OLD HERALD STORY 303 posted:

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Q: Can you go over the armor factor/absorb/etc stuff again? Previous explanations were confusing, and I want to be able to make good choices when I have two similar pieces of armor and must decide between them.

A: This next part is taken directly from the Vault thread in which I answered someone’s post, so forgive me if it sounds a little out of context. The player’s questions are in bold.

"1) How is Total AF calculated (Condition, Quality, location weighting, etc.)?"

The trouble with my answers to these questions, and the answers I have given on the Herald in the past, is that they are all simplified. I do not have the entire formula, and probably won't ever - the WHOLE thing involves tables, probabilities, outside factors, blah blah blah. It's immense. What I have given out are the broad brushstrokes, and the best I can do for you.

"1a.) If a dropped loot armor piece has the exact same AF, the exact same quality and the exact same condition as player crafted piece, is it truly identical to player made or is there some secret calculation for player made armor that makes Total AF register higher?"

Identical.

"2) How do AF caps really work (base armor AF vs AF spells)?"

There is technically a cap as to how much AF you can have. You will hit this cap if every piece of armor you have is your level (armor level = displayed AF/2) and 100% quality. Condition also plays a role - when you get messages saying such and such could use repairs, you're losing effectiveness.

Now, there are some exceptions - spec line AF buffs of healing classes can take you over your cap. Certain items can also be coded with a bypass function to take you over your cap.

"3) What does AF actually do? We assume AF determines Hit/Miss only, but is it also used in damage reduction? If its hit/miss only, how does it work? Is your Total AF the *only* number used in the hit/mist calculation or are individual armor locations/pieces used in determining hit/miss?"

AF is factored into many, many things, to varying degrees, so I can't give you a complete answer.

But I can sorta answer the last question. Your total AF plays a role, yes, AND the individual pieces play a role elsewhere in the calculations. I can't remember off the top of my head, but I want to say the BP covers 25% of your body? Anyone remember what I said before? The last time I gave percentages I was working from a design document, so they were accurate.

"4) How does Absorb work? Is it simply a % reduction in damage? (i.e. you are hit for 100, but have 19% absorb at that location, therefore you are hit for 81) or does Absorb use AF to determine how much damage is prevented"

My answer to #1 pretty much applies here too.

Now, for the examples, to make all the above blathering relate to practical terms. I will use your definition of "better" (1) which makes me get totally missed more? 2) which makes me get hit FOR LESS when I get hit?), and assume that you're more or less evenly rigged out in appropriately leveled armor:

"I am a lvl 20 Cleric. I have a choice between the following items. Which is "better"?
1) AF 38 Chain, 27% absorb, 100% qual, 100% cond, 0 bonus
2) AF 40 Studded, 19% absorb, 100% qual, 100% cond, 0 bonus"

The first piece is level 19, the second is 20. The 8% absorb is more significant than the one level difference, and all other factors are equal, so the answer is the first piece.

"or these two:
1) AF 38 Chain, 100% Q/C, 5% bonus, Quest item
2) AF 40 Chain, 100% Q/C, 0% bonus"

Kind of a tossup here. If you're going to be fighting things that have enchanted weapons (ie, have bonuses applied), you'd rather have the piece with the bonus, because it will reduce your damage maybe a hair more than the extra AF. But it's not significant. You'll outlevel the piece before you see enough fights to tell much of a difference. I'd personally go for the quest item, just because they tend to have their durability set higher than regular stuff, and thus last longer and can be repaired more.

"or these two:
1) AF 40 Chain, 100% Q/C, 0% bonus (yellow)
2) AF 44 Chain, 100% Q/C, 0% bonus (orange)"

The orange is two levels higher than you, and will degrade faster. It's not any better for you than the yellow in the slot it occupies, and its contribution to your total AF is wasted if the rest of your gear is decent and you've been buffed. So, the yellow piece is optimal.

(Remember, color is a range that gets bigger the higher you are in levels. You need to determine the actual level of the piece to determine how big a waste it is. The higher level than you, the bigger the waste.)

None of your examples included quality differences - in any situation where it's a close call, go with the higher quality item. Keep your stuff in good repair, as well.

I can't give you an order of value for each factor, as the value of each factor changes depending on the situation. GENERALLY - level, quality, bonus, condition. The bottom two are what change the most in weight depending on circumstances - level and quality ALWAYS matter.

If I've horribly lost anyone, I apologize, and I will try and make it clearer.

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Support 287 posted:

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So I asked Mahrin Skel (a world developer, for those of you not familiar with him), and he replied:


"Effective AF is all the combat algorithm looks at, if blue gear is giving better AF than yellow because of higher Quality, the blue gear *is* better. I've tested this extensively, 50 percent quality 30th level armor gives the same performance as 100% 15th level armor of the same type (assuming you are 30th). We're going to be changing the right-click item info to display effective AF so people are more aware of this."


I replied with a look of confusion. There are two kinds of AF? What the heck? He gave a longer explanation, with tons of detail:


"Okay, I'm going to have to talk in math here.


"Effective AF" is derived from base AF (the number currently displayed on right-click). Every armor item has a base Armor Factor, base AF divided by 2 equals Item Level for everything but Cloth, where AF = Level. But when you're in combat, the base AF is affected by Quality and Condition. Quality affects both the chance the armor will completely absorb the blow, and the amount of damage you take when it does, so the impact of quality "double dips". Condition only affects the damage taken. So "Effective AF" equals Base AF times Quality squared times Condition.


The "ArmorFact" field on the character display has always reflected this effective AF rather than base AF. Soon, right-click will also show effective AF, and base AF will only be shown on Shift+I."

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Patch 1.50 posted:

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ITEM DISPLAY NOTES

- On your character sheet, there are two values: WeapDam and ArmorFact. WeapDam is representative of your weapon's damage per second. ArmorFact is the aggregate armor factor of each piece of armor weighted by the percent chance to hit the area where the armor is worn. Previously, ArmorFact took the quality of the piece into account - unfortunately WeapDam did not. It's now fixed such that the WeapDam printed on the character sheet takes the quality of the weapon and multiplies it into the DPS to get the effective dps of the weapon. Note that for most players, this factor will be reduced when they log into this new version (since it now multiplies by quality). THE EFFECTIVENESS OF YOUR WEAPONS HAS NOT BEEN REDUCED JUST BECAUSE THIS NUMBER IS LOWER. You can get information (shift-I) on the weapon to see that the base numbers have not changed - just the WeapDam value (which is a conglomeration of all the numbers) has.

- More information has been added to the Shift-I Info window for weapons. You now see:
Base DPS
Clamped DPS
Quality
Condition
Effective Damage

Where the Effective Damage is the Clamped DPS multiplied by the Quality and Condition factors.

(3) More information has been added to the Shift-I Info window for armor. You now see:
Base Factor
Clamped Factor
Absorption
Quality
Condition
Effective Factor

Where the Effective Factor is the Clamped Factor multiplied by the Quality and Condition factors and divided by the absorption.

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OLD HERALD STORY 14 posted:

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I got this note from a player:

"Is yellow armour intrinsically better than blue, or is it all based on AF?"

So I asked Mahrin Skel (a world developer, for those of you not familiar with him), and he replied:


"Effective AF is all the combat algorithm looks at, if blue gear is giving better AF than yellow because of higher Quality, the blue gear *is* better. I've tested this extensively, 50 percent quality 30th level armor gives the same performance as 100% 15th level armor of the same type (assuming you are 30th). We're going to be changing the right-click item info to display effective AF so people are more aware of this."

I replied with a look of confusion. There are two kinds of AF? What the heck? He gave a longer explanation, with tons of detail:

"Okay, I'm going to have to talk in math here.

"Effective AF" is derived from base AF (the number currently displayed
on right-click). Every armor item has a base Armor Factor, base AF divided
by 2 equals Item Level for everything but Cloth, where AF = Level. But when
you're in combat, the base AF is affected by Quality and Condition. Quality
affects both the chance the armor will completely absorb the blow, and the
amount of damage you take when it does, so the impact of quality "double
dips". Condition only affects the damage taken. So "Effective AF" equals
Base AF times Quality squared times Condition.

The "ArmorFact" field on the character display has always reflected this
effective AF rather than base AF. Soon, right-click will also show
effective AF, and base AF will only be shown on Shift+I."

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OLD HERALD STORY 26 posted:

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This is the way it works, post 1.37. Some small changes have been made, so if in your experience you think it's been different, it was. Thanks to Mahrin Skel for rounding this up.

Every material grade has a certain number of swings it would take for a
weapon of that material to degrade from 100% condition to 70% condition. Below 70%, the weapon (and ditto for the armor) cannot get worse in performance.

From the lowest number of swings to the highest, the materials are:

Bronze
Iron
Steel
Alloy
Fine Alloy
Mithril
Adamantium
Asterite

The damage dealt is not a factor in how quickly the weapon wears out. Faster weapons do have more condition points than slow ones, so that weapons made of the same material will wear out at the same speed regardless of speed. A weapon with a color con too high for your level will wear out at a faster rate than the standard.

Armor is treated differently, instead of changing the Condition based on
speeds, a whole set divides up the base condition points based on how much
coverage a piece supplies to the body. The torso piece covers 25% of the
body, and gets 25% of the condition points. Each time your torso
is struck, including times that it completely absorbs the blow and it is
displayed as a miss, you will lose the same points that a weapon loses when it swings.

One wrinkle that gets thrown in here is that Condition does not go down in a
linear fashion. When half of the Condition points are remaining,
the displayed Con would be 90%. The numbers slope off from there.

Now, when it comes time to repair, each item has durability points.
To take an item from completely fried to its maximum points requires a certain number of its Durability points. To repair a bronze item takes many more points from durability than asterite.

The amount of Durability removed is based on the proportion of Condition
restored to the maximum condition of the object. This is the part that worked differently in 1.36 and earlier. The main impact of the changes that although higher-level materials will require repairs a little more frequently than before, they will be able to be repaired more in total, and the amount of wear will be more even across different types of items. Armor pieces will now wear out at about the same speed, where before low-coverage items like Boots and Gloves outlasted Tunics and Leggings of the same grade and type.

The REAL point to all this is that it is always in your best interest to purchase player made goods, even if the cost seems higher initially.

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OLD HERALD STORY 830 posted:

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Q: When in melee combat, does a miss get calculated first due to evade/block/whatever and then armor?

A: Yes, all parrying, blocking (including guard) and evade is calculated before the actual hit/miss check.


Q: If someone misses but would have hit were it not for your armor, does it do any wear-and-tear damage to your armor, or is that just hits?

A: Misses don't cause any wear and tear to armor.


Q: Does a miss wear down your weapon/shield less than a hit, or at all?

A: Regular melee misses don't cause any damage to the weapon, though parries, blocks, and fumbles (which are basically a special case of miss - if you hadn't fumbled you still would have missed anyway) do.


Q: If someone hits, but just barely, does it do more damage, or is damage calculated irrespective of how much you exceeded AF and such by?

A: Wear and tear to armor does not factor in the amount of damage done in the strike. At some point we can’t be TOO realistic or the game will bog down


Q: Are critical hits rolled for before the attack is calculated to hit/miss, or do you only have a chance to "spend" a crit when you hit?

A: Critical hits are only possible once a hit has already been determined.

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OLD HERALD STORY 321 posted:

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A: For a quick rule of thumb, to find the effective AF or effective
DPS of an item it is simply AF/DPS*Quality*Condition. Side note: If you are using something that is above your level, any level caps that come into play are applied first, then quality and condition kick in.

The "double dipping" we talked about before was misinterpreted when we were first discussing it. Quality and Condition come into play a 2nd time during combat. When you hit a location on a defender, the magic bonus, quality, condition, and damage modifiers (if that armor is strong/weak versus that armor type), absorption, and AF come into play.

So if you are attacking someone that has armor that is weak to your weapon type, and the quality, magic bonus, and condition of your weapon is higher then their armor, you will do a significant amount more damage then you would if everything was even.

Put another way – if you have a weapon that is 100% quality, and you hit someone wearing 85% quality armor, first the game checks for plus or minuses to that armor type, and armor level (displayed AF). But after that addition or subtraction, you as the wielder of the weapon will get a 15% bonus. The bonus is then modified slightly depending on the state of repair (condition) of the weapon and the armor.

The short version is get yourself that high quality gear.

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Vanesyra posted:

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do not know exactly what you are trying to tell me there. there is only "one" formula, why should there be 2?

there is no formula out there that uses "WeaponSkill" in this way. to get a "ArmorModifier" as you call it. going to show you why

long time ago i discovered the more or less working formula for weapon skill on my scout kieferhub. but this is years ago and i did some fails and errors their. also the formula is not working correctly for different rr, item and spec values. (even yet i did not figured it out 100%)

we know already that the impact of stats (str, dex or (str+dex)/2) on the damage is equal to: 200 + STATS. so i looked at how weapon skill is affected by stats. if weapon skill would be used for damage calculations in ANY way. the impact has to be the same. otherwise it's only what mythic did tell us years ago already... just a value to display nothing else. and what i found out is that weapon skill is increased by the term of: 150 + STATS. this is very close to what we know for damage, but it's a different formula, resulting in a total different result. so at this point we have proven that weapon skill is ONLY for display and never used in damage calculations! so every formula that uses weapon skill (like yours) is simply WRONG!

at the moment i am trying to figure out how exactly the weapon skill is calculated for different spec + rr bonus + item bonus. it looks like bonus form rr + items are having a higher impact on it then the pure spec in the weapon line. but still have no idea how this is working exactly. i hope (or guess) that the way spec + rr + item effects the weapon skill is the same way how it affects real damage. what i got so far is:
=> WEAPON_SKILL = DAMAGE_TABLE * (STATS + 150) * (1 + (SPEC - 0.5) / 100)
this is only working for rr1 chars without any item bonus. and is +/- of the real value

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