Stat balance

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Stat balance

Post by Gulnar »

I hate to bring this up, since I think it's probably something egg doesn't want to revisit.

For a long while, I labored under the misunderstanding that SI and DI of the different weapons was meant to encourage different stat balances. Not so. I had a hell of a time parsing it, but I eventually plugged the formula " bonus=((str+dex)/33) x (1-abs(str/(str+dex) - SI))" into a spread sheet and looked at stat distributions.

I had thought that an axe fighter would do more damage with 200 dex/600 str, than with 50 dex/750 str. The formula actually favors axe fighters going all STR, and rogues going all DEX regardless of weapon.

Well, stupid me. I screwed up my character development some. But I wonder, was the current system what was intended? Unbalanced stats? Diminishing stat returns now favors more balanced stats, and with a cap at 600, people who've gone the unbalanced route are going to start running into problems just past lvl 100.


I've got an idea for a weapon damage formula that would encourage axe fighters to go for a 75:25 STR:DEX distribution, and short sword wielding rogues to go for 25:75. However, it would hurt players who've done most of their leveling in one stat. I'm not sure how to encourage mages to move beyond INT.


Anyway, my basic question: should players be encouraged to develop one stat for their class (fighter=STR, rogue=DEX, mage=INT), or should there be incentives to develop/balance multiple stats? There is some incentive already to diversify stats. Diminishing stat returns have increased this incentive, but to date, game mechanics have encouraged single stat development.

To be fair, if existing rules were to change, as they already have to some degree with diminishing returns, players should be offered an opportunity to redistribute their stats (perhaps as a money making venture for egg?)
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Post by Rusty76 »

I actually wrote a program to analyze the formula:

bonus=((str+dex)/33) x (1-abs(str/(str+dex) - SI))

for SI = 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 and 1 to determine the optimum str/dex balance for different weapons and I found that stats 3 to 1 for a 75/25 ratio weapon and stats 1 to 1 for a 50/50 ratio weapon was indeed optimum

However, the diminishing gains is going to effect that because it lowers the value of your stat (if it's over 600). So in order to keep you stats balanced for optimum damage you'd need to compute what your actual stat is using:

value = stat * ( 1 - 0.007 * ( stat - 600 ) / 30 )

then plug that value into the previous formula to determine your bonus. I haven't written a program to test this yet but I believe that you are going to have to increase a dimished stat even more in order to maintain optimal damage.
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Post by Rusty76 »

Well I just got through writing a prog to find the best stats for optimum damage bonus. It does turn out that for a 75/25 ratio wep where your stat or stats are over 600, you do have to increase the higher stat more so that you have more than a 3 to 1 ratio in order to maintain an optimal damage bonus. However at higher levels (400+) this comes back down and at about lvl 800 the stats need to be equal for optimal balance. About lvl 800 is also where taking more levels (and adding to str or dex) will actually decrease your optimal damage bonus.

The 50/50 weps obviously should have even dex/str. At about level 800 the optimal damage bonus for these starts to decrease if you add str or dex. The 100% weps optimal damage bonus never decreases, but it stops increasing at about lvl 400.

As for the actual values of the bonuses...
100% wep's bonus maxes out at 42 around lvl 400
75/25 wep's bonus maxes out at 63 around lvl 800
50/50 wep's bonus maxes out at 84 around lvl 800

So it is to a players advantage to use a wep with a 50/50 ratio as it will attain a higher bonus. It doesnt increase quicker until after about lvl 150-160 though.
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Post by eggmceye »

man you guys are crazy
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Post by Gulnar »

eggmceye wrote:man you guys are crazy
Well, I guess that answers my question :)
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Post by scglass »

Good to see Min-Maxing is alive and well in EUO...
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Post by Rusty76 »

eggmceye wrote:man you guys are crazy
I didn't even have a question, just thought it'd be fun to figure it out :)
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Post by Rusty76 »

Ok I think I may have figured out a fix to the problem with the dimishing gains effecting one class more than another. If you diminish the bonus calculated from the stats instead of dimishing the stats before calculating the bonus you get a fair dimishishing of power that doesn't give one class an advantage over the other. I modified the formula for the stat dimishing and made one for dimishing the bonus that gives roughly equavlent results:

if bonus > 36
DimishedBonus = bonus * (1 - .007 * (bonus - 36) / 2)

The upshot to using this formula is at about level 800 the bonus stops increasing and doesn't decrease. So you don't have to worry about losing power when you level up if you are higher than level 800 (which is highly unlikely anyway X-D ). Anyway, I think that this would be a great improvement to the dimishing system we currently have.
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Post by Eidolon »

Stat reduc needs to be balanced for a few reasons. Firstly, any skills that take over 50str/50dex, as far as combat goes, which is all but 2 of them get the shaft. The 2 skills that work best at 100% dex/str, foils/maces, have become completely obsolete as far as logical gameplay goes. There are a few people who use them for rpg'ing purposes which has its value I suppose.. Mages can also be counted as a 100% int combat skilled class. Stat reductions as of now are completely biased towards fighters using UA and longswords because building a character with 1str:1dex ratio has the least amount of reduction resistance.

For example, my fighter is level 180 and has axes build: 729str, 400dex base. Eragon is level 176 and has UA/LS build: like 590str and 590dex. Even with my str being nearly 150 stats above his, he is so much stronger than me. He has maybe 20hp less than me and hits much much harder. If you look at all the high level fighters, they're all doing this. Even Rusty admitted to changing classes to be 50/50 because it wasnt even concievable to him to build a character that is naturally never going to be equivalent solely because of stat reductions being biased.

I could ramble on and come up with more scenarios and reasons all day. But I think this makes a good enough argument to tweak stat reductions. There's a little more "argument" if you can call it that, here: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3419
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Post by eggmceye »

yes I understand the concept of why LS/UA squeezes the most dmg out of diminished stats ...

Now i just gotta figure out what to do ...
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Post by Heikki »

IJO-spell might need some stat balance too... I do with my 100% fighter / 79% mage char over 500hp damage to boss shadow mage and near 1000hp damage to phoenix with ONLY 100 int.

And

Eidolon wrote:
If you look at all the high level fighters, they're all doing this
Not all :P.. It have 66% str 33% dex. (Because HP, Carrying and Mr boost from str )
But anyways good point.
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Post by BlackMage »

IJO-spell might need some stat balance too... I do with my 100% fighter / 79% mage char over 500hp damage to boss shadow mage and near 1000hp damage to phoenix with ONLY 100 int.
I disagree.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but IJO damage is based on the target's current mana. Bosses have double what a normal mob has, so therefore double damage (over 500 hp for boss shadow mage) would be right. Also, being that they have double stats, that double damage hit still only does what a "normal hit" would do to a non-boss.
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Post by Heikki »

Correct me if I'm wrong, but IJO damage is based on the target's current mana
Yes.. And casters (very high) int.. High lvl mages can instant kill shadowmages with IJO X-D.

Now IJO have some kind "breaking point" where it starts to do about double damage.
[Example: Caster with int 1200 do 400hp damage and caster with 1300 int do 800hp damage on shadow mages] <-- Those Values are not exactly correct... Just for to show idea.

So in my opinion IJO is too good with low int and too good with very high int.

I just meaned that damage should be counted less from monsters mana and more from casters int and do linear (no "breaking point") damage.
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Post by Catherine »

IJO should be totally nerfed for lower int - there's no way 100 int should be able to work on Phoenixes or shadow mages, I'm not sure what's happening there >.< However, I don't see an issue with INT 800+ being able to insta-gank some monsters - there's already a large amount we simply can't even dent. Please also bear in mind that IJO from mobs takes over 250 hp from me - and even with MR 800+, blues can land it.

With specials + vamp weapons, Rogues / Fighters are already so above Mages on the survivability stakes to be unfunny. MR is now obtainable by both (to good amounts) and mages take much more damage than either due to lack of def / damage mitigation. VS doesn't scale, so we're stuck on def 10-13 forever. In real terms, this means we take 50%+ more damage from mobs than fighters / rogues, since MR doesn't effect magical damage, just duration of negative effects. There's also the small matter that when you close melee mobs such as dragons, they switch to melee attacks rather than fireballs / specials - which in real terms means they're not even hitting the fighter / rogue attacking them, or for such paltry damage to be a joke.

VM = 7 second cool down
Vamp weapons = Faster you hit, more HP regained... about 8-12 hits in 7 seconds? This is probably underestimating by a long way.

On PD recently, I was chatting with a level 155 fighter/rogue. 591 HP (with GHS) & vamp +4 LS and the abyss rooms of blues / greens don't ever take him under 170 hp due to vamp weapons. Compare that to my 187 Mage/rogue 499 HP with GHS (with rogue only being there for traps) and I get chewed up pretty good - I rely on my pet / summon for tanking. Soloing groups of dragons just isn't going to happen. My PD mage has 115 str, 100 dex, 505 int.


@ the topic. Mages are capped damage wise via INT, although we can chuck it out (INT 900ish = 64 damage VoGs, around 140 damage XCs), putting points into other stats doesn't help us, as we get no benefits at all from the other two. Which means past 600 INT, we actually fall behind something rotten, as spell damage ceases to increase much - we also have casting speed perma capped whilst fighter / rogues can get insane attacks / second as they get past 150. With staves being a necessity for casting, being duel classed isn't really an option for mages - i.e. Fighter / mage works as you're depending on spells only for back-up, Mage / fighter doesn't work at all, barring maybe some blocking / higher def (which is basically a bug - mages can only wield shields because of orbs).

Quick question: out of the top 50 on reg, how many are pure mages?


p.s.

Have the high end monsters actually got any decent melee attacks? I'm thinking 85+ AS (beating 85 def) and doing 100-300 damage?
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Post by Heikki »

However, I don't see an issue with INT 800+ being able to insta-gank some monsters
Sadly this leads to situations (happens lot allready) where mages just
Invis + IJO (insta kill) + Invis ONLY high lvl (uuber xp gain) monsters and leave other monsters untouched.

I allso hate seeing my fighter to do about 70p damage with my +8 claymore and still doing 500+ damage with IJO (with no staff weared)

this situation = :cheese::st thing in whole EUO
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Post by Heniek »

Heikki wrote:Sadly this leads to situations (happens lot allready) where mages just
Invis + IJO (insta kill) + Invis ONLY high lvl (uuber xp gain) monsters and leave other monsters untouched.
Hmm actually IJO insta kills only shadow mages(and not always, it depends on int), and they aren't giving uber xp. Anyway this is cheesy, and it's a problem, but it's not only related to mages, but to every class. Rogues can stealth, and fighters can use scrolls, and kill certain monsters only(shadow warriors for example). However, I completly agree that IJO would need some nerfing for low int characters(it's weird to see lvl 60 mage killing balron, while lvl 100 rogue still won't be able to do it).
Heikki wrote:I allso hate seeing my fighter to do about 70p damage with my +8 claymore
Get more balanced stats :P . With 66/33 your damage is obviously lowered, because best damage for swords is with 50/50 stats. Level 163 fighter's(for example Neonix) damage is getting close to 70 with vamp clay +8, and his stats are 50/50. Same with akioka - he's only 7 levels higher than you, and he can hit for well over 100 with his claymore.
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Post by Heikki »

Level 163 fighter's(for example Neonix) damage is getting close to 70 with vamp clay +8, and his stats are 50/50. Same with akioka - he's only 7 levels higher than you, and he can hit for well over 100 with his claymore
How the heck lot they got AS if they can hit shadow mages with full damage?
Even AS 60 (my AS with vampy claymore +8 and str 1200) is not lot enough to breakl Shadow mages defence and do full damage on them....

I think somebody is not telling truth....
fighters can use scrolls
Not sure what you meaned with this? I think mages and rogues can allso :P
and they aren't giving uber xp
:? I think they give super uuber xp
kill certain monsters only(shadow warriors for example)
Sadly even this does not hold true nowdays..
Those are easy to kill with "wounding" items for every classes nowdays (barbed staffs etc)
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Post by Heniek »

Heikki wrote:How the heck lot they got AS if they can hit shadow mages with full damage?
Even AS 60 (my AS with vampy claymore +8 and str 1200) is not lot enough to breakl Shadow mages defence and do full damage on them....
Hmm little misunderstanding from my side here. I thought that you're talking about hitting for 70 in general. If comes to monsters with high defense, yes it's very hard to break their def, and level 170 fighter is not able to do it. But on other hand - I think that's why fighters have cleave. My fighter doesn't have any problems with killing SM's.
Heikki wrote:Not sure what you meaned with this? I think mages and rogues can allso
I mean that every class is able to hide, and repeatly kill certain monsters only :smile:
Heikki wrote:Sadly even this does not hold true nowdays..
Those are easy to kill with "wounding" items for every classes nowdays (barbed staffs etc)
Well, technically it's possible, but I don't think it's easy to kill SW with barbed staff :smile: . Anyway, my point was, that cheesing monsters is not only problem of mages and IJO. With new respawn rate(well, not so new now, it's here for over 1.5 year), it's possible to repeatly kill one type of choosen monsters while avoiding other monsters, and everyone no matter what class is his char can do it. Shadow mages, shadow warriors, but also repeatly clearing deep pit(red dragons only), or balron's tower in DF.

I understand that someone might think it's not fair that char with lot of int, is able to kill SM with only one IJO. But again, I don't think it's a problem with IJO, but SM's hp/mana. Giving them more hp, or reducing their mana a bit(so even double damage from IJO wouldn't kill them, but only heavily harm) is a solution to this problem.
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Post by Dudle »

I have simply given up on the forums as of late...no one can ever leave the "unbalanced class's" alone. I dont want to quote anyone or argue points as this would only add to the fire...good luck with the witch hunt!

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Post by Eidolon »

Not really sure how this got turned into a fighter vs mage vs rogue vs everyone thread.

This thread is talking about stat balancing due to stat reductions.
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