus actually is in % damage/second, but I suspect it's not competitive with vampyric. Balancing fast low damage copper weapons and slow high damage ones would be a real mess if speed scaling on copper is accounted for, so might be easiest to leave as is. Increased wear on copper is more of a handicap with repair scrolls gone, maybe wear rate should be slightly reduced?

Venomous/Addled:
As far as I can tell, the only reason to use these tints is for annoyance value in PvP combat. They're basically useless PvM unless they're buffed significantly. As far as annoying PvP tints go, addled doesn't fire often enough or last long enough to make it worth using instead of venomous. Addled could be buffed some, but would have to be careful not to overdo it.

Runed:
Gives about 7% extra damage on average. Critical hits don't fire often enough to make this competitive with vampy. Should be competitive with BR under the current system for lvl 150ish+ players. IMO, the crit bonus from runed should be triple or quadruple what it is now. I'm not sure, but I believe the damage formula applies the crit multiplier after the stat bonus but before the AS bonus. As with the tint and piercing/etc bonus, it'd be good to have the crit multiplier applied after any additive bonuses.

Diamond:
Great as it is. Additive bonuses (AS/Stat) are actually applied before the multiplicative diamond bonus.

Barbed:
Unlike BR/silver/copper, barbed should get more useful as the player levels. Since wounding does damage based on the targets HP, the dragons that high level players are fighting will take more damage from barbed than the goblins low level players fight). It's hard for me to test this, but I don't think the wound effect fires often enough to make barbed competitive with vampy even when fighting dragons.

Staffs:
As I understand it, INT bonus is added before the ebony multiplier is applied. Great. That's how it should work for fighter/rogue weapons. I'm not sure what the balance between tints is like overall for mages. Is ebony overpowered?
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Post by Gulnar »

Thanks for your useful comment, Grodst. I realize that post was kind of long.

Summary for those with short attention spans:
Vampyric weapons rule at any level. Due to game mechanics, BR/silver/copper get less powerful as you level and suck at medium/high levels. I propose a fix for this. Diamond is OK. Runed mostly sucks. Venomous/addled suck PvM and are just annoying PvP. Barbed might be OK, but it might just suck.
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Post by Grodst »

I actually like barbed vs SL's
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Post by Eidolon »

BR being 50% isnt too powerful. At first I thought it was 1.5x the dmg, but Arty cleared it up (or made a guess, cant remember) and told me its 1.5x the BASE dmg like without stats or anything (which i took to be when you look at the stats of the weapon and it says the dmg like 10-18 itd be 50% of that added onto whatever you hit with your added stats)

i hit 75-85 with my vamp hally xj and 85-95 with a br hally +6 (dont forget thats even 1 more AS/dmg).

overpowered? i think not
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Post by LaughingCoyote »

Eid, that was Gulnar's exact point - the higher level you are the worse blackrock is as a weapon tint for you.

Silver is also useless - I actually do better using a vampy claymore +7 then a silver claymore + 6... because of the reason Gulnar outlined above.

I wouldn't be surprised if the same game mechanics is the reason why silver armor is also useless - even on undead that don't use ranged or magic the "reflected" damage is negligible. The reflected damage is based on the damage the undead does to you (from memory) - so if the undead does little or no damage to you by melee, there is even smaller reflected damage.
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Post by Eidolon »

my bad i'm retarded

so i just got done reading your whole thread.
and i s pilled water on my keyboard and dont feel like buying a new one at 5am so deal with the random spaces .
A drawback is that making this change would primarily benefit high level players
well we are the ones that hunt the mos t and dont jus t sit there and craft. thatd be nice if the w ork w e put into getting our stats up was rewarded. bas ically all i hear when i see people complain abt stuff like this is them not wa nting to working hard enough to not s uck. no offense. :)
Gives 20-25% of damage dealt back as HP.
did it get changed from 10-40%?
Is ebony overpowered?
i dont think its so much that its overpowered as much as is ba sically all the other tint s sucking vs it. ven - by the time you kill the mon ster the actual ven effect ha snt drained near enough life to make it worthw hile and mo st people us e protection s croll s. vamp - the vamp does ntgive back enough life. dunno anything abt the other ones but i'm sure they're ju st as u seless. not to mention the added dmg on ebony i s HUGE. w hy cant regular BR weapon s added dmg be like this ?

s orry to harp on euo, egg. its really the facts tho :/
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Post by Gulnar »

Grodst: Yeah, that was the point I was trying to make for barbed. The tint is more effective versus tougher enemies. Thanks for confirming that with SLs.

LC: Riposte seems to work like silver does (increasingly ineffective reflect as damage taken goes down)

Eidolon 1st post: You get it now, but just to clarify a couple points.

Base damage is NOT the damage shown when you see the item in your inventory. Base damage is the damage done for a non-enchanted weapon of that type. The damage bonus from the enchant is included in the number shown in inventory, but the tint bonus is added before that. A +8 glaive will show a damage range of 10-18, but the base damage for the purposes of calculating BR bonus is 8 lower than that (2-12)

BR is certainly not overpowered now, when it only gives about 12% bonus in your halberd example. If it were changed to actually give 50% bonus (so a BR halberd would do 112-127 damage for you), that might be too much. Or it might be fine. Anyway, we can worry about that later. BR is too weak in the current system.

Eidolon post 2: Sounds like we basically agree
Eidolon wrote:
A drawback is that making this change would primarily benefit high level players
thatd be nice if the work we put into getting our stats up was rewarded. basically all i hear when i see people complain abt stuff like this is them not wanting to working hard enough to not suck. no offense. :)
I wasn't complaining about not having enough levels. I was using a rhetorical device; bringing up a potential objection and attempting to refute it. I guess I failed.
I'll try again: As I said, BR is basically useless by lvl 47, if not sooner. While high level players would see the proportionally greatest benefit from a change, even lvl 30ish players would see a significant benefit. Therefore, I don't think we need to worry about higher level players getting a large advantage.
Eidolon wrote:
Gives 20-25% of damage dealt back as HP.
did it get changed from 10-40%?
I should have been clearer. I was talking about the average HP returned, not the exact range. I can't find my notes, but I got maybe 22.3% HP back from vampy weapons. 10-40% sounds right for the exact range. 10-40% gives an average of 25%, and once you account for rounding you get about 22.3% (i.e., 20-25%).
Eidolon wrote:
Is ebony overpowered?
i dont think its so much that its overpowered as much as is basically all the other tints sucking vs it.
[/quote]
I shouldn't have said "overpowered". The issue really is that for mages, other tints suck vs ebony staffs. For fighter/rogues the other tints suck vs. vampy. This could be solved by either nerfing the good tints, or buffing the bad ones. I don't want to see the good tints nerfed. I think the game would be more interesting if the bad tints were buffed, so that there was more incentive to use different tints in different situations. So really, ebony staffs and vampy weapons aren't "overpowered", everything else is just "underpowered".
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Post by BlackMage »

Hey now here's an idea; let's find every flaw with everything and tear it apart so egg doesn't want to ever add anything else to it because he knows that it will just get nitpicked to death once again.
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Post by BlackMage »

I thought it was pretty useful..

It's not very nice/respectful to sit there and nitpick and tear apart anything that's being given to you for free.

So back to what I was saying earlier; stop being so fucking nitpicky. If you don't like one type of weapon, grab another, but don't sit there and nitpick the shit out of it, especially when it's been given to you free.
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Post by Ulric »

Gulnar has done a service to the game by posting how the different tints act with respect to each other. This is good information to know because this helps players decide which weapon tints to use in a given situations. Gulnars has posted a hypothesis that some tints are much weaker then others. He has also backed up this hypothesis with some facts. Now that Gulnar has posted his findings. It is up to Egg to do what he feels is best with the results. Egg can make many different decisions base on the finding by Gulnar. The following is a few of the decisions Egg could make.

1) Ignore the post because he wants to spend he time doing something else.

2) Read the post and ignore the finding because he wants to do something else.

3) Read the post, consider the findings and consider options to change the game if he believes the findings merit a change to the game.

Now Egg is an adult, he can make decisions all by himself and he does not have a low self-esteem forcing people to defend his game when someone is posting facts or options about the game.

So let’s please keep this forum about the facts and options based on those facts.

Thank you Egg for making EUO.
Thank you Gulnar for doing the research to help EUO grow in a positive direction.
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Post by Eidolon »

Ulric wrote:Gulnar has done a service to the game by posting how the different tints act with respect to each other. This is good information to know because this helps players decide which weapon tints to use in a given situations. Gulnars has posted a hypothesis that some tints are much weaker then others. He has also backed up this hypothesis with some facts. Now that Gulnar has posted his findings. It is up to Egg to do what he feels is best with the results. Egg can make many different decisions base on the finding by Gulnar. The following is a few of the decisions Egg could make.

1) Ignore the post because he wants to spend he time doing something else.

2) Read the post and ignore the finding because he wants to do something else.

3) Read the post, consider the findings and consider options to change the game if he believes the findings merit a change to the game.

Now Egg is an adult, he can make decisions all by himself and he does not have a low self-esteem forcing people to defend his game when someone is posting facts or options about the game.

So let’s please keep this forum about the facts and options based on those facts.

Thank you Egg for making EUO.
Thank you Gulnar for doing the research to help EUO grow in a positive direction.
This was refreshing to read.
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Re: Tints

Post by Bk »

Gulnar wrote: ((base damage *tint bonus * damage type bonus)+bonus from stats+enchant AS)*(speed scale*weapon wear).
Gulnar - Are you saying that you think it should be:
{[(Base dmg*dmg type bonus)+bonus from stats+enchant AS]*tint bonus}*(speed scale*weapon wear)?
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Re: Tints

Post by Gulnar »

Bk wrote:
Gulnar wrote: ((base damage *tint bonus * damage type bonus)+bonus from stats+enchant AS)*(speed scale*weapon wear).
Gulnar - Are you saying that you think it should be:
{[(Base dmg*dmg type bonus)+bonus from stats+enchant AS]*tint bonus}*(speed scale*weapon wear)?
Close. I'd like to see:
[(Base dmg+bonus from stats+enchant AS)*tint bonus*dmg type bonus]*(speed scale*weapon wear)

I think the game would be more interesting if the effect of the dmg type bonus were increased also. That would create more of incentive touse a spear for hunting dragons or a shortsword for daemons.
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Post by OrcKiller »

tints and weapons should be some what improved and be more balance.. everyone is just looking for a vamp claymore / vamp ss / ebony staff..
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Post by Zilverlight »

Lies! I love my copper weapons and especially my silver set. I'm a HUGE fan of speed, Always go for speed in something, though, I should go for foils, I go for shortswords because of dual (2x faster attack for dual). I only use vampyric rondels VAM because of the health because back in those days, when I fought dragons, I lost too much hp, so I covered it. Hmm, I just proved against my point. Oh well. Not everyone goes for Vampyric, People also love Addy, BR, and Diamond. Everyone was scourging the planet for Barbed/Runed/Addled weapons when they first came out, and when people got Barbed and tested it, EVERYONE wanted barbed weapons. Until it got cut down and addled too. You're right, we need more interesting things for copper and silver and even gold.

I propose we beef the speed for copper and add alittle more damage. Silver weapons I don't too much know about, they're good vs undead and werewolves, good for PvP against players with lycan, but vampyric and venomous/barbed still beats it there. Gold, dunno, more light radius and ability to actually hide? Might get more interest there.

Comments?
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Post by sumoworm »

Level requirements should be based on something more balanced than +.

Found a scimitar + 7 yesterday and its worth nothing. No one who was at lvl 86 would ever use a non tint weapon. Furthermore I'm willing to bet that no player has ever used any non-enchant scimitar as their main weapon.

But if the lvl requirement for a + 7 scimitar was 50 or so, then a low level character might use it. level requirements should take into account tint.

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Post by Keighn »

I always preferred to snipe with ebony rather than vampyric. Now addy would be sweet.
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Post by Zilverlight »

I go for runed :P I just love the way you can get more crits :P Found a runed main gauge + 3 on NG and am using it hoping to get a crit BS! Put that in your pipe and smoke it! :D
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Post by Grodst »

Art's got a Silver Claymore +7 he's hacked undead with for years now.

I prefer +8's due to the AS and damage bonus most of the time, as well. I have access to just about each and every weapon and artifact and still prefer the +'s over enchanted most of the time when hunting alone.

My newer alts can't use enchants, and I stick with mundane weapons with em...no real reason. BR rocks for newer fighters and rogues, that's for sure!

Keep in mind all these tints are meant for non-godlike (non-Artemis) player use. Having 500 str isn't quite in the spirit of Ultima V. Get a new guy started, you can afford to bury him in yellow/blue pots. HUNT to play the game, not lvl. Opens up whole new avenues to appreciate this little piece of heaven in Sosaria!

Unrelated Note: Have several alts on a DM sanctioned non-GM account. These guys are the most fun to play, w/o being bothered with silly questions like "I need a reset cuz I have 1 load too many and am in mountains" wait, those are demands..... This acct lets me see how folks really behave w/o GM's around, and it's not that bad 99.9% of the time. Being undercover means the alts here get no uber gear. Fun and challenging to play things as a lvl 20 again w/o resources!
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about item materials (vamp, blackrock etc) - split from drops

Post by Bk »

Tints on Staves are not Useless.

By my experiences (Note: attacking with magic, not melee):

Addled does confuse monsters into attacking other monsters.
Vampyric staves do give you hp back, Though I only got back 6 hp everytime I beleive, which definately isn't the 25% (Or w/e the % hp suck his).
I've used a Venomous staff, and it does posion, I believe it happened in PvP Also.
Barbed should make stuff bleed, *I'll test*, but sure it does.

The only thing I'd like to see with with Leeching staves, make it possible to drain a little mana while attacking or lower the mana cost of an attack by 1 x <spell lvl>, or atleast .5 x <spell lvl> because I believe atm, the amount of mana used to cast spells is 3 x <spell lvl>.

Vigour drops definately needs to be supped up or just taken out all together. They are very dissappointing.


CHECKED:

--Venomous did posion when weilded and casting magic.
--Addled did confuse when casting magic.
--Vamp did drain when casting magic... BUT only 1 damned hp per hit with magic, which is useless.
--Barbed did cause bleeding.
--Silverleaf did do about 1.5x more damage to undead.

So Tints on Staves do work... So I would suggest for some of you mages to test out Barbed Staves when dragon fighting... Will keep from healing, but you lose alot of damage due to no Ebony tint.
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