renke_
May 22, 2014
ha, found it
your mage used magical bolt, in my play-through (normal...) the thing lived not long enough for bolts. It's the elemental damage fix: The program takes a look at the equipped staff to identify the damage class; but enemies don't have gear.
yayswords
May 22, 2014
It wouldn't live long enough for bolts if it didn't have its own private multiplier cap
nice catch though.
jack1974
May 22, 2014
Ah yes I need to fix that for the enemies
thanks will correct it now!
yayswords
May 22, 2014
Is the lower damage cap intended though?
jack1974
May 22, 2014
The mage has no damage cap, simply higher resistances and magic so gets less damage than the other skeletons.
renke_
May 22, 2014
thanks will correct it now!
when you fix this - could you, as the files are already open, define the message "normal damage: <number> modified damage: <number>" as debug only? The output clogges my console horribly
jack1974
May 22, 2014
Too late! Will do on next update (I'm uploading with a slower connection today since the fast wi-fi one is temporarily broken
)
yayswords
May 22, 2014
No no, that's not how it was explained. There's a multiplier of the base damage created by caster's magic compared to the target's magic, and that multiplier has a cap. In other words, you can get the same multiplier and thus the same damage against any monster, but the more magic they have the higher magic you need to have to get there. The skeletons all have 50% fire resistance, yet I can do the full 65 damage to any of them except the mage, who damage caps at 47. I cap at 65 against monsters with no fire resistance. The ratman cleric/mage have as much magic as the skellymage and I can reach the cap against them (doing 47-64). Clearly it's something to do with both high magic and resistance.
Update: Actually I cap at 69 against monsters with 15% resistance so clearly resistances are lowering the damage cap itself. Resistances should make the cap harder to reach, not stay out of my way and then rectally molest me after I've actually reached it.
I'm sure you don't wanna mess around with this now and I'm sure I'm quite alone in caring, but it's annoying when I try to make a cannon out of my druid and the most desirable target, the one that requires the MOST magic to hurt, has a practical diplomatic immunity to a oneshot, no matter how much +magic I get. The little fucker nukes my druid for 11. I should kill him by just thinking of him.
jack1974
May 22, 2014
No no, that's not how it was explained. There's a multiplier of the base damage created by caster's magic compared to the target's magic, and that multiplier has a cap. In other words, you can get the same multiplier and thus the same damage against any monster, but the more magic they have the higher magic you need to have to get there. The skeletons all have 50% fire resistance, yet I can do the full 65 damage to any of them except the mage, who damage caps at 47. I cap at 65 against monsters with no fire resistance. The ratman cleric/mage have as much magic as the skellymage and I can reach the cap against them (doing 47-64). Clearly it's something to do with both high magic and resistance.
Update: Actually I cap at 69 against monsters with 15% resistance so clearly resistances are lowering the damage cap itself. Resistances should make the cap harder to reach, not stay out of my way and then rectally molest me after I've actually reached it.
Is a bit technical so hard for me to explain, but in summary (Anima can correct me if I'm wrong, I don't understand much of this myself too
):
1) the attacker magic is compared to defender magic, the maximum damage multiplier is 2.0 (so that's the cap, but is the same for all attacks, melee, etc)
2) after that the resistances are taken into account. If I do 100dmg, and resistance is 15, should do 85% (there are other calculations but that's the biggest one)
3) then there's that damage reduction formula applied (49+dmg*.3)
I think your issue is with the 3rd point. I have tried a lot of times to change it, but every time broke the game
I'm sure you don't wanna mess around with this now and I'm sure I'm quite alone in caring, but it's annoying when I try to make a cannon out of my druid and the most desirable target, the one that requires the MOST magic to hurt, has a practical diplomatic immunity to a oneshot, no matter how much +magic I get. The little fucker nukes my druid for 11. I should kill him by just thinking of him.
Well this is rock/paper/scissor, you could use a Thief ranged attack, or also hard encounters (if an enemy has high defense, high magic, is very hard to beat with one shot). So if a battle is too hard is a problem of that specific encounter and not in general of the game system/rules.
renke_
May 22, 2014
edited to add: Sorry, I didn't saw Jack's reply. Delete this if you believe it's not helpful
@jack1974
take your time, it's such a small unimportant issue and can wait
@yayswords
I think you're a victim of the current damage calculation model. The magic of the skeleton mage is 25 % higher than the value of the archers.
This is what happens (totally unrealistic numbers, this should give you only an idea):
* your nuke base damage is used as a starting point of, say, 100
* magic resistance applied, you end with archers around 50 and with the mage at 45
* now take the formula (somewhere here in the forum) with 49 dmg as border between two models: below - modified=base damage, above - modified=49+base damage*.3
weighted damage:
archer: 49+50*.3=64
mage: 45
the important battles in act 1 are right in the
http://datamining-fuer-anfaenger.de/foo/damage_model.png (weighted damage above base damage), with a few exceptions: you identified the mage
jack1974
May 22, 2014
I actually tried to remove that cap completely and just reduce the overall damage to test (both on melee/magic) and the battles were OK to me (I can't win the Nightmare but that was the same even before so doesn't matter). So I am tempted to keep it this way, since testing a few of the next act battles seems to be fine too.
If anyone has saves before Kodiak/Spider/Ratmen and want to send them to me to do a quick test, I think I could use this new version, even for the act2 battles is working fine so far
yayswords
May 22, 2014
Yes well I am trying not to get mathy, my real crux is it's not fun whenever more +magic does nothing
I am fine with the general damage cap though, or rather I understand that with 1-2 devs we can't have the awesomest system possible. I'm just not fine with a lower one against the mage, however exactly it comes to happen. Against a target with high magic and high resistance the cap should be harder to achieve, not mathematically impossible to achieve
renke_
May 22, 2014
it is not a cap, just an unfortunate artefact of the damage calculation (the range where the modified damage is higher than the base damage)
and I was not that happy when Jack
http://www.winterwolves.net/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=3353&p=24778#p24778 - my own approach (damage weight derived from enemy HP) failed miserably as the battles in act 1 are balanced around this sweet spot side-effect of 49+dmg*.3
jack1974
May 22, 2014
Yaysword, how much magic your druid has? I found a save you sent me for Mormont battle, and I removed completely the damage cap, but still I'm unable to do max damage to the mage
I might try to remove the damage reduction completely and see if people can finish 1st act. I can't finish the first act in Nightmare and most battles are difficult in Hard now (but I didn't equip myself well), but I don't think the damage values are particularly different. I guess I can just upload this version without damage reduction and see if people think is too hard. For Act 2 with another team member works fine, I can win the battles in Hard (I never play in Nightmare...).
renke_
May 22, 2014
I found a save you sent me for Mormont battle, and I removed completely the damage cap, but still I'm unable to do max damage to the mage
with "cap" you mean the "49-algorithm"?
if so I have a different idea: The Mormont fight on nightmare is only winnable with one instakill (archer or mage) - currently one-shot-K.O.ing of the archer works because of the "inverse cap" (modified dmg above base dmg). It is not mandatory that the mage drops on the first attack, only that one of the backrow mob dies with the first party action.
ergo: remove the 49-thingy and lower the HP of skeletons by ~ 10 % (at the Mormont fight 50 dmg should be possible for the party, and the unfortunate gain of the current system is up to 28 % (50 dmg are counted as 64), but this is the relative peak). with the lowered HP the archer should be down with one shot and the fight works similar like now.
jack1974
May 22, 2014
OK will try that, because I made some tweaks that in act2 with a full party works much better. Obviously I need to tweak the game that works well with a full party, so in case I need to change battles in 1st act that are too hard with only 3 members.
I also tweaked the resistance impact. Before was too low, for example: 50% fire resistance, 05% Water and the difference in a spell was like 8-9 dmg with dmg around 50. That was too low. Now the impact when there's such a high resistance difference is much bigger.
renke_
May 22, 2014
to put it this way: currently it's impossible to do elemental damage between 50 and 63 (if not for random variance), the "forbidden zone" for other types are 40-51.
another enemy balanced around the "49-conspiracy" are the small spiders: damage of 60-something for druid nukes are the norm, without the sweet spot it would be 50-something.
Melee attacks against ratmen thiefs also need a look, at least my parties make most of the damage either slightly below 40 or somewhere between 50 and close to 60, and the HP of ratmen are a few points above the impossible damage range.
jack1974
May 22, 2014
I uploaded the 0.8.7h, if you have saves ready before the battles you mention and if you can still win them, there is no need to tweak those battles
Some battles might be hard because of the resistances, but now they behave as they should (otherwise raising 90% against Fire and then still get a lot of damage against fire magic makes no sense).
For non-normal damage the minimum damage you can do is still HALF damage, so this shouldn't break anything - 90% resistance doesn't mean the mage won't do any damage, just little more than half of that skill normal damage.
yayswords
May 22, 2014
I had 46 magic. What was this build supposed to do again? You made all my damage worse
(against Mormont)
I beat him reliably but I don't like what you're doing with the magic system. If I have a gazillion attack, I will do max damage with an attack if I understand you correctly. If I have a gazillion magic, resistances will still fuck me.
What I want is:
- If I have "high" magic, I will do max damage to a 0 resistance target
- With the same "high" magic, I will get a damage variance against a target with some resistance
- With even higher magic, I will do max damage to a target with resistance too
Conversely it's also extremely effective as a defensive strategy to just get resistance gear and ignore magic altogether on a non-mage. And with the numbers I'm seeing I may as well ignore magic on mages too and let them buff and heal fighters instead of entertaining dreams of doing respectable damage in the face of resistances
renke_
May 22, 2014
What was this build supposed to do again? You made all my damage worse (against Mormont)
this release is a measure against
http://datamining-fuer-anfaenger.de/foo/damage_model.png. your former damage was in the sweet spot, now the curve is linear. and as Mormont has a high magic your not hitting the factor 2 cap of the magic resistance system (at least if I understood the model correctly).
