Rifleman Archive
Thread: Debunking how speed works, the rebuttal!!!!!
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=pistoleer&message.id=12637
Well, I re-ran Samra's numbers (and a HUGE thanks to him btw for starting this and doing this inital legwork) and I thought I should share them with you. I tried to use a controlled set of equipment and used 2 vendors that make VERY similar stats and provide pre-sliced weapons. I used Ardath and Meridian on the Scylla server located outside of Mos Espa. I beleive Samra posted on the other thread he was familiar with both WS's and I think could agree with the statement I made above. So, lets start looking at some data.
First the weapons:
T21: 115-333 7.5 AR3
Laser Rifle: 38-373 6.0 AR2
Elite Carbine: 95-164 3.4 AR1
Laser Carbine: 41-258 3.9 AR2
DX2: 87-143 2.6 AR1
FWG: 48-178 2.4 AR0
Yes, I'm aware that the DX2 is currently bugged. But in reality that is a bug not a balance issue so the data is included and valid. I think everyone agree with that, cause remember, we are talking balance here.
Now, DPS straight:
T21: 29.8
Laser Rifle: 38.3
Elite Carbine: 38.0
Laser Carbine: 38.3
DX2: 44.2
FWG5: 47.0
Now DPS with Armor Piercing:
T21: 58.2
Laser Rifle: 59.8
Elite Carbine: 47.5
Laser Carbine: 59.8
DX2: 55.3
FWG: 47.0
All of these numbers were described in Samra's original post and feel no need to go about explaining it over again as Samra did an excellent job. Click on the other link to get the details if you wish.
Now lets start getting to the real fun stuff.
DPS with armor piercing and speed
Master Rifleman
T21: 242.5
Laser Rifle: 345.2
Master Rifleman/Marksman
T21: 436.5 (what a difference +5 speed makes)
Laser Rifle: 359.0
Master Carbineer
Elite Carbine: 67.3
Laser Carbine: 83.5
Master Carbineer/Marksman
Elite Carbine: 79.2
Laser Carbine: 99.9
Master Carbine/BH
Elite Carbine: 161.5
Laser Carbine: 233.76
Master Pistoleer
DX2: 88.7
FWG: 75.2
Master Pistoleer/Marksman
DX2: 109.7
FWG 94.0
Master Pistoleer/BH
DX2: 143.7
FWG: 112.8
Whew, in Samra's post he used the scatter pistol instead of the DX2 as a point of reference. In all reality, there not all that much differnce in the 2. So lets get to some observations:
1) What the hell are we all complaining about. Look at those poor Carbineers. They are getting the royal shaft here unless for some reason the Elite Carbine I looked at is complete and utter crap due to resources. They need some real luvin. In all reality, their elite carbine should be doing in the neighborhood of 133 dps. Because of this, I'm going to leave Carbine out any future observations.
2) Comparing straight master pistoleer to master rifleman things look about balanced. The rifleman in this scenario is dealing about 2.73x the damage as the pistoleer. Infer what you wish, but I seem to think that this coincides with the 2.5 melee damage multiplier that rifleman endure. Most games seem to have a offense/defense tradeoff, it seems to hold true here as well.
3) There is a problem with the Master Rifleman/Marksman. This combo has a 95 speed multiplier that essentially knocks any weapon they are holding down to a 1.0 weapon speed and begins to deal over 4.5x the damage compared to a pistoleer/marksman. That's out of balance. Perhaps at master marksman they need to get rid of the extra +5 speed and replace it with accuracy or something.
4) The flip side to number 3 is that currently the rifleman has no auxilary profession to attain to enhance their skills. A Pistoleer with just BH pistol would leave the rifleman doing just 1.68x as much damage and probably equal damage as a carbineer (remember, carbine are boinked).
5) I think that the easiest solution to this problem is to cap carbine/pistol speed at 80 (the BH limit) and cap rifle at 90. To accomadate this, there would need to be a bump in the T21's stats (not much, I'm not running the numbers on this, but the same weapon instead of being 115-333 would be 120-350ish give or take a few points). The reason for the for the bump would be pistols at 80 would be doing about 110 damage, T21 would need an according bump to get to about 275 (30ish points). Re adjust for carbines as well.
6)Dan, the guy in charge of combat is a freaking moron. Complete and total idiot. We should all be thankful our guns fire in this game. In his proposal to move the firing speed to 0.5 for pistols and 3.0 for rifles, that would give master pistoleers a 177 dps assuming you could hit your speed cap. In order to keep current balance in the game, the T21 (pistols dps * 2.5) and assuming rifleman could hit their speed cap, the T21 rifle would have to be adjusted to somewhere in the neighborhood of a 500-800 weapon. HELLO, McFLY.....ANYBODY HOME!!!!!
Oh well, Im too tired to go on. I'll let you guys argue about what you see in the numbers.
Tilen
Scylla
Rifleman
Tilen
Scylla
Tilen
Scylla
SocialConformer wrote:
I'm too lazy, you need to repost them here.
Lol at least you're honest.
The dps you have listed here is a bit misleading. dont forget one of the BIGGEST things the other classes have over rifleman... knockdown. on the ground a rifleman cant fire and our DPS becomes a zero.. Now carbineers ham costs need dropped a bit.. they are excessive. but a pistoleer can spam multiple BODY shots easily wihtout a huge ham drain.. a rifleman cannot do this as effectively as we blow away our OWN mind pools at the same time. now lets figure on in a duel that most people lead in with bleeding 1 and 2. rifleman ive noticed DONT have this option as it will take too long wiht the new rules if they happen 6 seconds before we get to drop real damage? pfft that means a pistoleer could hitbodyshot1 and 2 and health shot24 times in 3seconds. roughly about the time i have hit with my mindbleed 1 done for bleeding on him and no visible damage...
Very nice and honest post.
I agree that right now things are roughly "balanced" in terms of dps (at master *insert ranged profession*).
I agree the carbineers need some serious luvin, thats not just a shaft jammed up their arse, it's a pineapple sideways.
Anyways, HAM costs for rifleman is a pretty sharp issue. I'm not so sure we should have lowered ham cost across the board. I think HS3 should either do more dmg or use less ham - but that's an exception. as well as the T21 - more dmg or less ham (more dmg in my opinion).
I think the current speeds are good, the massive dmg that rifleman can do is offset by their sustainability. you can not sustain HS2's (nevermind hs3) indefinitely as carbineers/pistoleers/bh's can sustain their specials all day long with stims. This is the built in balance that I believe justifies us firing 1 shot per second (or 2, if you don't have mastermarksman). The 2.5x melee dmg adds to this justification, maybe even a bit too much.
I DO believe, however, that our accuracy modifiers AT RANGE (+30m) should be improved, if only slightly. especiallyfor targets running towards us (it's only gettin bigger, which means it's easier to hit, until it gets inside of say 25-30m?. but defintely the accuracy modifiers should be looked at.
the .5 - 3 second speed cap seems pretty rediculous in current form. you would have to change a LOT of things to implement it - the rebalancing issue will most likely be **HELL**.
my .02
thanks for the numbers -
For those too lazy to follow the link, the DPS calculation is
[Weapon DPS] * [Special Mod] * [Speed skill mod]
Weapondmg = (min dmg + max dmg)*1.25^AP/2
Special Mod = whatever your special is/special delay
Speed Skill Mod= 1/(1-speed skill/100) (note cap on speed mod is weapon speed * special delay/speed skill mod > 1.0)
First thing that pop in your mind should be, HEY at speed skill 100, I'm dividing by zero, so I got infinite speed and can shoot anything at the 1 second cap. If you don't see this as a problem, you probably would play in God-mode if you knew how.
Second thing is as you approach 100 speed skill, your multiplier grow crazily. At 95, you get a 20x damage multiplier capped by weapon speed * special delay (eg auto-fire 8.0 s rerifle speed damage multiplier is capped at 8.0x instead of the 20x).
Dev proposal of a 3.0 s rifle cap essentially mean you're capped at weapon speed/3.0 s, for example, a T21 7.5 s essentially mean the speed dmg multiplier is capped at 2.5x (eg speed skill 60). It's stupid.
I believe everybody agrees that infinite speed is bad. Preventing 100+ speed skill is the goal. So cap the speed skill. Doesn't matter if it's 95, 90, 80, or 75. Just pick a number and cap it.
The easily way to balance this is to first balance the weapon DPS (and HAM cost) independentlyof the speed. Then balance the speed multiplier (eg cap them all the same across the board). Then balance the special. Lastly, watch for net speed cap.
But I'll clarify some of my points.
1) Im going to work off the premise that pistoleers should be doing base damage. Carbineers should be doing 1.5, and riflemen should be doing 2.5, based off of the melee multiplier. There seems to be a common thought in this forum that all these DPS's should be equal. They shouldnt and wont be. Balance isnt achieved through giving everyone the same dps, or same skills. Each class has their own their own respective weaknesses and strengths. Also, across all MMORPG's there is ALWAYS a basic tradeoff. There are class's that take more damage, but deal less. And then there are classes that deal more damage but can take less. This is neither new nor revolutionary. As far as ranged combat goes, you guys are in the take damage category. If that isnt what you or anyone wants, I suggest you reconsider your choice of class.
2) What I said last night was the devs are using speed to balance weapons which really isnt a good idea. The more I thought about it though, its the only way to go. In order to keep current balance both rifles and carbines (along with pistols...but to a lesser degree) would have to undergo MASSIVE upgrades giving too many 1 shot oppurtunities.
3) Yes, I include the DX2. The T21 is wildly inaccurate also and in fact most rifleman use a laser rifle. Also, the fact that AR is broken on that weapon is a bug and not a balance isssue. I saw a thread here stating that someone trying to track downn the bug. Just because the weapon is currently broken doesnt exclude it from this discussion (cause it will get fixed). You can not continue to try to make a point while exluding your most powerful weapon. Its comparing apples to oranges. I bet I could prove a CDEF is not nearly as good as your DX2, but what does that prove?
4) I agree that the speed equation starts to break down, but not until +95 in reality for rifle. That +95 number is completely out of context and needs to be corrected, no arguement here. I also propsed speed caps per class in order to keep the current balance in tact. I'm not sure what you really want here. The other real problem is that both pistol and carbine can be augmented through the BH line which can easily put both classes with 100+ speed.
5) Your numbers look slightly different but nothing that would effect the overall anylsis. Looks like its mainly due to rounding.
6) I listed the vendors I used, I'm not trying to hide anything. You are (or were) on Tatooine, you can easily go check the stats on the weapons I posted to confirm that they are correct. I stated before I tried to use weapons from one vendor to attempt to get an even base (this is going to be extremely difficult to do as there will always be variation).These numbers should at significantly more accurate than the numbers you origionally used (a pre-nerf T21....come on).
I'm not really sure what you're arguing here. It seems to me that the pistoleer wish is for all classes to be equal in all aspects of the game. Its just not the case. Balance is not evening DPS across the board for all classes. Balance is taking the advantages and disadvantages of each class and making them equal out to the advantages and disadvantages of other classes. If you wanted to do a true balance, in the current form, something along the lines of carbineers take 1.5 less ranged damage than pistoleers, and rifleman take 2.5 less than pistols would be needed to offset the melee penalties. You guys are looking at balance through 1 specific issue, you need to be looking at it through the bigger picture.
Tilen
Scylla
Philosopher1976 wrote:(insert huge post here)
I'm not sure why his post was 1-starred. I found it informative and correcting.
/ducks
The problem with the method used in all these mathmatical discussions is that it does not reflect any game "reality". (meaning the way the game is actually played) If combat consisted of both sides standing still, pressing the attack button and walking away from the keyboard they would be relevent. As it is they are just an attempt to prove an inaccurate point by cloaking them in a shroud of research and statistics.
Master Riflemen do not fire special attacks at the 1 second cap. They take 2-3 seconds based on the special. Master pistoleers do fire specials at the 1 second cap.
The damage multiplier on pistol specials range as high as 4. The max multiplier for rifles is 2. (carbines at 3)
The calculations do not account for movement of the target or firer, or accuracy at any range. (There is no miss percentage calculated in)
The calculations do not account for the HAM limits of the weapons, or the availabilty of healing for Health/Action HAM usage. (sustainability of damage output)
It does not account for AOE attacks.
It does not account for knockdown specials and the additional damage this causes.
It does not account for bleeds. (DOTS)
Again, you can make statistics say anything you want. It is all in how you set the parameters
I must say that I'm extremely disappointed in this post, particularly since it is far different than what you told me in private last night. You're a smart guy and seemed fairly even-handed last night, but this post is extremely misleading -- intentionally so. You should be embarassed by it. Your calculations confirm my original conclusions, but you bury the results in a long post and make sweeping conclusions that aren't supported by the data.
What conclusion would a casual reader get from your post? That speed _isn't_ broken in the game, as your title suggests. Of course as you know and admitted to me in private, that's not the case. Under the current speed formula, once you hit the cap you can fire _any_ weapon with _any_ special attack once per second. That means a Smuggler can spam Last Ditch once a second, and that someone with +100 speed ignores the speed rating on their weapon and gets mad when they get a speed slice. It also means that damage per second (DPS) is fairly balanced at zero speed, but goes bezerk at high speed, which is what you admitted in private last night.
What is your answer to all of this? Speed is great right now, and the insane way that it enables a Master Rifleman to fire a T21 faster than a Master Pistoleer can fire a FWG5 is okay too. Why? Well your reasoning is buried after a lot of neat-sounding numbers. So let's look closer at what you did:
First of all, one of the previous posters questioned the stats on your weapons. I also question the stats on your rifles because my newb rifleman on another server has a far better Laser Rifle than you show here, and I didn't shop around. But I can just /tell Ardath or Meridian tonight to verify that, so it's no big deal.
Also, as another poster mentioned, you like to compare the best pistol to the worst rifle. And, as I told you last night, you also like to use the DX2 even though it is wildly inaccurate, the AR doesn't work, and it's rarely used by Pistoleers. That's like me using the E11 as my example of how rifle is balanced.
But in any case neither of those issues are not the major problem, which is your slanted presentation.
Now let's look at the numbers, using the weapons in your post. I reran the numbers (you made small calculation errors):
Damage per second against an unarmed opponent:
Master Rifleman + Master Marksman (T21): 437.5
Master Rifleman + Master Marskman (Laser Rifle): 321.1
Master Rifleman (T21): 243.1
Master Rifleman (Laser RIfle): 222.99
Master Pistoleer (FWG5): 75.45
Okay, so what jumps out at you from these numbers? The Master Rifleman has a 322% higher DPS than a Master Pistoleer with a T21, and a 296% higher DPS if he uses a Laser Rifle. If the Master Rifleman gets Master Marksman as well (34 additional skill points), he spits out 580% more damage than the Master Pistoleer with a T21 and 426% more damage if he uses a Laser Rifle.
But you bury these results in the middle of your post, and explain why this is "justified." Your answer to the fact that a Master Rifleman can spit out 580% more damage than a Master Pistoleer if he gets Master Marksman (34 additional skill points) is that the Master Pistoleer can spend 145 additional skill points to get the Bounty Hunter pistol line. What you neglect to mention is that even if the Pistoleer gets the BH line (which leaves him with only 13 skill points afterward), the Master Rifleman/Marksman combo spits out 387% more damage than him.
But let's leave out the Master Marksman issue. What is your answer to the fact that a Master Rifleman has a 322% higher DPS than a Master Pistoleer, based on your own numbers? According to you, the 322% differential is completely justified by "the 2.5 melee damage multiplier" and an "offense/defense tradeoff." First of all, what does the 2.5 melee damage multiplier have to do with balance versus a Pistoleer? Pistoleers aren't melee. What is this "offense/defense tradeoff" that you talk about? If you're referring to defensive bonuses, none of them work now anyway. If you're saying that "someday" that this insane damage will be balanced out, how is that? Let's look at defensive bonuses:
Rifleman:
+20 Melee Defense
+18 Ranged Defense
+80 Cover
+20 Block
+30 Defense Versus Posture Change
+10 Defense Versus Stun/Blind/Dizzy
Pistoleer:
+13 Melee Defense
+5 Ranged Defense
+20 Defense Versus Stun/Blind/Dizzy
+20 Defense Versus Posture Change
+30 Defense Versus Knockdown
+30 Dodge
What about these bonuses is supposed to justify the fact that a Master Rifleman has a 322% higher DPS than a Master Pistoleer? Not a **edit** thing. None of them work anyway, so it's like me using the rifleman Block skill to justify a nerf to Rifleman.
The bottom line is that your analysis confirmed my conclusion about how screwed up speed is. It's your slanted and misleading post that covers that up. You should be ashamed of yourself.