AC Explained

[sever]

If it's simply a matter of scaling, and at high levels things will balance out (with better gear as well?), then that's just dumb

It isn't as of yet, atleast not in the mid 40s with some of the best AC gear attainable and no more defense skill ups in classic. The AC on the planar gear isn't that much higher than Rubi. I'm guessing there's either a loop whole in the defunct coding or there's some 'magic number' we need to hit.

[Swank]

It's definately an evasion problem over an ac problem. Counted my hit/ avoided stats for a ten fight segment (versus all blue cons) and they hit just under 93% of the time.

At this point I'm to frustrated to keep at my melee and I'm just going to do what it seems like evryone else is doing and roll a caster.

[takatok]

I guess I should have put these 2 notes in the post above:

1. I was neither for or against the current model
2. I was not trying to say it was accurately modeling live. Just trying to get close.
3. I can post how dodge/parry/rip work in another post, which i'll do later. I think those are actually working correctly and probably nearly live like.

I was merely trying to show AC did do something, partially live like and was trying to get people to test their results vs that to see what they saw matched what the code said, not whether it was an appropriate amount of dmg mitigation [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I personally feel that the above model is going to give wonky results. The main failure with the above code revolves around a the max hit, and to a lesser degree the fact that I2-I19 are flat rather than curved. The current code is fairly accurate when AC nearly equals attack. But as you vary from this in either direction, the code's differnce between live grows dramatically.

In live when you got sufficient AC over a mob you would need it would be nearly 50% min hits with the rest spreading down from there. At really low ACs vs high attack mobs you'd get 90+ max hits, and the rest spread mostly between 16-19. Check steel warrior boards for numerous parses and tests done over the years.

Our problem is the cod requires far too much AC to lower the max hit, as well as giving to little to the min hit. For example at lvl 40 if you were to beat a mob's attack by 450 ac (which probalby means your attacking some lvl 20 mob). You would still have the following chances:

Min hit: 12.3
I2-I19: 60
Max hit 27

Those are ridiculous out of whack numbers for Min/Max hits for beating a mob by that much AC. To be honest, I am not sure tweaking the ACScale formula can bring things back in line, I'd have to get some hard numbers on attacks for various mobs at differnt levels to run some accurate test and see if tweaking those can work. Though rewriting the code might just be the best answer in the long run.

To summarize: I think if you go fight nagafen the current code is going to give a a pretty live like feel as your AC is not too far ou of whack from his attack at 50. However, when you run around in lower guk your gonna get beat on a lot more than you should.

Bapo 29 Magician

P.S. As a side note, pets do NOT tank better than players. They do however have a hugely better internal regen and at lowever levels (pre 30) the mage pet only heal is probably more effecent than anything but greater healing. I can tell you when my fire pet runs up against a yellow con, I don't have time to nuke it.. I am chain casting heal [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[koros]

Accidentally hit last on the page count. This had probably been tweaked, but if not, it's good discussion.

[Swish]

Did anyone else click hoping for "the" definitive guide on how to get the South Ro AC to spawn? [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Great thread though, not played a tank in forever but I'd get something added to the wiki on it [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[webrunner5]

Originally Posted by takatok [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

P.S. As a side note, pets do NOT tank better than players. They do however have a hugely better internal regen and at lowever levels (pre 30) the mage pet only heal is probably more effecent than anything but greater healing. I can tell you when my fire pet runs up against a yellow con, I don't have time to nuke it.. I am chain casting heal [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I would not agree with the "pets don't tank better" statement. I have been in plenty of high end groups where a Mage with pet had taken on a add by themselves and killed the add faster than the rest of the whole group did with the first mob. I know we are talking the Mage helping out with nukes and maybe a Clicky, but Mage pets are kick ass as hell.

And a Fire pet is by far the weaker of the 4 pets. I was in a group on my other lower mage in MM. Level 24 a few days ago. I ony had the level 20 Air pet not the 24, the pet I prefer to use in groups, and the group was all casters. So the pet tanked, Druid pulled. We were klling mobs in pond area and Valley left and right. Fast as hell. Couple people left and a Sk and a Warrior came in the group and our kill rate went to shit. I believe Mage Pets do Tank better. Just my experience.

And if they don't fix the "AC, Dodge, Evade, Parry, etc." before Velious comes out melee's are going to die left and right. Because Velious mobs hit hard as hell and have a shitpot more HP.

[runlvlzero]

Main emu branch needs to fix its code or P99 needs to fork completely. And take parses from alkabor or 2000-2003 era to make its own functions. Stuff is still definitely way off. That being said, warriors mitigate better then hybrids. And monks still have heavily spikey mitigation enough to notice that homage has been payed.

[webrunner5]

Originally Posted by runlvlzero [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Main emu branch needs to fix its code or P99 needs to fork completely. And take parses from alkabor or 2000-2003 era to make its own functions. Stuff is still definitely way off. That being said, warriors mitigate better then hybrids. And monks still have heavily spikey mitigation enough to notice that homage has been payed.

Yeah, I do agree with your statements. Warriors and Monks do seem to be in line. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Zuut]

Originally Posted by Dolalin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Okay, but why is it done this way? What was the justification for replacing a smooth gaussian function with a piecewise step-function?

Super glad to see someone use the term Gaussian function on here.


Math Boner