Power Attack?

[wax_on_wax_off]

I'm not sure if I am thinking about this correctly, so please point out any flaws in my logic. Given that we are now going to this obfuscated d20 system, all attack rolls end up being rounded to the nearest 5%. This means to me that if activating power attack drops you into a lower tier of attack percentages - which would mean you miss 5% more frequently - then activating power attack is bad. However, there will likely be some times where activating power attack leaves you at the same final percent hit rate, in which case power attack comes with no cost at all. Can that possibly be correct?

In a backwards sort of way this means that you should turn PA OFF against low AC monsters because it will be more likely to drop your hit % a tier. Conversely, the plateau of the to-hit curve against very high AC monsters means you're better off leaving PA on because +/-5 to-hit will only result in a ~1% change in your hit chance, which will then mean no functional change after the rounding to the nearest 5%.

I ask again, is there any way this is correct? And if so, is there any way it is intended?

I don't think so, the way I understand the formula to work is that AB is interacting with AC to form a curve. If you have high AB vs high AB then you're going to be on the optimal point of the curve seeing a big difference for each point of AB that changes (like turning power attack on or off). It's only if you have inappropriate setups (high AB vs low AC or low AB vs high AC) that you'll see a minimal change in hit rate from turning power attack on or off.

At least, that's how I read it.

I don't think I'll be convinced that rounding occurs before hit confirmation until I see some definitive proof as the last dev post I read that referred to it indicated that the d20 was just a visual representation and had no impact on the mechanic.

The +% from various feats is interesting, really going to be the case that anyone can hit a decent amount of the time vs any enemy as long as they are proficient?

[Stillwaters]

Torc stating that there is only 1 roll against the final hit percentage and that the 10.5 is a static (not rolled) number.

from same thread

The Player’s roll the same way with two exceptions, we add a “proficiency bonus”, and we round to the d20:

(Player Attack Bonus + Ave d20 roll 10. 5 / Target’s AC) /2 = X% +25%. Extra Bonus only applies IF you’re using a proficient weapon. We then round to the nearest 5% in order to simulate the d20 roll you see on the UI.

Seems pretty cut n dried if you see HIT on a 15 in your UI you might be able to turn power attack on and still see a HIT on the same die roll.

If it DIDNT work this way with minor changes to d100 rolled you would see 15 HIT, 15 MISS, 15 MISS, 15 HIT with the exact SAME attack bonus...
how confusing would THAT be..!?!?!

EDIT: SERIOUSLY i wish they never had the stupid NDA so ppl could have followed along from the beginning and we didnt have to repeat the same stuff over again.
Its bad enough the amount of times we are going to have to go thru this when it hits live to explain to non forumgoers.

[Stillwaters]

player1 "so should i keep power attack on?"
forumgoer "well sometimes its good and sometimes precision works better"
player1 "how do i tell the difference?"
forumgoer "here, i'll link you some spreadsheets so you know when to turn on power attack when to turn on precision"
<few minutes pass>
player1 "thats a LOT of spreadsheets"
forumgoer "haha yeah, and thats just for this quest...you should see how many i have for sands zone"

Barbarian1 "just use powerattack all the time, and while you're at it totally ignore AC.."
Barbarian Ballerina


player1 <whispers>"im a little scared of that guy.."
forumgoer <whispers>"me too..you should see him on the forums "

Caster1 "will you guys hurry up? im at the final boss"

[Myrrae]

Torc stating that there is only 1 roll against the final hit percentage and that the 10.5 is a static (not rolled) number.

from same thread


Seems pretty cut n dried if you see HIT on a 15 in your UI you might be able to turn power attack on and still see a HIT on the same die roll.

If it DIDNT work this way with minor changes to d100 rolled you would see 15 HIT, 15 MISS, 15 MISS, 15 HIT with the exact SAME attack bonus...
how confusing would THAT be..!?!?!

EDIT: SERIOUSLY i wish they never had the stupid NDA so ppl could have followed along from the beginning and we didnt have to repeat the same stuff over again.
Its bad enough the amount of times we are going to have to go thru this when it hits live to explain to non forumgoers.

They could easily round to 14 for a miss and 15 for a hit based on your chance though. It'd be easy to code and not result in arbitrary rounding of the formula that they wanted to be on a scale of 1 to 100 instead of 1 to 20. I haven't been able to find anything that verifies whether the rounding to 5% occurs before or after the determination of to hit. All that I've seen has been vague on that point although I didn't see the stuff before the NDA was lifted.

[Stillwaters]

They could easily round to 14 for a miss and 15 for a hit based on your chance though.

o.0 so instead of "rounding to the nearest 5%" as stated multiple times.. they round to the nearest 5%, then throw it out the window and arbitrarily change the visual d20 cue??

seems a reach....

[Myrrae]

o.0 so instead of "rounding to the nearest 5%" as stated multiple times.. they round to the nearest 5%, then throw it out the window and arbitrarily change the visual d20 cue??

seems a reach....

Well, it seems odd that they would convert to a percentage based system, calculate hit or fail chance from 1 to 100 and then throw that result out the window and go with a 1 to 20 when they could have done that the first time as well. Just saying that if I were the one doing it, I'd do a visual d20 but with percentiles behind the scenes and since both options are kind of odd, until we get a dev saying which one it is, it's still an unknown.

[wax_on_wax_off]

Torc stating that there is only 1 roll against the final hit percentage and that the 10.5 is a static (not rolled) number.

from same thread

The Player’s roll the same way with two exceptions, we add a “proficiency bonus”, and we round to the d20:

(Player Attack Bonus + Ave d20 roll 10. 5 / Target’s AC) /2 = X% +25%. Extra Bonus only applies IF you’re using a proficient weapon. We then round to the nearest 5% in order to simulate the d20 roll you see on the UI.

Seems pretty cut n dried if you see HIT on a 15 in your UI you might be able to turn power attack on and still see a HIT on the same die roll.

If it DIDNT work this way with minor changes to d100 rolled you would see 15 HIT, 15 MISS, 15 MISS, 15 HIT with the exact SAME attack bonus...
how confusing would THAT be..!?!?!

EDIT: SERIOUSLY i wish they never had the stupid NDA so ppl could have followed along from the beginning and we didnt have to repeat the same stuff over again.
Its bad enough the amount of times we are going to have to go thru this when it hits live to explain to non forumgoers.

I read the exact same thing and read it as the rounding only being a visual queue and not relating to whether or not you hit. Myrrae provided a plausible scenario which would see misses and hits not occurring on the same dice roll.

The biggest reason I think it is this way is that it is intuitive. It gets too complicated if its possible to work the system to turn on power attack and not see any change in hit rate due to some arbitrary rounding. If rounding doesn't affect hit rate (which it shouldn't) then power attack will always be bad to turn on if you are near the peak of the curve (which it should be) and always good to turn on if you are far away from the peak (which it should).

To clarify, the way it should work is:
High AB vs high AC = no PA
Medium AB vs medium AC = no PA (non kensei/barbs melee builds vs most mobs)
High AB vs Medium AC = maybe PA (kensei/barbs vs most mobs)
High AB vs Low AC = PA
Low AB vs High AC = maybe PA
Medium AB vs Low AC = maybe PA

This is intuitive and doesn't require spreadsheets.

[Stillwaters]

Well, it seems odd that they would convert to a percentage based system, calculate hit or fail chance from 1 to 100 and then throw that result out the window and go with a 1 to 20 when they could have done that the first time as well. Just saying that if I were the one doing it, I'd do a visual d20 but with percentiles behind the scenes and since both options are kind of odd, until we get a dev saying which one it is, it's still an unknown.

They DONT throw it out the window, they "ROUND IT TO NEAREST 5%!" then roll same as a mob would. This benefits players a LOT more than it punishes us.

We are also given grazing hits on (equivalent) 3+

In Torc's own words

Cause hitting is FUN

The reason mobs dont get this too, is that it would then make devs statements on mitigation like Eladrin's

every 1% of mitigation matters

another fraud

Due to diminishing returns, its much harder to break into the next 5% bracket than into the next 1%.

Asking devs to confirm it.. YET AGAIN... when they are flat out trying to fix the MESS they made for themselves...
When you could just work out the logic on your own..
is ..
well..
not my problem tbh
Believe what you will, if you cannot read the pre NDA lift threads, and dont believe anything you havent personally seen a dev post, i cant help you.

Feel free to ignore my posts, i fully accept its feasible i am wrong, it has happened before .

[Myrrae]

They DONT throw it out the window, they "ROUND IT TO NEAREST 5%!" then roll same as a mob would. This benefits players a LOT more than it punishes us.

Maybe it's a definition thing, but to me, rounding to the nearest 5% IS throwing some precision out the window. Why measure to the nearest centimeter if you're only going to use meters? Just measure in meters and don't figure the cm to begin with.

We are also given grazing hits on (equivalent) 3+

In Torc's own words

Cause hitting is FUN

The reason mobs dont get this too, is that it would then make devs statements on mitigation like Eladrin's

every 1% of mitigation matters

another fraud

Due to diminishing returns, its much harder to break into the next 5% bracket than into the next 1%.

Um, ok, you've lost me again. To me that does not confirm that players round to 5%. It says that mobs don't get grazing blows on 3+ equiv. Saying that every 1% matters could mean that 1) only mobs don't round or 2) every 1% matters because nobody rounds. If mobs don't round to 5% it doesn't mean that players do...

Asking devs to confirm it.. YET AGAIN... when they are flat out trying to fix the MESS they made for themselves...
When you could just work out the logic on your own..
is ..
well..
not my problem tbh
Believe what you will, if you cannot read the pre NDA lift threads, and dont believe anything you havent personally seen a dev post, i cant help you.

Feel free to ignore my posts, i fully accept its feasible i am wrong, it has happened before .

I'm not asking the devs to confirm it when they're busy, I'm just saying that until what they say is more clear, their statements can legitimately be interpreted in two ways. I have my own view on what's logical and what's not, and apparently it's not the same as yours. I don't need to see it personally in a dev post, I'm just saying that from what I've seen, it's unclear when the rounding takes place. I personally wouldn't set up a system with a certain level of precision and then cut that precision down dramatically if there were simple ways to display it. My view could certainly be wrong, but my point is that right now we don't really know - which would make spreadsheets to decide if you should power attack or not or if you can ditch +1AB from a bonus somewhere without it actually changing your hit chances a bit premature! (I like WoWo's non-spreadsheet decision tree myself!)

[Stillwaters]

Maybe it's a definition thing, but to me, rounding to the nearest 5% IS throwing some precision out the window. Why measure to the nearest centimeter if you're only going to use meters? Just measure in meters and don't figure the cm to begin with.
Agreed, it does seem like the mobs measure in cm and players in m.


Um, ok, you've lost me again. To me that does not confirm that players round to 5%. It says that mobs don't get grazing blows on 3+ equiv. Saying that every 1% matters could mean that 1) only mobs don't round or 2) every 1% matters because nobody rounds. If mobs don't round to 5% it doesn't mean that players do...
Srry i was showing that mobs work dif to players for varying reasons


I'm not asking the devs to confirm it when they're busy, I'm just saying that until what they say is more clear, their statements can legitimately be interpreted in two ways. I have my own view on what's logical and what's not, and apparently it's not the same as yours. I don't need to see it personally in a dev post, I'm just saying that from what I've seen, it's unclear when the rounding takes place. I personally wouldn't set up a system with a certain level of precision and then cut that precision down dramatically if there were simple ways to display it. My view could certainly be wrong, but my point is that right now we don't really know - which would make spreadsheets to decide if you should power attack or not or if you can ditch +1AB from a bonus somewhere without it actually changing your hit chances a bit premature! (I like WoWo's non-spreadsheet decision tree myself!)

It would be great for devs to chime in and clear it up.. I mashed out tables for 4 days before Torc came on and said that the 10.5 in (tohit+10.5)/...... was fixed (original examples in original dev posts were using 10) I thought it was a d20 roll, with a % to hit on each # rolled

WoWo's decision tree is useful but imprecise.
Its like saying on live now, if you see a couple of "miss" tick up switch off power attack when the d20 roll could have been 1's

[wax_on_wax_off]

WoWo's decision tree is useful but imprecise.
Its like saying on live now, if you see a couple of "miss" tick up switch off power attack when the d20 roll could have been 1's

No it's not, on live if you are a medium AB build (taking into account your gearset) vs high AC then you turn PA off. The fact that (basically) every character can be a "high AB" character is the issue, the theory is exactly the same and works the same.

The broken part is the suggestions in this thread that the opposite is true in U14, I'm not sure if they're correct or not but it certainly shouldn't be WAI.

[Stillwaters]

The broken part is the suggestions in this thread that the opposite is true in U14, I'm not sure if they're correct or not but it certainly shouldn't be WAI.

I finally found one of my favorite closed beta posts by "Moltier" and shared it HERE

Its heavy reading, but shows some of the OMG broken parts of the new system changes.

Also shows to a small degree the Attack Bonus diminishing issue if you read the player vs mob bit.

TLDR???

:My favorite part:
-5 to hit lvl1 caster in full plate vs 160AC god: 26% → 25% (cute) (with precision 30%)
+80 to hit future melee vs 160AC god: 53% → 55% (with precision 60%)
Lvl1 in NEGATIVES is hitting 1/2 as often

or more realistically
+25 to hit future caster vs 80AC future boss: 47% → 45% (...) (with precision 50%)
+80 to hit future melee vs 80AC future boss: 81% → 80% (broken) (with precision 85%)
+55 more AB = hitting on a 4 vs hitting on an 11

[EllisDee37]

Seems pretty cut n dried if you see HIT on a 15 in your UI you might be able to turn power attack on and still see a HIT on the same die roll.

Its like saying on live now, if you see a couple of "miss" tick up switch off power attack when the d20 roll could have been 1's

Well, the problem is that we won't see any "Miss" unless we roll a 1, which is why I want to know if PA is a good thing to have running before actually going into combat. During a fight it'll be much more difficult to tell than it is on live.