AC issues are starting to be really problematic. - Page 2

Splorf22 · #11 04-23-2014, 12:49 PM

Quote:

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

Evasive disc also seems FAR stronger than I remember during this era. I watched a red wurm miss a Kunark geared warrior 30/35 times last night, which is not uncommon from the logs I've been getting.

Evasive is insane, to the point that it's almost always a mistake to use defensive. Whether or not this is classic, I don't know. People on live might have also used defensive more to compensate for lag (the worst-case behaviour of defensive should be a bit better).

**Alunova** · #12 04-23-2014, 01:13 PM

Basic test, somewhat ToV geared warrior (Not full Vulak loot), 3 spells: Aego, Focus of Spirit and Divine Strength, 6k hps. Melee hits shown only:

My automatic full hp regen was hitting every 6 seconds for an average of 1400hp (That's including damage from spells) with disc up. He hits max quite a bit, but no where near every hit.

**Haynar** · #13 04-23-2014, 01:23 PM

There is a component to your defense rating based on level.

And we use a softcap system, not a hardcap based system.

Warriors get a 45% return above softcap.

Adding a shield increases ur softcap.

Based on new formulas from soe, i am removing the level part from defense rating. And increasing the ac component by 4/3. This helps ac mean more, and you get hit harder naked.

Other changes that are on beta, is iksar ac bonus is moved to be equal to level, 10 min, 35 max. Previously it was level/2. Not 15 like wiki had i guess.

At low levels the softcap is more level based than defense based. I basically doubled transition so at low levels ac means more.

I added a low level raw ac cap of level * 6 + 25.

It looks better now and i can see ac scaling damage up to soft cap, and lesser reductions above softcap.

H

Splorf22 · #14 04-23-2014, 01:39 PM

Doesn't this post show that in Classic AC was hardcapped? I mean from a balance perspective I like the softcap a lot more, but:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kavhok

Kavhok
EQ Designer
Posts: 14

Your AC cap was lowered. That was absolutely and unequivocally a nerf. I didn't mean in any way to imply otherwise.

Let me give a more full explanation of what happened, though. Here's how the AC formula used to work before the patch immediately preceding PoP:

The AC from your items was added up, but the value used for it was hard capped based on your level. This was the same for all classes. Once you had 289 raw AC from items (or 385 as a cloth class, since they get less effect from item AC), that was it. More AC from items wouldn't do anything.

After this, it added your class bonuses (including the monk bonus, which is equivalent to your level + 5 in raw item AC), defense skill bonus, agility bonus, and the AC from spell buffs.

Total AC at this point was capped again, this time based on class. In the Kunark-era code, this was a hard cap, but sometime during Velious it was changed to a soft cap for melee classes only. The return was fairly small, though.

The pre-PoP patch did a few things:

- The cap on item AC was no longer used except at lower levels (twinking was a concern since that was before recommended level items were in heavy use).
- Shield AC was added to the class-based cap to give shields more viability
- Class AC caps were changed. Monks were lowered the most, but beastlords were lowered to the same level as druids (yes, they were nerfed too). Cleric and shaman caps were raised above druids. The caps generally followed the armor archetypes of plate/chain/leather/cloth.
- All classes were given returns on AC over the cap, not just melee classes. All casters and priests received the least, followed by the melee classes. Rogues got the same return as monks, as did berserkers when the class was added. Beastlords and rangers got slightly more, followed by bards, then knights, then warriors.

The overall goal was to make the average dps (including mitigation, avoidance, block/dodge/etc.) taken for melee classes to be approximately:
Warrior > Knight > Monk > Bard > Ranger = Beastlord = Rogue

Aggregate data from live servers at the time was taken to determine median-AC stats for each class. Parses were run against NPCs 3-4 levels lower, facing front. The characters had cleric AC and shaman agility buffs and faced the NPC. The results of the parse were consistent with statistical analysis of the formulas in code:

Class War Pal Mnk
Level 51 51 51
Raw Item AC 184 181 107
Agility 157 144 169
Dodge 3.4% 3.1% 4.4%
Block 0 % 0% 10.2%
Riposte 4.4% 3.9% 4.1%
Parry 5.2% 4.6% 0%
Skill Evasion 12.9% 11.5% 18.7%
Hit Rate 61.2% 61.3% 58.2%
Avg Hit 72.6 72.9 74.6
% Hits for Max 10.2% 10.5% 11.5%
Avg Dmg / Round 59.7 61.1 54.5
DPS 28.2 28.8 25.7

Class War Pal Mnk
Level 60 60 60
Raw Item AC 296 281 163
Agility 177 152 187
Dodge 4.3% 3.9% 4.9%
Block 0 % 0% 11.4%
Riposte 4.8% 4.3% 4.5%
Parry 5.8% 5.2% 0%
Skill Evasion 14.9% 13.4% 20.8%
Hit Rate 59.4% 59.7% 59.3%
Avg Hit 107.3 109.9 113.6
% Hits for Max 10.4% 11.7% 13.6%
Avg Dmg / Round 87.4 91.7 86.1
DPS 50.8 53.3 50

The problem was that the average plate-equipped warriors and knights had barely any lead on monks in mitigation, due to the monk bonus, but the monk still had the lead in evasion. Contrary to popular belief, this is what prompted the nerf to monk mitigation, NOT high-end monks being rampage tanks.

The changes had little effect on average level 51 warriors and knights, but since the average level 51 monk was over the new nerfed AC cap, it increased their average damage taken per hit and increased the percent chance of max hits (in the above example) to 13%. Monks who had better than this median AC were hit harder by the nerf since it lowered their effective AC even more. Level 60 monks with exceptionally high item AC (Ssra+) weren't hit quite as hard because the uncapping of item AC gave them more returns on AC over the class cap. The median level 60 changes looked like this (evasion, of course, remained the same):

Class War Pal Mnk
Avg Hit 106 108.9 121.3
% Hits for Max 9.8% 11.2% 18.4%
Avg Dmg 86.4 90.9 91.9
DPS 50.2 52.8 53.4

Several months into PoP, the nerf was partially repealed and the monk AC cap was raised to the same level as druids and beastlords. Their return on AC over the cap was left at the same level. The reasoning at the time was based on a number of factors: the percentage of hits for max made taking damage even more unpredictable and raised the likelihood of one-round deaths more than we wanted, median AC increased for nearly all levels 51+ due to the new armor in PoP and trickle-down of old armor into the economy, and other issues were brought up.

Addendum:

Why were monks below 1160 AC affected?

The AC number you see is a composite of mitigation and avoidance. Defense skill increases both mitigation and avoidance, so gaining skill levels 50+ makes both numbers go up. At level 51, before the mitigation changes, a monk with no buffs, 150 agi, and 163 raw item AC was at the original AC cap with a displayed AC of 985. The nerf made it so that same monk with 118 AC, or 914 displayed, was now at the soft cap. Any level 51 monk with more than that would've experienced the nerf to varying degrees.

Also it occurs to me that the 3-4% numbers were almost certainly for warriors above the PoP softcap.

Splorf22 · #15 04-23-2014, 01:44 PM

Also I would like to add that there are basically two issues here: how player AC is calculated from gear, level, class and so on, and how the NPC's probability of [min, max, interval] hit is calculated from its attack score and the player's AC.

The second part is what we are questioning more than anything. Maybe Alunova is correct and attackers are just hitting for too much? Then both player and NPC damage is too high.

Nirgon · #16 04-23-2014, 01:58 PM

Smiling down on people who think they don't have to farm Velious armor to clear tov.

You do.

**Haynar** · #17 04-23-2014, 01:58 PM

Ppl parsed and concluded it was a hard cap system we were using.

How? No clue.

Making constant tweaks to a system difficult to reach hard cap, not reasonable.

And I tried to make it more like the prenerf system.

And I left the project for 2 years, and since i wrote the entire system for ac effects on clients, noone was familiar enough with code to try and adjust it without fear of breaking it worse.

I have spent about 40 hrs over last 2 weeks seeing where it needed adjusting. It was not being real effective at certain points. I think I have it better. But I am sure ppl will still bitch about it.

I am probably not going to look at it much after this as there are plenty of other things to work on.

Nirgon · #18 04-23-2014, 03:22 PM

I do recall that higher AC was effective in new zones vs old world zones when Velious dropped (may have even been Kunark but definitely old world you got less bang for your back per AC at high values).

My memory serves me that in solb you didn't get the AC mitigation you would have in a zone like Velks. Worth some dig.

Found this as a starter:

source thread discussing ac

Quote:

Here's a general guideline for what you should shoot for as a minimum.

Old World - 900 ac

Kunark - 1100 ac

Velious - 1250 ac

Ssra - 1350 ac

PoP - 1500+ ac

More and saying the hard cap existed from day 1

More from EQ clerics

I'm agreeing with how things should work as ATK vs AC in the EQ clerics thread personally and this is probably where I am thinking of old world values vs Velious content. This also would explain why the SK twinks I played were virtually unhittable by people their level in my little rememberings I post :P. Some of the people foaming at the mouth to correct AC can look through this, I'm probably taking a little break from forumquesting at least in new areas for a while.

One last thing for sure? I never agreed with people saying ATK was just some phantom stat.

**Rogean** · #19 04-23-2014, 03:30 PM

I want you guys to keep a few things in mind about AC:

1. The version of Eashen you were fighting had a larger minimum hit than he should have. This has been corrected (Many velious raid mobs are being adjusted to their correct values).
2. The AC system was revamped by Haynar midway through Kunark to be much more accurate. The system itself is pretty solid and Haynar to this day is continueing to tweak it. However:
3. More importantly than the code to support a correct system is the mob values that also need to be set correctly. If there's an issue with mobs hitting too hard, this is most likely the reason. Mobs inherit an attack value by default from a formula in code, and then this can be modified further by database values the content devs can set. These values are just as important to the effect of a player's AC as the code itself, and many mobs are not tweaked for this.

So I just want people to keep this in mind before being so quick to blame the AC Code, as it's much more than code that affects the system. Also, you guys might find that a lot of parsing done in the early days of Kunark may not be accurate anymore, as we are still updating the system and mob values.

Nirgon · #20 04-23-2014, 03:45 PM

What's Eashan's atk tho