Weaponsmith Archive
Thread: A Tale of Two Guns
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EdOWar
Fri May 20, 2005 9:43 am
#1
Post CU, up to now, I've been experimenting my weapons to maximize DPS. However, with the DPS vs. SAC debate I decided to test a line of weapons experimented for lower SAC instead of maximizing DPS. What I discovered really opened my eyes.
Consider, which of the following DL-44XTsis the better weapon:
1) 309.25 DPS
2) 282.29 DPS
Going on this information alone, most people naturally would say that the first pistol is the better, with over 27 higher DPS.
Now consider:
1) 309.25 DPS, 108 SAC
2) 282.29 DPS, 87 SAC
Here the answer is a little tougher. While most of our customers would probably still pick the high DPS weapon, the savy customers might prefer the lower SAC pistol, reasoning that there's no point in doing lots of damage if you run out of Action pool.
Now here is where things get really interesting:
1) Damage: 368-771, Speed: 1.84, 108 SAC, 309.25 DPS
2) Damage: 368-771, Speed: 2.02, 87 SAC, 282.29 DPS
Now which pistol is the better weapon? They both have the same damage range, so any attacks that land will do the same damage. The difference between them is 0.18 speed (less than two-tenths of a second) and 21 SAC. To me, the second weapon is the better one.
What this illustrated to meis that DPS is a very misleading way of judging a weapon's quality. Weapons with dramatically different DPS values can still have the same damage range, with only a few tenths of second difference in speed. Does the system even register fractions of a second in combat? And even if it does, how important is having a weapon that is 0.18 seconds faster, especially after you factor in your speed skill modifiers? Especially when you have a weapon with a SAC that is 21 points lower.
Maybe someone who is really into the combat aspects of SWG (rather than just a dabbler like me 
) can provide some additional insight. But it seems to me that having a weapon with 21 lower SAC would be more important than being a few tenths-of-a-second faster.
) can provide some additional insight. But it seems to me that having a weapon with 21 lower SAC would be more important than being a few tenths-of-a-second faster.Others have mentioned the diminishing returns from experimenting in the speed and damage lines. The following information, though, really emphasizes just how dramaticly the returns diminish.
On the high DPS weapon, I maxed out speed and put my remaining points into SAC for the subcomponents (with amazing successes). The results were about 41 max damage, -1.9X speed and 0 SAC (for the barrel and power handler).
On the 'low' SAC weapon, I put 8 points into efficiency until I got an Amazing success. This brought it to -8 SAC. Then I put the remaining four points into speed until I got an Amazing success, brining speed to -1.2X. Max damage was still 41. Again, this was for both the barrels and the power handlers.
On the final combine for the high DPS pistol, I max out damage (or come very close to maxing it out) and then put the remaining points into speed. Again, I would keep trying until I got all, or almost all, amazing successes.
On the final combine for the low SAC pistol, I maxed out damage (or very close to maxing it out--making attempts until I got an amazing success), then I put one point into Efficiency (to bring SAC down from 91 to 87) and the remaining three points into speed.
The total speed difference (count barrels and power handlers) is -1.4(ish). But in the final outcome of the weapon the speed difference was only 0.18. For SAC, however, the difference in the components is -16 SAC, but in the final combine the difference was initially 17 (not counting the one experimentation point I put into SAC on the final combine).
This shows that while speed and damage may have diminishing returns, SAC experimentation does not have diminishing returns. It also shows that there may be hidden fractions in the SAC cost (so my components might actually have been -8.5 though they only showed -8 SAC).
I haven't had a chance to put any of the new weapons on my vendor yet, so I have no idea how well they will sell. Though imo the new version is superior, I have a feeling that most of my customers will only look at DPS and conclude the new versions are junk. Never-the-less, I think I'm going to change the way I make weapons post CU.
In order to help educate my customers,instead of putting DPS/SAC into the weapon's name, I'm going to put the hard damage and speed numbers (and SAC). Hopefully this will encourage them to make direct comparisons, instead of just looking at the misleading DPS stats.
Hope you find this information as enlightening as I did. If you have any additional obersvations, insights or suggestions, I would like to hear them.
Slim Vargo, Corbantis
Vade_WS
Fri May 20, 2005 10:32 am
#2
Great post. You are definitely right that DPS is a misleading characteristic for a weapon.
The whole DPS vs SAC debate seems to be a little misguided IMO. The relevant stats depend entirely on a character's play style. People need to know how they play so that they know which stats are relevant to them.
One thing that should be clearly stated about DPS is that it is not directly used to calculate damage dealt during combat. Damage dealt is based on speed, min-max damage, accuracy, special multipliers, and the opponent's defense mods. These will all adjust how much damage is done per second during combat.
In the pre-CU days, people had ways of calculating what their DPS was and it seems the devs thought it was a good idea to make this information more readily visible. After all, there was confusion as to whether or not a scythe or a power hammer was better for a master swordsman.
In a way, it is unfortunate that the dev's made this stat visible. It is too confusing to too many people.
The whole DPS vs SAC debate seems to be a little misguided IMO. The relevant stats depend entirely on a character's play style. People need to know how they play so that they know which stats are relevant to them.
One thing that should be clearly stated about DPS is that it is not directly used to calculate damage dealt during combat. Damage dealt is based on speed, min-max damage, accuracy, special multipliers, and the opponent's defense mods. These will all adjust how much damage is done per second during combat.
In the pre-CU days, people had ways of calculating what their DPS was and it seems the devs thought it was a good idea to make this information more readily visible. After all, there was confusion as to whether or not a scythe or a power hammer was better for a master swordsman.
In a way, it is unfortunate that the dev's made this stat visible. It is too confusing to too many people.
Accamim
Fri May 20, 2005 10:59 am
#4
I've been probing my server forum for this same info. DPS is all customers care about. Personally, I think it's because everyone is spoiled by the pre-CU component or converted weapons that have unobtainable SAC costs with the DPS they have using post -CU stuff.
Amizar
Fri May 20, 2005 1:54 pm
#5
Excellent discussion so far. Going to add some more to it...
Find two typical "good" powerups.
The first one should add to damage and subtract from speed.
The second one should decrease action cost and subtract from accuracy.
Try to find pups where the negative effect is minimized or nearly negated altogether, so the speed and accuracy are barely affected.
Put the damage one on the lower action cost/lower DPS weapon.
Put the action cost one on the higher DPS/higher action cost weapon.
Now compare them.
Depending on the pups, either of the weapons may become more desirable.
I'm still waiting to see good empirical data about weapons that have had several DPS/AC combinations made and used in different situations.
I.E. Make DL44XT pistols with combinations of something like:
1) SAC65/DPS250
2) SAC75/DPS265
3) SAC85/DPS280
4) SAC95/DPS295
With damage getting more and more of the experimentation points in each build. Then put these guns in the hands of a master pistoleer and have him (or her) fight opponents that can take a ton of damage so as to be able to record a series of timestamps with each weapon and each special and note if the action bar ever drained completely. And then add powerups into the mix to see their affect. And then food/spice/buffs.
It really is quite the endeavour. But I think you'll discover that different flavors of weapon may be useful to different people. So high DPS or low SAC could both be totally viable depending on who is using it and what else they do to help themselves in combat.
Find two typical "good" powerups.
The first one should add to damage and subtract from speed.
The second one should decrease action cost and subtract from accuracy.
Try to find pups where the negative effect is minimized or nearly negated altogether, so the speed and accuracy are barely affected.
Put the damage one on the lower action cost/lower DPS weapon.
Put the action cost one on the higher DPS/higher action cost weapon.
Now compare them.
Depending on the pups, either of the weapons may become more desirable.
I'm still waiting to see good empirical data about weapons that have had several DPS/AC combinations made and used in different situations.
I.E. Make DL44XT pistols with combinations of something like:
1) SAC65/DPS250
2) SAC75/DPS265
3) SAC85/DPS280
4) SAC95/DPS295
With damage getting more and more of the experimentation points in each build. Then put these guns in the hands of a master pistoleer and have him (or her) fight opponents that can take a ton of damage so as to be able to record a series of timestamps with each weapon and each special and note if the action bar ever drained completely. And then add powerups into the mix to see their affect. And then food/spice/buffs.
It really is quite the endeavour. But I think you'll discover that different flavors of weapon may be useful to different people. So high DPS or low SAC could both be totally viable depending on who is using it and what else they do to help themselves in combat.
EdOWar
Fri May 20, 2005 2:08 pm
#6
Amizar wrote:
Excellent discussion so far. Going to add some more to it...
Find two typical "good" powerups.
The first one should add to damage and subtract from speed.
The second one should decrease action cost and subtract from accuracy.
Try to find pups where the negative effect is minimized or nearly negated altogether, so the speed and accuracy are barely affected.
Put the damage one on the lower action cost/lower DPS weapon.
Put the action cost one on the higher DPS/higher action cost weapon.
Now compare them.
Depending on the pups, either of the weapons may become more desirable.
I'm still waiting to see good empirical data about weapons that have had several DPS/AC combinations made and used in different situations.
I.E. Make DL44XT pistols with combinations of something like:
1) SAC65/DPS250
2) SAC75/DPS265
3) SAC85/DPS280
4) SAC95/DPS295
With damage getting more and more of the experimentation points in each build. Then put these guns in the hands of a master pistoleer and have him (or her) fight opponents that can take a ton of damage so as to be able to record a series of timestamps with each weapon and each special and note if the action bar ever drained completely. And then add powerups into the mix to see their affect. And then food/spice/buffs.
It really is quite the endeavour. But I think you'll discover that different flavors of weapon may be useful to different people. So high DPS or low SAC could both be totally viable depending on who is using it and what else they do to help themselves in combat.
I think the results of such a thorough test would be very interesting. However, I'm not the one to do it. I just don't have the patience for it. However, the power-up test should be easy enough to do. I'll give that a try tonight and see how they look.
My initial premise was that I would have two lines of weapons: one high DPS, another low SAC. But after doing a little testing on the crafting end, and comparing the hard stats, it appears that the high DPS weapon doesn't do more damage per hit, and is only minimally faster (by fractions of a second). Yet DPS is dramatically different, and SAC is dramatically lower on the second weapon.
This leads me to conclude that there's no point in make high DPS/low SAC variants. The 'low' SAC version appears to be superior (to me at least). The only reason I can think of for making high DPS weapons now is simply for marketing purposes...because high DPS looks sexy and most of our customers have been condition since the dawn of role-playing games to get the weapon that appears to do the most damage. But personally I'd rather make the better weapon, if you catch my meaning.
Slim Vargo, Corbantis
Message Edited by EdOWar on 05-20-2005 02:13 PM
RelicOMO
Fri May 20, 2005 2:12 pm
#7
Something else worth considering is that DPS is improved by a slice, whether it be speed or damage. SAC is not. And slices improve a weapon by more the further it is from a DPS cap.
As far as I'm concerned, the only weapon worth using is low SAC.
Muzz
Fri May 20, 2005 2:32 pm
#8
There is an argument for vendor stocking differently experimented weapons, but this can use alot of vendor space and can also be very time consuming. What I have found since CU is that players will buy 'standard' vendor weapons (best DPS they can find) and, after they've finished respeccing come back and ask for a custom craft. I have let alot of my customers know that they might want to carry two or more weapons of the same type, one the generic highest Base DPS you can get for everyday use, others custom craftedfor different situations.
Base DPS isn't the be all and end all, but I think that at the moment for the mass produced vendor weapons it's still the best guide. Low SAC is very nice, but there are situations where the duration of the combat means that SAC doesn't really play a part.
edit.. To begin with I did vendor two types of weapons, one higher Base DPS and another version with lower SAC. Guess which sold by far the quickest? Until that changes I personally will mass produce the high Base DPS weapons and make low SAC ones on a custom basis.
Message Edited by Muzz on 05-20-2005 10:35 PM
Amizar
Fri May 20, 2005 2:40 pm
#9
But the slicing of a weapon with few pts put into damage/speed still doesn't have a high enough % to match the stats of a weapon that did have pts put into damage/speed, though it does get closer to it for sure.
Example:
Gun 1: Spd 2.0, Dam 400-800, SAC 80
Gun 2: Spd 1.8, Dam 600-1000, SAC 120
Gun 1 might get a 10% slice, and gun 2 might get a 2% slice. We'll assume damage just to keep things easier to compare.
Sliced stats...
Gun 1: Spd 2.0, Dam 440-880, SAC 80
Gun 2: Spd 1.8, Dam 612-1020, SAC 120
The 2nd gun will still have a lot more bang with each hit, albeit at a very high action cost penalty.
Now let's pop a 20% damage pup on gun number 1 and a 20% action cost pup on gun 2...
Gun 1: Spd 2.05, Dam 528-1056, SAC 80
Gun 2: Spd 1.8, Dam 612-1020, SAC 96
The base DPS on gun 1 is now 386.34 and the base DPS on gun 2 is 453.33 and the difference in action cost is 16.
Who's to say that an SAC of 96 when coupled with spice/foods/buffs isn't good enough for somebody who spams specials all the time? What if their combats only usually last 30 seconds and they don't have much chance to drain their action bar? What if that extra damage is also causing the combat to last a shorter period of time than if they used a weaker weapon with a better SAC, thereby reinforcing the cycle of less action cost used?
These are the kinds of questions I'd like to try and answer. These numbers are fabricated. But they do show a level of flexibility such that you have several variables coming into play that could determine if one type of weapon is better than another for a given individual.
Example:
Gun 1: Spd 2.0, Dam 400-800, SAC 80
Gun 2: Spd 1.8, Dam 600-1000, SAC 120
Gun 1 might get a 10% slice, and gun 2 might get a 2% slice. We'll assume damage just to keep things easier to compare.
Sliced stats...
Gun 1: Spd 2.0, Dam 440-880, SAC 80
Gun 2: Spd 1.8, Dam 612-1020, SAC 120
The 2nd gun will still have a lot more bang with each hit, albeit at a very high action cost penalty.
Now let's pop a 20% damage pup on gun number 1 and a 20% action cost pup on gun 2...
Gun 1: Spd 2.05, Dam 528-1056, SAC 80
Gun 2: Spd 1.8, Dam 612-1020, SAC 96
The base DPS on gun 1 is now 386.34 and the base DPS on gun 2 is 453.33 and the difference in action cost is 16.
Who's to say that an SAC of 96 when coupled with spice/foods/buffs isn't good enough for somebody who spams specials all the time? What if their combats only usually last 30 seconds and they don't have much chance to drain their action bar? What if that extra damage is also causing the combat to last a shorter period of time than if they used a weaker weapon with a better SAC, thereby reinforcing the cycle of less action cost used?
These are the kinds of questions I'd like to try and answer. These numbers are fabricated. But they do show a level of flexibility such that you have several variables coming into play that could determine if one type of weapon is better than another for a given individual.
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