AC/Level Mitigation & Backstabs
 

The following text is excerpted from the patch notes thread. I thought it was on topic there, but that it should be posted here as well. First though, I would like to thank you guys for working on getting things right. It really seems like AC makes a difference these days, and that some real work has been done on mitigation. This post is not a gripe, I will work with anything that is put in front of me, and be fucking happy to have it. Also this is specific to backstabs. I feel that normal hits are tuned almost spot on at this point, maybe even still a bit too high across the board, but WAY better than it was. So:

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I think the problem with backstab is that it is being mitigated by AC and/or level too much. I don't have any parse evidence for this yet, but after spending 2-3 hours killing shit and getting maybe 3 or 4 >340 backstabs total during that time, I found myself in WC, and backstabbed a Kodiak.. Double backstab for 280/360.

This leads me to believe that backstab damage range is working properly but that it is being mitigated as per normal hits, which my experience in live leads me to believe is wrong. On live during kunark, you could pretty much guarantee a given range (just for the sake of argument, we'll call it 1/2-3/4 of your max backstab when fighting blues/whites/yellows/reds) on a given strength of mobs, except once in a while you would get a minimum backstab, giving you a sadface, and once in a while you would get a max hit, giving you a happy face.

If your min backstab was 80 and your max was 450, it would look something like this on live during kunark:
You backstab Innoruuk for 260 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 310 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 275 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 365 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 80 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 290 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 350 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 450 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 280 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 260 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 80 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 400 points of damage!

Right now, if your min/max were the same, you would see something more like this:
You backstab Innoruuk for 80 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 80 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 80 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 320 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 80 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 210 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 80 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 80 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 80 points of damage!

Of course I have absolutely no evidence for this, no old parses, no screenshots.. But this is pretty much how it was based on empirical observation.

So it is my hypothesis that backstab should not mitigated as per normal hits by level and/or AC. It either ignores AC altogether and is based on your hit rolls, or has some form of an armor-piercing type function.. Dunno what you guys can do with that.
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So yeah. I don't have any kind of evidence for this, but I'm hoping to drum up some empirical support for these numbers.. They are all completely made up, but I was trying to capture the "feel" of how the flow of a fight would go with backstabs, relative to your min/max backstab.

I typed words in google and pressed butan... found this little gem:

http://teir-dal.tripod.com/id47.html


2.18. How is backstab damage calculated?

Nothing is official, but the general belief is that at low levels, it works something like this: Assuming that you are using a weapon deemed 'acceptable' for your level (i.e. not too powerful [some players report getting very high level weapons at lower levels and not getting the damage they were supposed to until they leveled some more]), max damage is calculated as: (DMG * 2) + 1 Backstab simply multiplies this by a constant factor. We approximate this factor to be:

(BACKSTAB_SKILL / 25)

So a maxed level 10 rogue has a backstab multiplier of (55 / 25) = 2.2x. Assuming he's using a giant snake fang (DMG 5, so max damage (5 * 2) + 1 = 11), his level 10 max backstab will be (11 * 2.2x) = 24. Backstab damage caps at 25 * DMG at level 50. Towards level 20, these numbers skew. Backstab seems to top out for a time, and then go up rapidly in the higher 20s. Strength effects how often you hit for max damage, so be sure to have STR enhancing equip and/or STR buffs on you as often as possible.

At 51st, the new minimum backstab damage is Level*3/2, rounded down. 76 is the least you will hit for at 51st, and it goes up. At 60th, the minimum backstab is Level*2 (120).

This doesn't specifically say anything about AC mitigation but I'm looking for stuff.


From this source (talking about very recent expansions)
http://www.thesafehouse.org/forums/s...ad.php?t=36486

That's the maximum hit of course. Minimum hit (assuming sufficiently high damage on weapon) follows a different formula, and the whole slew of hits come from a mixture of damage intervals (the 1 to 20 roll that all NPCs get) and a PC specific roll between 1.00 and 3.55 in 0.01 intervals. The rolls get multiplied together and due to a non-uniform distribution (eg rolls of 20 maybe very common when you have high atk vs low AC on a mob) in both DI and PCroll values they show up as a series of larger and smaller spikes on the damage frequency charts.

There is still indication that the melee code follows the same rolls as we see everywhere even on P99. Maybe the AC values are the cause?

Yes AC doesn't work classic.

And I am assuming you mean the mitigation should be different from the sides and back then the front?

It isn't just your backstab that is affected.

This is all from the same log file that I posted in the patch notes. (late 2000)

http://i54.tinypic.com/29byf48.png

All of the BS hits in the whole log: http://pastebin.com/vRbiKkRL

Min hits only: http://pastebin.com/7zh355ak

56 out of 202 (27.7%) hits were for the min w/ Ragebringer against a high AC mob.

Well that seems rather a lot (near 30% minimum), but what is the AC of the thifling focuser? Are mobs on THIS server with that high ac?

I think that if the thifling focuser has a higher ac compared to group/raid mobs on this server, then what you posted pretty much backs up what I said..

As of NOW, I would think that the min hits are around 50% of the time, and that is on groupable mobs, which should have relatively lower ac to raid mobs, which in turn should have relatively lower ac to a thifling focuser (PoG mob with 800,000-1,000,000 hps).

Sooo.. Any love coming from this post Mr. Kanras?

I'd be willing to test this somewhere if you want help to tune the mechanics..

I got:
24.2% min BS w/ Ragebringer against a level 50 krup knight. (generic one group mob)
28.8% min BS w/ Ragebringer against a thifling focuser. (same mob as most of Tigole fight).

So no, I'm pretty happy where it's at.

my parse from a day at crypt in sebilis:

http://i.imgur.com/xzMVn.jpg

1578 total
644 for min dmg (120)
~41% hit for min dmg
@lvl 60 with 10 dmg piercer (Sebilite Croaking Dirk) and 255 str

Seems like the backstab skill is missing the magic number. Looking at the graph of Tigole's damage you have three main numbers - Minimum damage (120), Magic Number (194), and Max damage(449).

Not entirely sure if this is the calculation that is still used here for the backstab formula, it could be different.

Maximum Damage Calculation:

((Offense or Weap skill) + Str) / 100 * Weap Dmg * (2 + (Backstab skill * .02)

(252 + 209) / 100 * 15 * (2 + (225 * .02) = 449.475

From that graph you can gauge his strength to be 209 at the time if this is correct for Max damage.

Calculating for his Magic Number damage (194) the best I could come up with was this:

Weap Dmg * (2 + (Backstab skill * .02) * 2

15 * (2 + (225 * .02) * 2 = 195 (194 - something in the forumla isn't correct)


Another note here on hit distribution. Different classes have different percentages that all range between the three main numbers - Minimum damage, Magic Number, and Maximum damage. What was done back then was to use this for each one.

These are just made up percentages, they are not correct. For example, say you have a Monk that is level 60 and fighting a low dark blue (46). His hit distribution may look something like this:

30% Min, 60% Magic Number, 10% Max

Replace that dark blue mob with Trakanon and you would have an entirely different distribution:

75% Min, 20% Magic Number, 5% Max

Different classes have different spreads representing the damage tables also.

Monk vs Dark Blue mob (46)

30% Min, 60% Magic, 10% Max

Ranger vs Dark Blue mob (46)

45% Min, 55% Magic, 5% Max

Several factors affect these calculations - Player level, Player class, Attack, Mob Level, Mob AC etc.

I will save some parses this week, but I know I am getting BS for minimum far more than 20%