divine force

[leonardof 0]

why this skill doesn't increase magick atack?

[TripleR 0]

Wartale said it does.

[leonardof 0]

i tested and it no increased

 

[Crius 0]

Cost me a spirit reset stone, but it seems to work, at least for VB. I went with base spirit and a 1-3 wand to make the base damage as low as possible, and thus the effect of the force as noticable as possible, and went to kill stone giants with VB. Took 5 casts to take one down without forces (repeated it five times), then only 2 with a devine force active (repeated three times). Since the damage range for VB is so small, the force definitely affects it. I can't speak for any other spells though. Just how much extra it does I don't know and I didn't think to check it until after I was done, so maybe in the case of VB that adds weapon x2 damage to the damage, the force could add either the normal amount or twice the amount.

[leonardof 0]

ok thx

 

[Crius 0]

I'll send you the bill.

[idanqwe 0]

Yup I can feel the difference too, it does work 

[cat0048 0]

You guys use it more than I, but going off the skill discriptions, it does not help one bit.

 

DF adds attack power, CL and VB both only use weapon damage. if they wanted DF to up our magic power, they would need to make it like using a force orb that boosts weapon damage, not attack power.

 

Even if it does boost, our damage we are only getting + ~100 to 110 dmg. of course this damage in increased by whoever you are partying with as well.

[Crius 0]

Ah crap. I take back what I said before. I thought you meant the item "devine force", not the T5 skill. I have not tested that one at all.

[Zero 0]

  On 5/31/2011 at 2:26 PM, cat0048 said:

You guys use it more than I, but going off the skill discriptions, it does not help one bit.

 

DF adds attack power, CL and VB both only use weapon damage. if they wanted DF to up our magic power, they would need to make it like using a force orb that boosts weapon damage, not attack power.

 

Even if it does boost, our damage we are only getting + ~100 to 110 dmg. of course this damage in increased by whoever you are partying with as well.

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Not all skills show you every mechanic for sake of ease. Players aren't going to understand everything a developer does, things like maximize/VL prove there is more going on than just what our skills say. DF seems to have been tested and works with VB at the very least, maybe I will try CL later and see if it works there. So far, not many complaints about the skill, especially considering we have nothing else yet.

[Crius 0]

Leaving out information is not a simplification, it's a lie by omission. It doesn't make it easier to understand.

[Zero 0]

  On 5/31/2011 at 11:10 PM, Crius said:

Leaving out information is not a simplification, it's a lie by omission. It doesn't make it easier to understand.

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Depends on the specific skill, some things you think are simple are actually quite complicated. As users, if it can't be put into basic terms such as block, damage boost, etc. there is good chance 90-95% of people won't get it and all you see is threads every day asking what it is. Basically, assume the average user is an idiot.

 

Also, you're assuming it already isn't there as I did above. DF says increases damage of all party members and boosts 50-55 attack power. PT terms can be confusing, there are like 3 abbreviation/definitions for spellcaster damage alone. Whatever it is, seems to boost whatever anyone does by 50-55. Perhaps he already simplified it to one term instead of writing 2-3 different categories on the skill.

 

Also look at amplify, it clearly boosts their attack power which we seemingly believe is useless for spellcasters, and clearly their 1 v 1 on a spell was raised significantly [DR].

 

[cat0048 0]

I understand that and all but, being that this is a private server and they have listed the skills and their formula, and also considering that many skills have been altered, and ALSO considering that t5 is unique to this server, saying it adds attack power, if it actually adds weapon damage is a rather big mistake.

 

I am new to this server, and I know there is more going on than what forumla say, adding 30% health from VL also adds some sort of defence or abs or something, I go from taking no damage to insta kill when it isn't on. This is not the issue.

 

The issue I have with it, if DF is meant to boost prs power, it should be weapon damage that it adds its bonus to, not attack power. Maybe this is impossible to do, I do not know, I am not a programmer nor have I ever seen the workings of a server of PT.

 

I will cast a vote though, that +atk power be changed to + weapon damage for DF since things are not final with t5 (This might break the game balance entirely though *shrugs* i dunno how other classes work). .... or maybe I should just bite the bullet and invest my points into DF and test things for myself. I just don't want to have to retrain certain skills ~.~

[Crius 0]

I'm not assuming anything, I'm not talking about divine force in particular. It's not really limited to this game, or any game for that matter. Regardless of what, you're not doing anyone any favors by making them think they understand something, when it actually is something completely different. There is plenty in this game that is vague, ambiguous or outright false. Don't try to tell me it's for my own good. If my alternatives are knowing that I don't understand something, and being frustrated because it is not working like it's supposed to, I'll take the former any day of the week. The game is welcome to hide information that I don't need to make an informed decision, like how a TV doesn't tell me exactly what goes on with the IR signals and electronic circuits when I press the button to change channel on my remote, but I damn well expect it to change channel when I push the big button marked with the words "next channel", and not also reprogram the clock and change the volume while it's at it. That's the difference between simplifying and lying.

 

The skill descriptions in general should be rewritten from scratch. They should probably also be changed to always rely on attack power. There are far better ways to make things easier to understand than some sort of twisted obfuscation scheme. I wrote something about it in another thread, but I'm not sure if it was lost in the rollback.

[Zero 0]

  On 6/1/2011 at 12:08 AM, Crius said:

I'm not assuming anything, I'm not talking about divine force in particular. It's not really limited to this game, or any game for that matter. Regardless of what, you're not doing anyone any favors by making them think they understand something, when it actually is something completely different. There is plenty in this game that is vague, ambiguous or outright false. Don't try to tell me it's for my own good. If my alternatives are knowing that I don't understand something, and being frustrated because it is not working like it's supposed to, I'll take the former any day of the week. The game is welcome to hide information that I don't need to make an informed decision, like how a TV doesn't tell me exactly what goes on with the IR signals and electronic circuits when I press the button to change channel on my remote, but I damn well expect it to change channel when I push the big button marked with the words "next channel", and not also reprogram the clock and change the volume while it's at it. That's the difference between simplifying and lying.

 

The skill descriptions in general should be rewritten from scratch. They should probably also be changed to always rely on attack power. There are far better ways to make things easier to understand than some sort of twisted obfuscation scheme. I wrote something about it in another thread, but I'm not sure if it was lost in the rollback.

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Wasn't saying some descriptions weren't flawed, but I felt increasing damage/attack 50-55 was pretty self explanatory. There isn't real ambiguity in the description.

[Crius 0]

I'd say this thread in itself is proof that it's not "pretty self explanatory". Does it increase damage from spells or not? If so, how much (if spells actually do rely on the attack power, or perhaps if that 50-55 counts as added weapon power)? Does it add 50-55 points of damage always, or is that also affected by damage modifiers like skills? How about skills with static damage? And so on...

 

At any rate, you also mentioned VL and maximize, so it was fairly natural to assume you were not strictly limiting your opinion to DF. And by the way, in case you were referring to the post I made earlier about testing it with VB; I also retracted that as I misunderstood the original question.

[cat0048 0]

  On 6/1/2011 at 12:09 AM, Zero said:

  Quote

I'm not assuming anything, I'm not talking about divine force in particular. It's not really limited to this game, or any game for that matter. Regardless of what, you're not doing anyone any favors by making them think they understand something, when it actually is something completely different. There is plenty in this game that is vague, ambiguous or outright false. Don't try to tell me it's for my own good. If my alternatives are knowing that I don't understand something, and being frustrated because it is not working like it's supposed to, I'll take the former any day of the week. The game is welcome to hide information that I don't need to make an informed decision, like how a TV doesn't tell me exactly what goes on with the IR signals and electronic circuits when I press the button to change channel on my remote, but I damn well expect it to change channel when I push the big button marked with the words "next channel", and not also reprogram the clock and change the volume while it's at it. That's the difference between simplifying and lying.

 

The skill descriptions in general should be rewritten from scratch. They should probably also be changed to always rely on attack power. There are far better ways to make things easier to understand than some sort of twisted obfuscation scheme. I wrote something about it in another thread, but I'm not sure if it was lost in the rollback.

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Wasn't saying some descriptions weren't flawed, but I felt increasing damage/attack 50-55 was pretty self explanatory. There isn't real ambiguity in the description.

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There is no ambiguity here, if you are talking about wanding something. or whacking it with a sword, the ambiguity comes in with spells.

the formula listed for spells uses weapon damage, not attack power.

 

that is the simplest way of getting tot he point about this.

[Zero 0]

  On 5/28/2011 at 9:53 PM, TripleR said:

Wartale said it does.

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I felt we had a trusted source ^, and people confirmed it anyway. Reading the thread was not hard, seemed self explanatory from there. Regardless, its a very minor issue. Muspell adds evade, not block, it bugs me a little on the description but its not hard to figure out and not a huge concern in place of everything else going on atm. The huge concern would be if it didn't add, the only thing left to confirm 100% on adding is AoEs like CL and that is a rather easy test as well.

[cat0048 0]

After testing it, I was doing more damage without having DF on. I will say, maybe sandurr intended it to do more damage with our spells, but it does not. DF will help all classes except for priest and mage, unless of course, the buff is changed to + weapon damage. that is my final answer, I could still be wrong and will accept all ridicle for it but, I do not believe this to be the case.

[Crius 0]

  On 6/1/2011 at 1:46 AM, Zero said:

  Quote

Wartale said it does.

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I felt we had a trusted source ^, and people confirmed it anyway. Reading the thread was not hard, seemed self explanatory from there. Regardless, its a very minor issue. Muspell adds evade, not block, it bugs me a little on the description but its not hard to figure out and not a huge concern in place of everything else going on atm. The huge concern would be if it didn't add, the only thing left to confirm 100% on adding is AoEs like CL and that is a rather easy test as well.

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Perhaps he felt it was obvious what it meant as well, while others do not. You yourself seems to be uncertain whether it affects some spells. Perhaps he thinks it works but it doesn't. Regardless, what I want to know is exactly how it it's intended to work in relation to other modifiers. Especially in the case of spells, where the attack power supposedly does nothing. That goes for all the skills. Maximize at 200% should, on paper, not do all that much (I got 100-150 extra damage on average at best, depending on the weapon, which is a decent boost and all but that was apparently considerably more). When they do unpredictable things that are either poorly or not at all documented, it makes it impossible for players to make an informed decision, and worse; if the developer is not aware of these things, it makes it impossible to do any sort of balancing. There was a discussion about maximize before that went along the lines of "let's try 160% and see if that works", which is an awful way to test anything.

 

The whole system needs an overhaul to a) reduce the number of different factors to the bare minimum, and b) make it clear what the different types of bonuses does. In the case of Muspell, it doesn't particularly matter since as far as I can tell, there is no difference between block and evade (although if there isn't, it's odd that they both exist in the first place). In the case of static damage bonuses, damage modifiers and so on, it's extremely important to know the precedence. There's a very big difference between (10+5)*2 and 10+5*2. We shouldn't need to test whether DF, or sheltom forces, or anything affects the different spells. We should know immediately from the descriptions, or at least if we have them explained to us, that either they don't, or they do and if so, in what way. Step one would be to make the descriptions reflect what the skills actually do. Step two to make it clear how static damage bonuses are treated, especially in relation to things like +100% damage. Step three would be to get rid of the whole X + spirit/2 + wand * 3 damage system for spells, and base it entirely on the attack power, including the static damage bonuses if appropriate.

[cat0048 0]

I agree, but this game was originally korean, and the actual developers themselves stated that they did a lot of things that, had they known better, would have done different.

rPT is a private server with developers making custom stuff from translated sever info and all that, good job on their part is all I can say.

 

I agree that the formula need a rewright but, it is difficult to do that I am assuming.

as for Divine Force, it does not add power to spells from when I was using it. it took the same or more number of hits when I was using DF to kill monsters.

this perty much ends the discussion over if it works or not.

The discussion should move to, if sandurr intended it to help priest and mage spells, the bonus should be weapon damage, from my understanding and looking at other skills, it will do the exact same thing as + atk pwr but will also work for spells.

Or, they could alternatively change all spells to use atk power instead of weapon damage, this would be a welcome change for me because it would give a small boost more than what DF was going to do

[Crius 0]

I'm not blaming anyone here for how it is, I'm just saying that it's bad and steps should be taken to fix it as far as possible. I'd say it's an almost required change if you ever want to achieve some sort of balance between the skills and classes, otherwise it will be a long and difficult process involving a lot of guesswork, and God forbid any other changes are made after it's done.

 

As it is, from the information given, DF should do nothing whatsoever to affect spells (except maybe add a static number of damage points and that's it). Personally I'd feel it would be kind of stupid if that was the case, as it would if HoV, FoN and sheltom forces didn't. Maybe it does anyway, I don't know. I know the sheltom forces affect at least some of the spells (see my earlier post), but on the other hand, the sheltom force does explicitly state that it affects weapon power, which is supposedly used in the spell damage calculation, while DF does not. Why on earth added damage and added weapon power are two separate bonuses is beyond me, if that's even the case (hence my I'd strongly in favor of rewriting the entire system so that only one is used for everything).

[cat0048 0]

in terms of whacking something with a sword:

you have your strength which is how hard you can hit something so you do damage

you have your weapon which is how... sharp? something is, which does additional damage.

you have other factors which equate to your attack power.

 

weapon damage is a part of attack power, this is why there are two different values.

[Crius 0]

Yes, I know how that particular thing works, but there is ambiguity when it comes to how it is applied. Basically, you can have five different types of damage bonuses.

1) Base damage, for example the weapon you're holding. Easy enough to understand.

2) Base damage bonus, which is essentially a flat increase in the base damage. Technically, aging and mixing could count as a base damage bonus, but anything that adds +X damage points could fall here, such as sheltom forces and DF.

3) Base damage modifiers, which is any bonuses that multiply the combined value of 1 and 2 by a modifier. An example is most skills and strength/agility etc. Anything that adds X% damage.

4) Final damage bonus (lacking a better name), a flat static value that is added to the damage you do, regardless of your base damage and modifiers.

5) Static damage, which is things that do a set amount of damage (like cyclone strike), or which do a damage that relies on other variables than those listed above. Currently, that should tecnically be the spells (if the descriptions are correct), that rely on your weapon (though not in the same way that base damage does) and/or your spirit.

 

When something is said to add X points of damage, I have no clue whether that means #2 or #4. Nor do I have any clue how it influences #5. Would a spell that does [Weapon power] * 5 damage get 50 extra damage or 10 extra damage from a skill that claims it adds 10 damage? Oh, but it gets better. Modifiers are not consistent either, or at least, it's not clear if they are. Use a sheltom force and that is added to your base damage, including the strength bonus which is a modifier. Use a skill that contains another modifier, and what is your final damage? Is it really ([Weapon] * [strength] + [Force]) * [skill]? Or is it [Weapon] * [strenght] * [skill] + [Force]? Perhaps ([Weapon] + [Force]) * [strenght] * [skill]? That's a pretty big deal if you don't know, and perhaps this is just me, but I don't (except that I'm almost positive it's not the last one). For instance, could you tell me for certain what the effects of DF falls under?

 

Personally, I would get rid of #4 and #5 entirely (and as a result, the whole weapon power bonus thingy that just makes things even more confusing), and clarify some of the skills like maximize, that sounds like #3 but actually is #2 or #4 (or even a mix depending on how the modifiers are applied). Basically, what you have is a set of base values (anything that has a fixed number of damage points) that you add together, and a set of modifiers (anything with +X% damage) that you multiply that result with. That's it. Maybe, if you absolutely must, you can still use #4, but then it should be clearly marked as such, for example by showing the damage on the statistics screen as "[min]-[max] + [bonus]", where the min/max values is the result of #1-#3, and the bonus value is #4. Give me any combination of skills, items and bonuses, and I can calculate what damage you'll be doing nearly instantly with no ambiguity.

 

Then there's of course the matter of the apparent hidden effects of things like VL...

[Zero 0]

I know a bit about game mechanics and how screwy they can be because I dealt heavily in reversing mechanics for another game [Cabal], in which I found many hidden mechanics that were far beyond the comprehension abilities of the general population. I even made it easy into an automated program that could accurately do all damage calculations so long as they simply typed in the right numbers, such as what is your attack/level. You'd be surprised how many times people would complain something was wrong after failing to type in correct numbers, and you honestly believe they're going to understand even basic formulas and terminology? Developers and staff members don't have time to school people in basic arithmetic and sense, its as I said, you need to assume your average player is a complete idiot. This is how you write things for them to understand.

 

Don't get me wrong, perhaps some things should be clearer as you pointed out, and I never really disagreed with that. If the average idiot can't make sense of it with a basic test, then it probably should be changed. I'm just pointing out you want all hidden mechanics revealed, and its a very bad idea and mess you won't be able to easily fix, this has been the reason for my main arguments in this post. I think this is keeping more with mixing terminology [multiple things mean the same thing] rather than just being a poor term. At least that is where I understand much confusion comes in.

 

Trust me, with that explanation alone you've probably already lost a good majority of the server in understanding, and this is keeping with simple basics in damage without really even applying it to formulas. Your making a fatal mistake in believing many gamers will understand things to the extent you do, and often it is the people with the least understanding who complain the most.

 

Sometimes hidden mechanics are hidden also just for convenience sake on the UI, as some skills are variable and contain too much information to be displayed properly. Your making the assumption here that all skills are static and never variable dependent, which you cannot assume.

 

I'll try to keep this example in the most basic terms I can, since it would deal with lingo for another game that serves as an excellent example of why you don't always reveal hidden mechanics.

 

Example:

-A skill from another game I played had something on the description stating "damage varies with number of attacks and range to monsters". Many people were confused about what this did and tried to figure out what it meant. It was ambiguous and people couldn't really understand why.

 

-Some people tried to sum it up in simple things like "Attack power x2", however this proved unable to hold in many situations despite being correct in others. Things were going on we didn't understand. Upon proper testing, I found this skill had many variable formulas for damage and was able to reverse them back into the components that properly estimate the output.

 

-The skill proved to be a two step formula. The simplest one was attack power + attack power, however this could change and writing it this way proved fairly important. The reason you could not say "attack power 2x" is because the second part was actually variable dependent, it had multipliers that also varied based on other variables. The simplest way to put it would be in some situations, the damage was attack power + (attack power x 1.2). That 1.2 in the second part changed on a variety of factors such as the monsters defense made it fluctuate slightly, and it had up to seven different situations in which this multiplier changed to a different number altogether, such as becoming roughly 1.4 [after taking into account how the multiplier varies with things like monster defense]. Even assuming most people would understand this, that is 7 different variables you have to write on the skill description and state how you select which multiplier for which situation, a huge UI problem in game.

 

If you want to see what the automated function I did to account for this actually looked like it is below. It looks a little more complicated than it is since this was done to automatically calculate things based off inputs, where as some things could be easily replaced if the user knows what they're doing or their specific stats.

 

Damage =((Attack*(Amp*0.01+1.7+LOOKUP(Lightning_Slash,Skill_Level,Amp_Bonus))+(750+Lightning_Slash*5.5))-Mob_Defense-IF(Level< 180,(180-Level)*1,0))+((Attack*(Amp*0.01+1.7+LOOKUP(Lightning_Slash,Skill_Level,Amp_Bonus))+(750+Lightning_Slash*5.5))-Mob_Defense-IF(Level< 180,(180-Level)*1,0))*((Mob_Defense+IF(Level< 180,(180-Level)*1,0))*0.0000025575+1.198680107)+Add_Damage

 

[The simple way to sum up this formula is "Damage = (attack-monster Defense) + ((attack x1.2)-monster defense)", however, that will not be accurate enough to satisfy most people, since it can get you off quite a bit]

 

This was the formula for determining one skill in one situation with all variables accounted for. You have around 6-7 of these. Did I mention the PvP formula is also different and has the same number of situations?

 

Yes, good luck explaining how to calculate damage to a large gaming population with functions such as these. I'm sure PT is far simpler, but we can't assume it so. With damage not being displayed, we have no real way of knowing what damage we're actually doing.