Eladrin - a request for an AC experiment on Lamannia

[phum]

It's a great suggestion and I hope they finally do something about the range of useful ac.

As The_Brave2 mentioned, a uniform distribution does have some shortcomings tho (notably also at lower lvls). This could be circumvented by doing something like

1. d3

If the result of 1. is
1 - mob rolls to hit + d40
2 - mob rolls to hit + 20 + d20
3 - mob rolls to hit + 20 + d40

This would make the middle range more probable. Just a thought. This too would result in problems at lower lvls. It could be possible to replace the 20 in case of initial d3 with cr tho. Guess that would be better.

Heh, getting slightly amused so I'll type another possibility involving cr

1. d3

If the result of the d3 in 1. is
1 - mob rolls to hit + d40
2 - mob rolls to hit + roundup(20*(cr/maxcr)) + d20
3 - mob rolls to hit + roundup(20*(cr/maxcr)) + d40

So for maxcr 30( not sure about current max mob cr in game. Just an example), cr 30, to hit 60, the range becomes 61-120 with values more concentrated in the middle make it a bit more ... how do I say it... less random? Edit. more expectable? Sry my english Second edit. Removed an inconsistency in the second model. Too bad it got completely ignored again

Third edit^^ After playing with a spread sheet, I repaired an error. Now assuming max cr, and mob to hit 60 results in ac 61-80 each point giving 0.833%, ac 81-100 each point giving 3.333% and ac 101-120 again each point giving 0.833% damage mitigation. My suggestion for critical would be the same as it's now, the highest 5%. Meaning if the range is 60 points, critical occurs at 58, 59 and 60. If it's 40, then critical occurs at 39 and 40. As for glancing hits, again the upper third seems ok. Similar to what is now. Guess I'll make a new possibly futile post about this to make it at least slightly possible that this is noted.

[Aesop]

Maybe make it 1d60 instead then?

edit: seems Dragavon posted the same suggestion.

Wouldn't work smoothly with the system as it stands. You could do something more like 1d40+1d20 with the 1d40 being the effective "bonus" and the 1d20 being the actual attack roll though. The 1d20 would handle Critical hits Critical Misses and Grazing Hits. The 1d40 would just be the random bonus.

In general I like Sirgog's proposal, the specifics can be worked out later and modified to fit the encounter.

Aesop

[Skavenaps]

i seem the problem is more the all/nothing situacion. get hit, you eat all, not get hit, you are gold.

maybe make something like....

if boss hits you for more than 20, 150% dmg
if boss hits you for less than 20, 100% dmg
...
if boss hits you for less than 2, 50% dmg

so basically high armor will give you something and will discorge low armor tanks with lol blocking, high dr, autoheal aura, bla bla to tank.

[sirgog]

Editing OP to mention some of the other suggestions.

[negativeprogression]

I like this idea it opens up possibilities for more dangerous bosses

[ckorik]

i seem the problem is more the all/nothing situacion. get hit, you eat all, not get hit, you are gold.

maybe make something like....

if boss hits you for more than 20, 150% dmg
if boss hits you for less than 20, 100% dmg
...
if boss hits you for less than 2, 50% dmg

so basically high armor will give you something and will discorge low armor tanks with lol blocking, high dr, autoheal aura, bla bla to tank.

There is *no* all or nothing situation currently. You can take a 91 AC plate shield blocking tank into water works and still take damage from melee attacks.

Grazing hits are already in the game which gives like 35% damage (65% mitigation) against an un-hittable target. Lowering mob to-hit values so that tanks with 80+ AC take mostly grazing hits will not gimp the game - 99% of the characters out there will still take full damage.

It would allow more people to 'tank' and smother runs if you have a 'tank' - and it would make AC boosts and temporary AC buffs worthwhile if the poo hits the fan.

And as to barbs - Frenzied Beserkers should not be the best tanks in game simply by having 1000 hps. When you can dip negative AC raged and start to attract weapons to yourself - you should not be a better tank than someone designed to avoid/block most of the damage. That's not only broken from a game mechanic side - it's broken from any kind of logic (fantasy or real) that you could put into the situation.

[grodon9999]

In response to Shade's expected "MOAR DPS!!! MOAR HP!!!! BRING 30 HEALERS!!!" reply . . .

Regardless of the additional HP defenders are getting, if damage mitigation doesn't work their existence is pointless. In guild we were talking about this, with new bonsuses most of our Stalwarts will be between 900-1000 HP fully prepared for a fight but we'd still be better off with Dwarf Barbarians if damage mitigation didn't work.

This proposed change makes it possible without being over-powered. Hell, AC isn't overpowered now on Elite do to grazes and spells/badges/etc. And if it makes Normal content trivial . . . who cares it's nothing compared to Wail of the Banshee.

As Sirgod mentioned, all the epic bosses were panzies. none had true-seeing and mooks like the CAD had an attack animation that matched the cooldown of a heal-scroll. I've tanked everyone of them on a 500 HP ranger. That same toon had also AC-tanked Elite Sulu and even with AC working Elite Sulu was MUCH tougher.

The epic bosses are getting true-seeing (right?), that damage mitigation we used to get from displacement is gone. This is a good thing, AC not working yet all the bosses getting 50% misses from displacement was beyond stupid.

I still think grazes need to go if this is implemented. I'd love to test it.

[zealous]

(I did also consider 50+4d20, which is significantly more effort to model on a spreadsheet

It's quite trivial to model on a spreadsheet, it's just difficult to know how to do it =)

1	20	=IF(A152>B$152,"",1)	=SUM(OFFSET(C152,-$B$152,0):C151)

I. Paste at A152, need to have as many empty rows as the max of the dice empty above colD+
II. All cells except B152 downwards to row 152 + max for die*number of dices.
III. Drag col D rightwards to get distributions for 2+ dices.
IV. Divide distribution columns with sum of columns to get probabilities

ColA: Result of roll
cellB 152ie type to use, e.g. 2, 4, 6, etc.
ColC: distribution of outcomes.
ColD-Col<number of columns --3 dice>: distribution of possible outcomes

And ofc, with a small adjustment you can evaluate non uniform distributions too, e.g. when you have 1/20 for 0, 15/20 for 1 and 4/20 for 3.

I think the "working" ac range with this system would be even shorter than it is now.

It would be narrower compared to the range of the possible outcomes, it would be wider than the current system though.

One important thing to keep in mind is that it's not really informative to look at miss chance, hit chance is better but still not all that informative.

The real impact of AC is the time it takes before you die/need healing.

Both suggestions are also flawed in the same manner as the current system, the relative benefit of increasing ac is higher the higher your current ac is until you reach the no hit zone. E.g. If I get hit only on 19+, increasing ac by one cuts incoming damage in half, if hit on 3+ increasing ac by one will result in a negligible improvement. Damage will ofc converge towards the grazing hits level.

Using some kind of log scale would be preferable imo, diminishing returns an all that.

The benefit of further AC increases gets exponentially better the higher AC you have.

This all is ofc how the system works without grazing hits.

What grazing hits does in the current system is basicly stopping the exponential benefit going nova. In other words, grazing hits stops one aspect of AC being crazybroken in the current system. Despite all the griping, it functions pretty much the same as "always hit on 20".

Could probably have grazing hits in the proposed system too, they would likely need to be convoluted and mathy to retain the same function, or they could be kept more or less as is, making ac increases above a certain point less beneficial.

It still leaves the problem of "if your AC isn't at least X, might as well not worry". While AC increases in the proposed system would carry massive benefits when already in the middle of the range, I don't think it'd be incentive enough for people to bother "going AC".

*cough* log based *cough*

[grodon9999]

It still leaves the problem of "if your AC isn't at least X, might as well not worry". While AC increases in the proposed system would carry massive benefits when already in the middle of the range, I don't think it'd be incentive enough for people to bother "going AC".

*cough* log based *cough*

yes, but that number drops to 60.

[grodon9999]

Plausible, sustainable/semi-sustainable ACs for a threat tank with 400+ threat per second:

70 AC - 5.7% mitigation
75 - 8.575%
80 - 15.05%
85 - 26.07%
90 - 40.6%
93 - 49.75%
95 - 55.61%
97 - 61.1%
100 - 68.3%

and more degenerate ACs (not currently sustainable on any character that's likely to be able to hold aggro)
105 - 76.7%
108 - 79.64%
110 - 80.92%
120 or anything higher - 82.75%

Note that you'd need an AC of 97 or so to take the same amount of physical damage from the CAD as players do on Live - Displacement and rolls of natural 1s provides 52.5% mitigation on Live, and the CAD hits harder on Lama than on Live by about 30 points.

That being the case I think the 60 + 3d20 might be too high. Probably 55 + 3d20 is more of a fit for what a tank can get. breaking 90 AC is extremely difficult in any sustainable manner on a toon putting out 500+ points of threat/second. I'd like to see a 40-50% miss change at 85.

[Scraap]

That being the case I think the 60 + 3d20 might be too high. Probably 55 + 3d20 is more of a fit for what a tank can get. breaking 90 AC is extremely difficult in any sustainable manner on a toon putting out 500+ points of threat/second. I'd like to see a 40-50% miss change at 85.

Tack on 1d3*(-5) to replicate iterative attack bonuses, and that'd lower it as well, though I still prefer that other method long term, since folks would get to overcome weak ac with reflexes and keep on attacking the closer they get to being able to handle the AC requirements. Short term though, looks good.

[Thrudh]

60+1d60 is very different from 60+3d20

Yes, and I like the 3d20 version with the normal distribution curve with the majority of hits in the middle.

This is a great idea sirgog... Makes AC useful over a much larger range (although still only slightly useful in the lower ranges, but slightly is better than zero)

[negativeprogression]

Out of interest, what would the mitigation percentages look like for a 40+4d20 roll?

80+ AC builds are very hard to make, especially for casual players, and this proposed system of multiple rolls seems like it would allow for lower AC thresholds whilst still giving max-kitted toons some gains for their effort (Albeit diminishing returns once they get past a certain point).

Personally I think even in epic content 50-ish AC should allow a small amount of protection. It's kind of sad that this game with all its complexity mostly boils down to hitpoints and dps.

[Astraghal]

Toning down the raid boss to-hit is a good idea, but AC will probably always be useless in Epics. In AC mode the tank will kill mobs too slowly for the AC to be effective. I'd estimate a Stalwart III does about 2/3 of the DPS of a Kensai III, which is a lot in Epics where killing mobs is the main aim.

[Blackmoors]

Out of interest, what would the mitigation percentages look like for a 40+4d20 roll?

80+ AC builds are very hard to make, especially for casual players, and this proposed system of multiple rolls seems like it would allow for lower AC thresholds whilst still giving max-kitted toons some gains for their effort (Albeit diminishing returns once they get past a certain point).

Personally I think even in epic content 50-ish AC should allow a small amount of protection. It's kind of sad that this game with all its complexity mostly boils down to hitpoints and dps.

Well, what you need to realize is that epic content may not be for the casual player. The game in general should be considered to the casual player, being Normal difficulty geared towards it. Epic difficulty its different thou, its a content everyone can play but requires dedication both on experience, playing skills, understand of the game and its mechanics, character build, equipment, etc.

[grodon9999]

Toning down the raid boss to-hit is a good idea, but AC will probably always be useless in Epics. In AC mode the tank will kill mobs too slowly for the AC to be effective. I'd estimate a Stalwart III does about 2/3 of the DPS of a Kensai III, which is a lot in Epics where killing mobs is the main aim.

Your estimate is a little off, a stalwart in DPS mode is only 10-15% behind a kensai. This is assuming equal gear, Weapon Specilizations, etc. The Kensai will have more boosts though.

In full-defense mode the DPS will drop but I have a feel Turbine doesn't want "DPS" toons to be able to survive tanking.

[grodon9999]

Well, what you need to realize is that epic content may not be for the casual player. The game in general should be considered to the casual player, being Normal difficulty geared towards it. Epic difficulty its different thou, its a content everyone can play but requires dedication both on experience, playing skills, understand of the game and its mechanics, character build, equipment, etc.

More casual players can still do epics, just not as a critical role such as main tank or primary caster. i don't have a problem with that.

[Blackmoors]

On another note, I think this thread is a very good point of discussion and many suggestions here seem on point to what AC on boss tanking and epic questing should be. People forget that the most common style of fighting should be (according with all fantasy lore and even medieval fighting) Sword and Shield. The fact everyone ingame runs around with two weapons or a big axe made people forget that...

Furthermore, I cant understand the "fear" of high AC tanks. When your focusing yourself on getting a high AC, theres something your loosing, more seldom than not DPS being the case. So, although having (very high) AC working on epics will or would be really nice, its something that more likely than not will only shine in 5% of the quests, the rest your better of with a DPS tank.

AC needs to work, it doesnt make no sense that a Barbarian using robes is better at tanking a Large Devil than a Heavy Plated Fighter using a Tower Shield. Its funny seeing people that boast about the 1000 HP builds are the same ones scared of what the 90 AC build can do to the game...

[Blackmoors]

More casual players can still do epics, just not as a critical role such as main tank or primary caster. i don't have a problem with that.

OFC, nor would I ever say otherwise, my point is that although the Normal difficulty setting should be focused towards the Casual player (in terms of what he/she can achieve and challenge) while the Epic difficulty should be aimed for more experienced/knowledgeable/resourceful players.

[Aelonwy]

I luv this idea. The by-the-book RPGer in me hates to move away from the d20 but I would rather do so then what we have ingame where most high level characters regardless of class are wearing robes/pjs. Thats just sad in some way. Its one thing to wear robes for flavor or because your multiclass somehow makes it work but its another thing entirely when the game mechanics themselves PUSH you to do so because anything else just doesn't work or make sense.

(On a sidenote I will dig up an idea from previous suggestions about making more armor types useful and add it here later.)