Miscellaneous: P99 should have a +Mana cap and revised Base Mana Formula

[Rygar]

Additional confirmation found, in case all this wasn't enough:
https://web.archive.org/web/20010822...ve/arc87.shtml

[Quote from original post: Since learning that +mana items are also subject to the level restriction and have a reduced effect at lower levels]
Actually that's not entirely accurate. You can only raise your mana with +mana items based upon the total base mana that you have. For instance, if someone has only 50 mana, and they don a +50 mana item, they do not have 100 mana. This isn't a function of the level, but of total mana. We won't let someone double their mana supply with +mana items

[Daldaen]

I can't wait to hear fixed pending update in this thread. It will reach ultimate immersion values when Mana is limited according to your base mana value.

[Rygar]

Friendly bump. I realize a proper mana formula / cap can be a re-tuning nightmare as it affects everyone in game (and all content). Still would love to see it!

[Daldaen]

What an immersive change this would be.

[Daldaen]

Bump

[Erati]

Originally Posted by Daldaen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Bump

Please remove the ability for this man to bump bug reports

[Daldaen]

Bump. If we are never getting Luclin this is a crucial bug fix for the balance of the server. However if Luclin is in the works probably don’t need to worry about it since Luclin fixes it.

[Raev]

Rather than bumping this thread, you should make a new one that is better organized. Most of the evidence is buried deep in the thread. I think the most likely conclusion is that +mana items were capped at 1/2 of your total mana pool based on Jaxon's posts, which cuts P99ers down to 3700 max or so.

I think in the end this would be a positive change for the server. With this, the 289 item ac hard cap, and diminished resist returns over 200 (based on what I saw in the VP AE thread, but it needs way more research) players will no longer be able to go god-mode with TOV gear. The NPCs can then be tuned down to true classic ATK/AC/cooldown/resist mod values. The result will be both a much more classic server - P99 has tremendously accurate quests and such, but the mechanics have never been that close - and also, I would hope, a less competitive one where getting 15 slots of Velious Raid gear isn't so important.

[Rygar]

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Rather than bumping this thread, you should make a new one that is better organized. Most of the evidence is buried deep in the thread. I think the most likely conclusion is that +mana items were capped at 1/2 of your total mana pool based on Jaxon's posts, which cuts P99ers down to 3700 max or so.

I think in the end this would be a positive change for the server. With this, the 289 item ac hard cap, and diminished resist returns over 200 (based on what I saw in the VP AE thread, but it needs way more research) players will no longer be able to go god-mode with TOV gear. The NPCs can then be tuned down to true classic ATK/AC/cooldown/resist mod values. The result will be both a much more classic server - P99 has tremendously accurate quests and such, but the mechanics have never been that close - and also, I would hope, a less competitive one where getting 15 slots of Velious Raid gear isn't so important.

Excellent point Raev about consolidating, it is definitely a lot to read through and much of the evidence was uncovered as the thread moved along. Maybe I'll work up a new post tonight.

I do agree with you that adjusting this cap, ac values, and resists would indeed change the dynamics of the server and hopefully create more of a 'relive the nostalgia' mentality amongst the player base and make BiS profiles just marginally better than HoT gear.

[Rygar]

Below is a summary of this thread, I'll PM a mod to modify the original post and change the title! Let me know what you think:

Summary of +Mana Cap:

The +mana cap for P99 was not main stream knowledge until after Luclin hit and the percentage of mana you had was displayed. Afterwards, a post was made from a high end raider revealing his testing methods to determine a cap was indeed in place. At which point Devs faced some revolt from the masses and did some damage control.

Here is Rich Waters' explanation of the cap:
8/9/2002:
http://rift.zam.com/story.html?story=1083

Hi, The mana cap has been a big topic lately, so I'd like to take a minute to address it. Mana caps have been in EverQuest since the game was released. They haven't been changed, made more restrictive, or added at a later date in order to keep casters down. The mana cap as it is now has been there since you created your character, and only recently become a topic of concern for players. Most things in EverQuest have a point of diminishing returns - a point where adding more of a resource yields little or no improvement. This is most obvious in your basic stats, where you can easily see that after your strength score hits 255 it does you no good to put on more strength enhancing gear. These kinds of caps aren't intended to cause you distress, and in many ways they can help support a well balanced game system. While we have an appreciation for the benefits that stat caps can bring to a system, we're also willing to look at things like this with an objective eye. The mana cap on worn items has been in since release, and hasn't come up before as an issue that players felt overly limited by. With all the attention focused on the cap in recent days, the dev team looked it over and we agree - there's no reason to place an artificial cap on mana enhancing items. On test server now, we've changed the rule so that players get full value from all mana increasing worn items. We expect this will go live with the next patch. Thanks for bringing your concerns to our attention, ____________________________ Rich Waters Lead Designer, EverQuest Sony Online Entertainment -------------------------------------------

This change just affects + Mana items. We didn't change the way a players mana is calculated from intelligence or wisdom, and we're happy with how that part of the system works. - Rich

Shortly afterwards that patch hit on 8/14/2002:
http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20020814.html

Removed the cap for items that granted bonus mana.

So where was the player test that revealed this feature? Much love to Jaxon of P99 that uncovered those threads, I'll list them here as he posted, long read so I'll use spoiler tags:

 

Some members of FOH did some testing and verified the existence of a mana cap.

https://web.archive.org/web/20021023...?threadid=2252

Originally Posted by Frozboz
For a while now some friends of mine and I have theorized that there is a mana softcap - that is, a limit or "cap" on mana given from items. We all are pretty sure there is a cap of some sort. For a while now, Rombus has been saying it's around 5000, while others claim it's much lower. With the advent of percentages in the new UI, we're able to narrow down this cap a bit more. In fact this is really when it started bugging me, because while raid buffed it took me 13% mana to try to cast GSS (540 mana) with a manapool of 4520, it also took Sorceresa 13% to try and cast GSS as well with a mana pool of 4210. It seems to me that it should have shown a greater percentage to try and cast GSS for someone with a smaller mana pool. So I started to run some "tests". The mana numbers used here are from Magelo.

Full mana, zero buffs, standing up I removed 300 mana worth of items, dropping me to 4220 or +1370 in items. I then put those items back on, and my mana bar stayed at 100%. My UI shows my mana bar percentage, so I can tell if it drops at all when +mana items are added. I removed 600 mana worth of items, dropping me to 3920, and my mana bar dropped to 92%.

Full mana, zero buffs, standing up Sorceresa removed 300 mana worth of items, dropping her to 3910. She then put those items back on, and her mana bar dropped to 92%. Even adding 5 mana she saw it drop from 100% to 99%.

Bottom line? There seems to be a cap on how much mana items can give you. Neuro tinkered with this a bit, and found it to be exactly +1400 or 4250 total mana. Is this accurate? If not, what are we seeing there? And of what significance is this?

http://www.showeq.net/forums/archive...hp/t-1738.html

Here Ratt, a ShowEQ developer, criticizes Frozboz's testing methodology, but the criticism lies in the the degree of precision available by using the client for testing and the difference between client side and server side data.

Just to be clear, Ratt agrees there is a mana cap. His issue is with the 4250 number they came up with.

Originally Posted by Ratt
Yes, this was and is known by the general public. Verant stated this a long time ago, publically. Both on their message boards and also on all the news sites. I don't know how much more public you can get than this. It's not my fault you or others forgot this... I've never forgotten it and a lot of others never have forgotten it. It's been something very near and dear to me for quite a while as I tried to balance my character in mana vs hp.

Another poster named Neuro MT uses another method to pin down the exact number:

Originally Posted by Neuro MT
The client will display any mana amount under 100% as 99% (Or less). The client does not round up, so even a 1 mana change will register. Test it yourself if you don't believe me. Up until 1388, even a 1 mana increase in mana pool will drop your mana to 99% for one tick. Above 1388, even a 125 mana item will not budge your mana meter.

This cap, I believe, is a direct ratio of your total int-based mana. Someone told me that SEQ showed a 4164 total mana pool unbuffed, even when the pool should be higher. Since 4164 divided evenly into 3, AND the resulting divisor was '1388' I concluded that not only was the 4164 figure accurate, but the 'cap' was actually a function of your total mana pool, basically, 50% of your mana pool is the cap on +mana items. You say this 'limit' was known for a long time, well, not by the general public. I knew there was a cap on +mana under level 20 or so, but I had never heard of any limitation above lvl 20.

Originally Posted by throx
What Neuro is saying is that he has verified the client has a hard coded mana cap at +1388 in mana items. From there you have to assume one of two things:

i) The client code has good reason to arbitrarily limit +mana at 1388 (at Lv60) because that's what the coded limit on the servers is.

ii) For some reason best known to themselves the coders at Verant put a mana cap into the client but a different one on the server. It's well known that the client's mana numbers are inaccurate when presented with mana recharge or drain effects but this is not one of those cases. For it to work this way the code must deliberately cap mana differently on the client and the server.

I find the notion that the static mana caculation formula being identical on client and server to be the most reasonable hypothesis.

Originally Posted by Neuro MT
The client still resyncs with the server when you perform an action such as clicking jboots or on the tick. If the cap were only client-side, then putting on a large +mana item over the cap would drop to 97% after the tick or after you click jboots. Sadly, this does not happen. Thus, the cap is not only client side, it is server-side as well.

I think from this we can definitively conclude that there is +mana cap on items(and items alone, not +mana effects like GOB or KEI) of 1388.

Thanks Jaxon!! So we gather from that thread, that during that Luclin era the effective cap on your mana pool was 4,164. I do want to touch base quickly on the client vs. server formula for mana. It would appear that the formula for this was server side limitation (much like we find from Cinda's Charismatic Carillon thread which showed there was a server side cap on the faction for this spell regardless of the SPDAT file). Mana was purposely not shown in the client to keep it 'mysterious' per the original dev team, with client's being cracked and analyzed I'm not surprised they would keep the cap formula server side.

Back to Jaxon's post, there was an interesting blurb I picked up on that thread:

Since 4164 divided evenly into 3, AND the resulting divisor was '1388' I concluded that not only was the 4164 figure accurate, but the 'cap' was actually a function of your total mana pool, basically, 50% of your mana pool is the cap on +mana items. You say this 'limit' was known for a long time, well, not by the general public. I knew there was a cap on +mana under level 20 or so, but I had never heard of any limitation above lvl 20.

So the cap is not a hard cap on 'total mana', but it should be reflective of your base mana pool. Is there other evidence to back this up? Yes, there is, in classic era before many caught on about the +mana cap:
4/5/2000:
https://web.archive.org/web/20010822...ve/arc96.shtml

More on +Mana Topic
Well I was able to track down some additional information that I don't mind distributing. The benefit of +mana items is scaled to reduce the impact of twinking in certain circumstances. I can't give you the formula, but I can say that if you load up your level 1 guy with +300 in mana items, he doesn't have 300 more mana.
The benefit that you can receive from a +mana item is based upon your total natural mana.

5/4/2000:
https://web.archive.org/web/20010822...ve/arc87.shtml

You can only raise your mana with +mana items based upon the total base mana that you have. For instance, if someone has only 50 mana, and they don a +50 mana item, they do not have 100 mana. This isn't a function of the level, but of total mana. We won't let someone double their mana supply with +mana items.

So there we've established that this +mana cap is a function of your base mana, regardless of level. Exact formula? Who knows, but best evidence is a straight 50% cap of your base mana for worn +mana items (buffs can exceed this).

Summary of Mana Formula changes:
So... it may seem like P99 should have an effective max cap on your mana of 4164, right? WRONG!

As Raev and Daldaen had pointed out, it would appear that P99 is using a Luclin formula for calculating mana... Daldaen summed it up nicely below:
http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20011204.html
12/4/2001 (Luclin launches)

Increased the amount of mana given by high Intelligence and Wisdom scores, as well as that granted by items and spells.

That 4164 mana value, which is the most accurately described number so far, is pulled from a post during late Luclin.

Meaning it occurred 8 months after the above patch which changed the calculation of 200-255 WIS/INT to Mana. The classic value seems to have been 1 Mana per 1 WIS/INT. The Luclin one 6 sticks in my mind but 5 fits the numbers more easily. This means the level 60 calculation is:

Classic = 12 Mana per WIS 0-200, 1 Mana per WIS 201-255.
Max WIS based Mana = 2455
Max +Mana = 1228
Total Max Worn Mana = 3683.

Luclin = 12.5 Mana per WIS 0-200, 5 Mana per WIS 201-255.
Max WIS based Mana = 2775
Max +Mana = 1388
Total Max Worn Mana = 4163 (4164... rounding error probably)

---------------

I did notice through some postings that there were 'alternate' classic formulas posted, so not sure which is the true formula (a little birdie told me Haynar knows...).

My post listing those values is here:
https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...6&postcount=66

So possible 3,862 would be the max unbuffed mana pool obtained on P99, or perhaps 3,683 per Daldaen.

Lastly, Jaxon did find that the showEQ formula obtaining those numbers were the Luclin era calculation, and not the classic mana formula, his post on that summary is here:
https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...7&postcount=64

Conclusion:

I find this all to be very compelling evidence for a +mana cap and a mana formula revision, major changes require significant evidence and I feel that has been delivered here.

It may certainly explain a lot how testing fights against Tunare / AoW in Velious Beta was making easier fights than expected. It would seem there was a lot more mana available for CHeal chains, spot heals, twitches, etc.

I understand re-balancing that content with these formulas may be difficult and time consuming, but I say go ahead and implement! Most P99ers have already trivialized the encounters, this will just make them more of a challenge until the ATK values, etc can be dialed in. It may also encourage grouping with more members as all players will be taking a hit to their mana pool.

Thank you for your consideration! #Classic