Unarmed attacks changes in 0.6.12

[Pyrizzle]

Anyone else think that since we ajusted the AP for barehanded attacks that the Quickstrike Dagger should also be ajusted?

Stats:
AP: 3AP
AC: +20%
BC: -20%

Even without the J.o.F. your AP is -1 compared to barehanded and with the J.o.F. your AP will be at 2.

Thoughts? After the change was made to unarmed, i now think that this weapon is overpowered.

[Mino]

If the stats change to a higher AP cost, then the name should be changed too because "quickstrike dagger"won't be appropriate anymore. I think it's good to have that one weapon with 3 AP attack cost, and being sold in Loneford means you can't just get it right away.

[Pyrizzle]

My only problem with the QSD is that it's AP (with a J.o.F.) is 2. (which is 2 lower than unarmed)

I think it may be best to raise the base stat of this weapon to 4 (matching barehanded) just like before when barehanded was at 3 and it matched it.

Just a thought. The QSD is too overpowered now.

[Mino]

I thought the point was to make it so bare handed wouldn't be more powerful than with a weapon. The trade off with the QSD is the -20% BC, which I think is fair.

[Shaaw]

5 or 6 attacks at lower AC and AD. That's not overpowered. It's like the Monk's Flurry of Blows (early levels) in 3.x: more attacks at reduced to-hit and damage. More attacks doesn't automatically mean overpowered.

Unless you have no level cap but you do have an AP cap. Then it can easily become OP.

Example 1:
Level 40 player with 230% AC and 30-36 AD, barehanded for 2 AP attack cost with (2) CS for 12 max AP.
6 attacks @ 33 dmg with an 85% chance to hit = 5 hits for 165 dmg.

Same player equips the Balanced Steel Sword for an additional 32% AC and 3-7 AD for a total of 262% AC and 33-43 AD with an attack cost of 3 AP so 4 max hits.
4 attacks @ 38 dmg with a 90% chance to hit = 3 hits for 114 dmg or possibly 4 hits for 152 dmg. That's a minimum of 13 dmg difference.

Already, the simple act of equipping a weapon (arguably one of the best ones currently available) is a dmg loss. Now, try upping the AD a bit and see how the same formula quickly becomes an overpowering force to be reckoned with.

Example 2:
Level 120 player with 250% AC and 56-62 AD, barehanded.
6 attacks @ 59 dmg with an 85% chance to hit = 5 hits for 295 dmg.

Same player equips the same weapon as above for 59-69 AD.
4 attacks @ 64 dmg with a 90% chance to hit = 192 dmg or possibly 256 dmg if he gets lucky. That's a minimum of 39 dmg difference.

And it just gets worse the higher lvl you get. As long as you can maintain an 85-90% chance to hit and stack everything else in AD you might as well go barehanded for the extra hit. Of course, with the latest change to 0.6.12 you might as well equip the Quickstrike dagger since it's the best weapon that will still let you get 6 hits in. Just for giggles, check out the dmg using Sarumar's stats as currently listed in the Highscore thread:

Level 226 player with 420% AC and 100-107 AD, barehanded.
6 attacks @ 103 dmg with a 93% chance to hit = 5 hits for 515 dmg.

Same player equips the same weapon as above for 103-114 AD.
4 attacks @ 109 dmg with a 95% chance to hit = max 4 hits for 436 dmg. That's 79 dmg less than going barehanded even without missing.

Clearly this game isn't built to accommodate lvl 200+ char (or even 100+) balance at this point, so using that as an example is kinda pointless as a lvl 226 would destory anything and everything the game can throw at it... I don't necessarily disagree with your point, only your examples and the math behind it.

Using the level 40 player, try factoring in damage resist as well... Using your stat examples but adding dmg resist of 5, 10 and 15. I'm also correcting your "miss factor" stats to average out over an infinite number of rounds, and rounding to the nearest damage point...

Example 1 (5 DR):
Level 40 player with 230% AC and 30-36 AD, barehanded for 2 AP attack cost with (2) CS for 12 max AP.
6 attacks @ 33 dmg with an 85% chance to hit = 6*(33-0DR)dmg * 0.85 = 168dmg per round on average.

Same player equips the Balanced Steel Sword for an additional 32% AC and 3-7 AD for a total of 262% AC and 33-43 AD with an attack cost of 3 AP so 4 max hits.
4 attacks @ 38 dmg with a 90% chance to hit = 4*(38-0DR)dmg * 0.90 = 137dmg per round on average.

Example 2 (5 DR):
Level 40 player with 230% AC and 30-36 AD, barehanded for 2 AP attack cost with (2) CS for 12 max AP.
6 attacks @ 33 dmg with an 85% chance to hit = 6*(33-5DR)dmg * 0.85 = 143dmg per round on average.

Same player equips the Balanced Steel Sword for an additional 32% AC and 3-7 AD for a total of 262% AC and 33-43 AD with an attack cost of 3 AP so 4 max hits.
4 attacks @ 38 dmg with a 90% chance to hit = 4*(38-5DR)dmg * 0.90 = 119dmg per round on average.

Example 3 (10 DR):
Level 40 player with 230% AC and 30-36 AD, barehanded for 2 AP attack cost with (2) CS for 12 max AP.
6 attacks @ 33 dmg with an 85% chance to hit = 6*(33-10DR)dmg * 0.85 = 117dmg per round on average.

Same player equips the Balanced Steel Sword for an additional 32% AC and 3-7 AD for a total of 262% AC and 33-43 AD with an attack cost of 3 AP so 4 max hits.
4 attacks @ 38 dmg with a 90% chance to hit = 4*(38-10DR)dmg * 0.90 = 101dmg per round on average.

Example 4 (15 DR):
Level 40 player with 230% AC and 30-36 AD, barehanded for 2 AP attack cost with (2) CS for 12 max AP.
6 attacks @ 33 dmg with an 85% chance to hit = 6*(33-15DR)dmg * 0.85 = 92dmg per round on average.

Same player equips the Balanced Steel Sword for an additional 32% AC and 3-7 AD for a total of 262% AC and 33-43 AD with an attack cost of 3 AP so 4 max hits.
4 attacks @ 38 dmg with a 90% chance to hit = 4*(38-15DR)dmg * 0.90 = 83dmg per round on average.


All in all, you were correct that unarmed was imbalanced, but your math was way off as it didn't factor for damage resist nor for actual chance to hit over time. The balanced steel sword will probably do equal damage at around 20 damage resist, and none of the main mobs have that in the game yet.

QSD is even more effective offensively due to the reduced chance of missing your attack, but sacrifices 20% BC... Makes it high DPS, but less able to evade dmg too, thus effective mainly when you are going to kill your opponent(s) in one round.

[fiernaq]

Yup... napkin math is simple to throw together but definitely doesn't account for all variables.

In summary I would say that most of the weapons need adjusting. Since AT is not linear meaning that you can go pretty much anywhere and visit just about any vendor you want very early on I would suggest that we cut back on the number of items we have but make each item have its place in actual play. In other words, price/stats should be the primary sort order. There should be a nice cheap item that's not all that great but for the build is perfect and at the price it should actually be considered a worthwhile investment for a low lvl player focusing on that build. Then there should be higher priced and more effective items for each build. There shouldn't be any "worthless" items... items too high priced and with too few stats to ever be a viable option. I would also suggest that the price difference be much higher between low stat items and higher stat items so that a lvl 1 player will never be able to afford the uber 1337 items but a lvl 100 player will actually have items in the shops that are worth spending his 50k gold on because they provide that much of a benefit over the cheaper items.

Maybe that's something I'll work on over the next few days... take the current item list and try to redesign each item to actually have a place in the game.

[Shaaw]

For the record, I think a better option would be to decrease the "value" of damage on the weapon when compared to AP, thus increasing the amount of damage increase when increasing the AP cost of the weapon. For example, right now the 'top end' for each AP cost of weapon would be (in terms of raw dps, and base in this case includes dmg boosts from non-weapon equips):
AP Cost -- Name -- avg dmg -- dmg/rd 10ap -- dmg/rd 12ap -- dmg/rd 10ap(marrow) -- dmg/rd 12ap(marrow)
3AP -- QSD -- 0 dmg -- 3(base) -- 4(base) -- 5(base) -- 6(base)
4AP -- BSS -- 5 dmg -- 2(base+5) -- 3(base+5) -- 3(base+5) -- 4(base+5)
5AP -- ElyR -- 5.5 dmg -- 2(base+5.5) -- 2(base+5.5) -- 2(base+5.5) -- 3(base+5.5)
6AP -- GutS -- 12 dmg -- base+12 -- 2(base+12) -- 2(base+12) -- 2(base+12)
7AP -- SkuC -- 13 dmg -- base+13 -- base+13 -- base+13 -- 2(base+13)

Now since ultimately we know everyone is likely going to use marrowtaint, and everyone will got CS2, I'll do up stats for various base damage values for each of these weapons...

Name -- 5bd -- 10bd -- 15bd -- 20bd -- 25bd -- 30bd
QSD -- 30 -- 60 -- 90 -- 120 -- 150 -- 180
BSS -- 40 -- 60 -- 80 -- 100 -- 120 -- 140
ElyR -- 31.5 -- 46.5 -- 61.5 -- 76.5 -- 91.5 -- 106.5
GutS -- 34 -- 44 -- 54 -- 64 -- 74 -- 84
SkuC -- 36 -- 46 -- 56 -- 66 -- 76 -- 86

As you can see, ultimately, anything above 5AP starting is pointless, some might even argue anything above 4AP starting ise useless too barring any secondary characteristics... To keep things balanced, the higher end weapons should get a bigger boost to dmg as their AP goes up... Add 3-5 dmg to BSS, 5-10 to ElyR, 15-20 to GutS/SkuC and you end up relatively even at the point where you're able to get these weapons...


A better option would be to remove the -1 AP attack cost from the game altogether as it makes it basically impossible to balance anything, and switch to an active rather than turn based combat system where DPS becomes a factor rather than DPR as DPS is easier to balance than DPR due to not capping the # of attacks possible per round for slower weapons.

[Shaaw]

Another option would be to increase the prevalence of damage resistance in monsters, making higher end guys have up to 20-30DR or higher... That would also help stop low lvl people from completing the game as quick as they can, as a certain amount of lvling to increase base damage would be required.

[fiernaq]

Heh, while DPS would be an interesting way to go I'm pretty sure that AT will stay DPR for the foreseeable future. But yes, I definitely agree that weapons (and most other items too) need some pretty serious adjustment.

[Mino]

My only problem with the QSD is that it's AP (with a J.o.F.) is 2. (which is 2 lower than unarmed)

I think it may be best to raise the base stat of this weapon to 4 (matching barehanded) just like before when barehanded was at 3 and it matched it.

Just a thought. The QSD is too overpowered now.

The QSD is only 1AP lower than unarmed after the update. If you use the JoF it still drops down to 3.