[R#186] T#186-T#197 Patch Discussion

Attachment 12353

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Originally Posted by Alduin

I love community crafted tools! I want to see more!

As for the current state of the APU: the reason for the damage output being far too low has been identified. The statemachine (the thingy controlling different phases of casting) is not using correct timings. This statemachine will be reimplemented throughout the weekend (hopefully that time suffices) and be patched to Vedeena right afterwards for testing.

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OK this is one improvement for the APU damage. But there is one big problem too.

Please look in the APU spell description for intance the Holy PSI Attack, the Holy Energy Beam and the Holy Lightning.

Skills with implants and PA:
PSI use: 170
Passive PSI use: 179
Focussing: 115
Psi power: 80

I tested this on the droms but this doesn't matter.

Holy PSI Attack:
Techlevel: 71
Damage: 157% (force damage 84)
Frequency: 81 shots/minute
PSI energy cost: 14
How many shots until PSI energy is empty : 60

Holy Energy Beam:
Techlevel: 84
Damage: 150% (energy 111)
Frequency: 67 shots/minute
PSI energy cost: 37
How many shots until PSI energy is empty : 16

Holy Lightning:
Techlevel: 101
Damage: 140% (energy 122)
Frequency: 67 shots/minute
PSI energy cost: 57
How many shots until PSI energy is empty : 9


So this mean that you can cast much more times with the Holy PSI attack and you do more damage over the time.
Of course if you have PSI 71 you have not so much PSI energy but to use a TL 101 shouldn't have so much PSI consumption and this is an disadvantage which will make this spell uninteresting for use.


One more thing: The Holy Frostration damage is implausible. It makes 8 fire and 32 energy damage. Compared with the Holy Lightning the spell makes 82 less damage.

I can confirm Massaker's findings and also add that Holy Psi attack also has better range then Holy Lightning and Holy Energy beam.

I'm working with Artricia to to build out charts for the different weapon classes. Right now with what we're finding I totally see why balancing has been an issue. We're still compiling the data but at this point I think some house cleaning needs to be done before anyone should even be comparing different weapon classes. Massaker's above post should be enough evidence for now.

My proposal:
1. Normalize each weapon class. (there are tons of over and under powered weapons in each group that make no sense)
2. Normalize range and damage. (once weapon damage scales correctly in each weapon class, range is the next point of concern from what I can see sofar)
3. Normalize weapons across all classes. (By this point we have a solid foundation to work with and can hope to actually start balancing things across weapon classes)

Requirements to do this:
1. Consistent data for all weapons across all classes. (Artricia and I have structured our testing plan to meet this)
2. Easy to understand data (this is what I'm working on and hopefully it will allow people to see our concerns clearly)
3. Patience (this goes without saying =P)

I just started working on the testing here so if I'm reinforcing what others have said then good we know there is an issue. =D Or mention other concerns you feel should be looked into.

Data will have to be recollected after each patch depending on changes.

Would it be possible to reformat the log, so that current stats show up as well(combat stats)? Also if each damage info report showed on 1 line separated by commas would make the full log easy to import into excel... having an issue accounting for DmgFac on psi spells, making the file easy to import would simplify data collection and we could calculate distributions from large samples easily...

Basically, is it possible to have the log modified to help automate data recording? Would be much simpler then any other method and would help ensure that everyone was consistent with their data. All they'd have to do is post the log file.

If a list of the WeaponID translations were posted then we be good. Could even calculate real DPM and check that frequencies are correct with the time stamps. blah blah blah.

Any line formatted like "WeaponID 1875, DmgID 1525, DmgFac 1.015, Energy 101.499, Effect 0.000, Height 45.000" no matter how long would be pretty simple to import into excel.

Making the first line the titles of the columns would even be simpler...

WeaponID, DmgID, DmgFac, Energy, Effect, Height
1875, 1525, 1.015, 101.499, 0.000, 45.000
1875, 1525, 1.042, 104.245, 0.000, 45.000
1875, 1525, 1.021, 102.087, 0.000, 45.000
1875, 1525, 1.024, 102.381, 0.000, 45.000

What are your plans to do with freezers, Alduin?

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Originally Posted by AlvaroT

What are your plans to do with freezers, Alduin?

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I think Zoltan is against the freezers so they will only do damage and don't stick you on the ground any more ;-)


I did a few tests and this is what I collected so far.
I compare the plasma weapons of the Tank and I found out that the plasma cannons with a higher TL do less damage as the plasma waves with a lower TL.

Please see the screenshots below.

Attachment 12354


The Tangent Plasma Cannon do 52 damage with a single shot and the Tangent Plasma Wave do 97 damage with a single shot.
If you now calculate the damage in one minute you will get the following values:

Tangent Plasma Cannon: 9204 damage/minute (pure energy) TL 84
Tangent Plasma Wave: 10670 damage/minute (pure energy) TL 81


If you now do the same with the CS and Ravager it looks like this:
The CS do 58 damage with a single shot and the Ravager do 104 damage with a single shot. Remember - pure energy and no mod damage.

Attachment 12355

So if you calculate the damage in a minute you get the following values.

CS: 10266 damage/minute (pure energy) TL 105
Ravager: 11649 damage/minute (pure energy) TL 101


Next I tested the Ravager and CS while shooting on the droms at the shooting range and warbots at the battle dome.
The drom test: The droms don't have any resists and armor so the damage is always the same.

CS vs. Droms
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bme94n1dem...-10-41-792.avi

Ravager vs. Droms
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qbh0qnwyvf...-11-44-450.avi

As you can see in the videos the drom got 107 damage by a single hit with the CS.
In the second video I used the Ravager and shot at the drom and one single hit was 209 damage.
If you calculate the damage per minute again you make 18030 damage with the CS and 22990 damage with the CS.

Next I tested both weapons with warbots.

CS vs. Warbot
https://www.dropbox.com/s/u98zytk2cu...-18-23-813.avi

Ravager vs. Warbot
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ibs3pfjkqw...-17-46-033.avi

As you can see in the first video the armor of the warbots got damaged and the damage of a single shot raised from 57 to 107.
Now the same with the ravager. The first single shot mak 105 damage and raised to 209.
If you only use the last damage value that can't raise up more you do 18939 damage in a minute with the CS and 23408 damage with the Ravager in a minute.


So the conclusion from this test is that the Plasma Waves with a lower TL have a great advantage against the Plasma Cannons with a higher TL.
But due to the damage/TL graph this shouldn't be like this.


EDIT: the quality is better if you download the files. The player of dropbox isn't so good

The below charts show some of the inconsistency between TL and weapon performance. Massaker's post is evidence that this is a very broad issue. I'm just going into pistols for now.

Pistol - TL x DPM

Attachment 12356

This chart shows Tech Level compared to the Damage Per Minute of every pistol. If there was a strong relationship between the two the chart would form an almost solid line from 0,0 to 18000,120. instead there is a very strong shotgun spread. Now to keep things interesting in the game, yeah there should probably be some spread but not the amount we have now. I've highlighted 2 data points a TL 25 Unlabeled Auto Pistol and a TL 102 Steiner FP10 these have a difference in DPM of only 400 but a TL spread of 77.
Basically anything along the same horizontal path shares similar DPM but very different TL. This needs to be normalized to a point that satisfies having enough variation to keep things interesting but also make it possible to try and balance. This is just an example of pistols this is an issue with all weapon types though. We can't hope to balance the game with this much variance.

Pistol - Range x DPM

Attachment 12357

Now it has been awhile but I think that KK always said range and damage were related in an inverse relationship across weapon class aka high damage output means lower range. I believe there were talking about cannon vs pistols vs rifle type situtations but again how can you hope to balance that when even among a single weapon class you don't have any relationship. Range equals safety and that you can take time in killing your target. I hate the idea of this cause I want an all in one weapon but lets be honest. With long range you'd have low damage but your not getting hit, yeah it's going to take a little longer but your not gonna die. In close combat (largely PvP) you would switch to something with shorter range to meet your needs for that type of combat and be rewarded with higher damage. This in itself would allow much more variability in what weapons people choose to use.
Basically once TL x DPM is normalized we could approach this issue with Range x DPM.

Cross Weapon Type Balance

Once all the types have been cleaned up and feel good then we can for the first time actually start to balance cannons vs apu vs pistols vs melee etc.

The freezer weapons will be touched in phase two. They will regain their freeze effect, same for the para spells.

@ Arthego: can you please check the number of shots in a burst for the weapons above the average line you depicted in your tl vs dpm graph? I would guess that those are all burst weapons, right?

Just a quick update: inspired by arthego's post, I found the source of the error for the discrepancy: there is an error in the updated frequency calculation in Neocron's info window. To approximately correct for it divide the effective frequency by the number of shots in a burst of a weapon (this is not exact!). Already fixed in my dev build, next APU spells...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alduin

The freezer weapons will be touched in phase two. They will regain their freeze effect, same for the para spells.

@ Arthego: can you please check the number of shots in a burst for the weapons above the average line you depicted in your tl vs dpm graph? I would guess that those are all burst weapons, right?

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What exactly is phase two?

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Originally Posted by Massaker

What exactly is phase two?

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https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Kt...3XF4GWdhFLcHhA

^^^^This, my friends. This.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alduin

Just a quick update: inspired by arthego's post, I found the source of the error for the discrepancy: there is an error in the updated frequency calculation in Neocron's info window. To approximately correct for it divide the effective frequency by the number of shots in a burst of a weapon (this is not exact!). Already fixed in my dev build, next APU spells...

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Ahhh, that explains a lot then! I suppose i will wait to do HC and rifles until the fix is pushed out on vedeena

Attachment 12358

hmm so this is the test results for the HC (i couldn't wait for dev patch, so sue me!)

couldn't get a few weapons (too lazy to reroll a tg and a ca tank, maybe later, also couldn't find f12 flamer or creed or ionic cannon on the test, if anyone knows where they are, it would be appreciated. also didn't do the vehicle launchers cuz well...droms aren't gonna give accurate results, lol)


calculating weapon damage (since weapons are potentially DOT in HC) is (max+min)/2+DOT. DPM is weapon damage * burst multiplier * shot freq. (Correct me if i'm wrong, i think that's the correct formula)


HC and TC is exact lowest needed for tl 115 cannon( 123, and 89 respectively), 50 weaplore and 95 agil, just like on my pistol tests, for the sake of comparison.

There are special traders for about ANY kind of item... you just have to look carefully. The FSM NPCs btw have no faction check... as their aimbox description reads afaik. So you can shop free away whatever you need.
Same goes for jones mission items and other dungeon drops.


Only exception are GM spans prolly... and then you could still ask a GM in the IRC to help you out.

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Originally Posted by Drachenpaladin

There are special traders for about ANY kind of item... you just have to look carefully. The FSM NPCs btw have no faction check... as their aimbox description reads afaik. So you can shop free away whatever you need.
Same goes for jones mission items and other dungeon drops.


Only exception are GM spans prolly... and then you could still ask a GM in the IRC to help you out.

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ahh word. yeah checked the npcs....the f12 flamer is mr jones, but when i checked the quest items npc...not there. creed is a rare gun, not in with all the other guns (ran into not finding the slasher, but it was there, i scrolled through at least 5 times) ionic cannon same deal. yeah i think i may ask a gm to spawn those. i wonder if we can get a test vehicle inside the shooting range that will respawn....would be nice to test out the vehicle weapons....would need to check logs for damage though

Attachment 12359

and here's the test data so far for rifles! for the sake of comparison with the pistols, i tested it with 121 RC skill, then 122 and 123 for the weapons that required it. that way it matched up with my earlier tests with pistols.

Ionic weapons are with the Hacknet Stuff... because... hacknet stuff.
And i'm fairly sure that the Creed is with the rare dude, maybe with a different one but definitely with a rare dude.

ahh hacknet, makes sense....and found the creed. thanks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alduin

Just a quick update: inspired by arthego's post, I found the source of the error for the discrepancy: there is an error in the updated frequency calculation in Neocron's info window. To approximately correct for it divide the effective frequency by the number of shots in a burst of a weapon (this is not exact!). Already fixed in my dev build, next APU spells...

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Thank you for looking into this! I'm curious just how many weird things have been buried in the code over the years.

OK, here are updated charts based on the new equation. (freq/burst)*dmg=DPM

TLxDPM new equation
Attachment 12360
This is with the new equation, I left the tags on my previous examples. Though there is still a shotgun effect it is much improved and we have hopefully solved an issue that will help us move forward faster with all weps!

DPM x Burst count
Attachment 12362
This is before the new equation.

Attachment 12361
This is after the new equation.

APU
Everyone, when testing APU please be aware that there is a damage modifier that randomizes the damage. If you look in the log you can find the variable (I'd look up the name but I have to head to work) you should be able to calculate true damage using it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alduin

Just a quick update: inspired by arthego's post, I found the source of the error for the discrepancy: there is an error in the updated frequency calculation in Neocron's info window. To approximately correct for it divide the effective frequency by the number of shots in a burst of a weapon (this is not exact!). Already fixed in my dev build, next APU spells...

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Do you have any update for us? Sorry for asking but I'm excited to test the fixed version ;-)

Alduin, is there anything specific you would like to accomplish before the next patch that we can help with?

For now though....here's the current state with data available both with and without the freq correction. APU is not included as the damage randomization makes our current data untrustworthy.

Current weapon state as the game shows

Attachment 12363

Weapon state with temp fix

Attachment 12364

Can anyone give there opinions on what chart seems more "right" atm?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by arthego

Alduin, is there anything specific you would like to accomplish before the next patch that we can help with?

For now though....here's the current state with data available both with and without the freq correction. APU is not included as the damage randomization makes our current data untrustworthy.

Current weapon state as the game shows

Attachment 12363

Weapon state with temp fix

Attachment 12364

Can anyone give there opinions on what chart seems more "right" atm?

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Are the weapons in the chart sorted by their techlevel or solely by their dpm?

As for testing: a quick test heals would be good: are all heals (tools, psi spells, med kits) doing apropriate healing? Please in that case also state your definition of apropriate ;)

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Originally Posted by Massaker

Do you have any update for us? Sorry for asking but I'm excited to test the fixed version ;-)

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The issue with high frequency apu spells has been identified and a fix is currently being tested on our internal development server. Looking good so far. I just need to tidy everything up again and then it can be pushed to Vedeena.

There are two other important things which will change with the next patch to Vedeena:
* psi consumption: it will be based on the tl of the spell and its frequency (maybe something similar will also be put in place for other weapons)
* health pool: considering the reduced damage output of mobs as well as of players, the player's health pool is just far too large, therefore it will be reduced by something between 25% and 50%

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Originally Posted by Alduin

* health pool: considering the reduced damage output of mobs as well as of players, the player's health pool is just far too large, therefore it will be reduced by something between 25% and 50%

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Quick question: Will the mobs' health pool be lowered aswell? (or have it been lowered already? Sorry I havent had the time, to get on the testserver in a while).

Or will PvE get even more tedious than it already is?

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Originally Posted by Dropout

Or will PvE get even more tedious than it already is?

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speaking of which: PvE has gotten somewhat boring over time. in NC 1 you could be killed by small spiders. not so today. rarepart (and MC5) farming has become a peaceful and somewhat lowbrow activity. theres no more challenge in PvE, am i right? what can we do to rebalance that?

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Originally Posted by Dropout

Quick question: Will the mobs' health pool be lowered aswell? (or have it been lowered already? Sorry I havent had the time, to get on the testserver in a while).

Or will PvE get even more tedious than it already is?

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No, instead we doubled the damage you deal towards mobs, so you do twice the damage to mobs than you do to players.

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Originally Posted by Torg

speaking of which: PvE has gotten somewhat boring over time. in NC 1 you could be killed by small spiders. not so today. rarepart (and MC5) farming has become a peaceful and somewhat lowbrow activity. theres no more challenge in PvE, am i right? what can we do to rebalance that?

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First of all we need more "content" for leveling in my opinion (there are plenty of grinding spots, but only very few actual missions). The player should have the choice to do either grinding or mission running. However, sadly we do not (yet) have the means to automagically create missions or even mission chains. We need to implement every mission hand by hand and go through a lot of files usually to make them work. However we are working hard to improve that process and therefore faciliate content development.

The concept of rareparts and the way they are currently obtained has also to be rethought. The current situation is obviously far from optimal, but first of all we have to take the first step towards a better PvP/weapon balance. The new balance will probably also reviel further problems with PvE, but that remains to be seen soon(TM).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alduin

Are the weapons in the chart sorted by their techlevel or solely by their dpm?

As for testing: a quick test heals would be good: are all heals (tools, psi spells, med kits) doing apropriate healing? Please in that case also state your definition of apropriate ;)

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To give an appropriate isn't easy if we don't know the final health pool and weapon damage ;)

OK I made the tests of all heal spells and the nanite tools. Hope it will help you Alduin

- single heals
- heal sanctums
- goup heals
- nanite tools
- medikits

All values are from the damage-log file and only the last value. So the damage factor isn't in the value of the excel file.
For instance:

DAMAGEINFO - Time 3561.077 Damage (Massaker): WeaponID 620, DmgID 2250, DmgFac -0.188, Energy -18.790, Effect 0.000, Height 75.000
DamageCause: Injector!
DamageType: Direct!
INS - FUL: -18.790


Here is the excel sheet: Heals-vedeenatest-6-19-2014.xlsx

@arthego: I hope you are not angry that I used your excel sheet ;)

nice massaker! good info there. you can really see a big boost on hp per tick on titan!

Alduin, you are correct my most recent charts are simply sorted by weapon class then DPM. Wanted TL also but started to get messy as some of the TL's didn't want to display correctly due to value duplication between weapon classes. However I know it is nice to be able to see TL right there so here you go in case you wanted it. Just note that some TL values don't show but it should give a better feel for the spread through TL.

Without Burst Fix

Attachment 12365

With Burst Fix

Attachment 12366

Massaker, Grrrr, so angry! :mad: TBH Artricia, actually started the spreadsheets. I just modified them so I could work with them better. Art has also done ALL the heavy lifting as far as collection goes, I just try to make it easy to interpret :D Feel free to use them however you like, they are totally open! The more usable data we have the better.

Heals

Attachment 12367

For heals should we also collect the total heal value and length/time it takes? or is that already known?

Oh another thing..... is it possible to add a Screen Shot command to the game? :angel:

Could help make it easier to capture bugs simply because some people are lazy and don't want to have to open paint. Would also make it easier to gloat over PVP conquests and other silly things the community might want to do.

Iirc you can make screenshots with F10 or F12, not sure anymore. They DO however show up in the "shots" folder of your NC install directory.