Enough with the 95% crap!

Fallacy. There is no reason for the removal of one to cause the removal of the other.

It's not a fallacy. The caps are linked to each other in purpose and were designed with each other in mind.

If you always have a chance to hit, you must always have a chance to miss.

So what if the cap were raised to 98%?

Since tohit and defense are currently governed by the same formula, then yes, as it stands now removing the cap on either end would remove both. This is not to say the formula couldn't be rewritten tho.

It's not a matter of the formula. I mean, it is, partially. You can rewrite the formula, but the important part is the principle behind that formula. The caps were designed with each other in mind. This was purposefully done.

Remember, that would change the defense side of the formula too. As it stands, the last 5% of defense does as much for you as the first 40%. Adding another three on top will cut the remaining damage that softcapped characters are taking by an additional 60%.

What game are you playing that this is an issue?

It would help you put this into normal context for stand +0/1 mobs and missions. "The game is balanced SOs" has been mentioned also.

If players are having such horrific stories of missing at these conditions, then yes, something should be done. If players are setting to +4/+8, fighting CoTs as an example, those are extreme conditions.

Why should a fundamental part of the game be re-written for those conditions? Especially when you can use IOs, get buffs, or use inspirations to offset penalties or minimize missing to the 5%.

Defense and tohit are one in the same, just taken from opposite points of view. If you change the tohit formula you're also going to change the defense formula. It's the way the system is designed. Trying to change one side while leaving the other side alone would require a significant coding rewrite.

If you're really concerned about the soft-capped defense crowd there are easy ways to balance them should it become necessary, such as a hard cap.

This game. The issue being discussed is the non-random nature of the game's random number generator that allows one to repeatedly miss targets even though you have a 95% chance to hit. And how that 95% cap shouldn't be there to begin with. While you might disagree, that is the discussion.

There already is a hard cap. It's functionally irrelevant, until you fight nemesis and their vengeances or the +200% tohit DE quartz.

Lowering the hardcap on defense introduces more problems than you realize. Tower buffed Lord Recluse would be made trivial simply because of Tactics. The yellow mitos that can only be hit by melee attacks? Not anymore, because you can use Aim to get around it. Same for the blues that can only be hit by ranged.

Moment of Glory and Elude won't be worth a damn anymore when it comes to the +tohit powers they're needed to counter.

Castle has been wanting to get rid of tohit buffs for a long time. This would be the perfect excuse.

I've seen no such indication of this. I'm perfectly willing to believe, I just need a link.

You and your links! It's old news. I don't keep a database of what Castle says, and the forums are too prone to purging.

It goes something like this (and I'm sure Arcana can back me up): Castle has always disliked tohit buffs because they trivialize defense. But it was believed for a long time there was no other option because the ability to globally buff accuracy was something that couldn't be done. Then at some point he figured out it actually could be done (and always could be done), and powers like Focused Accuracy got nerfed into near-uselessness. Honestly I'm surprised that Rage hasn't been hit yet. This is also why all the IO global tohit buffs were changed to +accuracy bonuses.

Small amounts of persistent tohit seems to be okay (Tactics) Large amounts of very short duration tohit seems to be ok (like Aim and Build Up). Large amounts of long-duration tohit is now verboten, except in cases where access is limited to unique powers, such as Rage and Targeting Drone, and teammate-only buffs like Fortitude and Forge.

The part of this that irritates me the most is that tohit is the only way to counter the massive stacking tohit debuffs critters throw at us. And without access to any significant amount of tohit we have absolute ZERO recourse except to wait until the debuffs expire. It's especially brutal for dark characters as pretty much every single power requires a tohit check. It's a lose-lose situation every single time. And it's no accident. It's specifically designed to be this way. Which infuriates me even further.

Not true.

The 95% to-hit ceiling has no purpose other than to represent the critical miss of a 1 on a d20.

The 5% to-hit floor has the very, very important purpose of ensuring defense does not make you utterly impossible to kill.

So, yes, not linked at all. You can change one without the other.

[edit] Also, against a target with soft-capped defenses, this proposal changes nothing, unless you have much more tohit than just enough to hit one 95% despite the defenses.

The 5% to-hit floor represents the fact that a roll of 20 on a d20 is a hit, regardless of enemy armor class.

Still true.

To be honest, while I think the two caps are logically consistent, there's no overt reason behind them other than the fact that the numbers were at least partially modeled after twenty diced dice by Geko (or whoever implemented the tohit algorithm). I once proposed changing the floors without changing the ceiling, and Castle has also stated that if he knew now what he knew then, he might have proposed something similar when he first joined.

Actually, that sounds more like me than Castle. I don't think Castle has a strong aversion to tohit buffs in general, although he realizes the problematic nature of them in certain cases. I've never disliked tohit buffs either as a mechanic, but they have serious balance implications in PvE and different ones in PvP. So I've always believed they should be used only when their full effects are intentional. For example, if you're going to make a DE eminator that provides a 100% tohit buff, you'll be basically neutralizing defense and ramming everyone basically to the tohit ceiling. If its explicitly intentional that this hits non-defense sets a little and defense sets a ton, because that eminator is explicitly intended to be a thorn in defense sets' sides, then its appropriate. If its just supposed to allow the DE to hit more often in general, its probably not. The huge preponderance of -DEF debuffs in the game and their common proliferation is a general pattern that this principle is not followed, and one of the reasons why defense debuff resistance was essential to add to defense-oriented sets.

But conversely, I've always opposed players that have suggested changes to the game mechanics that *removed* tohit buffs as a mechanic from the game as a whole. There are circumstances where its outsized and disproportional effect appears directly intentional. For example, the tohit buffs in Aim seemed to be geared that way: that power is intended to ensure to a high degree that you hit what you shoot at most of the time regardless of most levels of defensive protection. This is something only tohit buffs can easily offer, and its not improper to allow when the full effects are intentional and properly balanced for.

But I don't think Castle has ever stated an aversion to tohit buffs in the general case.

You literally cannot repeatedly miss if you have a 95% chance to hit. The streakbreaker has already been linked upthread. If you miss once, your next chance will be a hit even if your RNG roll is a miss.

You can hit/miss/hit/miss/hit/miss, but that's incredibly rare if you actually do have a 95% chance to hit.

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

Let's see.

The removal of one increases your DPS by 5.26%

The removal of the other makes you infinity times more survivable, making you immune to all incoming damage.

If you think those two are the same, then I cannot help you.

Really, I find that hard to believe. Really, this game???

And the issues being discussed. WOW!!! What a great explanation you had.

Like I said before, people remember the missing, but that the 1000's of mobs that defeated at their "own hands".

Rewritting the code for 3%, please...

As back up to my previous post...to be clear which game we are talking about.

OK, this discussion has already given me a headache. After careful deliberation I do believe you could change the upper bound without changing the lower bound, but I think at this point an expert is needed.

/em rubs magic math textbook

Arcanaville! Arcanaville! Arcanaville!

If there is no aversion why all the changes after it was discovered he could do +accuracy?

I'm well aware of the affects of either on DPS and survivability. That doesn't change the fact that they are mirrored clamps on either end of the same formula.

Originally Posted by PapaSlade Rangle's right....this is fun.

You are 100% correct.