Is this right - AC/To-Hit?

[WangChi]

I wanted to see how my current end-game rogue will stack up against content under the new system. I used the formula's found in this thread: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=377451

I used a mob AC of 69 (eLoB, eCAD, eLailat, eBlood Plate, eRazor Arm - all ac's taken from wiki) and my current lowest/highest attack bonus (1st swing) ranges and potential AC debuffs (imp. sunder, destruction, imp. destruction). I ignored SA attack bonus as it functions unpredictably against any enemy with fort.

Quick summary for my toon.

Boss AC 69, My AB 39 = 60.87% chance to hit, round to 60%
Boss AC 52, My AB 59 = 91.83% chance to hit, round to 90%

Am I right in assuming that if my party and I debuff the boss 17 points of AC and I increase my attack bonus by 20, I only net a +30% chance to hit?

Another question, how exactly to I "roll" against this? Do you calculate my current AB per swing, come up with this % chance, round it, then I roll a d20 against that to determine if I hit? If I score a crit, do you recalculate, round it, and I roll another d20 against that to determine crit success?

[esoitl]

It only seems reasonable to roll percentage dice against them now....
How do you realistically roll a d20 to check a percentage?


Assuming you debuffed, the old system makes perfect sense for hit ranges...
AB 39 vs. AC 52 = 60% hit rate
AB 59 vs. AC 52 = 95% hit rate
Rolling d20s as it's always been, this system makes sense and is easy to figure out.

Taken from your source:

D_L(AC)=A_L*(ln(AC-B_L)-1)
D_4(AC)=0.32*(ln(AC-7.76)-1)
D_19(AC)=0.22*(ln(AC-31.63)-1)

Seriously, how is this more friendly to players?
If it's all going to percentages, like it appears, I don't see how you can do anything else but roll percentage dice, nor how you can even determine criticals...
This looks like an awful system when players can't even understand it.

[Jingwei]

To hit formula is (Attack bonus + 10.5) / (target AC * 2) +.25 if proficient with weapon, rounding to nearest .05

If you want to put it into excel:
=ROUND((([attack bonus]+10.5)/([target AC] * 2))/0.05,0)*0.05+0.25

This gives you a value like '.60', if you want to see what you now hit on 'phantom d20' wise, =(1-to hit percentage) *20 + 1

So, for example, if your to hit is '.60' then you'd hit on a (1 - .60) * 20 + 1 = 9 or better.

Pretty sure critical threat confirmation works the same way, by rolling 'phantom d20'.

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

Unknowns:
Does seeker work in the 'old' way, and directly modify the 'phantom d20', or is critical to hit confirmation calculated in the new way, with seeker just acting as additional attack bonus?

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

Effects:

This means that each +1 to hit is typically worth less than 1% in actual increased to hit ability. The rounding to the nearest 5% exacerbates this problem.

AC debuffing is marginally more effective than increasing your to hit total when it comes to actually landing hits on a monsters. So, improved destruction (-8 AC at full stack) is more likely to give you 10% to hit than +8 to hit will.

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

Sample data:

Here's a to hit table I made, while working out the new effects on power attack:

If shows basic to hit at attack bonus +50, with the other 3 columns showing the to hit effects of -5 power attack, -8 power attack, and -11 power attack.

AC    To hit
    50    -5    -8    -11
30  0.95  0.95  0.95  0.95
35  0.95  0.95  0.95  0.95
40  0.95  0.95  0.90  0.85
45  0.90  0.85  0.85  0.80
50  0.85  0.80  0.80  0.75
55  0.80  0.75  0.75  0.70
60  0.75  0.70  0.70  0.65
65  0.70  0.70  0.65  0.65
70  0.70  0.65  0.65  0.60
75  0.65  0.60  0.60  0.60

[Jingwei]

For comparison, here's a look at the relative value of AC debuffing vs more to hit:

Assume base to hit of 50, compares +8 to hit vs -8 AC, and +4 to hit vs -4 AC

AC     + To Hit/AC debuff   
    50      +8   -8 AC    +4   -4 AC
30  0.95    0.95  0.95    0.95  0.95
35  0.95    0.95  0.95    0.95  0.95
40  0.95    0.95  0.95    0.95  0.95
45  0.90    0.95  0.95    0.95  0.95
50  0.85    0.95  0.95    0.90  0.95
55  0.80    0.85  0.90    0.85  0.90
60  0.75    0.80  0.85    0.80  0.85
65  0.70    0.80  0.80    0.75  0.80
70  0.70    0.75  0.75    0.70  0.75
75  0.65    0.70  0.70    0.70  0.70

[esoitl]

That's quite useful information, cheers.

Though all I can say after seeing that I don't know if I agree with the changes.

Just for fun I checked some of the numbers for Elite Arraetrikos
to hit/current%/new%
+32/5%/65%
+33/10%/65%
+34/15%/70%
+35/20%/70%
+36/25%/70%
+37/30%/70%
+38/35%/70%
+39/40%/70%
+40/45%/75%
.
.
.
+50/95%/85%


That's an awful poor increase in to to-hit % compared to the old system when a +18 is the same boost as a current GH. :|

[Stillwaters]

That's an awful poor increase in to to-hit % compared to the old system when a +18 is the same boost as a current GH. :|

Im so glad more people are coming to understand this change isnt just about diminishing returns on AC its to-hit (and associated buffs/debuffs) too

We could have buffed AC with various alternate means without killing anything else.

at 50AC a +1 "to-hit" point is 1% (x)/100 where "x" is your tohit+10.5
at 25AC its only 2% (x)/50 or (2x)/100 <-not 5% as on live where it was sometimes noticable
at 10AC it is 5% (x)/20 or (5x)/100
anything over 50 ac, +1 to-hit is under 1% change (rounding hides this a lot early on)
anything over 100 ac, +1 to-hit is under .5% change

so our buffs or debuffs (relating to to-hit or AC) all become less useful in endgame.. sometimes a +5 planetouched Tower shield (17AC) will mean only +5% gain in defense, for near 50% drop in offense.

Tactics buffs like improved sunder and sunder, unbalancing, blinding, cursepewing or destruction weapons, become unnoticeable for melee..
yet casters will still receive full benefits from imp sunder, curse, neg levels helping spell DCs...
This is not an attack on casters, i like that caster buffs/debuffs still work
Yet this system DOES rob the melee of buffs/debuffs!

Showing the difference between AC and tohit (changed) vs SpellDCs/Saves (unchanged)

Stillwaters

[WangChi]

Now blue bars can still do DPS when their SP are out. A measly 10 attack bonus is all you need to hit a 69ac target 40% of the time.

But don't worry about it my fellow melee's, if we grind out a 75 attack bonus, we'll hit that 69ac target 85% of the time. A whopping 65 point increase in "attack bonus" nets us 45% more to-hit.

Can this seriously be accurate? I have a very hard time believing this is really the way it is. I have not played any of the beta, I have no first-hand knowledge if any of this is real in beta now, but can this possibly be the intention of this new system?

[MRMechMan]

Debuffing:
Now: Useful, sometimes essential
Will be: Waste of time/teamwork

To-hit gear:
Now: Useful/Essential
Will be: Not worth slotting. Unnoticable.

Tactics: (sunder/flanking/SA to-hit)
Now:Helpful, valuable investment
Will be:Waste of time/feat/enhancement

Buffing (GH/bless etc)
Now:Almost always worth it
Will be: Utterly negligable for to-hit. Wasted SP.

[Stillwaters]

Now blue bars can still do DPS when their SP are out. A measly 10 attack bonus is all you need to hit a 69ac target 40% of the time.

But don't worry about it my fellow melee's, if we grind out a 75 attack bonus, we'll hit that 69ac target 85% of the time. A whopping 65 point increase in "attack bonus" nets us 45% more to-hit.

Can this seriously be accurate? I have a very hard time believing this is really the way it is. I have not played any of the beta, I have no first-hand knowledge if any of this is real in beta now, but can this possibly be the intention of this new system?

Not only is what you have said accurate,
it is also completely ignored by the devs,
and secretly craved for by the dominant blue bar elite.

[donblas]

Not only is what you have said accurate,
it is also completely ignored by the devs,
and secretly craved for by the dominant blue bar elite.

Now that at endgame even the worst toon will probably be hit less, the "I'm not your healbot" divines are justified.

Now buffs are getting meaningless (or can't be cast on anyone else - displace), the "I'm not your buffbot" arcanes are justified.

Casters now really will be justified in saying that their blue bar is for them alone.

When spellcasting is nerfed, a few complaints result in the nerfs being reversed and more. When the melee system is messed up dev responses are conspicuous by their absence.

I've gone from fanboi to despairing about the game in a few short weeks, gratz devs!

[BrightAsh]

To hit formula is (Attack bonus + 10.5) / (target AC * 2) +.25 if proficient with weapon, rounding to nearest .05

If you want to put it into excel:
=ROUND((([attack bonus]+10.5)/([target AC] * 2))/0.05,0)*0.05+0.25

This gives you a value like '.60', if you want to see what you now hit on 'phantom d20' wise, =(1-to hit percentage) *20 + 1

So, for example, if your to hit is '.60' then you'd hit on a (1 - .60) * 20 + 1 = 9 or better.

Pretty sure critical threat confirmation works the same way, by rolling 'phantom d20'.

Wow... nice system... Looks kinda like my math book from when I was in engineering... So what you're saying is, it is neigh impossible to think through a MELEE character up front. Because there is no way that I will be able to think of all the weird percentage bonusses or know the AC of mobs and bosses.

Of course I bolded Melee, because blue bars won't be affected... wait, they will, now they can also hit mobs in melee... and since melee's will hit less, relatively, caster damage will go up. (or melee damage even further down). time to dust of my casters

[Taimasan]

Seriously, how is this more friendly to players?
If it's all going to percentages, like it appears, I don't see how you can do anything else but roll percentage dice, nor how you can even determine criticals...
This looks like an awful system when players can't even understand it.

But a damage parser add-on would.....

EDIT: All this stuff is a joke right?? Because the way you guys are talking I am starting to feel worried. I just want to know is this forum over-reaction...or is it really as messed up as I keep reading over and over and over with this system....

[Varashad]

SO basically what I'm getting out of this thread is I now need a degree in mathmatics to figure out if I can hit a monster or not? Pfft. They shoulda just left AC useless then imo.

[Taimasan]

SO basically what I'm getting out of this thread is I now need a degree in mathmatics to figure out if I can hit a monster or not? Pfft. They shoulda just left AC useless then imo.

I am as worried and confused as you bud at this point.

[Rumbaar]

SO basically what I'm getting out of this thread is I now need a degree in mathmatics to figure out if I can hit a monster or not? Pfft. They shoulda just left AC useless then imo.

Change 1d6 to 1 - 6 damage to make it easier on new players. Then they perform these changes to make it more WoW MMO. I also have trouble understanding their focus and direction at times.

[Moltier]

Debuffing:
Now: Useful, sometimes essential
Will be: Waste of time/teamwork

To-hit gear:
Now: Useful/Essential
Will be: Not worth slotting. Unnoticable.

Tactics: (sunder/flanking/SA to-hit)
Now:Helpful, valuable investment
Will be:Waste of time/feat/enhancement

Buffing (GH/bless etc)
Now:Almost always worth it
Will be: Utterly negligable for to-hit. Wasted SP.

Exactly.
And all of these for this:

AC (GH/bless etc)
Now:Broken at epic levels and not worth it for most characters.
Will be: Granted for almost everyone. Everyone can have high defense against epic bosses.

Not worth it...

Thats what i (and many of us) tried to explain to the devs in closed beta. But they ignored us, so it will go live, most people will be happy as they see quests become easy, but after a few weeks, maybe months, they will find it boring.

[Jingwei]

Think the problem is largely that they picked the wrong type of diminishing returns curve to use. Returns on + to hit go down as monster AC goes up.

Think they curve they should have used is one where the value of + to hit diminishes based on how close we are to hitting the monster on a 2.

For example, if you were hitting the monsters %5 before, and you added +1 to hit, you might go up 10%, but if you were hitting the monster @ 90% then the amount of + to hit you'd have to add to get to 95% would be considerably higher.

[edit]
Of course, they also have the problem of fitting things outside the curve as well. For example, we want someone with an attack bonus of 40 vs ac 50 monster to hit ok, but someone with AC 40 vs monster attack of 60 to still have some protection... and when your range is only really 20 places long, and you have to account for values that are roughly 10 to 140 or so, things are going to suffer somewhere.

[Stillwaters]

[edit]

You are going way too complicated man.

They should implement a K.I.S.S (keep it simple, stupid) principle

You can achieve that with mob to hit chains,
mob to hit goes down (insert value here) successive (insert value here) times.

If you wanted it random (to avoid player tactics relying on it)
Mob to hit(on each attack) = d10
1-2 = x
3-4 = x-a
5-6 = x-b
7-8 = x-c
9-10 = x-d

Then make d20 attack roll
for each attack

None of these far better player based fixes are new proposals,
Devs dont give a f#$ about balance,
they were just told "to make AC work in epics by the update"
on top of all the work they were doing. Well.. they did it!
Gratz turbine for busting the game.

[esoitl]

But a damage parser add-on would.....

EDIT: All this stuff is a joke right?? Because the way you guys are talking I am starting to feel worried. I just want to know is this forum over-reaction...or is it really as messed up as I keep reading over and over and over with this system....

Well, when I first read the changes, I thought it sounded like a good scenario. When looked into deeper though, and especially looking at the graphs Turbine gave out, the range of 'meaningful AC' suddenly got to be awfully large. Since it's such a low sloping graph, the boost in AC you'll need to see results will be awfully large. What does that mean? Well, farming ToD for the Stalwart set to get a +2 will mean nothing anymore unless they change the bonus. The +5 Insight from Levik's set probably won't do much either. The +3 from Chattering Ring is gone.

Those items aren't exactly a run of the mill, everyday piece of loot and hopefully Turbine has done something to compensate the work that went into getting them.

Also, check out some of the numbers posted above.
If they give us numbers like this, you'd think it's going to get mirrored for the enemies as well. AC might become slightly more meaningful in that a lower number will actually draw some misses, but even a very high AC will be rather useless.
Case in point - 35 to-hit vs. XXAC
55 = 65%
60 = 60%
65 = 60%
70 = 60%(57.5% so might round down?)
75 = 55%
80 = 50%
85 = 50%
90 = 50%
95 = 50%

For all you aspiring tanks out there, this is not very good news. I've just increased my AC 40 points, yet the monster only misses on 15% more of their attacks... and that's using a pretty small attack bonus which again, doesn't bode very well.
It may be more meaningful, but for a tank when does it actually become GOOD.
At 150AC by the above model you still get hit 40% of the time, 200AC drops it to 35%... (GAK, 50AC to account for one casting of Bane now!!!!)

Let's just say AC is still not meaningful as your going to get hit, probably even more with the new change.... PRR and damage mitigation is what's going to be key and some classes are going to lack that(Monk :|) so where does that leave them....

[Stillwaters]

snip

+1 (if i could **** rep system cooldown)

For seeing the forest of errors

(some of your leaves are the wrong color) but you got the concept right!


Mobs to hit doesnt round to 5% its left on the 1% but your point is still quite valid.

This change not only nerfs great things like 3 ftr past life,
but also brilliant loot thats +5 (AC or tohit) better than your current, it will give no perceptible change.

Edit: only things that matter now is raising the DAMAGE portion of your attacks (seeker too) thru the roof and "getting by" on to-hit and AC.