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  #101  
Old 10-12-2025, 12:32 PM
Goregasmic Goregasmic is offline
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4- He's incredibly pedant about the use of softcap/hardcap terms. He's technically right but from a practical standpoint it is basically a hardcap for most players, especially in this 2hander era.
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  #102  
Old 10-12-2025, 12:36 PM
DeathsSilkyMist DeathsSilkyMist is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimjam [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
If AC was hardcapped until very end velious (and only soft capped after this for melee) it could be that a) the classes we're testing on (hybrids and priests) are not considered melee for these purposes or b) there is a era based timelock which Haynar was testing outside of, but hasn't been properly activated on r/b/g so we're still getting pre-softcap era results?
That is a good point about timelocked content. It sounds like the 289 worn AC clamp was removed sometime in Velious, but I am not 100% sure. It is possible there is a bug where the timelocked content that enables the 289 worn AC clamp is still active.

Testing this with a shaman shouldn't matter. The post says there is a 385 worn AC clamp for the four cloth casters. All other classes use the 289 worn AC clamp.
Last edited by DeathsSilkyMist; 10-12-2025 at 12:40 PM..
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  #103  
Old 10-12-2025, 06:27 PM
CrazyPro CrazyPro is offline
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shield AC wasn't even a thing until luclin, why hasn't this been fixed yet?
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  #104  
Old 10-12-2025, 10:02 PM
bcbrown bcbrown is offline
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Uploading some spreadsheets for three datasets: DSM level 5 vs level 5, my toons vs Shiel, DSM 60 shaman vs level 50. I find this is a more convenient format for looking at the data. Not a lot of conclusions yet from me. Min/max ratio seems noiser than damage/hit. Shield ac definitely has an effect.

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I think there's some more nuance in my results against Shiel than we've noticed so far. Looking at average damage per hit I think there's some hints of differences by class. Gonna do some more parses. Running one right now at 198 worn ac plus 61 spell ac for 259 total, empty shield slot. Gonna run another with exact same gear but moving lodi shield from back slot to shield slot. My hypothesis is that "shield ac" exists and is slot dependent, so should be less damage/hit in shield slot than back slot.

After that gonna run a series at like 160, 180, 200 with and without shield ac. Then gonna repeat with cleric and ranger (eventually) to look for any hint of difference between classes. Most of the parses from the last thread were just a couple hundred, too noisy to do much than eyeball the graph and see the same pattern.
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  #105  
Old 10-12-2025, 10:18 PM
DeathsSilkyMist DeathsSilkyMist is offline
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After doing some longer tests, I think I have some good news to report:

=========================================
Shaman 60 207 AC vs level 50 mob 800 hits
=========================================

DV, Count
32, 184
37, 21
43, 34
49, 35
54, 30
60, 33
66, 26
71, 23
77, 36
83, 30
88, 34
94, 39
100, 28
105, 27
111, 30
117, 26
122, 29
128, 34
134, 34
140, 67

Total Damage = 62544

=========================================
Shaman 60 217 AC vs level 50 mob 800 hits
=========================================

DV, Count
32, 188
37, 24
43, 32
49, 30
54, 24
60, 37
66, 29
71, 27
77, 28
83, 36
88, 37
94, 30
100, 23
105, 34
111, 41
117, 33
122, 27
128, 32
134, 28
140, 60

Total Damage = 62141

=========================================
Shaman 60 227 AC vs level 50 mob 800 hits
=========================================

DV, Count
32, 202
37, 27
43, 29
49, 33
54, 30
60, 20
66, 34
71, 26
77, 37
83, 25
88, 32
94, 31
100, 25
105, 31
111, 41
117, 31
122, 27
128, 31
134, 33
140, 55

Total Damage = 61208

=========================================
Shaman 60 300 AC vs level 50 mob 800 hits
=========================================

DV, Count
32, 209
37, 32
43, 33
49, 28
54, 33
60, 33
66, 37
71, 35
77, 27
83, 31
88, 33
94, 28
100, 33
105, 24
111, 37
117, 23
122, 21
128, 32
134, 23
140, 48

Total Damage = 58618

=========================================
Shaman 60 386 AC vs level 50 mob 800 hits
=========================================

DV, Count
32, 221
37, 29
43, 21
49, 30
54, 33
60, 34
66, 46
71, 28
77, 19
83, 27
88, 32
94, 31
100, 27
105, 23
111, 38
117, 36
122, 38
128, 26
134, 36
140, 25

Total Damage = 58631

On longer parses, we start to see a more consistent drop in damage as we increase AC. We also see an increase in Minimum hits, and a decrease in maximum hits.

It looks like the softcap is in effect well past 217 worn AC. The issue is simply that the softcap returns are quite small, which is expected for Shamans and Rangers.

My previous data sets with 400 hits per set were noisy enough to mask the subtle decrease in damage. I am thinking that is what happened in the Ranger thread as well. I don't think they were generally parsing around 1000 hits per AC value.

It is easy to see why people accused Haynar of having a hardcap on AC at high levels. He said he was running 3 hour parses to test his changes, and most people aren't gathering that much data per AC value.

This does show that AC has large diminishing returns past the softcap for at least some classes, which is why people don't feel like it does much. In the data above, going from 207 worn AC to 386 worn AC reduces damage by about 6.5%. It may be a bit higher if I ran even longer parses, as we see the 386 worn AC parse was basically identical to the 300 worn AC parse damage-wise. Considering that the 386 worn AC parse had like half of the max hits and 12 more min hits, that may just be unlucky RNG.

So far the data supports what Haynar's post said about hardcaps and softcaps.

Quote:
Originally Posted by bcbrown [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
Uploading some spreadsheets for three datasets: DSM level 5 vs level 5, my toons vs Shiel, DSM 60 shaman vs level 50. I find this is a more convenient format for looking at the data. Not a lot of conclusions yet from me. Min/max ratio seems noiser than damage/hit. Shield ac definitely has an effect.
Thanks for the spreadsheets! Just be aware that some items like orbs do not count as shields, so be sure to test with an actual shield.
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  #106  
Old 10-13-2025, 04:52 AM
sogundordor sogundordor is offline
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Really appreciate all the work DSM's put in!

"I added a low level raw ac cap of level * 6 + 25." Haynar said...
(217-25)/6=32
if 217 worn ac is the soft cap, then "low level" means lv32?

i made some graph easier to read =P
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Hrmm soft cap happen around 217 for both Lv45 and Lv50, what about "squelching theory" ?
Last edited by sogundordor; 10-13-2025 at 05:11 AM..
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  #107  
Old 10-13-2025, 05:30 AM
Jimjam Jimjam is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sogundordor [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
Hrmm soft cap happen around 217 for both Lv45 and Lv50, what about "squelching theory" ?
In vanilla, PC offence skills cap around level 40, staying the same through 50. Perhaps NPCs have a similar lock on their attack (or 'wrath' as I think dsm coined it)?

If the idea of squelching (that the player's worn AC is just completly drowning the mob's 'wrath' so any slight signal of improvement from extra ac is lost in the noise of randomness) is correct, then could it be feasible that level 45 and 50 mobs have similar wrath just how lvl 45 and 50 vanilla melees have similar offence, and so 45 and 50 mobs similar squelch point in terms of raw worn ac?
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  #108  
Old 10-13-2025, 08:58 AM
kjs86z2 kjs86z2 is offline
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can we get a TLDR

maybe something like "more armor more good"
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  #109  
Old 10-13-2025, 10:08 AM
Jimjam Jimjam is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DeathsSilkyMist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
In the data above, going from 207 worn AC to 386 worn AC reduces damage by about 6.5%. It may be a bit higher if I ran even longer parses, as we see the 386 worn AC parse was basically identical to the 300 worn AC parse damage-wise.
Are you brave enough to conduct a similar test in Banded Armor? It would be good to see the improvement of a 100pp set of armour vs upper end.
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  #110  
Old 10-13-2025, 10:40 AM
DeathsSilkyMist DeathsSilkyMist is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimjam [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
Are you brave enough to conduct a similar test in Banded Armor? It would be good to see the improvement of a 100pp set of armour vs upper end.
I do plan on lower AC tests on my Shaman to find the softcap, but I probably won't have time over the next few days. I have to keep torporing myself to stay alive. The level 5 tests were easier since Fungi did all the work for me, I could do something else while it was going on.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimjam [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
In vanilla, PC offence skills cap around level 40, staying the same through 50. Perhaps NPCs have a similar lock on their attack (or 'wrath' as I think dsm coined it)?

If the idea of squelching (that the player's worn AC is just completly drowning the mob's 'wrath' so any slight signal of improvement from extra ac is lost in the noise of randomness) is correct, then could it be feasible that level 45 and 50 mobs have similar wrath just how lvl 45 and 50 vanilla melees have similar offence, and so 45 and 50 mobs similar squelch point in terms of raw worn ac?
NPCs have the same skill caps and level requirements as players as far as I am aware. This is why Warrior mobs don't get bash until level 6, for example. Warrior mobs should get +5 offense and +5 weapon skills each level, until they cap.

You are correct that a level 45 mob and a level 50 should have similar wrath due to the skill caps. However, mobs should have different strength values, and strength is used in wrath. So a Hill Giant would probably have more wrath than a human mob of the same level.

Weapon skill gives 1 Wrath per 1 Skill point.

Strength gives less than 1 Wrath per 1 STR point. If you have 100 total STR, you get ~17 wrath. 150 STR is ~50 wrath. 200 STR is ~84 wrath. 255 STR is 120 wrath. This is using my DPS calculator.

ATK also increases Wrath. In my DPS calculator I use 1 Wrath per 1 ATK, but this may be a bit different on P99. The EQMU code has a multiplier for ATK based on era, so I am not sure if they adjusted that on P99.

I would imagine buffed NPCs would have higher wrath if they have STR buffs and/or ATK buffs. Like an SK mob using Grim Aura.
Last edited by DeathsSilkyMist; 10-13-2025 at 10:45 AM..
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