Fencer Archive
Thread: Anatomy of a SWG Melee Weapon
personal testing with Stun Baton - it sucks because A) costs me 10 points higher MIND for One-Hand hit 2 than my Gaffi Stick costs me in HEALTH, and B) unless the thing you are fighting has a kinetic resistance of greater than 60% and no armor and a Stun resistance of zero %, the Gaffi Stick STILL does more damage than the Stun Baton in all cases...plus, of course, I don't drain my precious mind that can be better used for stims and healing...
tests done with Stun Baton, 87-126 damage, 2.4 speed (or is it 2.6? I forget), and Gaffi Stick, 130-220 damage, 3.4 speed, both unsliced
also tested damage output of my Vibroblade, 34-137 damage, 2.4 speed, unsliced vs. my gaffi stick, and the Gaffi stick still outdamages it on everything with light armor or higher, regardless of anything and everything - only advantage of Vibroblade is it costs about 30 less points in Action instead of Health....if that's an advantage
haven't tested 1-h curved sword much, having too much fun with the Gaffi Stick since I have a full Tusken outfit to go with it....
odd question, anyone know why the gaffi stick gets the red-swirly-trailer thingies like UNARMED? maybe because the "hit" sound isn't as cool as a bladed weapon? /shrug, just wondering....
so, like, yeah......I'm halfway up 2-H swordsman, too, and my PowerHammer (damage sliced) would totally beat out my 2-h curved sword (also damage sliced) except I don't have the level IV box for the other +20 accuracy yet, so I still miss too often, but the 5.4 speed is definately feasable with level IV speed boosts...can't wait till master....it's just too bad 2-h swords get nothing but sweeps/posture changes that are all pretty useless now....oh yeah, and the mind hits...but, wow, compared to dizzy + blind + KD/posture change in lunge2/lunge1 combo, who the hell cares?
First off, wonderful post. (Yeah, I'm burnin' the midnight oil reading either uber technical posts or other fanboyish stuff. I wonder what that says about me...)
Anyway, just a small point/question. I was always under the assumption that the speed mods of special attacks actually boosted their real speed, not their speed when capped. So, a x3 mod would actually boost the 0.2 speed of the Curved, not it's cap of 1.0. This would possibly have the effect of keeping some of the faster weapons at 1.0 speed with specials, but boost the higher damage ones up much higher. I'm not sure that, if this is or isn't true, it was addressed in your thesis, but I've always wondered about it.
Raphayl wrote:
""Also, when considering specials, you need to realize that not all specials are going to have the same delay, damage, or HAM multipliers. This makes calculating a single figure for HAM usage, damage or delay between the various weapon categories not very useful."
On the contrary, it makes having a single number even more useful. I'm quite aware that not all specials have the same delay multiplier (if fact I recall a post where you were arguing with that that didn't after I said they did... wasn't that you? I could be mistaken, I'll have to look it up.) However,does that delay multiplier change from weapon to weapon? No, it doesn't. The ending delay changes, but it is still derived off the original number, so it will still scale relative to that number. If you have two weapons, at 2.0 delay weapon and a 4.0 delay weapon, and perform a X2 delay special they scale to a 4.0 weapon and a 8.0 weapon.... they kept the same relative scale. Therefore it's a moot point. The same is true of damage, and of HAM multipliers. They are multipliers. They multiply the original numbers by the same amount regardless of the weapon. Since they do not discriminate between weapons, the data is not going to change the efficiency of one weapon over another. You are correct that the ending numbers will all change... but they won't change relative to each other. Therefore, going to the lowest common denominator saves a whole lot of unnecessarycalculations that end up at the samerevelation.
Amassively informative post that has helped me understand melee weapons a littlebetter.
Thanks
You have produced a very interesting analysis. I wish that I had the time and continuing enthusiasm for this gamethat you possess. I really think you were a marvelous choice for correspondent for fencers. I suppose I would feel comforted if I thought the designers had put half so much thought into designing the weapons as you had into analyzing them.
I also wonder whether anyone has done a similar analysis for ranged weapons. I would be interested in seeing those results as well. I hope that you will be sharing this analysis with the developers.
Awesome Raph, simply awesome........ The only thing left to say is. Dev's, are you paying attention?!?!
Shadowe
why don't we do something different? you've got the formulas, let's make a web form (i'll build it and host it myself) where people can go, enter the stats of their weapon, enter the AR and effectiveness of a creature or player, and hit a button and get your information. i've done this exact thing several times for corporate use (calculating production costs with different components) and for e-commerce (calculating shipping dynamically by weight, size, and type of material). that way you can get on to other things, and not spend time answering the inevitable "WHAT IF IM FIGHINTG A CRYSTAL SNAKE, RAP, LOL!!1!"
plus this would give us a chance to expand the application as we go, adding functionality and features. let me know if you want to do this (i love coding, it would be a blast for me) and we could really give people a chance to forget about numbers and just get answers.
contact me at [email protected] if you (or anyone else) is interested in something like this.
Hrmm, what happens if fencers get fixed? Will we not get anymore of Raphayl's wonderful research and results? No more exciting comments or perfectly worded come backs that shut down even the smartest of ranters?
Even if fencers arent the best in the game (or best melee), we still have the best correspondent out of all professions.
My hat isoff, what about yours?
Bugeyes McGee, Halfway fencer on Corbantis
dont mind the sig below
'To begin the process of balance we must select one weapon to serve as the "base" reference, and see how far each of the other weapons differs from that base. We could actually use any one of these weapons as the reference, but for the sake of simplicity we really only need to consider two of them. The best two would be the top weapon, and the bottom weapon. If we use the top weapon as the reference, then the comparison would go like this:'
then proceed to break down things by class. This implies a class balance, which certainly does require factoring in other aspects of each class besides the damage. It's hard to see how you are not doing a class-by-class comparision when you separate weapons into 'best by class' and state that a given class would need mods which added X% to damage in order for things to 'balance'.
Furthermore, as I said before, you did not factor in the accuracy of the weapons. This is a significant point for weapons such as the LVA with a high negative accuracy at all ranges. Missing a raw 25% more will have a significant effect on the DPS, especially against hard-to-hit targets.
When I said 'You want', regarding what sort of analysis might be more beneficial, I was using the generic mode of 'you'. I realize this was somewhat confusing as I do use 'you' in both forms, but this is the nature of english. I could have used 'one' instead of 'you', and I usually do, but that form sounds considerably more stilted and unnatural to most American readers.
The average weapon calculation in the class, again, is misleading. If there are 99 weapon types in a class that do 1 damage at 10 delay and 1 weapon type that does 100 damage at 1 delay with all other factors constant, the class is obviously not going to be evenly distributed among all 100 weapon types. The exception would be if the certs were such that you were not able to use all the weapons effectively during your entire career. However, as things are now, you receive all your certs by the novice box, so this is a relatively minor factor.
The point about AR 3 being less common than AR 0 is over all mobs. The distribution of mobs you fight will certainly change. However, the actual meaning of this point is that a single value is not a good determinant for the AR value of a weapon.
As for the HAM cost ratio, the reason this is not a good determinant is because how HAM costs are calculated. HAM costs are determined by weapon HAM x specials HAM multiplier - focus stat effect. Due to the focus stat effect being significant relative to the end result, the ratio between damage and HAM cost does not reflect real HAM usage very well. In particular, low HAM weapons will see a greater benefit than what the ratio suggests.
Finally, from a technical standpoint, this is not a thesis. There is no thesis statement, and there are no conclusions drawn from the analysis relative to the thesis statement. I'm assuming you meant 'thesis' in a more colloquial manner.
The reason I pointed out specials accuracy being different is for the same reasons I pointed out that the non-weapon mods are part of class balance. Specials are not consistent between all weapons mentioned in the original posts. It does not affect the performance of a given weapon class, but it certainly does affect relative performances between different weapon classes.
The reason I mentioned 'specific weapons' is because you use the values quite literally in the text. You suggest that fencers do X% less damage as if it were something inherent in the class, rather than significant variation coming from the instances of the weapons themselves.
If this thesis is about weapon comparisons and not specials, why would the class of the weapon matter at all?
As far as I remember, I have not argued that all the specials are the same delay multiplier. The only delay related thread I remember posting on this forum is regarding the speed equation.
I'm sorry but come on Noules.
You really do go just a tad too far and get a tad too pedantic in trying to undermine other people's analyses of the SWG combat system. The original posting is full of caveats and clarification of intent and you're still dragging this on? The reply to your post follows up on this and again mentions that the approach was knowingly restricted. As it stands it is still very useful given the noted restrictions. Most of the points you make aren't related to the more important results of this survey of weapons. I took issue with the averaging of damage over weapons but frankly that is such an unimportant part of the whole thread that it is quite simply just noise to even mention it.
You know a lot about the combat system. Great! I think you have some good things to say. Fine! But could you please try to be a tad more constructive? This isn't a competition. You don't have to PROVE to any of us that you know more than everyone else about the combat system. You don't have to work so hard to find points of contention in other people's posts. There are limitations in this approach and it's fine to call them out, but that has happened already and I don't really understand why you would continue this. There is a fine line between truly constructive criticism and simply wanting to be confrontational and competitive about a subject. I fear you are treading a tad on the wrong side of this.
If I get any time I think I may expand the tables a bit to have rankings of weapon damage for different AP. I think that would help.
--- Flynn McDonnell
Very very very good job! My only question for you is this:
You mentioned many many things in your example, but I do believe i missed where you took accuracy into account in any place other than in balancing the weapons. I myself am a novice swordsman who uses a 25% speedd sliced, 30 health (it has a 115 for a health HAM cost) 6% damage pump-up. it also has a lovely -37 for accuracy, so in combat I miss on avarege 1 out of every three attacks, and on a bad streaks which occuras oftenas not, i have missed as many as 6 of 8 attacks. I have also had experience as a fencer, and found that the accuracy is much better than this. As things stand then, i believe that most of the melee weapons achieve some sort of balance through the damage dealt to oneself and the inaccuracy of the weapons. WHile my powerhammer may hit for a massive DPS, I first have to make it actually HIT, and if I am using any form of special, I can watch it wasting my health at over 100 a shot. Now you were recommeding ways to balance the weapons, my question is, "do not the accuracy and HAM costs balance the weapons?"