Rifleman Archive
Thread: Armor Piercing and Damage Resistances are now broken
Executive Summary:
Armor Piercing no longer works in PvE. Weapons with AP higher than the AR of the critter do not get the AP damage bonus. Weapons with AP lower than the AR of the critter do not get the AP penalty.
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!
Resistances are also broken. If the AP of the weapon is higher than the AR of the critter, any resistances are DOUBLED. If the AP of the weapon is lower than the AR of the critter, the resistances are halved.
Test data and screenshots to follow in a reply to this message.
I logged in tonight to discover that it no longer works that way. In fact, it seems very, very broken.
Test #1
Corellian vynocks have no armor (AR0) and no energy resistance. When I shoot a vynock with my T21 (AP3), what SHOULD happen is that the Base Damage (i.e. the damage that shows up in the battlespam) will be multiplied by a Resistance and Armor Factor (RAF) according to the following formula:
RAF = [(1.25)^3]
Tonight, when I went out to work on my Corellian Scouting report, I noticed that I was doing much less damage than usual. Under ordinary circumstances, I can one-shot a vynock with Headshot 2 every single time. Tonight I was surprised to discover that Headshot 2 was NOT insta-killing these low-level critters.
http://www.erols.com/aburner/swg/vynock1.jpg
http://www.erols.com/aburner/swg/vynock2.jpg
Both of these screenshots are of me shooting a vynock with a T21 rifle using Headshot 2. In both cases you will note that the Floaty Damage is identical to the Base Damage shown in the Battlespam. Which means that the Armor Piercing Bonus was negated.
Test #2
A giant gubbur has no armor and 10% energy resistance. Shooting one of these with a T21 should provide an RAF of:
RAF = [(1.25)^3] * (0.90)
When I shot a few test subjects, I got the following results:
http://www.erols.com/aburner/swg/gubbur1.jpg
http://www.erols.com/aburner/swg/gubbur2.jpg
Curious, I ran some calculations:
Base Floaty RAF
--------------------------
983 791 0.805
742 596 0.803
These results are consistent with what the situation would be if there were no Armor Piercing bonus and if the gubbur had a resistance of 20% instead of 10%.
"Curiouser and curiouser," said Alice.
The fact that 20% is double the actual 10% resistance seemed too coincidental to me, so I ran some further tests.
Test #3
Razor cat cubs have no armor and are 5% resistant to energy. Shooting one under normal circumstances with a T21 should give me an RAF of:
RAF = [(1.25)^3] * (0.95).
Actual field test results show:
Base Floaty RAF
--------------------------
714 644 0.902
This is the RAF you'd get if the Armor Piercing Bonus were negated, and the Energy Resistance was 10% instead of 5%.
So vs. the gubburs, a 10% resistance turned into a 20% resistance. And vs. the razor cat cub, a 5% resistance turned into a 10% resistance. I think a trend is forming.
Test #4
Rogue bagerasets have no armor and 20% Energy Resistance. Under normal circumstances, shooting with my T21, my RAF would be [(1.25)^3] * (0.80)
However, since tonight doesn't appear to be normal, I predict that tonight I will actually get an RAF of (0.60). Test data below:
Base Floaty RAF
--------------------------
1383 843 0.609
As before, this is consistent with a circumstance where the Armor Piercing Bonus from my AP3 weapon is negated, and the creature has 40% Energy Resistance instead of 20%.
I shot a few more things, both with my T21 and my Laser Rifle. They all confirm the following:
If you are shooting a critter with a weapon with an Armor Piercing rating EQUAL TO OR HIGHER THAN the Armor rating of the critter, you will not get an Armor Piercing bonus AND the actual resistance of the critter will be double the listed value.
------------------------------------------
But what happens in the case where I'm shooting a critter with a weapon that has a lower AP rating than the AR of the critter?
With that question in mind, I went and found some violent krahbu. Violent krahbu have Light Armor, and have 15% Energy Resistance besides. My DLT20a rifle has no armor piercing ability. Under normal circumstances, the RAF for this situation would be:
RAF = [(0.50)^1] * (0.85)
Here are the actual results:
http://www.erols.com/aburner/swg/krahbu1.jpg
http://www.erols.com/aburner/swg/krahbu2.jpg
Base Floaty RAF
--------------------------
669 619 0.925
864 800 0.926
This is consistent with a situation where the armor penalty is negated and the critter had an Energy Resistance of 7.5%. Which is half of 15%.
Therefore:
If you are shooting a critter with a weapon with an Armor Piercing rating LOWER THAN the Armor rating of the critter, you will not suffer an Armor Piercing penalty AND the actual resistance of the critter will be half the listed value.
Well done, SOE. Give yourselves a great big round of applause.
I was hoping someone would post something like this with hard numbers. I was noticing the same thing, but thought maybe it was just me or just a glitch. It SEEMED like I was doing less damage until I sat down and decided to do some math.
I was fighting a Rogue Bantha on Tatooine. No armor and 5% Energy Resist. I was using a T21 Rifle 145-394 damage (post-nerf), HEAVY piercing.
My first hit showed 1439 on my combat log.
The number above the Bantha's head was 1299.
The Bantha had a total of 1761 Mind and was reduced to 728 following my hit. That means it took 1033 damage.
I had NO IDEA where these numbers were coming from. I still don't. Double protectexplainswhy was it reduced by 140 (10% of 1439)by why did it take 266less damage than that?
I hope this is just a temporary glitch, because this makes absolutely no sense.
SaintEdwyn wrote:
Double protect explains why was it reduced by 140 (10% of 1439) by why did it take 266 less damage than that?
Actually, THAT bit is normal.
When you shoot something, 80% of the Floaty Damage is applied to one HAM pool, and the remaining 20% is divided up equally between the other two HAM pools.
This is why you can kill a critter with a few Mind points remaining even if you shoot him in the leg. This is also why you see ALL of the bars turn white if you shoot a low-level critter (like a baby) with a high-powered gun.
PLEASE put this whole post in every location where people can see it.
Put it in SWG discussion, put it in EVERY
GAH, bloody laggy forums
Please put this anywhere you can... Put it in general discusion, every combat profession, anywhere. This needs to be seen and fixed... It makes it even harder to level now. Good thing I'm a doctor too...
And we thought there was no rifleman Nerf in this patch... Now we only have TWO guns... The cdef and the DLT20a. That's inexcusable. This NEEDS TO BE FIXED!!.
Thanks for all your hard work. As it's been said, the players are working harder then the Devs for this game... we should be PAID $15 US to test this crap.
Khyras, On Bria.
Doctor/ Rifleman
"Wipe them out. ALL of them" -Devs to Riflemen
Both ingame Customer Support and Bug Submission systems seem to be off-line as well. So I'm guessing that our only option is to post on the Forums to get this fixed.
Ja'elk
Issik wrote:
Please put this anywhere you can... Put it in general discusion, every combat profession, anywhere. This needs to be seen and fixed... It makes it even harder to level now. Good thing I'm a doctor too...
Already posted it in General Discussion last night.
If you want this fixed, keep this thread bumped:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=663869
if you dont know quenkers ravagers are ar1 with 40% resists.
you can imagine how angry i was.
thanks for the post at least for the moment i wont cancel my subscription. im sick of playing games that nerf instead of improve.
Nice to know I'm not going mad.
How the **edit** do they mess things like this up?
Has a test been done on pvp sence the patch - im curious as to how much dmg we do now - i can only imagine how crapy dmg will be now if you are right - that would meen that our headshot 3 will now do around 50 dmg which would meen the sniper is now even more usless than before - when the sniper is in reality a player killer - now we are completly useless in all cases - its rediculus that our moves come from our mind at a heavy cost and now we dont even do enough dmg to even matter in any sercomstance (and no i cant spell very well) - we are now useless in pvp and in hunting so tell me devs how are we supose to enjoy our gaming experince when we are as usless as a dwarf nuna - which by the way would stand a better chance in a fight than us...
Xenophin imperial sniper intrepid server <EIS>
Excellent post. I am sure that the DEVs have cought onto this already and will fix it asap. It seems like a simple mistake somewhere in the code... but if the patch is always tested on the TS, how come it wasn't caught there?
Strange.