Official Thread for Defense Scaling Changes
By
Alexio_DeAmore,
Posted on: 2006-05-01 13:40 in Developers' Corner
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On the whole this change is good. My /EA brute gets hit less on test than on live and it's great.
Where this becomes a problem is with higher accuracy mobs (AVs and such) that can no longer be floored to 5%.
To use a worst case scenario, Infernal. It takes slightly over one hit from him to kill my /EA brute. My main defense was to use overload so he couldn't hit me (unlike other sets this gives a +HP).
Now on test he'll get an AV and lvl acc bonus (the negatives of this are most evident in MoG). This will at least double the hits I'll take during the fight.
I propose one of the following to allow the tier 9 defense powers to operate at the 5% limit still.
1) No longer bound the to hit calculation at 5% before multiplying accuracy
2) Allow the tier 9 powers to get applied after the accuracy calculation (making them better than lucks and toggles which can't floor all oponents)
3) Have extra defense act as an acc debuff to allow asymptotic approach of 5%.
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So then with sufficiently high defense, you could get up to 94.7% damage mitigation against a high level AV. About the damage mitigation of a tanker with 90% resistances and dull pain and his extra inherent health relative to your brute.
You can ask, you just won't get it. Don't get me wrong, I used to enjoy it back in the perma-elude days, and I'll take it if the devs completely lose their minds and start handing it out, but I'm not really going to go out of my way to fight for that one.
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I wanted to make something clear. By no means do I feel any amount of defense should go below the 5% mark.
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This change does not affect PvP.
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Just out of curiousity, are there any plans to address Defense in PvP on a future date? I'd really like to see a solution that isn't an across the board accuracy nerf.
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In a sense, Defense works fine in PvP: ever since they changed the base tohit in PvP from 75% to 50%, Defense has been scaled right.
The problem is really that tohit buffs are too strong. But balancing *them* seems to be a sticky problem. Its more complex than it first looks, and on top of that the devs seem to be reluctant to mess with them.
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True, but I wonder if changing the base % on all DEF powers for PvP might have worked better? I mention this because there are NPC's in the PvP zones as well. It seems kind of silly to me that toons may miss NPC's in PvE zones infrequently, yet as soon as they enter a PvP zone, they miss targets more frequently with the same slotting/powers.
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This change does not affect PvP.
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Just out of curiousity, are there any plans to address Defense in PvP on a future date? I'd really like to see a solution that isn't an across the board accuracy nerf.
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In a sense, Defense works fine in PvP: ever since they changed the base tohit in PvP from 75% to 50%, Defense has been scaled right.
The problem is really that tohit buffs are too strong. But balancing *them* seems to be a sticky problem. Its more complex than it first looks, and on top of that the devs seem to be reluctant to mess with them.
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True, but I wonder if changing the base % on all DEF powers for PvP might have worked better? I mention this because there are NPC's in the PvP zones as well. It seems kind of silly to me that toons may miss NPC's in PvE zones infrequently, yet as soon as they enter a PvP zone, they miss targets more frequently with the same slotting/powers.
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The PvP tohit change specifically affects the case where a player attacks a player: your tohit doesn't drop when you zone into a PvP zone. Your base chance to hit critters in a PvP zone is still 75%.
In PvE, your base tohit is variable because of the purple patch. Although we say "player base tohit is 75%" we really mean "player base tohit is 75% when attacking level level critters." In actuality, the purple patch dictates that the system in effect consult your target before determining your base tohit. If you are attacking a +0, its 75%. If you are attacking a +1, its 68%, and so on.
Essentially, what the devs did is add one more check: if you are attacking a player, its 50%. Your chance to hit non-players is still the same in PvE and PvP zones.
If you are specifically noticing missing critters in PvP zones more often than outside of them, I believe that would be a bug.
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I spend an hour or two on test each night and I have noticed that accuracy against NPC's is off compared to PvE zones. It's why I mentioned it. I'm wondering if the acc penalty is somehow trickling over to NPC's? A lot of the other people I've teamed with over the past week or so have said they notice it as well.
Some of them I know have hero stats. I'll have to ask them if they are tracking it at all.
Shard Warrior - 50 MA/Regen/BM Scrapper
Founding Member and Leader : Shadow-Force
Co-Leader: Council of Heroes
"Whatever evils come this way... we will be there to stop them."
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I wanted to make something clear. By no means do I feel any amount of defense should go below the 5% mark.
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Accuracy of +3 AV in I7: 1.95
Base tohit vs zero defense: 97.5% (95%)
Net tohit of 100% defense: 1.95 * 5% = 9.75%
Damage mitigation of 100% defense vs +0 minion: 5% / 50% = 90%
Damage mitigation of 100% defense vs +3 AV: 9.75% / 95% = 89.7% (just slightly under 90% because the base tohit was capitated at the 95% ceiling)
Damage mitigation of 100% defense if allowed to floor to 5%: 5% / 95% = 94.7%
Allowing high defense to ignore the intermediate floor and drive tohit to 5% does two things: it makes high defense scale higher against harder targets, something resistance is not allowed to do, and it makes accuracy enhancements have no effect in PvP.
The thing you want to change to make elude and MoG reach the 5% floor in I7 was put in I4 to *prevent* them from doing so against high accuracy, very specifically. Its not a bug, side effect, or error. MoG and Elude are doing in I7 what they are doing right now in I6, they will just be doing it more often, and they're doing it because the tohit system was explicitly changed to make them do it.
Changing MoG and Elude to be able to reach the 5% floor consistently isn't a "fix" its a fundamental change to the way the tohit system currently works. It doesn't even work that way now in I6. People only think it does.
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I spend an hour or two on test each night and I have noticed that accuracy against NPC's is off compared to PvE zones. It's why I mentioned it. I'm wondering if the acc penalty is somehow trickling over to NPC's? A lot of the other people I've teamed with over the past week or so have said they notice it as well.
Some of them I know have hero stats. I'll have to ask them if they are tracking it at all.
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Is this a test server only thing, or do you see this behavior on live as well?
I haven't specifically noticed it myself, but I haven't specifically conducted accuracy tests in the PvP zones either. I may do one just to see for myself if I have time.
I know what the I7 Accuracy Scaler is *supposed* to do. That doesn't mean its actually doing that correctly now. Could be another bug.
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I read the guide a few pages in this thread but have a stupid question. Am I right in that this in no way affects the double ding that acc debuff and to-hit debuff powers get (as level increases your power loses it's effect and the critter to-hit increases)?
I can recall a graph that someone drew to display how acc debuff powers like RI and to-hit debuff powers like DN would look I6 and I7 and it seemed like the low end (0 and +1) was worse by 5% or so but as it went higher the effect was favorable to I7. A quick example would be nice too.
/edit threw in some details of acc and to-hit
This seems the best place to put it.
According to the latest (5-10) patchnotes, the SR passives buff has been removed.
o.O
I was pretty happy with the buff. I wonder what made them decide to remove it. Wasn't it there to better balance it with /Nin?
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I read the guide a few pages in this thread but have a stupid question. Am I right in that this in no way affects the double ding that acc debuff and to-hit debuff powers get (as level increases your power loses it's effect and the critter to-hit increases)?
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Yes, this is the effect of the purple patch: your tohit drops when attacking higher level critters, which reduces the chance for a debuff to land in the first place (unless its autohit), and reduces the effectiveness of all your effects, including damage and debuff strength. These effects are completely unaffected.
Critters got 50% tohit and some accuracy - like accuracy enhancements - to compensate. This has the *side effect* of improving the scalability of defense. But no actual mechanical change was made: everything "works" as it did before.
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This seems the best place to put it.
According to the latest (5-10) patchnotes, the SR passives buff has been removed.
o.O
I was pretty happy with the buff. I wonder what made them decide to remove it. Wasn't it there to better balance it with /Nin?
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They never said why they added it. I have a bad feeling about this, though.
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Of all the sets, SR was overpowered? *laughs*
"Cupcake cupcake cupcake; Cupcake. Merry_Mint is the best." - Abraham Lincoln
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Of all the sets, SR was overpowered? *laughs*
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Maybe the new Defense scaling balances it? *shrugs*
the buff gave like 2% extra defense WITH 3 SO def slots in the passives, it was so little it was pointless to me so i specced out of the passives to get aid self (on test with the freespec). aid self is working great for me, and now that they've re-nerfed the passives i'll never consider using them again
seriously, /SR is all about evasion, it should do that better than the other classes by a fair margin, this nerf stinks. lucky the passives already sucked anyway
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the buff gave like 2% extra defense WITH 3 SO def slots in the passives, it was so little it was pointless to me so i specced out of the passives to get aid self (on test with the freespec). aid self is working great for me, and now that they've re-nerfed the passives i'll never consider using them again
seriously, /SR is all about evasion, it should do that better than the other classes by a fair margin, this nerf stinks. lucky the passives already sucked anyway
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It's not a nerf, it's a buff that never was.
But other than that nit-pick, I agree. With this change, I was finally able to go toe-to-toe with bosses and such the way I'm SUPPOSED to. I'm sure some of that was the scaling change, but some of it was definitly the passives I'd taken when I tested this.
I liked it.
I think it should stay.
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Of all the sets, SR was overpowered? *laughs*
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Maybe the new Defense scaling balances it? *shrugs*
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The I7 Critter Accuracy Scaler balances Defense. SR is not quite balanced against the other sets even against even-level minion-class attackers (i.e. 50% base tohit and 1.0 accuracy), so the I7 Critter Accuracy Scaler doesn't balance SR. It just makes it less unbalanced against higher Rank/Level targets.
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Of all the sets, SR was overpowered? *laughs*
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Maybe the new Defense scaling balances it? *shrugs*
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The I7 Critter Accuracy Scaler balances Defense. SR is not quite balanced against the other sets even against even-level minion-class attackers (i.e. 50% base tohit and 1.0 accuracy), so the I7 Critter Accuracy Scaler doesn't balance SR. It just makes it less unbalanced against higher Rank/Level targets.
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I meant that, perhaps, they decided that the scaling change was more than sufficient. I dunno.
Alot of Stalkers seem to think that /Nin is better than /SR, and that the changes made to the SR passives was enought to make /SR as good as /Nin. I'm not a Stalker player, but a Scrapper player, but still, I can appreciate their logic.
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I meant that, perhaps, they decided that the scaling change was more than sufficient. I dunno.
Alot of Stalkers seem to think that /Nin is better than /SR, and that the changes made to the SR passives was enought to make /SR as good as /Nin. I'm not a Stalker player, but a Scrapper player, but still, I can appreciate their logic.
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The SR vs Nin thing's been going back and forth since beta. What I know is that if you don't take the SR passives, then Nin *is* better than SR. If you do, I couldn't call a winner there, and I've played both.
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I for one was happy with the SR changes. It made playing an SR stalker really fun instead of just squishy. Any buff that gives SR some help in PvP is more than welcome.
Case in point: On live I went toe to toe with a Regen Scrapper in Siren's Call the other night. I had far more powers available, with far more slots and I barely scratched the surface.
Something to make SR more viable was great.
As people have said, the passive powers are borderline useless as they stood at I6, there's no reason to take them, unless like me you play based on a conceptual character design.
The next person to tell me I should have gone regen because they're 'better' is getting yelled at. There shouldn't be one overarching more powerful set, nor one definitive less powerful set, and in my opinion, SR is the latter.
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I'm really surprised that they removed the SR passive buff! It wasn't even a big increase, but looked like something nice enough to give SR the little 'king of +def' edge or something, and it would've given people a better reason to actually take those powers, especially as a Stalker. I really do not see a need to remove them unless they stealth-patched some other buff to +def/sr or a nerf to tohit all round' somehow. If anything I'd say restoring the little boost back wouldn't have been enough anyway, adding an unenhancable 5% +def to PB as well might have done it though.
they should double the base defense of the passives, then i'd take and slot them. otherwise they're a waste of 2 power slots (for stalkers)
Oh well. At least Bill Z Bubba still has the claws changes and defense scaling to look forward to.
Be well, people of CoH.
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I'm really surprised that they removed the SR passive buff!
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As I understand it, they didn't buff SR and then change their minds; the patch that added the buff added it in error, and then the patch notes incorrected stated that the buff itself was deliberate and not an error: the 5/10 patch restores things back to the status quo.
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But didn't Castle himself state that this change was coming, before I7 hit test even? I'll try to find it on the dev digest, but it might be gone with all the test server posts.
EDIT: Ah, found it. It's in this topic.
The actual quote is this: [ QUOTE ]
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Has anyone asked _Castle_ If the numbers he is quoting are I6 numbers or I7 numbers?
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That's actually a good point. The values I stated are I7 values which *may* be different from what is on live currently. I don't specifically remember any changes to SR in this regard, but it certainly could have changed.
*checks*
Yeah, sorry guys. The values I gave *are* for I7. I hate when this happens...considering how often I yell at people around here for doing it, and now, here I am guilty of the same thing!
SR's Passives *are* better in I7 -- from 0.75 scale to 1.00 scale.
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Actually, upon re-reading it, it looks like he just was checking the numbers, which may have been changed in error - especially since he didn't know about the changes in his first post in that topic.
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1) No longer bound the to hit calculation at 5% before multiplying accuracy
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/sign
make it bound to 1 or 2% at the bottom, and possibly have a post accuracy floor of 5%.
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