The Damage study

[CMaster]

It would make comparison of different weapons easier for the purpouse of balacing, if the role of the damage percentage was fully understood, so that the damage done by weapons at different percentages would be comparable. To this end, a test was performed using one weapon at a scale of damage percentages, showing that the relationship between actual weapon damage and damage percentage is simple and linear.

Introduction
There has been much debate {1 (http://forum.neocron.com/showthread.php?t=139663),2 (http://forum.neocron.com/showthread.php?t=139221) } about the degree of balance (or lack thereof) of the current selection of weapons, specifically in the PvP context. However, the development staff have thus far refused to comment, save some early mentions of "we see no problem with the creed" {could do with a link here, anyone got?}. As such there is a need from comparable data to be collected about each weapon, as was done near the start of 2.2 by a german group {also here}.
Such a task would be made vastly simpler if it was not necessary to ensure all weapons are at the same damage percentage by skilling. the LOMing and such involved would disuade many players from participating and be unduly unfair on the players involved. (Really, KK should do this themselves and maybe let us see the results). To this end, we have then investigated the effect of damage percentage caused by skilling on the actual damage done by a weapon.

Methods
A private eye was equipped with a pain easer and LOMed in rifle-combat to the minimum skill requirements of the weapon. The PE then skilled up rifle combat points to increase damge percentage with each shot taken. Each time skilling was adjusted, the pain easer was holstered and then drawn again (this was found to be necessary from the skill changes to have an effect).
The target was a capped PPU with damage logging on. The PPU remained fully shielded at all times and healed so as to keep all target areas fully green. All shots were made to the chest of the PPU and the damage values for the piercing component of the damage only before resistances were applied has been used. The 3-round-burst nature of the Pain Easer allowed us to monitor and determine there was no random or degredation effect - in every case, all rounds from the burst that hit did the same amount of damage. damage percentage was taken from a freshly drawn show info screen for each level of skilling.

Results
Raw Data (http://cmaster.linxsoft.co.uk/images/forumstuff/damage study.xls)
http://cmaster.linxsoft.co.uk/images/forumstuff/damagepercent.GIF
The damage percentage was studied between 115% and 154%. Overall, as expected, a strong linear relationship was demonstrated between damage percentage and actual resultant damage, with a correlation coefficent of 0.9967. The variances from the ideal model presented can be laid down largley to the decimals in damage percentage which are not visible in the show info screen.

Conclusion
As would be expected, if the number wwe are show in show info is to have any meaning, the damage percentage is a simple multiplier for the damage dealt out by a gun. This aids comparsion between weapons greatly, as a player can use a selection of weapons in testing, then report back the results along with their damage percentage. This can them be normalised to a chosen value for the sake of comparison.

[Apocalypsox]

Interesting...I think ill go do some testing like this with other rifles (FL, Dissy and ROG)

[jini]

I dont understand the real point to all this.
It's not just damage as a number. It's also weapon type, aiming and if its burst or single shots. Meaning there is a large portion of subjectivity which eventually relates to which gun you like using (very subjective factor)

[CMaster]

I dont understand the real point to all this.
It's not just damage as a number. It's also weapon type, aiming and if its burst or single shots. Meaning there is a large portion of subjectivity which eventually relates to which gun you like using (very subjective factor)

This is a prelimnary report. It doesn't reveal anything to us. As said several times during the report, it now means that we can compare damage between weapons even if they aren't skilled identically. And damage is the big factor - not the exclusive one, but certainly the major issue with guns.

[Bozz-Von Mel]

Thanks...now my head hurts... The only thing I got from that is that damage increases when you add skill points. Thats one of the first things we learn in NC...what are you doing ?

[CMaster]

Thanks...now my head hurts... The only thing I got from that is that damage increases when you add skill points. Thats one of the first things we learn in NC...what are you doing ?

Confirming that the "damage xxx%" you see under the show info screen is a simple multiplier for the weapon damage. So now if somebody says "I use X gun and get Y damage" and another person says "I use A gun and get B damage" we can directly compare the damage output of the weapons irrespective of who is using them. Its no revelation, I was just confirming that it was a simple multiplier. Next we actually do a comprehensive survey of Neocron weaponry.

[Archtemplar]

you should test different weapons across a varying TL range. I'll copy the damage portion of my melee balance topic...


[I]Damage / Frequency

I've been leveling a melee user for quite some time now, and I now have 151 mc, 103 Weapon lore, and 57 strength.

When I started leveling up, I always leveled against hurlers. Almost every weapon i used would do 10 damage to the Hurler, regardless of TL. It was only until I used the self-constructed claw that the damage actualy went up to 20.

I did a test using 5 weapons of varying low TLs on my charcter. They all have 120% damage (or close to it)

For Comparison, I'm testing several low-tech rifles on a character whose Dex is 61 and rifle combat is 108 and weapon lore is 102. Note that these substats are significantly lower than my melee user, and the base stat is only 4 levels higher. Also note that the weapons being used were 'cool' quality, in that they were not built nearly as well as my melee users weapons. Common sense should dictate that the rifler should be doing generally less damage... Let's take a look... I will multiply the cumlitive damage by RoF to simulate the attack occuring over a minute.

Keep in mind that the rifler's skill and guns are much less than the meleer.

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b16/archtemplar/rvm.jpg

As we see here it's obvious rifles just bluntly do more damage. Although this trend is only of TL>50, it most certainly holds true for rares.

To bring melee on par with other weapons, its damage and/or RoF needs an increase. Plainly inreasing the RoF would bring another problem, and that problem is...


I wouldnt expect this topic to do much more than be moved to balance discussion and ignored for a long time. :o

[a4nic8er]

Sorry CMaster, I can't be bothered scrolling sideways (your sig is too wide).

[Dribble Joy]

Here's a wider, though not as detailed version.

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j223/Muffdemon/judgedmg.jpg

A slight curve, but not one that makes a huge impact.

[jini]

This is a prelimnary report. It doesn't reveal anything to us. As said several times during the report, it now means that we can compare damage between weapons even if they aren't skilled identically. And damage is the big factor - not the exclusive one, but certainly the major issue with guns.
Yes, but you want to compare them without even using them. And if you DO use them, then you dont need those reports, you know instantly which one is good and which isnt. Thats why I dont understand, but anyway...

[CMaster]

Here's a wider, though not as detailed version.

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j223/Muffdemon/judgedmg.jpg

A slight curve, but not one that makes a huge impact.

Not the same thing DJ. Thats looking at the skill vs damage %age. What I am looking at was the damage %age vs the actual damage done.

Jini - A: no you can't. People often have wrong or at least differing opinions about this kinda thing. B: it's as much about proving to KK that there is a problem as anything else. They keep denying there is a problem. We know otherwise.

[jini]

Thing of the matter is, that we sometimes forget that this is just a simple game. All these wonderful equations mean nothing when real play/fun is factoring in.
Of course I admit, that some people like to search deeper and reverse engineer from data and such ok.. But this is only for the few. The game doesnt need them and os does gameplay with just an exception:
The relation of total HP versus absolute dmg that you get in order to find what's best for you

[Bozz-Von Mel]

Alright that explains things a little better. Seems helpfull if I needed to find a point of diminishing returns on specing RC, PC, etc. vs mad agility (which has no graph)

[SorkZmok]

The graph should have some sort of increase in the range of 200+ in a combat skill.

Simply to justify extremely offensive setups. The way it is now, it's a lot better to go for a rather low combat skill with high runspeed/defense. Just because it's not viable the other way round. :(

I'll post some numbers tonight i guess.