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Comments
RIP Knight Classes.
@Kresslack, @Atalkez, I'm pretty sure those knight numbers are not taking into consideration unique bonuses (+2 str for paladin and weapon runes for runie, for instance).
BM is also unstanced, meaning Arash BM is one of the top dogs now.
Maya figurine plaughed at the overhaul
I would still like to see what crit% is calculated in the numbers.
Maya Figurine makes all of the high single damage stuff much better than portrayed, yah?
As a Monk, I literally can't even fathom bashing in Tekura because of it.
I'm pretty sure those knight numbers are not taking into consideration unique bonuses (+2 str for paladin and weapon runes for runie, for instance).
Correct.
BM is also unstanced, meaning Arash BM is one of the top dogs now.
Also correct.
I would still like to see what crit% is calculated in the numbers.
These numbers are all at 0% critical chance.
@Atalkez would you mind creating a new post with the updated tables as a Sticky so it's clean/no comments and readily available to reference as needed?
If we're going to make this information available consistently, we'd ideally do it in game. A help file might suffice, but it would need all sorts of explainers, and would raise all sorts of questions in every new player that read the thread, and would likely need a listing of every attack set/artefact considered for each class/strategy. We'll ponder better ways to go about this, but I'm not entirely sure there's a great way to do it at present without flooding our staff with the same 200 dps test questions every day or two. At least, not without modifying the in game system heavily to allow players to view the full listings of the test setups (classes, attacks, artefacts, weapons, etc) in a readable way. I'm not a fan of limiting this sort of info to ACC testers, but that might be where we have to start, and branch out to the rest of the playerbase after we've sorted specifics and audited our current test cases.
Not making any promises one way or another, but it's something we'll ponder our options on and see what we can do.
If nothing else, a CONFIG SHOW DENIZENDAMAGE command might be useful. It'd be more difficult for people to test with different artie weapons, but should at least leave the burden of testing with stats/collar/stances to the individual player.
It's been said before but it's the obvious right answer so will just say it again - an extremely easy and almost complete solution to all of these concerns is having training dummies display NPC DPS which provides transparency at the meta critic level while also providing individual function to optimize their attacks and learn how to use them in an IC way. No weird OOC testing mechanics, no need for spreadsheets or explainers either IG or on forums (as we could do it ourselves and probably a lot more thoroughly).
I too want to see things on a meta-critic level.
It's been said before but it's the obvious right answer so will just say it again - an extremely easy and almost complete solution to all of these concerns is having training dummies display NPC DPS which provides transparency at the meta critic level while also providing individual function to optimize their attacks and learn how to use them in an IC way. No weird OOC testing mechanics, no need for spreadsheets or explainers either IG or on forums (as we could do it ourselves and probably a lot more thoroughly).
I'm not really sure how allowing players to test the very conditional damage output of their own, current class really helps to address gamewide class balance, or how this helps give players an understanding of how different classes stack up against one another in the grand scheme of things, and I'm certainly not sure how leaving it to players to collate these numbers across classes and stat points while accounting for the many factors that affect real-world damage outputs and stat differences that are going to affect different players is really at all a good, feasible, or complete solution to the problem at hand. Raw damage numbers certainly aren't in any way an in-character solution. I'm not at all sure how this sort of word of mouth data reporting would avoid causing further confusion and raising even more questions when experiences differ across players, as we've seen with so many systems in the past, and I'm certain this player-collated information wouldn't be any more readily accessible to players in game than at present.
While I can and do appreciate the desire to see the raw data, and it's something we can discuss and consider if a decent need for it arises, it really doesn't solve any of the problems we're looking to address here.
I don't see how firm numbers are any more OOC than either of the following:
1. "Hey, tell me how much this hurts. Okay, let me don or take off a thing, now tell me how much."
2. "LOOK WORM : He has 97% health remaining."
It's not necessarily about class balance, although I'm certain that people are going to test and experiment in that vein, especially when the provided numbers don't have much context beyond "Base stats / slightly optimized / American Express Black Card". The fact that denizens have resistances that we can't identify without a rare talisman would throw off numbers that aren't using the same mob as a control.
It's a quality of life thing that doesn't impact immersion any more than the game having HP values more discreet than "full health / wounded / near death".
Know what would be awesome? A survival skill to let us discover what a mob’s damage type weakness is. Why are we hiding this behind a talisman???
Hell, if we have to keep the whole thing gated behind a chase talisman, make a Survival skill that tells you if the damage type you just did is doing less/normal/bonus damage to a given mob.
Then everyone can crowdsource the Big Book of Monster Maladies or something.
@Phaestus - I'll deviate from the debate between "is it better for us to give you highly conditional numbers without context or transparency on the conditions, or is it better for us to let you test things yourselves, where you have full control of all of those variations"....
... to instead ask this question:
What harm would this (test dummy DPS output) do? If it makes people happy (and it absolutely would), and harms nothing, and it's easy to do, then where's the rub?
We have had - and finally, concluded - the 20 year equivalent of this conversation about limb damage - and I've yet to see a single person complain about having transparency on the "very conditional" limb damage line added to the game, and have seen a great deal of people be very enthusiastic and thankful for it. People wanted it badly, it was easy to do, there was no downside, it was done, and people are happier. Win for everyone (including the company).
Also, you said "it doesn't solve any of the problems are trying to solve here" - and on this point, there's no other way to put this but: That's not true. It solves the lack of clarity and detail some of us would really like to have. If we're not meant to have clarity, that's another thing entirely, but if we are, then I don't see how this does not at least partially solve the problem, if not completely solve it. I get that the focus of the DPS rework was for newbies / unartied players, but it has to be said: Most of us aren't newbies / unartied players - especially those of us who care about these details.
I agree with Shecks 100% here.
Even if Phaestus comes up with a way to quickly update the numbers, there will never be enough data to answer everyone's scenarios.
Even Phaestus's numbers aren't super useful because they don't include critical hit information and are only "straight dps" instead of "actual dps".
It's not as if practice dummies currently serve any real purpose currently, aside from disappointing people who first see them and think they're useful for actually testing or gauging the effectiveness of attacks. Doesn't seem like a far fetch to have them give damage based feedback based on attacks. Could even go a step further and give them a mock-up of Achaea's server-side curing so that people could practice different attack strategies and test limb damage, etc.
Sounds like an artifact!
500 credits - Dumb Training Dummy (This dumb dummy doesn't do anything! Buy it some stuff!)
800 credits - Training Dummy Shield (This will allow your dummy to cure afflictions)
1200 credits - Training Dummy Armour (This will allow your dummy to take and report limb damage)
1500 credits - Training Dummy Resistance Rings (This will allow your dummy to have adjustable protections against different types of attacks)
1800 credits - Training Dummy Boots (This will allow your dummy to attempt to flee!)
2000 credits - Training Dummy Sword (This will allow your dummy to fight back!)
Maybe I'm wrong here, it's just tinfoil hat thinking, but maybe it's another case of intentional obscurity for the purpose of making things just a tad tougher for the people engineering crazy edge cases for best possible exp/gold farming. That stance would be rational, I just don't think it will work.
Aetolia has a config to see exactly how much damage you're doing to a mob, as well as exact balance/eq times, and it's honestly so fantastic. Being able to calculate my dps for myself, especially when using classes that have different potential loadouts, is a complete game-changer. Obfuscation for the sake of it is not good game design, and the limb damage output was a massive step in the right direction. QoL feels really good and makes people more engaged.
A practice dummy that helps people get their combo aliases and opponent affliction tracking to a level where they can face a prepared opponent in the arena without having it all immediately fall apart - that would help more people make the leap from non PVP to real PVP involvement.
They have that, they're called practice duels. Shows you every change in your opponent's health/mana/affliction levels.
@Gallida not really the same though. It's be nice if you could at least make sure your reflexes work to some level without having to subject someone to standing around doing nothing for extended periods.
And you won't understand the cause of your grief...
...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.
Also, someone isn't always available to sit around for extended periods for you. Targ is kinda small right now, and when I was in Mhaldor I had the same issue, but if no one is really around that isn't AFK, you're stuck just hoping whatever aliases/code/scripts you're making work until someone logs in, and then hoping that said person doesn't mind sitting in the arena with you. It's kinda awful, and I fully support any way we can test things without having to waste someone else's time.
Go and attack a Mark/Dauntless person, that'll help you test it.
Disappearing from Achaea for now. See you, space cowboy.
smileyface#8048 if you wanna chat.
@Iaxus If your city didn't have the qwho of a peanut, you might have more people to test on!
I believe that was his point
As a returning player interested in seriously participating in adventurer combat, I hold no position as to whether practice dummies should, at bare minimum, report damage suffered from adventurer attacks, allowing us to compute bashing DPS under various conditions, although I can imagine it becoming a tool with unforeseen and surprising uses.
However, I do want to add my support for the related proposal that practice dummies made more useful and responsive to adventurer combat attacks, should it be at all technically feasible.
I have no problem seeking out better combatants to learn from, test, and work on combat with (in fact, it is something Cyra and I both quite look forward to). On the other hand, I do not feel good about the prospect of having to ask someone to stand mostly idle in the same room with me so I can implement and make sure basic combat aliases work as intended; it is not immersive at all for either involved party.
Rather, I would quite happily set up basic combat necessities on my own with a practice dummy if it were possible, allowing me time and space to hold more theoretically-focused discussions, spar, and engage in actual mentor-protege combatant relationships with other adventurers instead.
@Saonji
Go and attack a Mark/Dauntless person, that'll help you test it.
I try, I check all the pk-able WHOs quite often and most people are afk in city. Which I'm guilty of too, I admit. But still testing would be much better if there was a way to do it when my whole city was out on a voyage and I'm literally the only person around.
insert mandatory rant about hating seafaring here
I think Deathcape was a really bad idea.
@Cyra the best people to work with don't stand idle while you hit them. They offer advice and help and tips with every round of hits. My best training has been with people who know my class and can help me tweak things and improve them. No matter how much training dummies are improved (being able to use adventurer ony attacks on them even, that would be so great) they will never be better than another brain.
And yes, I know much of this discussion has been concerning people who don't have anyone available to help them. This is specifically in response to Cyra's comment about not wanting to ask people to stand around in an arena.