To Hit Debuff Enhancement Change Explained
By
Amber_Blaze,
Posted on: 2006-04-05 16:34 in Developers' Corner
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I've tracked down the error in the "Before" case. Statesman says:
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The To Hit chance also increased over level. A +1 level had a 1.05 modifier, +2 level 1.1 and +3 1.15. For example, the base to hit chance of a lieutenant +2 levels was .58*1.1 or 63.8%.
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As iakona shows, the math doesn't work using these base to hit chances. However, if the level modifiers are additive rather than multiplicative, the numbers match perfectly. (In other words, a +3 boss would have a base to hit of 0.65+0.15=0.80). Which leads to the question: which is wrong, the explanation or the math?
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Good question. It would be nice to get numbers that are actually generated from the game engine and not based on what the devs thinks the current formula is. I'm sure they have a bunch of different ones and are trying to figure out which math they actually ended up implementing..
[/ QUOTE ] Could the Test Engine have a different formula on it than the Game Engine??? It HAS happened before, you know 
My fault. I misread what you said.
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That's not what I'm saying. The error is in the level modifier, not the rank modifier. Is a +3 boss:
1) 0.65*1.15=0.7475 or
2) 0.65+0.15=0.80 ?
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It's neither. I don't know for certain what the +level modifiers are, because the now-famous purple patch by geko is hopelessly out of date, as proven out by player-character accuracy tests since. However, if we assume that States' numbers are correct, then what you're looking at now is:
.5 * 1.3 * 1.3 = .845 modified chance to hit.
You'll note that that's extremely close to the player-tested numbers you cite for the current system. 1.2667 * .65 = ~.823
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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As for FF Defenders replacing Dark and Rad Defenders, I'm sorry, but it's not gonna happen. All this change really means is that Dark and Rad defenses will Enhance AT THE SAME RATE as FF. And they can still 1) heal, 2) buff damage and 3) rez, not to mention hold and slow and in the case of Rad even boost attack rate and Endurance, none of which FF is capable of. And if you bring up Aid Self, that's a slot that can't be used for the FFers Primary or Secondary, three if he wants to be able to rez.
Nobody's going to give up Accelerate Metabolism for an FF Defender. At best, this means FFers might be able to compete, instead of obviously being weaker than all other Sets but Trick Arrow. It's not what I wanted, I would rather the defense ratio stay where it is, and FF get some offense. But neither this nor the Accuracy rebalance are going to suddenly make FF popular. FF will be no more useful against reds and purples than it is against whites right now, and saying that an FF is better against whites than 300 Darks is certainly not true.
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While I may disagree with the extremism in the example, his point was that, because high-level foes resist toHitDebuffs (and now, high-rank foes resist it additionally), while Defense is invariant with foe level or rank, Defense is more powerful and consistent than toHit defbuffs. Whether the sets as a whole suffer for that is, as you point out, far less black and white.
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I've actually got a nice graph to show the extreme disparity between ToHit Debuffs and Defense as of I7.
Here it is.
The debuff values use an RI that has been 3-slotted for ToHit Debuffs.
The defense values are using a 40% defense, which happens to be lower than even the post-nerf 3-slotted RI number (46.87%).
Edit: Fixed the graph to properly reflect the changes.
Edit again: the change didn't seem to take for some odd reason...you'll get a 404 error for now.
Final Edit: Ok, now it's fixed. The graph is no longer so hopefully optimistic.
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Another Nerf!!!! Come on this is getting silly.
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Someone else want to say it? Or should I?
(Just do it quick, before Taser shows up and goes fullblown FB mode)
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Where is Taser? 
*looks around*
@Lasher
First Of The Year
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Originally Posted by Edgar Allan Poe
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.
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Sorry, thats not acceptable to me, if this is an "I7" change, then put it in with I7, until then my toons have to suffer with this change because they are not able to change the HO code (which as many many people have pointed out sounds very odd).
My suggestion is keep your buff til I7.
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Hmm... But didn't Statesman say...
Statesman:
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Ideally, the Enhancement change shouldve gone hand in hand with I7. To be honest, there was an error there. Unfortunately, we discovered that we couldnt pull the change out without jeopardizing the I7 release schedule. Right now, QA (at NCSoft and Cryptic) is working away at I7 and shaking out bugs. If we were to roll back this change, our teams would need to put I7 aside and retest the current build. I made the decision to stay the course instead.
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To be honest, I'd rather them not prolong I7 longer than it already is...
@Lasher
First Of The Year
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Originally Posted by Edgar Allan Poe
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.
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Honestly, though, this is unavoidable. It doesn't even matter if they left us at Schedule A or not. ToHit Debuffs would still roll off while Defense would (now) be constant.
The only way what you are graphing above could be avoided is if toHitDebuffs avoided the "purple rolloff". I'll bet you the engine can't support that currently. I'm not saying I don't think it *should*, but if it can't then we simply are screwed.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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I've actually got a nice graph to show the extreme disparity between ToHit Debuffs and Defense as of I7.
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But according to Statesman's numbers, the change in ToHit Debuffs should be the OPPOSITE of that. The numbers are worse lower than +2, and become better higher than +3. It seems reasonable that that trend would continue.
Even if you assume that your base curve for the ToHit Debuff is correct, and it was my understanding that Defense and ToHit Debuff were essentially the same thing, a direct subtraction from to hit, then the difference is innate to the higher level foe resistance to debuffs.
You might as well say that FF is superior to debuff sets RIGHT NOW. Because that's what your graph shows. So why doesn't FF already replace all the Dark and Rads?
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The only way what you are graphing above could be avoided is if toHitDebuffs avoided the "purple rolloff". I'll bet you the engine can't support that currently. I'm not saying I don't think it *should*, but if it can't then we simply are screwed.
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Exactly what I said, but you expressed it much better.
It wasn't enough to make much of a difference before, and the debuff sets do have more than just ToHit Debuffing to make up for it.
Now, however, the difference is huge.
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The defense values are using a 40% defense, which happens to be lower than even the post-nerf 3-slotted RI number (46.87%).
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How does that number relate to real-world 3-solotted bubbles?
I'm honestly asking. 40% defense sounds very high. For example, an SR Scrapper gets 12.5% defense out of each toggle. Defense is also Schedule B. That means that, 3-slotted, it's 19.625.
Elude is, what +45%?
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
It's some arbitrary number. I *believe* that well-slotted FF defenders can get their teammates up to 35% defense. Stacking that with a well-slotted Maneuvers would let you hit 40%.
I'll check an FF defender guide to see how off I am.
Edit:
I'm actually a tad low according to Maldini's base values for powers guide. FF defenders give a base 25% defense to everything, or a 38.5% defense to everything when well-slotted. Adding Maneuvers to that brings it over 40% by a decent margin.
I've redone my last spreadsheet with Stateman's post included: Snapshot of Changes
The full spreadsheet is available for those that are interested, just PM me and include an email address. As you can see from the snapshot, you can select number of enhancements, their level (-3 to +3), and which rules you'd like to apply. For example, Stateman said I6 Level To Hit modifiers were multiplicative, but as others have pointed out, Stateman's Before numbers only work if it is actually Additive. You can also turn on and off the Purple Patch and new Rank Modifiers Stateman mentioned.
A note on numbers. I used 31.25% in the snap shot since that's the stated value (by State's himself) of RI. However, in State's Before example, after applying two Schedule A enhancements, he somehow got 0.3125 * 1.666 = 0.5187 instead of 0.5602 (looks like he used 66% instead of 66.6%). If you want to match his Before numbers, you'd put 31.135% instead of 31.25% since that yields the final value State's used of 0.5187. Similarly, the After number somehow got 0.3125 * 1.4 = 0.4372 instead of 0.4375. Use 31.23% to match his after numbers.
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I'm not worried over whether there's one's coming WITH i-7, that's just common sense.
We need one for THIS patch
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I certainly wouldn't gripe about it, but it isn't going to happen. Not with I-7 a month away from live.
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Well, to be fair we don't know that. It could be another 1-2 months, or 1-3 months unless Statesman or CuppaJo say "a month away from live".
Given how fast and with the apparent ease of which they pushed out free costume tokens, I don't think it would be hard (and hardly unbalancing for the game) to push out an extra Freespec *immediately*, and then to do so again after I7 comes out. Respeccing a character is *not* a game unbalancing thing, and people still did the respec trials immediately after they came out. I did Terra Volta a day or two AFTER the last Freespec. Why? I wanted another one.
Note they've done interim Freespecs before like this after dropping big changes, and it hurts nothing.
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Thank you, that's exactly the point I was *trying* to make....but rational.
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I've actually got a nice graph to show the extreme disparity between ToHit Debuffs and Defense as of I7.
Here it is.
The debuff values use an RI that has been 3-slotted for ToHit Debuffs.
The defense values are using a 40% defense, which happens to be lower than even the post-nerf 3-slotted RI number (46.87%).
Edit: Fixed the graph to properly reflect the changes.
Edit again: the change didn't seem to take for some odd reason...you'll get a 404 error for now.
Final Edit: Ok, now it's fixed. The graph is no longer so hopefully optimistic.
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Are you sure about the debuff numbers for even and +1? Seems like the numbers I saw before had a much higher gap around the ballpark of 15% where your nummbers appear to be 5%. The +2 on up differences didn't bother me that much but the lower gaps were a concern for me.
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You know what. I'll prove your [censored] wrong that debuffing isnt gimped now. When the patch goes Live, I'll still debuff and kill things easy.
I've lived through SR going from Subpar, to awesome with perma elude. To no perma elude. Then the global defense change, then ED and I still run great. Other people proclaimed it was the end for SR and that it was useless to play. But I still fight damn well.
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That's because nomatter what, you've always had Practiced Brawler. It's an entirely DIFFERENT story when you're being mezzed every 3rd hit and losing ALL of your -ACC/+DEF based toggles. ...but then no one expects most scrapper and blaster players to honestly and genuinely be sympathetic to the plight of defenders in the long-run... *cough*Castle*cough* ...no, when things go badly for you, y'all just yell "H3AL ME!" at the Defenders...anything else they might have been attempting to do is just a waste of effort where your welfare is concerned. I guess we're back to the status quo of 6-slotted Twilight, 02boost, Alkaloid, and RadiantAura by level-10, lest we start getting kicked off teams again.
To Statesman:
Damnit! Your bourgeois "Vision" for margainilizing all Defenders to "I R H34Lz0Rz" is an Assault on free thinking players everywhere and you need a new hobby! And tell Positron that Screwing us over b/c his MM's are "just a little too good" does not jive with your Risk/Reward mantra. NOOCH!
Hiya Statesman,
Ya'll should really have a proper dialogue with defenders about "the vision" for defenders, clear up some long-term issues, and, in general, reassure us.
_Castle_'s "Drumroll please" post was a step in the right direction, but often went from dismissive, "working as intended", to patronizing, telling bubblers to grab someone with taunt in order to make FF's Final Three less dangerous for the defender. It almost raised as many issues as it adressed: why is -speed a control, but +speed is a buff? why are "control" powers in defender primaries weaker than they are in controller seoncdaries? if FF's final three powers are situational by design, how does that jive up with your telling us last year how great they are -- for general purpose use?
Some of these concerns have been rattling around since CoH beta, but have never been adressed.
Just some thoughts.
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I've actually got a nice graph to show the extreme disparity between ToHit Debuffs and Defense as of I7.
Here it is.
The debuff values use an RI that has been 3-slotted for ToHit Debuffs.
The defense values are using a 40% defense, which happens to be lower than even the post-nerf 3-slotted RI number (46.87%).
Edit: Fixed the graph to properly reflect the changes.
Edit again: the change didn't seem to take for some odd reason...you'll get a 404 error for now.
Final Edit: Ok, now it's fixed. The graph is no longer so hopefully optimistic.
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Are you sure about the debuff numbers for even and +1? Seems like the numbers I saw before had a much higher gap around the ballpark of 15% where your nummbers appear to be 5%. The +2 on up differences didn't bother me that much but the lower gaps were a concern for me.
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The Debuff Now number for +0 looks a bit off since a 3-slotted RI right now will floor an even-lvl LT (forgot to mention that this graph uses LT values since they tend to fall in the middle). The line would be straight if it wasn't for it hitting the floor.
MrQuizzles, could you add a line to your graph showing what THDB's would look like if they DIDN'T change the enhancements at all? Obviously it would be better, but you graph helps to put it into perspective for me
Ok, I added a new line in there to show what debuffs would look like in I7 if ToHit debuff enhancements were still schedule A.
The graph.
Personally, I like that line much better.
THANX 
So, if they didn't do the THDB nerf, I-7 would be a minor buff for DeBuffers, Right?
(and the buff doesn't look game braking, either...)
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I've actually got a nice graph to show the extreme disparity between ToHit Debuffs and Defense as of I7.
Here it is.
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Assuming a lower final ACC is better... that really mimics trends in my DEF vs RES comparisons from Issue5's changes...but on a much grander scale. End result: RES is still King, and -ACC is left WAY behind everything else.
(the difference between Medium and Mean is a Boss or two and LT's in a larger spawn versus a ton of Minions and some LT's...and everyone knows that a lot more minions and only a couple LT's is MORE REWARDING xp-wise than a smaller spawn with couple Bosses/EB's thrown in)
When looking at the graph, though, an interesting question comes up: How do you balance the two against each other when they behave so differently?
You would have to find a suitable point of intersection. It can't be too high because defense-heavy sets like FF don't have much to make up for their losses before that point. You can't make it too low, either because, although debuffing sets like Dark Miasma have much to make up for it, the curve becomes very steep very quickly after that point. It won't be long before the disparity between the two far outpaces what else the set can do.
So, then, what do you do?
The only way to fix it would be to exempt toHit buffs from the purple rolloff. That is the root of the entire problem.
Note, however, that the moment you do that, you are almost certainly looking at a significant nerf to the base values. They aren't going to let us floor the accuracy of +4 mobs just because we can toss 2 or 3 debuffs on them at once.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Hmmmmmm...
It seems to me that you would want to reduce the slope of the one with the steepest climb.
It looks like the THDB I7(nerfed) has a shallower climb than the un-nerfed I7. What if you kept the nerf, but reduced the effectiveness of the Purple Patch? Like, cut it in half? Instead of .1 for Lts., make it .05
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As for FF Defenders replacing Dark and Rad Defenders, I'm sorry, but it's not gonna happen. All this change really means is that Dark and Rad defenses will Enhance AT THE SAME RATE as FF. And they can still 1) heal, 2) buff damage and 3) rez, not to mention hold and slow and in the case of Rad even boost attack rate and Endurance, none of which FF is capable of. And if you bring up Aid Self, that's a slot that can't be used for the FFers Primary or Secondary, three if he wants to be able to rez.
Nobody's going to give up Accelerate Metabolism for an FF Defender. At best, this means FFers might be able to compete, instead of obviously being weaker than all other Sets but Trick Arrow. It's not what I wanted, I would rather the defense ratio stay where it is, and FF get some offense. But neither this nor the Accuracy rebalance are going to suddenly make FF popular. FF will be no more useful against reds and purples than it is against whites right now, and saying that an FF is better against whites than 300 Darks is certainly not true.
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While I may disagree with the extremism in the example, his point was that, because high-level foes resist toHitDebuffs (and now, high-rank foes resist it additionally), while Defense is invariant with foe level or rank, Defense is more powerful and consistent than toHit defbuffs. Whether the sets as a whole suffer for that is, as you point out, far less black and white.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA