[Jaxon]

Some members of FOH did some testing and verified the existence of a mana cap.

https://web.archive.org/web/20021023...?threadid=2252

Originally Posted by Frozboz

For a while now some friends of mine and I have theorized that there is a mana softcap - that is, a limit or "cap" on mana given from items. We all are pretty sure there is a cap of some sort. For a while now, Rombus has been saying it's around 5000, while others claim it's much lower. With the advent of percentages in the new UI, we're able to narrow down this cap a bit more. In fact this is really when it started bugging me, because while raid buffed it took me 13% mana to try to cast GSS (540 mana) with a manapool of 4520, it also took Sorceresa 13% to try and cast GSS as well with a mana pool of 4210. It seems to me that it should have shown a greater percentage to try and cast GSS for someone with a smaller mana pool. So I started to run some "tests". The mana numbers used here are from Magelo.

Full mana, zero buffs, standing up I removed 300 mana worth of items, dropping me to 4220 or +1370 in items. I then put those items back on, and my mana bar stayed at 100%. My UI shows my mana bar percentage, so I can tell if it drops at all when +mana items are added. I removed 600 mana worth of items, dropping me to 3920, and my mana bar dropped to 92%.

Full mana, zero buffs, standing up Sorceresa removed 300 mana worth of items, dropping her to 3910. She then put those items back on, and her mana bar dropped to 92%. Even adding 5 mana she saw it drop from 100% to 99%.

Bottom line? There seems to be a cap on how much mana items can give you. Neuro tinkered with this a bit, and found it to be exactly +1400 or 4250 total mana. Is this accurate? If not, what are we seeing there? And of what significance is this?

http://www.showeq.net/forums/archive...hp/t-1738.html

Here Ratt, a ShowEQ developer, criticizes Frozboz's testing methodology, but the criticism lies in the the degree of precision available by using the client for testing and the difference between client side and server side data.

Just to be clear, Ratt agrees there is a mana cap. His issue is with the 4250 number they came up with.

Originally Posted by Ratt

Yes, this was and is known by the general public. Verant stated this a long time ago, publically. Both on their message boards and also on all the news sites. I don't know how much more public you can get than this. It's not my fault you or others forgot this... I've never forgotten it and a lot of others never have forgotten it. It's been something very near and dear to me for quite a while as I tried to balance my character in mana vs hp.

Another poster named Neuro MT uses another method to pin down the exact number:

Originally Posted by Neuro MT

The client will display any mana amount under 100% as 99% (Or less). The client does not round up, so even a 1 mana change will register. Test it yourself if you don't believe me. Up until 1388, even a 1 mana increase in mana pool will drop your mana to 99% for one tick. Above 1388, even a 125 mana item will not budge your mana meter.

This cap, I believe, is a direct ratio of your total int-based mana. Someone told me that SEQ showed a 4164 total mana pool unbuffed, even when the pool should be higher. Since 4164 divided evenly into 3, AND the resulting divisor was '1388' I concluded that not only was the 4164 figure accurate, but the 'cap' was actually a function of your total mana pool, basically, 50% of your mana pool is the cap on +mana items. You say this 'limit' was known for a long time, well, not by the general public. I knew there was a cap on +mana under level 20 or so, but I had never heard of any limitation above lvl 20.

Originally Posted by throx

What Neuro is saying is that he has verified the client has a hard coded mana cap at +1388 in mana items. From there you have to assume one of two things:

i) The client code has good reason to arbitrarily limit +mana at 1388 (at Lv60) because that's what the coded limit on the servers is.

ii) For some reason best known to themselves the coders at Verant put a mana cap into the client but a different one on the server. It's well known that the client's mana numbers are inaccurate when presented with mana recharge or drain effects but this is not one of those cases. For it to work this way the code must deliberately cap mana differently on the client and the server.

I find the notion that the static mana caculation formula being identical on client and server to be the most reasonable hypothesis.

Originally Posted by Neuro MT

The client still resyncs with the server when you perform an action such as clicking jboots or on the tick. If the cap were only client-side, then putting on a large +mana item over the cap would drop to 97% after the tick or after you click jboots. Sadly, this does not happen. Thus, the cap is not only client side, it is server-side as well.

I think from this we can definitively conclude that there is +mana cap on items(and items alone, not +mana effects like GOB or KEI) of 1388.