Bounty Hunter Archive
Thread: An in-depth weapon comparison (New! Improved! Now with 87% fewer flawed assumptions!)
Raphayl wrote:
That's all you had to say, Volsted. I owe you an apology just based upon this statement, none of the rest of your defense was necessary.
Ah, but it was, insofar as I was (at the time) still unaware of pre-existing issues, and did not know which points could be safely left unadressed. So I just addressed all of them and let the chips fall where they may.
Aside from which, you raised some points that were probably in the minds of other folks who had simply not bothered to raise them themselves. So it was good to clarify such matters as required further clarification.
Raphayl wrote:
The post you couldn't find on the first 10 pages is on page 4, called Anatomy of a SGW Melee Weapon.
And lo, there it is. Dunno how I missed it.
I blame my parents.
Raphayl wrote:
You really should take a look at it, and you might understand why I may have responded the way I did.
Indeed. Probably didn't help that Noules is also, so far as I know, a Master Rifleman.
He is quite the statistician and mathematician. His analysis of ranged weapon accuracy is worthwhile reading, and has been made into a sticky post in the Pistoleer forum if you're interested. I have been waiting with some interest to see if he'd chip in on my post. But so far nada.
And while I agree with some of his criticisms, I also feel that he was being uselessly confrontational in the tone of his posts. So yes, I can see why you might have taken my thread subject as a commment on your post. An unfortunate bit of timing, that.
Personally, I cling firmly to the belief that it is possible to disagree with someone and even to critique them without sounding like a complete **edit**.
In any case, it was all a big misunderstanding, and I'm glad that there are no hard feelings. Someday we will look back on this incident, laugh nervously, and change the subject.
well I can't bump cuz its already stickied....
but
Round of Applause for Volsted!!!
I might come back with an opinion once i decipher it and can understand it. =D
and what a great EQ story. just goes to show that "statmongering" pays off. it sure it a whole lot easier to ignore stats once you know they're working. and that's what you and Lyahpar (and many others) have done. i can concentrate on something else instead of watching numbers and checking math in my head. i already know that if i see 1310 damage in the combat spam how much damage i'm doing with a simple formula you've shows.
so thanks. and no, i think fencers are extremely effective. i went hunting last night on Dathomir and had one of those nights where nothing could stop me. even the two bounty hunters were amazed that i could hold the aggro of three craggy bolmas while they blasted away. not to boast (it took little skill to do that).
but at this point almost every class has *something* that could stand some tweaking. but i would still play a fencer even if they never fixed a thing from right now.
i is sassified.
I don't know if I said this in your previous post, but this is very good work. Great details and explanations.
As with any comparison, the only weak point is that it is very dependent on the time and place of the weapon sampling. A bad turn of the resources can reduce a superb T-21 to an underperformer. The other thing that messes up the situation is that some weapons are tuned towards specific users. For example, many bounty hunters have +100 speed. To them, it is always beneficial to emphasized damage over speed, so they look for the slowest heavy hitter they can. This would likely lead to a low effectiveness rating, but in their hands is really grows exaggeratedly high. The other missing item, implied by the Volsted rating, but not stated explicitly, is the role specials play in weapon choices. As a pistoleer, I never use autofire. To do so is to sacrifice a shot essentially. For that reason, I select 1.2weapons that would hit the speed cap for autofire use but are still above with specials use. For that reason, a paragraph stating that a would-be shopper should consider his tactics and specials use and factor those values into their effectiveness rating values.
I really like that you include the armor factor into the equation, as it can make a substantial difference in the results. You may, however, want to include a link to some of the threads detailing the situations where AP is not correctly calculated (namely if they have vulnerabilities or effectiveness against your damage type). This weakens the AP weapons quite a large amount, and may be cause to consider some other compensation for their benefits than the RAF.
But again, great great work. I would love for weaponsmith to include this but so many factors influence my selection processes (what is my +speed, what special will I be using, what damage type am I after?) that it becomes a very hard value to nail down that is useful to everyone.
Np Volsted,
Miscommunication is easy in this medium. And I admit, my question was not phrased in a way that would invite a response 
But, as you now know, things have happened in the past that kinda made me suspicious of your intentions, even though I had no need to be.
Seena
Guess what I was doing today.
Too late.
I was wandering the galaxy spitting on every teras kasi I saw. Faster than us, better moves than us, meditative techniques that can do ANYTHING free with the profession, a single weapon with a 15m range, far more damage than us, knockdown.
That's an interesting point of view.
~Lyahpar~
La Femme Fencer
"Thrust if you love Fencers!"
Quote of the day... o_O
Are you holding in searing boiling anger at me every time you say that?
W0LVERINE wrote:
I could be wrong, but it looks like the effectiveness rating on the spreadsheet is not been divided by the weapon's speed?
I thought the formula was:
[Min Dmg + Max Dmg/2 X 1.5 X 1.25^N] Base Weapons Speed.
It's late and I'm tired so I may be wrong, but the 1.25^N comes into play when adding in the armor piercing bonus. That is done in the AR0 thru AR3 sections of the worksheet. The Generic section does just the base effiectiveness then the AR0 -AR3 sections compares the AP of the weapon to the Armor resist rating.
Sweet jeebus man! I'm just trying to hold my head still tokeep my tiny marble from echoing too loud, and waking up the neighbors, because I just felt all my grey-matter slowly drain out my nose.
What i'm trying to say is KUDOS!
5 stars.
T-900 wrote:
I hate stats in games, I cover it all up with some creative roleplay and everything is so much prettier, and this is statmongering to the extreme
Perhaps. It is also my idea of a good time.
I do not parse out stats in order to seek the maximum advantage. I am not, despite what you might think, a powergamer. I am a casual roleplayer and a casual gamer. I parse out stats because I'm nosy, and also because it helps illustrate weaknesses in the system.
For the longest time, fast, low-damage one-hand weapons in EverQuest were significantly superior to slow, high-damage two-hand weapons at the high-level game. This puzzled the EQ Devs. They didn't understand why no one seemed to use the big, bruising two-handed weapons except at low levels. And they didn't understand why the Moss-Covered Twig was such an overpowering weapon at high levels -- especially for being a drop off a 30th level MOB -- despite its terrible DMG/DLY ratio.
It took folks like myself and a few other math geeks to illustrate the problem to the EQ Devs and show them how significant the Level Damage Bonus became at higher levels. Once they understood that, the Mossy Twig was nerfed, and 2-handed weapons got a big boost to make them more competitive with the one-handers.
But it was the work of the math geek players which pointed 'em at the problem and let them devise a solution.
And so it will doubtlessly be in SWG. It is one thing to say "Fencers are gimped," and not be able to explain it. It is another thing entirely to be able to say "Fencers are gimped" and then cite chapter and verse. Those who can cite chapter and verse will be taken more seriously by the Devs, ultimately, than will those who just say "We're broken" without providing any evidence other than "it just seems that way in game."
(Note: I don't know if Fencers are actually gimped or not. A lot of Fencers seem to think so, but then every profession forum has folks who complain about how much their class sucks, even classes which SEEM to be mostly in working order. I was just using "fencers are gimped" as an example, rather than any definitive comment on the Fencer class.)
KaliMirchi wrote:
LOL well this entire back and forth could have been avoided if the original poster answered my question re: just what assumptions was he referring to?
At the time, I did not know of Raphayl's earlier post. And I knew my thread subject was a joke. So I assumed your question was also meant as a joke and meant humorously. Had I known the background, I would have done things a little different.