Stargazer

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allthe more reason to switch from BI to DS!

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Then you'll be glad to hear that I used DS in my calculations...

Hmm...

I thought the DPE numbers looked a little odd, so I looked into it a bit closer. It seems like you truncate numbers instead of rounding them (191/40 = 4.8, not 4.7. You seem to have done the same for the BIs of the attacks (2.7778 -> 2.7 instead of 2.8)). This ends up hurting Claws more than BS, thus making Claws look (comparatively) bad.

Since I calculated DPE from DPS/EPS, this also affected my DPE numbers.

So... I recalculated from the start, and that makes things look a little better for Claws.
(I replaced Parry with AS. It should still not be a "good" chain, but at least it's a small improvement).

Bottom line is that Claws (still) ends up with better DPS than BS (about 12% better).
The Claws chain also has better DPE (about 6% better).
The Claws chain still uses more End/time (about 5% more)

If anyone wants to see all the calculations behind it, I can post them...


BS can do better on DPS, but that'll make its EPS increase too.



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As far as the accuracy competition, you're right. I completely forgot about the defense debuffs from the BS attacks. I recall hearing they are short-lived, so I imagine they will dissolve some during the 2-3 sec activation time attacks. It probably balances.

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IIRC, they have a duration of 10 seconds. Same as FU and Slash.



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As far as the endurance, I think Claws still maintains an edge, due to slotting considerations. For pretty much all high-end characters attacks, 5 of your slots are spoken for (2 acc, 3 dmg). For the reduced recharge of claws attacks (helped alot by quickness if you're /SR), you can afford making the 6th slot an endurance redux. Broadswords will have a bit tougher decision, because the slower recharges will probably make them opt for recharge enhancements to improve DPS.

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That's hard to say since there are so many possibilities. We should keep in mind that FU already has 3 recharges "locked in" in your chain, and that FU is the most end heavy attack in the chain...
My hunch is that some sort of average wouldn't really change things much. Claws will probably still have better DPE but worse EPS (meaning it still has better DPS).


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This is so vaguely theoretical at this point, I couldn't really claim it. I've just heard of so many BS/non-regens complaining they suck wind bad in extended fights. The attack chain planner I used for the BS calculations showed them hitting 0 endurance quicker than the claws.

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Except for Claws, single target DPE is the same for all sets. That means that when BS users complain about using too much end, they are essentially complaining about doing too much damage.



For fun, I ran those two original chains through Hero Builder's attack chain planner, and for BS it showed the exact same EPS I got. For Claws it showed a worse EPS. This is because Hero Planner doesn't have the same Claws numbers as nofuture.

So there's little doubt that using those chains, Claws uses more end/time than BS.

However, Claws also has better DPE, so for dealing a given amount of damage, Claws will use less endurance.

High EPS isn't too much to worry about. If nothing else, you can always stop for a few seconds every now and then.




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So, at least we're not arguing whether or not claws is now the DPS king or not--we're all in agreement on that.

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I wouldn't go that far. Claws seems to beat BS (at least using these chains, and I doubt BS chains can improve enough to make up the difference), but BS is hardly a top contender for the title. Quite the opposite.

The powersets to beat are MA, Spines and DA.

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You guys want to know something cool I just figured out?

For extended fights, like AVs or a boss with insane lethal protection, your DPS will be be better than a broadsword's. Even with BS's buildup.

I compared the Attack Chain of The Gods (dps: 5.2 BI/sec for the second and all subsequent runs) to broadsword's Headsplitter>Disembowel>Hack>Slash>Par ry. This chain gives 66.9 brawl index in 10 seconds with a buildup fired off, and 41.32 when it's not, which means you have to do 3 more cycles of the chain before buildup is back. Overall, this is 191 BI in 40 seconds, or 4.7 DPS.

Claws for the win!

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But that's not really a fair comparison.

The BS chain uses Parry. Parry has poor DPS, but gives a good defensive boost.
So essentially you're comparing an offensive Claws chain to a defensive BS chain.

I haven't looked much as BS attack chains, but if they want good DPS, it seems like they should be able to do better than that.

So while I don't doubt that Claws can outdamage BS over time, the difference shouldn't be as large as those numbers indicate.



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But, in a real-game application, I think Claws would still come out on top, because the constant follow-up buff and slash debuff will make you land more hits than the BS scrapper.

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Actually, I think BS wins the Accuracy Wars.

Against low-def targets, both of them will pretty much reach the 95% cap.

Against high-def targets, there's no question that BS wins. Big.

That leaves the middle ground, and while things can depend on circumstances here, I still think that BS has the edge.

BS has the possibility for having 4-5 debuffs active.
Claws (asuming closed chains) gets 2 buffs/2 debuffs for Focus and AS, 2 buffs/1 debuff for Slash (the second most important attack), and 1 buff/2 debuffs for FU (the attack that matters the most).

The buff in FU (10%) seems to be higher than the debuffs (I've heard 7.5% a lot, but I don't know if it's correct), but even if the debuffs are closer to 5%, they'll basically tie in buffs/debuffs (some room for interpretation here. With 5%, Claws might have the edge, especially if FU is slotted with more than one Acc).
On top of that, BS has a 5% acc bonus and BU.


Because the buff from FU is not target dependant, Claws has an advantage when fighting multiple "soft" targets, but against a single "hard" target (like in your comparison here), BS seems to have the advantage.



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Also, unless they are /regen, the BS is going to be sucking wind after about 4 cycles (40 sec). The ACOTG can go 10 cycles (60 sec) with 2 toggles up.

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Well....
In general, Claws attacks have a reduced End cost.
However...

Follow Up is not your general attack. It actually has a really large cost (compared to other attacks).
And Air Superiority is not a Claws attack.

So...

(assuming closed chains)

(Numbers from here)

Claws
power: ActTime EndCost
Slash: 1.33 5.4912
AS: 1.5 6.5
FU: 1.63 7.8
Focus: 1.53 6.8224
total: 5.99 26.6136

effective EPS (in closed chain):
26.6136/5.99 = 4.44 EPS

BS
power: ActTime EndCost
HS: 2.87 13.52
Dis: 2.87 10.192
Hack: 1.83 8.528
Slash: 1.37 5.2
Parry: 2 4.368
total: 10.94 41.808

Effective EPS w/o BU:
41.808/10.94 = 3.82 EPS


BU: 1.17 5.2

Effective EPS with BU:
(4*41.808+5.2)/(4*10.94+1.17) = 3.84 EPS


The BS chain will use less endurance than the Claws chain (86% as much).

If your DPS numbers above are correct, BS will actually have better effective DPE too.

DPE = DPS/EPS

Claws: 5.2/4.44 = 1.19 DPE
BS w/ BU: 4.7/3.84 = 1.22 DPE


How about that.
Claws* does more damage, but BS uses less end...

*At least using this chain that includes AS



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Yay for Claws!

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I'm with you on this one.

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I took only "falling" damage and still got debt. So I think ANY outside damage will produce debt.


There goes Fly is a travel power in PvP.

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... Ok, now that's just wrong.

Further testing on my end indicates that there's a "timer" of some kind on the debt. Seems to be 60 seconds or 2 minutes. After that, no debt.

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At the very least, there's some kind of limit.

I fought a pillbox and took "significant" damage.
After resting up, I asked a "friendly" villain to kill me.

No debt.

I don't know if it's because of a timer or because regeneration "resets" the counter.

Either way, there's no need for anyone to worry about getting debt for PvE fights that happened "a long time ago".

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The problem is, the total # of salvage items is not the only thing that matters. The types of items and how many you have of each does matter.

To see that this is so, imagine you have exactly 20 salvage. I use that number because it is the cap of a given type. Imagine that, just by some strange quirk of fate, you happen to have 20 Crey pistols, and zero of anything else, in your salvage. What can you make?

Odds are, not much... probably nothing. Because almost every schematic I can think of requires at least two kinds of salvage to create. So even though you have 20, it's not a very useful 20 just at the moment.

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By some strange quirk of fate, that'll get you 6 Tech Materials.

I see the point you're trying to make though, but that doesn't mean that it's a good one.
More about that later.


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On the other hand, imagine you have 20 salvage, but you have 5 pistols, and 5 body armor, and 4...etc, etc. You get the idea. Now you might be able to craft something. But hold on... you'd be just as bad off if you had 1 each of 20 things, as if you had 20 of one thing, because most items take 2 or more of a given thing (sometimes into the double digits) to create. So what you really want is about a half-dozen of each thing.

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You seem to have things somewhat confused. Raw salvage (devs call it tier 1 salvage) is used to create components (tier 2 salvage in dev-speak). Components are used to create base items. While certain items require double digit numbers of components, that is not the case for raw salvage->components.

Out of 152 Tech recipes (sorry if I miscounted by one or two), five of them require more than 2 of one ingredient.
Out of these five, one requires 4 of something (the ever so elusive EChips).
The other four require 3 of something. Out of these four, three of them require only that ingredient.

Most recipes require 1 of one thing, and 2 of another. Most of them also have a "mirror" recipe.
For example, 2 Rikti Armor Fragment and 1 DNA Mutation gives you a Tech Material, while 1 Rikti Armor Fragment and 2 DNA Mutations gives you a Tech Power.

This means that for these types of salvage, you won't generally end up with more than 2 "wasted" salvage. And many of them can be used in other recipes too...




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If you are in a large group, it is MUCH easier to combine those 1- and 2-unit item types into a large amount. My 2 body armors and Fred's 3 body armors and Sally's 1 body armor combine to make 6, and you can make that item that takes 6 body armors. If you're going to have to rack all 6 up by yourself, and right now you just have one, well, given that there are about 100 different types of salvage drops out there, you could be waiting a very, very long time.

You keep looking at the raw total # of salvage components, but that is not the most important factor. What matters is how many you have of the relevant types for what you want to make. The BEST case scenario is to have 20 of every single kind of thing. A large SG could, perhaps, pool together to give one person 20 of everything, and you could get some serious crafting/empowring mojo going in such a case. A single person would not be able to do that, not even close... nor could a small group.

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Like we've already discussed, most of your numbers are... off.
Ignoring that, it is of course true that a single person will end up with more "scraps"/"waste"/salvage they can't combine at the moment than a larger SG would per player. I've mentioned this before. More than once.

I mentioned earlier that this effect shouldn't be huge. Let me elaborate on that.

A limit on how much "waste" you end up with is how "small" the "lowest" recipes are.
If there's a recipe that uses 3 Broken Crey Pistols, you won't end up with more than 2 as waste.
With 2 Rikti Armor Fragment + 1 DNA Mutation -> Tech Material, and 1 Rikti Armor Fragment + 2 DNA Mutations -> Tech Power, over time you won't end up with more than 2 combined RAF/Mutations as waste (provided you fully combine) (though you could for a while be stuck with 5 RAFs).

Over time, your total amount of gathered salvage will increase, but the amount of waste will tend to remain limited.
(There are special cases where some types of salvage will tend to accumulate (Energy Sources come to mind), but that's usually because there seem to be more efficient uses for their "counterpart" in the recipes they are in (ESs are in only 2 recipes). If the other uses really are more efficient, this buildup should remain the same (or even increase) for larger SGs.)


And that's only looking at the relative size of the waste as the total amount of gathered salvage grows.

Let's look at what happens when we increase the SG size.
For simplicity's sake, consider the Crey Pistols (and only that one single recipe. They are also used in 2 other recipes, requiring only one of them there).
The amount of "total waste" will still be limited to 2 of them, but as the number of members go up, the maximum waste/member will shrink.

Members: max waste/member
1: 2
2: 1
3: 0.66
4: 0.5
5: 0.4
6: 0.33
7: 0.29
8: 0.25
9: 0.22
10: 0.2

25: 0.08
50: 0.04
75: 0.03


Most of the benefit will be seen from the first couple of members, after that the relative effect of each additional member will quickly shrink.
You have to double the SG size in order to cut the waste/member in half.

Similar cases will hold for waste in general.


So while it's true that larger SGs might have an easier time to make efficient use of their salvage, the waste is limited by how "small" the recipe requirements are in relation to the salvage gathered, and most of the benefit will be seen from the first few members anyway.

My SG of two has a fairly good conversion ratio, and an SG of 4 should be able to manage even better.



(Also, while the new Salvage storage makes it much easier to combine salvage within SGs, it's also possible to trade salvage with people outside your SG. While not as common, it can be useful for trading magic salvage for tech salvage (or the other way around), and sometimes also for some of the "rare" salvage)

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Well you can be snarky all you want...

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When faced with an exchange that basically went like this:
Large SGs have an advantage because they can farm AVs for long periods of time!
Uh... AVs are a very bad way to get salvage.
Well, duh! Replace "farm AVs" with whatever gives salvage then! ::EyeRoll::

The responses that came to mind were either Snarky, Condescending, Patronizing or Insulting.
Snarky felt appropriate.
<shrug>



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Let's take an extreme: An SG with 2 members, and one with 75 members (no alts, for simplicity). Let us assume that each player plays exactly 1 hour per day. Let us assume they solo 100% of the time (to get the best drops). Let us further assume that they fight about the same # of enemies per hour, and that this nets, just making up a number, 10 new salvage drops per hour. Each day, the 2-member SG gets 20 salvage drops. The 75-member gets 750. This is just with people soloing but being members of a large group.

You still going to maintain that a small group can get as many salvage bits as a large one? I don't see how that could be maintained with any claim to realism or honesty.

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Now where did this come from?
I haven't claimed anything like that. On more than one occassion, I've claimed the exact opposite.
My claim was and remains that it is not obvious that a large SG will get more salvage/player than a small SG (or the other way around for that matter).


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Beyond that, the more people, the more slavage total you have -- and the more total, the more likely you have enough different things in different "categories" of salvage to combine them. Certain types of mobs drop certain types of salvage. So if you are on a large team, you have more people doing different arcs, fighting different guys. The large group will be bringing in Crey, Rikti, Family, Arachnos, etc, drops all at once in a given week. The small group, both guys might be doing the Crey arc this week, meaning they will ONLY be getting whatever salvage the Crey drop, and NONE of the salvage dropped by Rikti, Arachnos, etc, etc. That means it'll take the smaller group more time to get combinable salvage dropes relative to the large ones.

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That doesn't follow.
Rikti salvage combines very well with other Rikti salvage, but not with Arachnos salvage. Recipes tend to use salvage that are "connected". There are of course also more "generic" salvage that will fit into many types of recipes.

It is not generally true that getting salvage from multiple "factions" will improve your conversion ratio. In fact, you're much more likely to end up with more "waste".

Larger SGs do have another advantage (which I've mentioned before) when it comes to combining salvage, but you talk more about this in your other post, so I'll reply to it there.



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Finally, although your per-kill rate might be higher for drops (as it certainly is for enhancements) soloing, the mob TYPE also affects the drop rate (as it does, also, for enhancements). I don't know what the salvage drop rate is, but the enhancement drop rate is about 12% for minions, 25% for LTs, and 66% for bosses. That means if you kille more bosses relative to minions, or more LTs, you get a higher drop rate (true for enhancements, and I believe, though I have not tracked it carefully, for salvage as well). In larger groups you get more LTs and more bosses, which means the chance a drop of any sort will occur is much higher, so even though you are splitting it with your team mates, the actual drops within a mission may go up, rather than down. This will depend, of course, on group size, type of mob, and especially difficulty setting.

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I mentioned earlier the possibility that certain team-configurations might result in better salvage/time/player than other configurations.

However, this is a function of how you team, not what size SG you're a member of.


Given several players with the same salvage/prestige gain, it will always be true that a larger SG will earn more total prestige than a smaller SG.
A larger SG will also earn more total salvage.
However, they will both earn the same salvage/player.

When it comes to prestige, the uses are all on the SG level. It makes sense to look at it as one large sum.

When it comes to creating base items, the uses are also on the SG level. For this, it makes sense to look at the salvage as one large sum.

However, when it comes to buying empowerment buffs, it makes sense to look at salvage/player (unless you're going to let everyone gather the salvage, and only a small number use it).

There will of course be edge conditions (initial cost for station, "waste" in salvage conversion...), but over time, salvage/player will be the effective limit on how many buffs/player you can get.



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All of that means that it really can't be true that a small group can "out salvage" a large one. Far from it... a large group can way WAY out-salvage a small one.

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Total salvage or salvage/player?
Of course a large group can gather more total salvage than a small one (given similar conditions).
If you meant salvage/player, then you just went from a bunch of "may"s in specific circumstances to a general "can't be true".

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If you want to argue that the empowerment buffs has a low benefit/(salvage) cost ratio, then I'm with you.
But keep the size of the SGs out of it, it's a red herring at best.

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That's *mostly* true. What it leaves out is the station itself. (and I'll take for granted that people of all size SGs all want the same buffs.)

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Definitely, and I mentioned that above:
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Now, if you'd argue that smaller SGs have a harder time affording the salvage required to build the higher tier empowerment stations, then you'd have a point.
However, that cost is
a) transient
b) relatively small compared to the cost of the buffs those stations make available

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That cost is a one-time cost. Sure, it may delay smaller SGs from getting their tier2/tier3 empowerment stations, but over time that cost will be small compared to the total salvage collected.


Second, I said that the cost is relatively small compared to the cost of the buffs those stations make available.

A tier 2 tech Empowerment Station costs 12 Materials and 36 Power ("tier 1 components").

Divide that among (say) 4 SG members, and you get 3 Materials and 9 Power per member.

How many tier 2 Empowerment buffs will that buy you?
Well.... none.

The thing is that while building a tier 2 station only costs tier 1 components, all tier 2 buffs use at least one tier 2 component (Hardware/Prototype). Tier 2 components are generally somewhat harder to come by than tier 1 components (though not greatly so).


Let's look at the costs for the tier 2 buffs [Material/Power/Hardware/Prototype]
1/4/0/1
1/3/0/1
0/5/1/1
4/3/1/1
2/3/0/1
0/6/0/1
4/1/1/0
7/0/1/0

All of them use an amount of tier 1 components that are "close" to the per person cost of the empowerment station, and in addition to this they also use tier 2 components.
Would it be fair to say that the cost of the empowerment station is in some way similar to the cost of 2 buffs? It should at least be "close" to that value.

So... If you intend to only buy 1-4 buffs from it, the cost of the station is clearly not negliable. If however you intend to buy 10+ buffs (over the period of usage), the cost of the station rapidly becomes small compared to the cost of the buffs.


What about the tier 3 station?

[Material/Power/Hardware/Prototype/Software/Experimental Tech]
Cost: 38/25/9/6/0/0
Cost per person in SG of 4: 9.5/6.25/2.25/1.5/0/0

Again, tier 3 stations cost tier1/tier2 components. All tier 3 buffs cost at least one tier 3 component. Tier 3 components are generally harder to come by than tier1/tier2 components (by a significant marigin this time).

Cost of tier 3 buffs:
4/4/2/2/1/1
10/0/3/3/1/0

In this case, I'd say that the cost (per member in SG of 4) of the station is more similar to the cost of one buff (possibly lower).
Significant for the first few buffs, but after that.....



It's clear that larger SGs will have to use less components/player to build the stations, but as long as you actually intend to use the stations, this cost is relatively small compared to the cost of the buffs.


That of course leaves the question if the buffs are worth their cost, but that's a separate issue from small/large SG comparisons.

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A small SG is much more likely to have a limited amount of salvage, which it can invest in very few buffs before stores run out.

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The second way is that smaller SGs will generally have a smaller total amount of salvage.

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Thank you, that's what I meant.

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I pretty much see two ways to interpret these two statements.

The first is in a comparative way (comparing the small SGs to another entity [non-small SG, hamster...])
A small SG is much more likely than a non-small SG to have a limited amount of salvage
smaller SGs will generally have a smaller total amount of salvage than a non-small SG.

If that's the way it was intended, then we're pretty much back to the red herring again (red hamster?).


The other way is that you didn't mean to compare them to anything else, but rather wanted to describe them in isolation.
A small SG is much more likely to have a limited amount of salvage than to have an unlimited amount of salvage
smaller SGs will generally have a small total amount of salvage.

If so... Then ok.


In either case, I don't think that total salvage/SG is very relevant to how useful the empowerment stations will be (unless you're going the route of having everyone collect, and only a few take benefit) (though it's clearly not totally without relevance either).
Salvage/Player seems to be much more relevant.

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However, if you're going to argue that larger SGs have an easier time gathering salvage/player, then you'd have to come up with more than that "It's demonstrably so".

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Why don't we look at the point I was actually making:

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A small SG is much more likely to have a limited amount of salvage, which it can invest in very few buffs before stores run out.

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Is that really the case? Yes, it is.

I am not talking about larger SGs. I am talking about small SGs, which is the exact group for which these stations were supposed to be particularly useful. They aren't.

For the stations to be made useful, the buffs would have to be boosted or made less expensive. Boosted would be the way to go, IMO, as you can't slice a single piece of Salvage into smaller increments.

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Then take a moment to think about the point you're apparently trying to make.

A small SG is much more likely to have a limited amount of salvage, which it can invest in very few buffs before stores run out.

"limited amount of salvage" can be interpreted in two ways.

It could be salvage/player (and thus affordable buffs/player).
It doesn't seem obvious that small SGs would be "much more likely" to be low on this. This was covered above.

The second way is that smaller SGs will generally have a smaller total amount of salvage. This was also covered above:

A larger SG will tend to have a larger total amount of salvage, but unless they choose to only let a few members actually use it, they also have a larger member-base to divide the salvage (buffs) among.

Unless the large SG decides to only have a small number of members use the salvage (and get the buffs), they are still limited by salvage/player.
So an SG of 20 could choose to only let 5 people use the salvage, thus giving those 5 people more buffs/player.
Is that the point you're trying to make?


If so, then why stop there?
A SG of 75 could get 75 HOs per Hamidon raid. This is what, enough to pretty much completely outfit almost two players per raid?
The best an SG of 4 could hope for is to get 4 HOs per raid.
Clearly HOs greatly favour large SGs.
Or do they?



If you want to argue that the empowerment buffs has a low benefit/(salvage) cost ratio, then I'm with you.
But keep the size of the SGs out of it, it's a red herring at best.

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That salvage might seem like a big pile now, but it will NOT last if you try to use these stations the way they currently are.

Small SGs need something they can use. That was what these were supposed to be. As it stands, a small SG will get zero worthwhile use out of them.

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While many would agree that the empowerment buffs are underwhelming, that doesn't mean that the empowerment stations are useless.

They do provide a very cheap and easy way for SGs to convert their raw salvage into components.
While this might not be the most exciting benefit, it's nothing to be scoffed at either.

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These devices are for small SGs, right? A small SG is much more likely to have a limited amount of salvage, which it can invest in very few buffs before stores run out.

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Is that really the case?

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Yes, demonstrably. I have alts in a small SG, and the amount of salvage we have accumulated since salvage was first introduced to the game won't net us more than a few buffs.

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If you'd argue that larger SGs have an advantage over small SGs when it comes to gathering prestige to expand their base, then I'd completely agree.

If you'd argue that the empowerment buffs have limited use, then I'd agree that they are very situational.


However, if you're going to argue that larger SGs have an easier time gathering salvage/player, then you'd have to come up with more than that "It's demonstrably so".


Now, if you'd argue that smaller SGs have a harder time affording the salvage required to build the higher tier empowerment stations, then you'd have a point.
However, that cost is
a) transient
b) relatively small compared to the cost of the buffs those stations make available

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Are you serious? You do realize this provides nothing (by design) to a resource strapped, small SG, while providing a large, organized PvP, who can farm a single av for a week and a half, a huge advantage for 15 mintes, aka 1 match.

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AVs are (with a few exceptions) guaranteed to drop a "special" salvage (Alien Tech, Spells of Power...). There are no empowerment recipes that use these.

AVs also have a chance to drop "regular" salvage, but it seems to me that farming AVs would be one of the worst possible ways to gather salvage for empowerment buffs.

So while there are reasons to dislike the way empowerment buffs are set up, this is not one of them.

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Well, then replace "farm av's" with whatever activity is most likely to drop salvage. ::EyeRoll::

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I seem to get my best salvage/time when I'm soloing.
So...
Large SGs are at an advantage because they have an easier time soloing?
Yeah, that makes sense.
It's so hard to find a good solo group these days.


Now, I won't claim that I'm in any way representative of the general player base, and it's very possible that this won't hold true for everyone.

Also, I don't spend much time on large teams, and it's possible that large teams somehow result in more salvage/time/player than small/medium teams.

However, it seems to be far from obvious that this is the case.

And even if this is the case, that'd be a benefit from playing on large teams, not being a member of a large SG.
Maybe you could argue that members of large SGs are more likely to play on large teams. I have no clue if this is generally the case or not.

The general advantage that SGs (or other groups of players that regularly play together) have is that they know each other well and can specialize in certain tasks.

Farming AVs is such a thing that these groups can have an advantage in, but as we already covered, this doesn't really help them gather usable salvage.


It seems to me that if you are going to claim that large SGs have an advantage in gathering salvage/player, then you should at least attempt to show that this is actually the case.

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but it is. and the point still stands, because the larger sg's have a slight advantage (from the points you mentioned), while smaller sg's have no advantage

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The point I mentioned was that they had an easier time combining "scraps". That's not a huge advantage.
Besides, most of that benefit is achieved with the first few members, after that the benefit per extra member goes down fairly fast.


Now, larger SGs will have an easier time gathering salvage to buy items for their base (including the tier 2/3 empowerment stations), but that doesn't seem to be what was complained about.

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These devices are for small SGs, right? A small SG is much more likely to have a limited amount of salvage, which it can invest in very few buffs before stores run out.

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Is that really the case?

Such arguments make sense for prestige costs. The prestige earned by all SG members gets pooled together.

But for salvage? A larger SG will tend to have a larger total amount of salvage, but unless they choose to only let a few members actually use it, they also have a larger member-base to divide the salvage (buffs) among.

Larger SGs may have an easier time combining "scraps" from several members (1 Body Armor Fragment from player A, 1 EChip from player B...), but that wouldn't seem to be a huge advantage.

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well you'd be farming so's as well and xp and inf/prestige

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Yes, but that wouldn't help them get empowerment buffs, would it?

Unless the "small SG" has trouble gathering the 15k prestige (more for the larger stations) needed for an empowerment station...

And I don't think that farming AVs is the best way to get prestige either.

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Multiple empowerment stations will stack the buffs that are offered (by design). If we made the buffs as good as players "expect" right out the gate, they'd be WAY too good when stacked.

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Are you serious? You do realize this provides nothing (by design) to a resource strapped, small SG, while providing a large, organized PvP, who can farm a single av for a week and a half, a huge advantage for 15 mintes, aka 1 match.

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AVs are (with a few exceptions) guaranteed to drop a "special" salvage (Alien Tech, Spells of Power...). There are no empowerment recipes that use these.

AVs also have a chance to drop "regular" salvage, but it seems to me that farming AVs would be one of the worst possible ways to gather salvage for empowerment buffs.

So while there are reasons to dislike the way empowerment buffs are set up, this is not one of them.

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While 10k samples might be nice if you're trying to determine the value of Lucks to 12.5%, a thousand should be more than enough to show that the value is "far" from 25%.

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But "sometimes, it seems like lucks don't work until I pop one or two more than I think I need" was rattling around in my head when I happened to be doing inspiration-related tests. And that isn't a "1000 swing" issue.

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Oh, I completely agree.

The point I was trying to make was this:
People were claiming in this thread that reports about this very issue were faced with complaints that they required 10000 attacks in order for the claim to be taken seriously.
Showing that a value differs from another value by a "sizeable" amount (like say 12.5% instead of 25%) simply doesn't require that many samples, so anyone insisting on more than say 1000 samples in order to show that Lucks "aren't working as they should" simply don't know what they're talking about.

So either people put unreasonable demands on the ones originally talking about this issue, or people are misremembering what those demands were.

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We all know that Arcana doesn't swing trout

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Damn straight.



Err...




...this is a compliment, right?

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I think so, but I can't be sure.

Give me some time to think about it.


Hmm. Trouts can be tasty... <trails off>

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If one "swing" corresponds to a larger number of attacks, it seems like the 10k number would be off by several orders of magnitude.

But I probably just read too much into the presence of that number. I can be fairly good at that...

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I actually used the 10k figure because that numbers actually gets bandied about when people start discussing statistics on the boards. You hear people who know the term "sample size", and perhaps little else, suggest that anything less than 10k worth of hit/miss data is insufficient to draw conclusion from.

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That's what I figured, and the reason I brought it up in the first place. By doing so, you (intentionally or not) implied a connection between one swing and one attack. And that makes 10k a gross exaggeration in this case. Make it 50 and I might buy it.


I probably wouldn't have mentioned it if I hadn't believed that you were using 10k because it's being thrown around (and thought that others might get the same impression).


While 10k samples might be nice if you're trying to determine the value of Lucks to 12.5%, a thousand should be more than enough to show that the value is "far" from 25%.


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I am, however, a professional trout-swinger. Like my father before me.

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Me, I juggle bass.

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Also, in cases like this it's more like 4 out of 10 complainers have never held a bat before, 2 play once or twice per year, 2 are wielding tennis rackets, and one person is happily swinging a trout.

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So, in your part of the world, diehard baseball players and fans swing trouts? And tennis rackets? Nice strawman argument.

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In my part of the world, people usually don't play baseball at all.

However, in my part of the forums, it is not uncommon for people posting about matters related to accuracy to be swinging trout.

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I think, in fact, that Fraktal is actually correct in this case, the poor example aside.

If fifty diehard baseball players and fans are noticing there's something wrong with their swing and saying, "The bat feels light", you don't just check the weight of the bat by looking at the number printed on it. You don't demand that they each take 10000 swings and report the results.

You get a scale and check the bat, then call the factory and get them to fix their manufacturing process.

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But that example isn't very good either. You can get a feel for the weight of a bat by holding it. You can't get the feel for accuracy by making one attack



Also, in cases like this it's more like 4 out of 10 complainers have never held a bat before, 2 play once or twice per year, 2 are wielding tennis rackets, and one person is happily swinging a trout.

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That is not the case. No one's saying that all complaints be treated equally. I'd be VERY surprised if the Devs aren't aware of Circeus and Arcana by name.

This isn't a random sampling of 10 complainers. It's like Ken Griffey making a comment about the bat and then the coach just shaking his and telling him he's imagining it. It's in the Devs interest for these bugs to be tracked down.

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I'm sorry if I read too much into it, but it seems to me that an argument is being made that the devs should listen more carefully to "veteran" players. I'm simply pointing out that a potential problem is that it's not uncommon for "veteran" players to make claims that are about as silly as playing baseball with a trout.

The forums are an environment filled with noise, and that makes it harder for the devs to glean the useful information. That does of course not mean that they shouldn't try.

And pointing out Arcana as an example for why the devs should listen more carefully to the players doesn't help the argument much if they already do listen to her.
This can't continue any more! What you're doing is not acceptable, we demand that in the future you do exactly what you're doing now!

We all know that Arcana doesn't swing trout (well, maybe on her spare time, but that's none of our business), but that doesn't mean that that VeteranPlayer001 and VeteranPlayer002 can be assumed to follow the same standard.
For most definitions of "Veteran Players", you will find a number that are not above using trout as more than a source of food.

Enough about trout.
For now.



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It's not accurate to suggest that we're saying the bat weight example is analagous to "making one attack". No one has said that, and I doubt anyone would.

To be clear: taking a few swings in my example should be compared to a playing doing a few missions (or a few "at bats", if you prefer).

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You don't demand that they each take 10000 swings and report the results.

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Sorry if I assumed too much, but it sure seemed as if you implied that people are currently expected to take 10000 swings in order for their opinions to be considered.

Some extreme people prefer having sample sizes upwards 10k to make conclusions about the values involved. I doubt many would "require" more than a few k to acknowledge that a value seems to be off by a significant amount.

If one "swing" corresponds to a larger number of attacks, it seems like the 10k number would be off by several orders of magnitude.

But I probably just read too much into the presence of that number. I can be fairly good at that...

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I think, in fact, that Fraktal is actually correct in this case, the poor example aside.

If fifty diehard baseball players and fans are noticing there's something wrong with their swing and saying, "The bat feels light", you don't just check the weight of the bat by looking at the number printed on it. You don't demand that they each take 10000 swings and report the results.

You get a scale and check the bat, then call the factory and get them to fix their manufacturing process.

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But that example isn't very good either. You can get a feel for the weight of a bat by holding it. You can't get the feel for accuracy by making one attack



Also, in cases like this it's more like 4 out of 10 complainers have never held a bat before, 2 play once or twice per year, 2 are wielding tennis rackets, and one person is happily swinging a trout.

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I hope this little nugget will be a lesson to the Doubting Thomases who arise to shout down anyone without a 5 MB file of 10,000 hits and misses to back him up. The people who were correct in this case were, not the statistical gurus (sorry Arcana, but then I am in this group most of the time too), and not even the devs themselves, but rather, the people who KNOW the game inside out from many hours of playing it, and could tell just by feel, that something odd was going on with inspirations. So maybe from now on people will be a little more open-minded when the more intuitive, but experienced, gamers have something to say about these things.

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The problem is that very often, many many players "feel" wrong.

Don't get me wrong, I feel that many situations described by players (including this one) merit being looked into, but how are the devs supposed to distinguish those from the myriad of frivolous claims out there? For every "legitimate" claim, there are (at least) dozens that lack any merit whatsoever. This is especially true concerning matters of accuracy. In some cases (possibly this one) the situation described is different enough to warrant looking into, but is this always so apparent? After reading hundreds of posts about how "accuracy is broken!!1!one!", I'd be a bit sceptic too.

So what should the devs "usually" listen to? A select few?
Arcanaville is usually correct, listen to her. Fraktal will often be correct, but sometimes wrong - listen, but take anything said with a pinch of salt. Never listen to that no-good troublemaker Stargazer.

You mention "intuitive experienced" players. I've seen "intuitive experienced" players that are so far disconnected from reality that I'm amazed they can even log into the forums.
(there's another problem right there. Hyperbole.)

And things aren't usually that clear-cut. People tend to be correct sometimes and wrong sometimes. That makes it even harder. Sometimes people make obviously incorrect claims in reports about issues that actually exist (I'm pretty sure I've seen that in discussions regarding this very issue).

And how are the devs supposed to tell the difference between a "good" poster and a "bad" poster? Do we expect them to spend as much time on the forums as we do? It's relatively easy to get an impression about some posters, but very hard to do the same for the general populace.


I'd also hesitate to draw any wider conclusions from one isolated case. "See! A poster was right, you should listen to us!" doesn't necessarily carry much weight if posters more often than not are wrong (about issues similar to this). Even a blind hen sometimes finds a grain of corn...


Again, I'm not saying that it's ok for devs to generally ignore claims by posters, but we should understand that it is not trivial to tell legitimate claims from absurd ones. There's bound to be mistakes made.



On a separate note, I find it to be a bit of a stretch to use your analogy for a situation as random as the one described here.
It works well for cases with a stronger connection between cause and effect, but not so well for cases like this.

It'd work great if there was something wrong with Super Jump.
I've been using Super Jump for over a year now, and I usually land within 5 ft. of where I aim. Now I suddenly fall 15 yards short on every jump.

Or maybe for Stealth.
I can usually get much closer than this before being noticed. Something must be wrong.

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Yeah, and you know I test in PvE, so thats not a viable option. If you are at all curious, my tests were not with my MA/SR, and they were ultimately suicidal.

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Because it would be interesting:
Time to death against a "reliable" "fast" damage source (PBAoE DoT, ...).

I can't say for sure how easy it'd be to find a damage source that's "just right", but it'd be an interesting approach.




A somewhat less interesting option would be to look for streakbreaker boundraries. You wouldn't be able to get precise values, but should be able to tell the difference between 12.5% and 25%.
But that would have been a much too easy guess.

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Actually, I think the problem in this case was that there were a lot of very experienced people on both sides of this issue who were going by feel, and no one wanted to do controlled testing of something like this, because controlled testing is not easy to do (ten bucks says no one comes close to guessing what sort of testing uncovered this).

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If I was going to test a transient defense buff like Lucks, I might consider using Rain powers.
Using Ice Storm, it seems like you should easily be able to fit about 150 tics into the duration of one single Luck (more if you use Hasten).

But this seems too easy to be the answer.