Judy's Avoidance Studies, 2.0 [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

Sebastien

04-27-2005, 08:00 PM

<div></div>I want to give a HUGE thanks to everyone in Test channel last night (Tues. night) for being so patient with Judy as she tried to gather up some numbers. Particular thanks to Malaclypse for putting in a ton of time to help create an AGI chart, and, as always, anyone who was willing to strip for me. (some of you seemed almost *too* eager...) What we Know First of all, almost every single thing I told you in my last avoidance study is now WRONG. A lot was changed in version 2.0. You can generally expect to see higher avoidance figures. AGI matters again. ARMOR matters now, and in a much more complicated way than it did in the 1.0 ruleset. The formula for base avoidance as a function of Defense doesn't seem to work anymore either.. it scales differently, and generally, seems to scale more aggressively (hence the higher overall base avoidances I was seeing). I will be hard-pressed to come up with specific formulae this time around, as things have gotten a lot more complex, but I can tell you what we learned last night. Avoidance as a function of Defense Avoidance seems to scale more aggressively in 2.0 as your Defense goes up. Remember that, at any given time, the Avoidance information in your Persona window is telling you how you would fair against a same-level opponent. However, if you know how the number scales, you can infer how you would do against opponents of different levels also. Here is some data Level Defense Avoidance 12 61/62 25.9% 12 62/62 26.8% 12 63/63 27.6% 22 112/? 26.1% 23 116/? 25.6% 24 122/122 26.0% 33 167/168 26.0% In all of these cases, the subject was naked, and had AGI low enough (below 50) so that I am confident it was not a factor. At most, they had a 0.1% bonus from AGI. Therefore this series should give an accurate snippet of how Avoidance scales with Defense. In the case of Judy (the level 12 subject), the rule for Defense is easy to see. Judy's base avoidance against a same-level opponent is 25%. She may have been getting a little less than 0.1% from her low AGI, and if so we could infer that she gains 0.8% avoidance per point of Defense. When I look at samples from players of higher levels, though, that rule does not seem to apply. The higher level players, though, appear to gain something closer to 0.5% avoidance per point of Defense. Whether Defense is now on a sliding scale, or whether there are just different rules for very low levels like Judy's, remains unclear. We can roughly say that, for most players in a typical level range, your naked based avoidance will be something close to 25% + (0.5% bonus for each point of Defense you have gained through mini-dings in your level). This is significantly higher than what we had in version 1.0 (20% + 0.2). The Agility Bonus Agility matters again, but it is also on a sliding scale, making exact formulae difficult to determine. From Malaclypse, we have the following naked data. All numbers are from the same character, so what you are seeing is purely a function of AGI. (He is the level 33 player in the first chart) AGI Avoidance 50 26.0% 70 26.1% 75 26.1% 76 26.1% 77 26.2% 78 26.4% 79 26.6% 80 26.8% 83 27.3% 85 27.6% 86 27.7% 87 27.9% 89 28.2% 90 28.3% 93 28.7% As you can see, anything up to 75 AGI is more or less worthless. You will only be gaining a total of perhaps 0.1% Avoidance. Once you are past 80 AGI, though, you will gain about 0.15% Avoidance per point of AGI. This begins to add up pretty quickly. The range between 77 and 80 is odd, in that it is 0.20% avoidance per point, and if anything, this seems to be there to try to smooth the progression a little bit. It makes me think that perhaps the game mechanics use a lookup table, rather than an actual formula, to determine the AGI bonus at any given point. In other words, graphing the Avoidance v. AGI in this range does not look like a curve, but rather a series of straight lines that slope up at different angles depending on what range you are in. I need to find a subject who can get his AGI over 100 to see how the numbers continue to scale at that point. I'm predicting that the slope will level off again at some point. (It should be noted that I do not personally believe the AGI bonus is calculated relative to the level of opponent you are facing, but that is a possibility as well.) The Effects of Armor All I can say here is /boggle! The effects of armor are totally different from what they used to be, and they are extremely unpredictable. Certain pieces of armor can actually provide a *bonus* to avoidance now. And the penalties are not what they once were. So far there has been no rhyme or reason to how the game calculates the armor bonus/penalty. It may be individually coded, and if that is the case, the progression is very buggy indeed. I strongly suggest to SOE that they share with us exactly how this is intended to work, because I see huge inconsistencies that need to be addressed. At first, we considered the possibility that the item's quality determined the avoidance impact (ie, Treasured, Handcrafted, Legendary, etc). This was proven false, as one player with light armor, Treasured gloves received a 0.6% penalty to avoidance for wearing them, and another player with light armor, Treasured gloves received a 0.1% bonus to avoidance for wearing them. Then we considered the possibility that the item's con color determined the avoidance impact (ie, grey, green, blue, white, yellow, etc). This was also proven false in several instances. I receive a 0.4% bonus from a yellow piece of light armor, and the same 0.4% bonus from a green piece of light armor that occupies a "smaller" slot (meaning in the 1.0 rules it should account for less of the total impact). What we can say for sure is that armor type, item slot, and some other combination of factors unknown are used to determine the avoidance penalty/bonus from armor. Quality and item-con *may* be factors. Your level or current avoidance / avoidance cap *may* be factors. I just don't know. What I do know is that the numbers were so wildly inconsistent that SOE needs to either look at them very closely, or else tell us exactly how they should work, because something is wrong right now in this regard.<div></div>Message Edited by Sebastien on 04-27-2005 09:52 AM