Power Data Standardization v2.0 (Issue 7)
By
Arcanaville,
Posted on: 2006-07-14 13:22 in Player Guides
Hold on a second...
I'm assuming that Hench 1, 2, and 3 refers to Tier 1, 2, and 3 (in terms of Henchmen)?
_Castle_ told us that the Protector Bots (Tier 2) had a henchmen modifier of .75 for Ranged Defense Buffs. That seems to conflict with the info you're giving here.
Yeah, he must've been mistakenly thinking of the tier 1 henchmen when he said that. Protector Bots have a 1.0 AT modifier for defense buffs.
[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, he must've been mistakenly thinking of the tier 1 henchmen when he said that. Protector Bots have a 1.0 AT modifier for defense buffs.
[/ QUOTE ]
That's the third turnaround the Mastermind forums have had. First we thought their Force Shielf was 2.5% due to testing. Then we thought it was 7.5% based on the Prima guide. Recently, _Castle_ told us that it was 7.5*.75, and now we're back to 7.5%.
Each Protector Bot's Force Shield is 0.75 * Ranged_Buff_Def for smashing, lethal, fire, cold, energy, negative, melee, ranged, and AoE attacks. Ranged_Buff_Def for Class_Lt_Henchman is 0.1 on live and test servers. So unless they've changed something on an internal build that hasn't yet reached the test server, Force Shield is still 7.5% defense from each Protector Bot.
Here's a new modifier table for the Tanker data I'm putting up in the scalar thread. InherentTaunt does not vary by AT or Melee/Ranged, it's the same for everyone.
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>Level InherentTaunt
1 0
2 0
3 0
4 0
5 0
6 0.3
7 0.6
8 0.9
9 1.2
10 1.5
11 1.8
12 2.1
13 2.4
14 2.7
15 3
16 3.3
17 3.6
18 3.9
19 4.2
20 4.5
21 4.8
22 5.1
23 5.4
24 5.7
25 6
26 6.3
27 6.6
28 6.9
29 7.2
30 7.5
31 7.8
32 8.1
33 8.4
34 8.7
35 9
36 9.3
37 9.6
38 9.9
39 10.2
40 10.5
41 10.8
42 11.1
43 11.4
44 11.7
45 12
46 12.3
47 12.6
48 12.9
49 13.2
50 13.5</pre><hr />
The Taunt modifier varies by AT, but not by Ranged/Melee. Blasters, Controllers, Defenders, Masterminds, Dominators, and Corruptors are 0.5 * Base. Scrappers are 0.75 * Base. Kheldians are 0.85 * Base. Tankers, Brutes, and Stalkers are 1.0 * Base.
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>Level Taunt
1 1
2 1.02
3 1.04
4 1.06
5 1.09
6 1.11
7 1.13
8 1.15
9 1.17
10 1.19
11 1.22
12 1.24
13 1.26
14 1.28
15 1.3
16 1.32
17 1.34
18 1.37
19 1.39
20 1.41
21 1.43
22 1.45
23 1.47
24 1.49
25 1.52
26 1.54
27 1.56
28 1.58
29 1.6
30 1.62
31 1.65
32 1.67
33 1.69
34 1.71
35 1.73
36 1.75
37 1.77
38 1.8
39 1.82
40 1.84
41 1.86
42 1.88
43 1.9
44 1.92
45 1.95
46 1.97
47 1.99
48 2.01
49 2.03
50 2.05</pre><hr />
[ QUOTE ]
Force Bubble is set to self-stack if ticks overlap, while TK and Hurricane are set to Replace.
[/ QUOTE ]
Aha! I'd wondered if this was something that varied from power to power. A few questions, then:
Is this one flag for the whole power, or is it per-effect? (Relevant for multi-effect powers like Hurricane and Arctic Air.)
Do you know how this works for the Taunt effect of Invincibility? More specifically: since the power ticks once per second (and multiple Taunts from the same character are additive for magnitude but not duration), does one Taunt SO give me double magnitude for the .33 seconds of overlap after each tick, or does it just add .33 seconds to the amount of time that a critter will stay Taunted after I've moved away from it?
Are Choking Cloud and Inky Aspect set to add or to replace?
And while I'm at it:
Do the Inherent_Taunt numbers that you gave above imply that Tankers' Gauntlet is doing nothing before level 6? Or if Gauntlet uses the regular Taunt modifier, what does InherentTaunt do? (My apologies if this has already been explained in another thread!)
Cheers, and thanks again for all your work! In addition to making the game less frustrating for us stat-heads and P&P veterans, I think your hard data has really helped to revitalize the boards. As of six months ago, discussion of the game engine was stagnant; now it's vibrant and useful again. So three cheers for Iakona!
Hmm ... on the other hand, this has also meant that the amount of time I spend reading the boards has crept back up to i4 levels. So -1 cheer for tempting us stat-heads to sloth and slack.
Rhygadon's career shakes its fist at Iakona 
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Force Bubble is set to self-stack if ticks overlap, while TK and Hurricane are set to Replace.
[/ QUOTE ]
Aha! I'd wondered if this was something that varied from power to power. A few questions, then:
Is this one flag for the whole power, or is it per-effect? (Relevant for multi-effect powers like Hurricane and Arctic Air.)
[/ QUOTE ]Per effect
[ QUOTE ]
Do you know how this works for the Taunt effect of Invincibility? More specifically: since the power ticks once per second (and multiple Taunts from the same character are additive for magnitude but not duration), does one Taunt SO give me double magnitude for the .33 seconds of overlap after each tick, or does it just add .33 seconds to the amount of time that a critter will stay Taunted after I've moved away from it?
[/ QUOTE ]Invincibility's Taunt is set to replace
[ QUOTE ]
Are Choking Cloud and Inky Aspect set to add or to replace?
[/ QUOTE ]Replace
[ QUOTE ]
And while I'm at it:
Do the Inherent_Taunt numbers that you gave above imply that Tankers' Gauntlet is doing nothing before level 6? Or if Gauntlet uses the regular Taunt modifier, what does InherentTaunt do? (My apologies if this has already been explained in another thread!)
[/ QUOTE ]does nothing before level 6
[ QUOTE ]
The Taunt modifier varies by AT, but not by Ranged/Melee. Blasters, Controllers, Defenders, Masterminds, Dominators, and Corruptors are 0.5 * Base. Scrappers are 0.75 * Base. Kheldians are 0.85 * Base. Tankers, Brutes, and Stalkers are 1.0 * Base.
[/ QUOTE ]
Hmm, I wonder if thats what they were referring to with that patch note in I7 "AVs/Heroes and Giant Monsters now ignore threat level damage multipliers for different Archetypes. They are still affected by Taunt as before. ". Thus causing them to retarget onto squishies more often.
I do not believe so.
ATs have a "weight" that the AI uses to decide who it wants to attack first, in the absence of other input (such as who damaged them the most, who mezzed them, who debuffed them, etc.). Tankers and pets rank rather highly on this weigthing scale, and other ATs such as Defenders and Stalkers rank low, for example.
AVs now ignore this weigthing, and simple attack whoever has done the most annoying thing, or (given no other input) they presumably pick someone at random, considering all targets equal.
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
Could we get a better description of how Taunt works, exactly? I see things like Inherent Taunt values and Taunt modifiers, and weight. Does this weight decay over time? Are there durations of Taunt effects. How does one ensure that they have an enemy permenantly taunted so that other teammates don't get killed because the Tanker/Brute/Scrapper couldn't hold the mob's attention?
Powers that have a Taunt effect apply a set Magnitude for a variable duration. The duration is affected by player level, relative level of the enemy, and taunt resistance on the enemy. Taunt is a boolean attribute, meaning the target is either taunted or it isn't; there's no middle ground. If your target is currently taunted to attack you, the only thing that can draw that target away is someone else accumulating a higher total Taunt magnitude on the target.
I guess there is no measurable way of determining how often you should Taunt except to do so when your mob faces away from you and attacks someone else, I guess. Hmm.
Hi Iakona --
Another question for you:
Back in the Dark Ages of purely empirical testing, I remember there being endless debates over what does and does not affect the hit chance of Choking Cloud. It certainly behaves unlike most powers with a to-hit check. If I remember correctly, the general consensus was that it *wasn't* affected by many of the normal factors (e.g. defense debuffs or the relative level of the target), but *was* affected by to-hit buffs.
Of course, this was before we had official confirmation on the to-hit calculation; it was also before the recalibration of defense scaling, so it's even possible that the system itself may have changed since then. But in any case, I was wondering if anything in your data might shed light on this question.
(Just to be clear: I'm not talking about issues of duration or magnitude, which clearly *do* interact with properties of the target critter. The question is just about which factors modify the chance that, on a given tick, CC will apply its effect to a given target in the area.)
Any insight?
I've noticed that on my Rad/Rad corruptor, Choking Cloud hits more critters when I use my Rad blast attacks, which are slotted for -Def.
Choking Cloud has a normal to-hit check, with 1.0 base accuracy. Each tick that hits a critter has a 50% chance of applying a Mag 2 Hold, and a seperate 80% chance of applying an additional Mag 1 Hold. Each tick that hits a player has just an 80% chance of Mag 2.
[ QUOTE ]
Of course, this was before we had official confirmation on the to-hit calculation; it was also before the recalibration of defense scaling, so it's even possible that the system itself may have changed since then.
[/ QUOTE ]
Not directly relevant to the question, but I should point out that neither defense nor what we would call the tohit mechanics changed in I7. What changed was the base tohit and base accuracy of the critters. What we think of as how tohit "works" wasn't changed at all. The devs call it a change to tohit mechanics by terminology: its a change in the process of determing when something hits something, which *starts* with lookups on the base values of the attacker, which is now different for critters (also, technically they had to add the code to factor in the new accuracy term, but that accuracy term works like all the others, so its just an extension of the way accuracy works now).
The important thing is that given a certain base tohit, and given the same level of accuracy, I6 and I7 work the same. The only difference is that higher rank and level critters don't have the same starting values in I7 that they do in I6.
Its called a defense-scaling change because relative to changing tohit, defense scales differently than resistance, and that was an issue the devs wanted to address. But defense's scaling wasn't changed, critters just stopped getting different tohit. If base tohit is always the same (50%), then obviously there's no scaling problem.
On its own, I7's changes could not have affected how any player power hits or doesn't hit a target. Its a critter change only.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
For those of you who don't know already, up-to-date and exact power data can be found at The City of Data. This page replaces the old page at RedTomax's site that I linked to in my original post in this thread, as this new link is much more complete and accurate.
<comes up in a daze, two hours after reading iakona's post and clicking the link>
Very, very nice. I like the format, and having access to the pool, pet and temp powers is just glorious. I've already found a number of little details that will be useful in combat and character design.
(For one thing, I'd never noticed that DE Fungi emanators provide protection from *Taunt*. Ouch! That explains a lot. And the huge difference in -Def effects between Gleaming Bolt and Glinting Eye is enough to make the latter clearly superior, given how they fit into the PB attack chain.)
Oh, and thanks for the reply re: Choking Cloud. I'm surprised that the empirical tests were so far off, but perhaps the independent stacking hold chances were throwing people off. I remember there was discussion of a "critical hold" mechanic, even back then, but I don't think anyone had considered the possibility that the Mag 1 component (which is "invisible" by itself, since it only shows up when stacked with the other component against LTs) had a *higher* probability than the Mag 2 component ...
Cheers, and keep up the good work!
Arcanaville: I do understand what did and didn't change in i7 (due in no small part to your own clear guide on the subject!); I didn't mean to suggest that the i7 changes somehow directly imply a change in CC.
What I had in mind, rather, was that it would be unsurprising if the conclusions that people reached a year and a half ago regarding CC turned out to be inconsistent with the new data, since there are at least two plausible ways this could have happened:
1) The players' more limited understanding of the to-hit calculation may have introduced errors in the inferential chain between their empirical measurements (i.e. % of foes held per tick) and their conclusions about the underlying mechanic of CC.
2) Given that CC seemed to be "anomalous" in its scaling against target level, it's possible that this was an unintended behavior that was subsequently discovered and fixed. The fact that the devs were paying attention to to-hit scaling in the months before i7 would explain why they might have caught a bug in that neighborhood around that time, even if it had nothing to do with the specific mechanism that they eventually settled on for recalibrating critter-vs-player scaling.
Personally, I'd bet on option 1. But given how incomplete the patch notes tended to be until recently, I think option 2 is certainly a possibility.
Oh, and while I've got you here 
... did you ever see this response to your ruminations on Taunt?
Re: So you want to know about Taunt...
That discussion seems to have petered out, but I'm curious whether the definition I proposed would fit with the behavior you were observing ...
[ QUOTE ]
Arcanaville: I do understand what did and didn't change in i7 (due in no small part to your own clear guide on the subject!); I didn't mean to suggest that the i7 changes somehow directly imply a change in CC.
What I had in mind, rather, was that it would be unsurprising if the conclusions that people reached a year and a half ago regarding CC turned out to be inconsistent with the new data, since there are at least two plausible ways this could have happened:
1) The players' more limited understanding of the to-hit calculation may have introduced errors in the inferential chain between their empirical measurements (i.e. % of foes held per tick) and their conclusions about the underlying mechanic of CC.
[/ QUOTE ]
Unlikely, since player observations would be virtually all due to players using CC, and not mobs. And players work the same way now as they did then; at least the I7 changes didn't affect player accuracy (that I'm aware of). Any player test of a power's accuracy should produce the same results now as they did then, and should have resulted in the same basic conclusions now as then. Of course, people do make mistakes, but the I7 changes aren't likely to be the source of any of them. Separate from the I7 changes, the only other major change in our understanding of accuracy between the I4/I5 period and now is the understanding that accuracy is multiplicative, and not additive. But I don't see how that would throw off player understanding of CC's accuracy, since there isn't really any significant stacked accuracy to be worried about in that case.
[ QUOTE ]
2) Given that CC seemed to be "anomalous" in its scaling against target level, it's possible that this was an unintended behavior that was subsequently discovered and fixed. The fact that the devs were paying attention to to-hit scaling in the months before i7 would explain why they might have caught a bug in that neighborhood around that time, even if it had nothing to do with the specific mechanism that they eventually settled on for recalibrating critter-vs-player scaling.
[/ QUOTE ]
Possible, but if true it should have been noted as a fixed bug in the patch notes. They might have forgotten to do so, of course.
[ QUOTE ]
Oh, and while I've got you here ... did you ever see this response to your ruminations on Taunt?
Re: So you want to know about Taunt...
That discussion seems to have petered out, but I'm curious whether the definition I proposed would fit with the behavior you were observing ...
[/ QUOTE ]
I did, and I'm not sure. Honestly I haven't followed those experiments up with more detailed ones to be certain. I do think that the taunt mechanics have the potential to be a bit more complex than specified, not necessarily deliberately so, but simply because they interact with critter AI, which is known to be a bit weird at times. There is a difference between what taunt does, and what critters under the influence of taunt do.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
[ QUOTE ]
For those of you who don't know already, up-to-date and exact power data can be found at The City of Data. This page replaces the old page at RedTomax's site that I linked to in my original post in this thread, as this new link is much more complete and accurate.
[/ QUOTE ]
Iakona, I'm not sure if you are actually able to influence this, but... while the displays of calculated AT-specific values are great, they obscure the mechanics behind the powers. Something I really liked about the info you were posting for a while in the AT&P forum was that it explicitly stated what the modifiers were. Certainly that's not ideal for folks who don't want to do the math, but I loved it.
Any idea if the raw variables will ever be visible on CoD?
(By the way, the info there rocks. Just in case that wasn't clear. )
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
That'll be up to Red Tomax to decide. We initially had all the raw variables displayed when CoD was in an early beta version, but we decided that the current display would be more useful to the majority of users. I understand that there are people out there (myself included) who like to know all the underlying raw variables, so there may be an alternate version of CoD that includes that information someday, but it will likely be a while before that happens, if at all, since Red Tomax is rather busy these days.
Is the Kheldian form powers (Dark Nova Bolt, etc.) on the City of Data website?
Liberty:
ColdIce - Ice/Ice Blaster
HyperToxin - Spines/Dark Scrapper
Alpha Centurian - Warshade
Black Synergy - Energy/Energy Brute
Dark Annihilator - Necro/Dark MM
@Gogan Global
Member of The LEGION, The Dekonstruktivist Union, & The Avant-Guards
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>Table 5: NPC AT MODIFIERS
Mod Pets Hench1 Hench2 Hench3
MELEE
EndDrn 0.75 0.75 1 1.25
Slow -1 -0.75 -1 -1.25
BuffDef 0.1 0.075 0.1 0.125
BuffDmg 0.1 0.075 0.1 0.125
Buf2Hit 0.1 0.075 0.1 0.125
DBf2Hit -0.1 -0.075 -0.1 -0.125
DBufDam -0.1 -0.075 -0.1 -0.125
DBufDef -0.1 -0.075 -0.1 -0.125
ResDmg 0.1 0.075 0.1 0.125
RANGED
EndDrn 0.75 0.75 1 1.25
Slow -1 -0.75 -1 -1.25
BuffDef 0.1 0.075 0.1 0.125
BuffDmg 0.1 0.075 0.1 0.125
Buf2Hit 0.1 0.075 0.1 0.125
DBf2Hit -0.1 -0.075 -0.1 -0.125
DBufDam -0.1 -0.075 -0.1 -0.125
DBufDmg -0.1 -0.075 -0.1 -0.125
DBufDef -0.1 -0.075 -0.1 -0.125
ResDmg 0.1 0.075 0.1 0.125
The following Modifiers vary by level
Mod Pets Hench1 Hench2 Hench3
HitPts 1 TBD TBD TBD
MaxHP 1 TBD TBD TBD
MELEE
Damage 1 0.45 0.55 0.65
Heal 1 0.75 1 1.25
HealSlf 1 TBD TBD TBD
Stun 1 0.75 1 1.25
Immobil 1 0.75 1 1.25
Sleep 1 0.75 1 1.25
Knockbk 1 0.75 1 1.25
Fear 1 0.75 1 1.25
ResBool 1 0.75 1 1.25
RANGED
Damage 0.8 0.35 0.45 0.55
Heal 1 0.75 1 1.25
HealSlf 1 TBD TBD TBD
Stun 1 0.75 1 1.25
Immobil 1 0.75 1 1.25
Sleep 1 0.75 1 1.25
Knockbk 1 0.75 1 1.25
Fear 1 0.75 1 1.25
ResBool 1 0.75 1 1.25</pre><hr />