Mysteriously decreasing Avoidance

[Edowen]

I have been watching my monk's avoidance decline even though she has not been changing her gear and it has not been going gray.  It has been noticable as she worked her way through level 53.  It would go down, bit by bit, a fraction of a percent at a time.  I figured that maybe the devs were tweaking things.  However, last night Irgul dinged 54 and her avoidance went down by 2.5% all at once.  There was no patch to blame it on.  The lowest level gear she is wearing is level 40 - there is no tailor or woodworker on the server who can give her the upgrades she needs (yet). What is going on here?  It seems broken.  As someone levels up that should not make their avoidance go down.  At the very least it should remain the same.  There are even reasons to argue that it should increase. Are other people seeing this happen to them? Can SoE shed any light on this please? Edowen <div></div>

[Grimsore]

I've noticed some complaints of this on the live server too. Sounds a lot like casters damage going down as they level. Perhaps it is a result of the agility cap based on your level. As you level, and don't increase your agility, you fall farther and farther behind the cap.Either way, it shouldn't happen.

[goboy]

<P>Probaby for exactly the same reason that when you level, your spell damage goes down unless you increase your intelligence by 7 points.</P> <P>It looks like the capped all spells and abilities based on your maximum impacting stat.  As you increase in levels, you need to also increase your stats to maintain the status quo.</P> <P> </P>

[bcbroom]

<P>also, avoidance is based on equal level oponents. The way you were at 53 avoids less dmg vs 54 oponents, but you dont see this in the ui. Now that you are 54, you see that you are not as effective against tougher opponents. (paraphrase of a Moorguard post a little while back).</P> <P>I'd also suspect the skill cap is doing something there, also.</P>

[Moorgard]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> bcbroom wrote:<BR> <P>also, avoidance is based on equal level oponents. The way you were at 53 avoids less dmg vs 54 oponents, but you dont see this in the ui. Now that you are 54, you see that you are not as effective against tougher opponents. (paraphrase of a Moorguard post a little while back).</P> <P>I'd also suspect the skill cap is doing something there, also.<BR> <HR> <P></P></BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>Correct. If you are level 50 in level 50 gear and look at your avoidance, that percentage is based on a generic level 50 opponent. You can't see what that number would be against a level 53 opponent, though as you can imagine it would be a bit lower.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>When you get to level 53, the number you see is based on a generic level 53 foe. If your gear hasn't changed at all (still level 50), it doesn't provide as much protection against the level 53 opponent, hence the lower number. It hasn't gotten worse; in fact, you're avoiding better against the level 53 than you were at level 50, though the UI doesn't tell you that. You're also avoiding better against the level 50, though the UI doesn't tell you that either.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Adding a constant avoidance value that isn't percentage based (like we have with mitigation) would ease confusion a bit, but the underlying mechanic remains the same. Keep in mind that mitigation and avoidance numbers are all relative anyway, because they only illustrate numbers for a theoretical battle rather than something that applies to every situation you are actually in.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Many games do something similar to this, though they don't show you the real numbers. For example, having 1000 AC at level 20 in EQ is going to mean something different for your character than having 1000 AC at level 30 or level 40.</DIV>

[Edowen]

Thanks for the explanation.  Indeed, perhaps there should be an absolute number somewhere in the UI, so there is a constant and consistant reference point that players can use to track their toon's growth and how it compares with others. Edowen <div></div>

[Grimsore]

This however brings back the question of, how do you tell what piece of armor is a better choice.Very simplified example,Clothe Robe, Level 48 with 80 Mitigation and no statsClothe Robe, Level 47 with 90 Mitigation and no stats*Both legendaryNow, your level 50 and the Ui doesn't show a change in avoidance with either robe, HOWEVER, your saying there is a change because one gives your set avoidance vs. level 47 and the other gives your set avoidance vs. 48. While you might lean to the higher-level item, the mitigation of the item is worse and so you don't know which is really better.I still don't really understand how exactly the level of an item affects it. Seems fighting mobs would be easier if level of item didn’t come into play, only level of character. This is what I think you did with spells, removed the importance of level and let the importance lie in how much better it was than the lower level one. Could you not do the same with armor? Remove the importance of the level and simply let the stats of the item dictate its worth. Armor, and even weapons would simply have a minimum level to use, which had no other importance except to keep lower level characters from using high stat/ratio weapons.I think that would simplify the weapon, armor system as it did the spells.