Power and Bonus Caps


Aggelakis

 

Posted

I have a question, why have power caps? I understand you don't want players to be UBER....but come on. At level 50, with sprint and superspeed 1 slotted with Runspeed IO's, it's capped. Same with Jump/hurdle, and Swift/Fly...just 1 slot and it's capped. Can't help but wonder if thats true with other powers.... Why cap tohits at 95% if you can get bonus sets that put it over that. Hell, I bet you hit 95% without the set bonuses which would make the bonus sets wasteful. I think the caps need to be raised to make the bonuses worth something. It's like winning a broken Television.


 

Posted

Some caps (like movement speed) are for technical reasons, i that instance the problems with rendering things if a character is moving faster.

I am not sure about the 95% thing - if you mean that we always miss on a "20" that isn't a cap. Higher to-hit (or accuracy, or whatever) is still useful in overcoming high dfefenses, but even if you have a 20 godzillion percent chance to hit, you will "miss on a 20." But if you face an opponent with 19 godzillion defense, you still only miss on a 20.


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Posted

There is a harware issue with traveling over (something like) 92 mi/hr. So they limit it so as to avoid bugs.

As for to hit, you can hve something like +300% ToHit, but since there is a 5% miss chance no matter what, you can only ever hit ~95% of the time. Anything above that goes to protect you from -ToHit. So If you are taking on 17 dark dealing enemies, all their stacking ToHit Debuffs won't bottom out your accuracy like they would on someone with a simple +95%. That second person will be in negatives and will be depending of that auto 5% chance of hitting (as well as streak breaker) to deal any damage at all.

It is just like the debate between Shield Defense, and Super Reflexes. Both can soft cap at +45% fairly easy, but SD dies to defense cascade much much easier since SR has both resistance to def debuffs and can easily go well over the +45% soft cap.

Simply put the limiters are there to both save you (having a 5% chance of hitting no matter what is the trade off for having a 5% chance of being hit no matter what), and blance the game. But that doesn't make going over those amounts worthless, just not as desirable.

Go fight a horde of CoT spirits and be thankful you have above the "cap" of ToHit.


 

Posted

Fly does not cap with 1 slot. You need at least 2 slots. Pretty sure you need 2 slots to cap Super Speed as well.

To-hit is limited to 95% because the devs want you to always have a 5% chance to miss. This is not the cap, which is actually 200%. Higher to-hit values are useful to offset foe defense.

There are plenty of other limits which are hard to hit. Its pretty near impossible to reach the +recharge cap (+400%) without outside help. Damage cap (+300%, +400% or +750% depending on AT) is tough to reach without a kin. Regeneration cap (2000% to 3000%) is near impossible without outside help. Defense cap (45% soft cap) is reachable but costly to do.


 

Posted

The 95% hit rate goes back to DnD. Roll a 20 sided die, and you have a 5% chance of critical failure and 5% chance of critical success. Thus, 5% to hit no matter what, and 5% to dodge no matter what.

As for going over 95%, my Widow has 101% ToHit before considering accuracy. She also gets +23% from Build Up. She can still get deflected against certain enemies, and it boils my blood when she does!


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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU View Post
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Posted

Quote:
Fly does not cap with 1 slot. You need at least 2 slots. Pretty sure you need 2 slots to cap Super Speed as well.
Actually, that isn't true...With Sprint and Superspeed 1 sloted with IO Run Speed level 50, it's capped in the combat attributes.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by MEdelen View Post
Actually, that isn't true...With Sprint and Superspeed 1 sloted with IO Run Speed level 50, it's capped in the combat attributes.
You are correct, I just checked the math. Actually you are capped with SS + Swift as well.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by MEdelen View Post
Why cap tohits at 95% if you can get bonus sets that put it over that.
Restricting hit chances so they never go all the way up to 100% or down to 0% is common in RPGs. It ensures combat is never completely predictable, which designers think makes it more interesting.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Corebreach View Post
Restricting hit chances so they never go all the way up to 100% or down to 0% is common in RPGs. It ensures combat is never completely predictable, which designers think makes it more interesting.
Intiguingly, real-life combat features enough uncertainty that various can't-lose battles turned into defeats. The idea of certainty in warfare is an illusion, and a dangerous one.


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by _Uun_ View Post
You are correct, I just checked the math. Actually you are capped with SS + Swift as well.
Also, for Flight, a character with an additional passive flight buff (Lightning Reflexes on Electric Armor or Quickness on Super Reflexes) can hit the Flight Cap with just one slot... provided the character has level 50 Flight Speed IOs in Swift, Flight and Lightning Reflexes/Quickness. I'm not even sure if level 45 Flight Speed IOs will do it, it's that close. With +3 level Flight Speed SOs in all 3 gets you 0.5 mph short of the cap at level 50.

That's... enough of a weird edge case that it has little real relevance, but I thought I'd mention it, as I was super excited when I found that extra slot I could transfer off of Flight on my Elec/Elec Brute.


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eisenzahn View Post
Also, for Flight, a character with an additional passive flight buff (Lightning Reflexes on Electric Armor or Quickness on Super Reflexes) can hit the Flight Cap with just one slot... provided the character has level 50 Flight Speed IOs in Swift, Flight and Lightning Reflexes/Quickness. I'm not even sure if level 45 Flight Speed IOs will do it, it's that close. With +3 level Flight Speed SOs in all 3 gets you 0.5 mph short of the cap at level 50.

That's... enough of a weird edge case that it has little real relevance, but I thought I'd mention it, as I was super excited when I found that extra slot I could transfer off of Flight on my Elec/Elec Brute.
Hell, my Defender with one 50 IO in Fly and Swift is nearly capped, and with the 2-3 minor set bonuses is past the cap.
In fact i'm considering dropping Swift from my build and taking Recall Friend or Teleport instead. i'll still be very near the cap anyway.


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Posted

Superspeed is capped because of game engine limitations. If you went much faster you would be running into empty space because the server couldn't render terrain fast enough. When you stop, you might end up inside something.

Flight is capped so much lower because of all the advantages it has. You will never run out of endurance while traveling like Teleport. You have vertical mobility, unlike Superspeed. You are not prone to being attacked when you hit the ground like Super Jump. Because Flight has none of those problems, and is the safest travel power by far, it is capped the slowest.

Defense softcap and to-hit cap are the only ones you can hit wthout outside help (some tanks can hit resistance cap to a few damage types, none can hit ALL of them)

As far as the to-hit cap goes, if you had 6000% to-hit you will STILL miss 5% of the time, because that's how the game was designed, nothing is ever guaranteed.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect View Post
Superspeed is capped because of game engine limitations. If you went much faster you would be running into empty space because the server couldn't render terrain fast enough. When you stop, you might end up inside something.
Terrain is rendered by the client, not the server. Collision detection with terrain for players is handled by the client as well. I *think* collisions with players and NPCs, while also handled by the client, are checked by the server and may be corrected by it, producing the jumpy effect when two players try to occupy the same space due to lag. Still, while it's not perfect, I prefer this to games like WoW with no player/NPC collision at all. It makes the game world feel a lot more solid and real.

You'll never run into empty space because the client will freeze until it loads the map, so if you don't have a fast hard disk and/or lots of memory for caching, this will cause annoying pausing. Teleport, especially on /energy blasters, is quite a bit faster than the superspeed cap and runs into this on lower end machines.

The Superspeed cap is already past the point where the server can keep up with spawning mobs and transmitting the information. I superspeed into presumably empty areas of the map all the time, only to have a large group spawn on top of me. This is most likely the reason for the run speed cap, or possibly algorithmic limitations on the formulas used to calculate continuous movement.

Fly and SJ caps are, as you mentioned, by design to offset the advantages of those travel powers.

Quote:
As far as the to-hit cap goes, if you had 6000% to-hit you will STILL miss 5% of the time, because that's how the game was designed, nothing is ever guaranteed.
The 5% hit cap annoys me, but I've learned to live with it. With streakbreaker, it's actually a little bit less than 5% on average. OTOH, the guaranteed 5% chance to be missed by enemy attacks has saved me in the past.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Corebreach View Post
Restricting hit chances so they never go all the way up to 100% or down to 0% is common in RPGs. It ensures combat is never completely predictable, which designers think makes it more interesting.
It also helps to prevent stalemates. If you fought a foe who had 100% evasion and nobody on your team could hit him even once, there'd be no way to win. At least with the 5%, you could widdle him down slowly. And foes that floor ToHit would be pretty bad if they could reduce your hit rate to 0%.

Plus, if it was possible to buff a team so that they never get hit at all, there would be no reason for any other buffs besides defense.


Quote:
Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU View Post
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Posted

adn yet the Devs are fine with 100% resists for NPCs

Statesman, The Honoree, Reichsman, Citadel ...



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Posted

Wasn't it Ex that said NPCs were cheating poo-poo-heads because the AI is terrible? Of course, 100% resistance to any common damage type is just stupid but hey, I don't see that kind of stuff getting fixed anytime soon...


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Catwhoorg View Post
adn yet the Devs are fine with 100% resists for NPCs

Statesman, The Honoree, Reichsman, Citadel ...
I find it incredibly frustrating to reach a point where you aren't contributing anything to a fight at the end of a TF because you brought a damage-dealing character with the wrong damage type.


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by UberGuy View Post
I find it incredibly frustrating to reach a point where you aren't contributing anything to a fight at the end of a TF because you brought a damage-dealing character with the wrong damage type.
Me too.

I do think that when a character is literally contributing as much to the team effort by boomboxing 30 feet away, as they are when doing their utmost, it is just a bad design decision.

Despite many discussions like this, it appears that the Devs have a different point of view.



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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Catwhoorg View Post
adn yet the Devs are fine with 100% resists for NPCs

Statesman, The Honoree, Reichsman, Citadel ...
Well, the 100% only applies to certain damage types. And it's not on all the time.

...But I still agree with you. It should be at most 95-99%. At that point you could at least contribute SOMETHING, and -RES could at least debuff it a tad. It's pretty annoying when Honoree hits Unstoppable and my widow can only contribute damage when her dark procs go off.


Quote:
Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU View Post
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dispari View Post
Well, the 100% only applies to certain damage types. And it's not on all the time.

...But I still agree with you. It should be at most 95-99%. At that point you could at least contribute SOMETHING, and -RES could at least debuff it a tad. It's pretty annoying when Honoree hits Unstoppable and my widow can only contribute damage when her dark procs go off.
Your widow ISN'T loaded to the gills with Psi damage? That's very odd. Reichsman's Unstoppable is just standard Unstoppable cranked up to ridiculous, it shouldn't have ANY Psi resist. Last time I ran that TF our Emp/Psi defender was the only team member doing more than single digit damage to him when he activated it. He has MoG as well I believe.

We failed that one because we couldn't kill him between Unstoppable and MoG uses, and the defender couldn't deal enough while they were up to counteract his regen.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect View Post
Your widow ISN'T loaded to the gills with Psi damage?
Night Widows tend to have lethal damage (and toxic DoTs) more than psi. It's the Fortunatas that are loaded to the gills with Psionic damage.

Night Widows have 2 powers in their set that deal Psionic damage; one of them is a T1 blast, and the other is a slow-animating cone. Fortunatas have 8 Psionic damage powers. 2 are the same ones held by Night Widows, and 1 only does very minor damage, leaving 5 Psionic attacks that Night Widows don't have.


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by macskull View Post
Wasn't it Ex that said NPCs were cheating poo-poo-heads because the AI is terrible? Of course, 100% resistance to any common damage type is just stupid but hey, I don't see that kind of stuff getting fixed anytime soon...
I think it was Lighthouse, and the specific phrase was "Dumber than a box of rocks".

However, speaking on the 100% achieved by certain AVs...
Rularuu bosses have a Resistance cap of 200%

So yeah, avoid any MArc that has Rularuu bosses teaming up with Sonic Resonance custom minions and lieutenants


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper View Post
I think it was Lighthouse, and the specific phrase was "Dumber than a box of rocks".

However, speaking on the 100% achieved by certain AVs...
Rularuu bosses have a Resistance cap of 200%

So yeah, avoid any MArc that has Rularuu bosses teaming up with Sonic Resonance custom minions and lieutenants
No. Must resist bad idea.


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Schismatrix View Post
No. Must resist bad idea.
Boooooo!


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Haruu View Post
There is a harware issue with traveling over (something like) 92 mi/hr. So they limit it so as to avoid bugs.
I dunno, but I think my SS is 103 mph and my fly is 53.

I do get an occasional chop when running in cities.

I think I Have both double slotted w two lev 45 or 50 SOs. I'm not at home so I can't check.