Combat mechanics, no thread at all?

[Litlbigman]

As an EQ2 geek, I'm often interested in knowing a lot more about how combat mechanics work. I spotted a useful thread on that subject about a year ago, which compiled the formulas and gave detailed information about things like avoidance, stat caps, the difference btw. parry and riposte etc.

Does anyone know what became of it?

If it's been suppressed, I'd like to encourage its reopening. Agreed, the formulas and stats are regularly changed and depend on developers for accurate descriptions, nonetheless it would be nice to have a reference thread to check things out.

[Lempo]

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=481258

http://eq2wire.com/2010/06/17/comba...sion-laid-bare/

This is not the post that Atan is referencing, but it may give you some insight to questions you are looking for.

I think the data on eq2wire is just the same data in a more attractive format.

[Luhai]

Absolutely. People get confused a lot on the differences between spells and abilities, recovery and reuse, soft and hard caps etc.I even started compiling a list of the known combat mechanics and caps due to that.

Unfortunately SOE have the habit to change combat related things without announcing them as it was done with GU63.

[Katz]

Unfortunately, a lot has changed since that post.  It would be great to have an updated version if anyone is around that can do one.

[Piestro]

Katz wrote:

Unfortunately, a lot has changed since that post.  It would be great to have an updated version if anyone is around that can do one.

That really highlights part of the reason this is difficult.

1. Maintaining a current posting is hard, because everything is always changing on an MMO. It is the nature of the beast.
2. Making sure the information is in a clearly comprehensible format is a huge challenge. When you get into very complex mechanics, some of which may use non-linear data, it's hard to understand. It's likely this sort of information expressed in detail will lead people to less understanding rather than more.
3. Finally, even if you manage to surmount the first two difficulties, the last (that I will list) challenge is time. Do you want people posting and maintaining detailed lists of complex information or do you want them working on adjusting the data itself?

Thanks,

[Juravael]

I'd like to see an update to Xelgad's original post from back in 2010 ( http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=481258&nbsp. I've kept it bookmarked and our guild has gone there from time to time to use to help answer questions for new players that join our guild and have questions about the game mechanics.

[alaplayer]

Piestro wrote:

Katz wrote:

Unfortunately, a lot has changed since that post.  It would be great to have an updated version if anyone is around that can do one.

That really highlights part of the reason this is difficult.

1. Maintaining a current posting is hard, because everything is always changing on an MMO. It is the nature of the beast.
2. Making sure the information is in a clearly comprehensible format is a huge challenge. When you get into very complex mechanics, some of which may use non-linear data, it's hard to understand. It's likely this sort of information expressed in detail will lead people to less understanding rather than more.
3. Finally, even if you manage to surmount the first two difficulties, the last (that I will list) challenge is time. Do you want people posting and maintaining detailed lists of complex information or do you want them working on adjusting the data itself?

Thanks,

1. So because it isn't easy to do we just don't do it? Seriously this is a cop-out. A current list maintained and updated as changes are made wouldn't be that hard to do. Ninja changes made by people who do not have enough of an understanding of the mechanics as they are made with no notes might make this hard, but if things are done in a proper manner and a change list is posted, someone, somehwere in the community would keep something up to date.

2. WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. Some people do not understand Physics, some do not understand Chemistry both are complex. It is just easier to do what you stated as #1.

3. We have wanted things to be adjusted for a year now. Can you come to us with a straight face and say that any real effort has been put into the issues with itemization in Drunder? Now that it is pretty much too late for that, as it was 'taken care of' with an almost complete invalidation of all the gear from the last expansion which apparently they want to force us to continue using because shards do not come from SkyShrine. Honestly the itemization is Skyshrine is not in a good state itself, HM drops worse than EM, HM dropping EM items, quest rewards for doing almost nothing giving gear better than the raid drops that it gave access to.

We were promised changes to the Dozekar rewards would be incoming on the 5th or 6th, we shall see. They are certainly not on test at the moment, so they are either going to be put on test at 5PM today and go live tomorrow, with no time or consideration for player feedback or they will go to test and we might see them Thursday, or it might just turn into vapor, time will tell.

[Luhai]

Piestro wrote:

Katz wrote:

Unfortunately, a lot has changed since that post.  It would be great to have an updated version if anyone is around that can do one.

That really highlights part of the reason this is difficult.

1. Maintaining a current posting is hard, because everything is always changing on an MMO. It is the nature of the beast.
2. Making sure the information is in a clearly comprehensible format is a huge challenge. When you get into very complex mechanics, some of which may use non-linear data, it's hard to understand. It's likely this sort of information expressed in detail will lead people to less understanding rather than more.
3. Finally, even if you manage to surmount the first two difficulties, the last (that I will list) challenge is time. Do you want people posting and maintaining detailed lists of complex information or do you want them working on adjusting the data itself?

Thanks,

Sorry, but I don't buy that. Combat mechanics and changes need to be documented anyway, otherwise you'd end up with a huge pile of messy code that noone would be able to understand after a few months.

And it's not exactly rocket science to put this information into a readable format, see the link with Xelgad's outdated post.

[Ulrichvon]

Basically the answer is 'its too hard'.

So, I have to ask, if its too hard for the people with the facts to communicate it, how hard exactly is it for players to understand them in a vacuum?

[resiler]

Well, I know my recent topic about strikethrough being broken or incorrectly/incompletely described hasn't produced any response from a red name who could at least say one way or another if it has known issues being looked at or we (players) don't understand it properly, so here's what it really means.

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=518056

Really, if I'm can get blocked in Research Halls with 100% strikethrough, I don't understand the stat or it's not working right.  Until I know, it's pretty much "optimizing into the wind" (?)

[Ulrichvon]

The game is far less 'buggy' if there is no clear statement on how its supposed to work?

[feldon30]

Piestro wrote:

Katz wrote:

Unfortunately, a lot has changed since that post.  It would be great to have an updated version if anyone is around that can do one.

That really highlights part of the reason this is difficult.

1. Maintaining a current posting is hard, because everything is always changing on an MMO. It is the nature of the beast.
2. Making sure the information is in a clearly comprehensible format is a huge challenge. When you get into very complex mechanics, some of which may use non-linear data, it's hard to understand. It's likely this sort of information expressed in detail will lead people to less understanding rather than more.
3. Finally, even if you manage to surmount the first two difficulties, the last (that I will list) challenge is time. Do you want people posting and maintaining detailed lists of complex information or do you want them working on adjusting the data itself?

Thanks,

I think out of a 6 or 12 month expansion cycle, 2-3 hours spent writing up notes about the current game mechanics is a good time investment.

The bullet point notes could then be polished up by a CM or GM. And then we would know what the stats on an item are supposed to actually do, instead of having to guess and make up our own Excel spreadsheets. It would also help with more focused bug reports and less confusion on the part of the playerbase.

Or work with a fan site.

[Neiloch]

Luhai wrote:

Sorry, but I don't buy that. Combat mechanics and changes need to be documented anyway, otherwise you'd end up with a huge pile of messy code that noone would be able to understand after a few months.

Exactly. Either the job is being done properly and all mechanics are documented some where. I'm sure more than a few people would be able to read it and 'translate' it for others to clearly read and understand.

That or people there aren't doing their job properly and there isn't a document clearly listing how all stats function and to do this someone would have to 'compile' some list just for this.

[Katz]

Piestro wrote:

Katz wrote:

Unfortunately, a lot has changed since that post.  It would be great to have an updated version if anyone is around that can do one.

That really highlights part of the reason this is difficult.

1. Maintaining a current posting is hard, because everything is always changing on an MMO. It is the nature of the beast.
2. Making sure the information is in a clearly comprehensible format is a huge challenge. When you get into very complex mechanics, some of which may use non-linear data, it's hard to understand. It's likely this sort of information expressed in detail will lead people to less understanding rather than more.
3. Finally, even if you manage to surmount the first two difficulties, the last (that I will list) challenge is time. Do you want people posting and maintaining detailed lists of complex information or do you want them working on adjusting the data itself?

Thanks,

You already have a post to start with from Xelgad.  Just update what has changed.  Work with fan sites on it, whatever you have to do. 

Communication is important.  

[Daalilama]

Piestro wrote:

Katz wrote:

Unfortunately, a lot has changed since that post.  It would be great to have an updated version if anyone is around that can do one.

That really highlights part of the reason this is difficult.

1. Maintaining a current posting is hard, because everything is always changing on an MMO. It is the nature of the beast.
2. Making sure the information is in a clearly comprehensible format is a huge challenge. When you get into very complex mechanics, some of which may use non-linear data, it's hard to understand. It's likely this sort of information expressed in detail will lead people to less understanding rather than more.
3. Finally, even if you manage to surmount the first two difficulties, the last (that I will list) challenge is time. Do you want people posting and maintaining detailed lists of complex information or do you want them working on adjusting the data itself?

Thanks,

Come on guys I have to agree with Piestro...the work is hard especially when the devs are spending current developement time on such ground breaking earth shattering important game updates like Dungeon Finder/Maker and the new SOEMote program....little things like a complete and updated rundown of game mechanics let alone fixing broken game mechanics, outstanding class issues, etc. are the little things and as we all know SOE never worries bout the little things.../sarcasim off.

[Lemilla]

Took Xelgad's post (the one linked earlier in this thread) and took 10 minutes to update it to what should be up to date for current mechanics.

---

The intention of this post is to explain some of EverQuest II's combat mechanics. We'll be trying to keep this post updated with changes and responding to some of the questions posted in the feedback thread.

Attributes

"Which stat does my class need?"

• Each archtype has a primary stat. All Fighters use Strength, all Scouts use Agility, all Priests use Wisdom and all Mages use Intelligence. The primary stat increases damage and max power.
• Stamina increases maximum health (and helps with outright resists in PVP Combat.)

"Do my attributes cap?"

• No. Your primary stat is not capped. You will see less gain on your damage as you increase your stat, though. At about 1200 of your primary stat, you will have all of your damage abilities increased by about 60% over having 0 in your primary stat. After 1200, a ~30% increase to your stat will gain ~10% damage boost. 

Resistances and Mitigation

"What types of resistances are there?"

• Elemental: Reduces damage from Heat and Cold attacks
• Arcane: Reduces damage from Divine, Mental and Magic attacks
• Noxious: Reduces damage from Poison and Disease attacks
• Physical: Reduces damage from Crushing, Slashing and Piercing attacks

"What is the mitigation cap?"

• All mitigations cap at 75% damage reduction. The amount reduced is contested against the target's level. For example, a level 92 player will need a decent amount more mitigation than what displays as 75% in their persona window to "cap" against a level 100 raid boss.
• Certain high end monsters have abilities that require additional resistances to mitigate.

Avoidance

"How can I avoid attacks?"

• Block (Non-Brawlers): A Block is based on the player's shield. The higher the protection rating, the higher chance to block. All block that is used by a non-Brawler class is uncontested, meaning it is a straight percentage chance to avoid an incoming attack.
• Block (Brawlers): Brawlers have two types of Block. Contested block which is based on their Deflection Skill and level difference and Uncontested Block which is based off of their "Minimum Deflection Chance."
• Parry: A parry is generally a contested roll based on the defender's parry skill and level compared against the attacker's weapon skill and level.
• Riposte: There is a chance that any Parry will turn into a Riposte. A Riposte is a parry that also deals damage to the attacker. The base chance for a Parry to convert to a Riposte is 20%.
• Dodge: A dodge is generally a contested roll based on the defender's defense skill and level compared against the attacker's weapon skill and level.

"What is the difference between 'contested' and 'uncontested' avoidance?"

• Contested avoidance is avoidance that takes the defender's skills and compares them against the target's offensive skills and level difference and creates the avoidance chance based off of those factors.
• Uncontested avoidance is avoidance that is a straight percentage chance to avoid an attack regardless of the target's offensive skills or level.

"What types of 'Uncontested Avoidance' can I get?"

• Most uncontested avoidance comes from the following Blue Stats:
• Dodge Chance: This is an uncontested chance to cause the target to miss.
• Parry Chance: This is an uncontested chance to parry the target's attack.
• Riposte Chance: This is an uncontested chance to riposte the target's attack. This is not to be confused with "Additional Riposte Chance."
• Block Chance: Block Chance increases the chance to block with a shield or a brawler's chance to block attacks. A Guardian with a Shield that reads 20% chance to block in their persona window before modifications who gains 10% "Block Chance" will now have a 22% chance to block.
• Minimum Deflection Chance: This is a Brawler's "Shield." This grants an uncontested chance to block attacks.

"Can Uncontested Avoidance fail to avoid an attack?"

• The blue stat "Strikethrough" is a percentage based chance to attack through any Parry, Block or Riposte.
• Certain melee attacks cannot be avoided even if the avoidance is uncontested.

Combat Skills

"What is the cap for melee/ranged combat skills?"

• There is no hard cap for Crushing, Slashing, Piercing or Ranged. These skills are contested against the target's defense and parry. The attacker needs 100 more points in their skill than the defender has in their opposing skill to receive the max amount of accuracy or avoidance based on combat skills. A Ranger would need 600 Ranged Skill to receive max benefit against a target with 500 Defense.
• Combat skills also improve the minimum damage of your autoattacks and combat arts when improved above 5 times your level.

"What do my casting skills do?"

• Disruption, Ordination and Subjugation reduce the chance that your spell based on that skill will be resisted. Disruption also increases the minimum damage of all disruption based spells.
• Ministration reduces the power cost of all Ministration based skills and increases the minium heal amount of ministration based spells.
• Aggression reduces the resistability of your taunts. It also increases the amount of your taunts.

[Lemilla]

Blue Stats

"What are the Blue Stats I'll see on my items and what do they do?"

• Accuracy: Accuracy increases your chance to hit the target when you normally would have missed. It does not help you against parries, blocks or ripostes.
• Additional Riposte Chance: Additional Riposte Chance raises the percentage that your parries will become ripostes.
• AE Autoattack Chance: AE Autoattack chance raises the chance to strike up to three additional targets within melee range of your target with your primary melee or ranged weapon.
• Ammo Conservation: Ammo Conservation raises a chance for a ranged attack to not consume ammo.
• Mitigation Increase: Mitigation Increase increases the amount of mitigation your armor grants.
• Attack Speed: Attack Speed increases your rate of Auto-Attack. This is on a curve and caps at 200. The actual increase at 200 is 125%. When improved above the cap, flurry is improved instead.
• Potency: Potency increases the amounts of all abilities. Potency does not affect Auto-Attack. This does not cap.
• Block Chance: Block Chance increases your chance to block by a percentage. A Guardian with a shield that blocks 20% of the time who gains 10% Block Chance will block 22% of the time.
• Crit Bonus: Crit Bonus increases the amount of all of your critical hits. This affects Auto-Attack and Abilities. This does not have a cap.
• Crit Chance: Crit Chance increases your chance to criticall hit or heal.
• Extra Dodge Chance: Extra Dodge Chance grants an uncontested chance to dodge incoming attacks.
• Double Attack Chance: Double Attack Chance raises your chance to auto-attack twice. This applies to both melee and ranged attacks but does not apply to any abilities or spells. This has a soft cap at 600 where it gives 6 extra attacks. After 600 it is on a curve with no hard cap.
• Damage Per Second: Damage Per Second increases how hard your Auto-Attacks hit. This is on a curve and has no cap. The actual increase at 200 is 125%.
• Flurry: Flurry grants you an additional chance to strike up to four times. The Flurry stops if you would have missed an attack. Flurry only works on the primary melee weapon and does not conflict with Double Attack.
• Hate Gain: Hate Gain reduces or increases your threat generation by a percentage. This caps at 100% positive or 50% negative.
• Melee Damage Multiplier: Melee Damage Multiplier increases your Auto-Attack damage.
• Weapon Damage Bonus: Weapon Damage Bonus increases your auto-attack damage.
• Melee Weapon Range: Melee Weapon Range increases the distance of Melee Combat Arts and Auto-Attack. This caps at 100%. The base range for Melee Combat Arts and Auto-Attack is 5 meters.
• Minimum Deflection Chance: Minimum Deflection Chance is the minimum chance for a brawler to block an attack. It is basically the brawler's shield.
• Extra Parry Chance: Parry Chance is an uncontested chance to parry an incoming attack.
• Toughness: Toughness reduces incoming damage in PvP Combat. It also reduces critical damage in PvP Combat.
• Ranged Weapon Range: Ranged Weapon Range increases the distance of Ranged Combat Arts and Auto-Attack.
• Extra Riposte Chance: Riposte Chance is an uncontested chance to riposte an incoming attack.
• Riposte Damage: Riposte Damage increases the amount of damage delt by ripostes.
• Spell Double Attack Chance: Spell Double Attack Chance grants a chance for damage spells to apply their initial damage twice.
• Ability Casting Speed: Ability Casting Speed reduces the cast times of all abilities. Abilities cannot be reduced to less than half of their base casting speed. Cast speed above 100% increases Spell Double Attack Chance.
• Ability Recovery Speed: Ability Recovery Speed reduces the delay between using abilities. Abilities cannot be reduced to less than half of their base recovery speed.
• Ability Reuse Speed: Ability Reuse Speed reduces the recast time of abilities. Abilities cannot be reduced to less than half of their base reuse speed.
• Spell Reuse Speed: Spell Reuse Speed works the same was as Ability Reuse Speed but only works on the "Spells" section of your knowledge book.
• Strikethrough: Strikethrough grants a percentage based chance to ignore the target's riposte, parry or block.
• Unconscious Health: Unconscious Health increases the amount of health you have while unconscious - when your health pool is purple.
• Ability Modifier: Ability Modifier increases the amounts of all abilities. It caps at 50% of the base amount (factoring in Potency) of the ability.
• Spell Weapon Double Attack Chance: Spell Weapon Double Attack Chance raises your chance to auto-attack twice when using a wand. This applies to ranged attacks but does not apply to any abilities or spells. This has a soft cap at 600 where it gives 6 extra attacks. After 600 it is on a curve with no hard cap.
• Spell Weapon AE Autoattack Chance: Spell Weapon AE Autoattack chance raises the chance to strike up to three targets within melee range of your target when attack with a wand.
• Spell Weapon Damage Per Second: Spell Weapon Damage Per Second increases how hard your Auto-Attacks with a wand hit. This is on a curve and has no cap. The actual increase at 200 is 125%.
• Spell Weapon Attack Speed: Spell Weapon Attack Speed increases your rate of Auto-Attack when attacking with  wand. This is on a curve and caps at 200. The actual increase at 200 is 125%.

Questions and Answers

"Do Crits and Potency affect items and procs?"

• No. Criticals and Potency should not affect item procs.

"How do crit bonus and potency work together?"

• They stack. Potency is applied first.

"Does damage reduction have a cap?"

• 100%

"What does it mean when an effect says 'Harder than normal to mitigate'?"

• We have the ability to make an effect harder to mitigate, causing resists to only be (for example) 80% as effective as they would be otherwise. This line means you will need more resists to receive full mitigation.

"What is the cap for Block Chance?"

• The chance to block is capped at 70%, 80% if your target is grey.
• The Blue Stat Block Chance is capped based on the actual block cap stated above.

"Do High-Level monsters reduce the chance for players to hit them, double attack or critically hit?"

• The level difference of a monster versus the player will reduce the player's accuracy.
• Critical and Double Attack are not reduced against a higher level target.

"What are the caps for in-combat power and health regeneration?"

• Power: 138 at 92
• Health: 276 at 92

"Does the level of my armor matter?"

• Yes. Resists and Mitigation is 'worth more' on a higher level item. If an item is level 80 with 500 mitigation, a level 90 item with the same mitigation will provide a bigger damage reduction.

[Ulrichvon]

Your post is missing most of the overflow statistics.

What does more than 200 dps mod do for me?

[Neiloch]

Ulrichvon wrote:

Your post is missing most of the overflow statistics.

What does more than 200 dps mod do for me?

it just continues to increase weapon damage but with diminishing returns. Not sure what the rate is though.

[Ulrichvon]

Neiloch@Butcherblock wrote:

it just continues to increase weapon damage but with diminishing returns. Not sure what the rate is though.

Me either, that was my point =)

I do have a pretty good idea on where haste scales in the overflow to flurry, but dpsmod to weapon damage is harder to wrap your head around.  Considering how easy it is to trade off gear and buffs for either stat, understanding how they work would be very condusive to making better decisions.

[Hennyo]

Lemilla@Permafrost wrote:

Questions and Answers

"Do Crits and Potency affect items and procs?"

• No. Criticals and Potency should not affect item procs.

That is wrong for one, different item procs are effected all sorts of different ways, truly no one should assume absolutely anything about an item proc until it is carefully tested to figure out how it works, and even then it can do something "strange"

Lemilla@Permafrost wrote:

"Does damage reduction have a cap?"

• 100%

This is also completely wrong, the cap is 50 percent not 100.

There are a number of other things that are slightly wrong in your writeup as well, these are just a couple examples.

[Seiffil]

AE auto and Flurry can also occur on the secondary weapon they are not primary weapon only.   This change was made at the same time when AE auto and flurry were made to apply to Ranged auto attacks.

[Lemilla]

Sure, I might have missed a few changes.

@Ulrichvon:DPS mod just has no cap, and with that no overcap benefits. As stated in the post. I could bother to look up how the curve goes, but that is too detailed for a 'simple' list like this. It is intended to give a general overview of what all the things to for newer players, not to give all the details and formula's needed for powergaming. Those interested in that are perfectly capable of figuring out these curves on their own.

@HennyoItem procs should not be affected by potency and crits. Any that do, like superior mending, are bugged. That hasn't changed since the time Xelgad wrote the original post, so I didn't change that.

The damage reduction may indeed be wrong, but was wrong in the original post as well then.

@SeiffilYup, you are rght with that. Anything else I missed? Shouldn't be too hard to get all the details right when a couple players work together, so we can save the dev in charge of mechanics a few minutes of his extremely valueable time.

[Geothe]

overcap stats:http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=503982

I know one difference in this post from Xelgad is MA conversion.  600: 6 extra attacks, and then i think its 1100 for the 7th attack.  I'm not sure if the ratios elsewhere have been adjusted, but it at leasts gives an idea.

As of 7/28, these are the conversion rates for the "overcap" stats:

Parry Skill to Extra Parry Chance:

• +200: 0.5%
• +400: 1%
• +600: 1.5%
• +800: 2%
• +1000: 2.5%

Parry Skill to Extra Riposte Chance:

• +200: 0.5%
• +400: 1%
• +600: 1.5%
• +800: 2%
• +1000: 2.5%

Defense Skill to Extra Dodge Chance:

• +200: 1%
• +400: 2%
• +600: 3%
• +800: 4%
• +1000: 5%

Haste to Flurry:

• 200: 0%
• 300: 1.46%
• 500: 2.87%
• 700: 4.2%
• 900: 5.5%
• 1200: 6.73%

DPS's New Conversion:

• 200: 125%
• 300: 135%
• 500: 145%
• 700: 155%
• 900: 165%
• 1200: 175%

Weapon and Spell Skills Increase to Minimum Damage Amount:

• +100: 2%
• +200: 4%
• +300: 6%
• +400:  8%
• +500: 10%
• +600: 12%
• +700: 14%
• +800: 16%
• +900: 18%
• +1000: 20%

Ability Casting Speed to Doublecast:

• 100: 0%
• 200: 0.75%
• 300: 1.5%
• 400: 2.25%
• 500: 3%

Focus Skill Enabling Casting While Moving:

• +100: 5% Movement Speed
• +200: 10%
• +300: 15%
• +400: 20%
• +500: 25%
• +600: 30%
• +700: 35%
• +800: 40%
• +900: 45%
• +1000: 50%

Multi-Attack:

• 100: 1 Extra Attack
• 200: 2
• 300: 3
• 400: 4
• 500: 5
• 1000: 6
• 1600: 7
• 2300: 8

[Ulrichvon]

Geothe wrote:

Haste to Flurry:

• 200: 0%
• 300: 1.46%
• 500: 2.87%
• 700: 4.2%
• 900: 5.5%
• 1200: 6.73%

Does anyone actually believe this to be accurate (still accurate)?  Playing around with reforging, I'm getting more than 1.46 flurry added at 300 haste...

[Luhai]

I seem to get 1% flurry per 15 Haste over 200.

[Ulrichvon]

Luhai wrote:

I seem to get 1% flurry per 15 Haste over 200.

Yes, this is closer to accurate.

My point is, these old links I don't believe are helpful, if anything they're very misleading.

[ranga]

Piestro wrote:

Katz wrote:

Unfortunately, a lot has changed since that post.  It would be great to have an updated version if anyone is around that can do one.

That really highlights part of the reason this is difficult.

1. Maintaining a current posting is hard, because everything is always changing on an MMO. It is the nature of the beast.
2. Making sure the information is in a clearly comprehensible format is a huge challenge. When you get into very complex mechanics, some of which may use non-linear data, it's hard to understand. It's likely this sort of information expressed in detail will lead people to less understanding rather than more.
3. Finally, even if you manage to surmount the first two difficulties, the last (that I will list) challenge is time. Do you want people posting and maintaining detailed lists of complex information or do you want them working on adjusting the data itself?

Thanks,

Piestro thanks for posting but this really is a cop out.

• How can you expect people to test for you if they don't know what to expect?
• You have to have this data to hand in order to negotiate the develop/test/fix/release cycle.
• It has already been comprehensively covered several times during the lifecycle of EQ2.

The most complex mathematical concept ever thrown at us is 'diminishing returns'. To quote Smoke, we absolutely get that! It's not hard to visualise that as you get higher numbers, the value of any more numbers gets smaller! We understand the difference between contested and uncontested.

If your real question is whether we would like a new cloak on the marketplace next week or an updated mechanics guide then for me, it's unequivocally the latter!!! I would imagine there is not much difference in effort between the two and I totally get that they take different skillsets to achieve.

Just give us the goods please. My reason for asking is because I have been asked to describe some mechanics (mainly resists) to guildies. I don't know how they differ from the numbers put out by Xelgad after SF was released. I don't know how to apply them to lvl 100 mobs. You get the drift so please come back with a 'OK folks, we absolutely get it too' post that includes a link to the updated mechanics that your developers 'already' have well-documented

[Kapath]

If your real question is whether we would like a new cloak on the marketplace next week or an updated mechanics guide then for me, it's unequivocally the latter!!!

^^^^^well said

Piestro I don't think it is asking a lot to give an 'intro' mechanic guide since the last one was made; at least some soft cap numbers would be nice. All the time your gamers have to spend researching these things is more time we could be playing and throwing SC at you!

[Davngr1]

the problem is that if they start posting even simple game mechanics as they have in the past; then posters will begin to ask about complex mechanics that actually do change frequently and are difficult to explain and grasp.    of course a few would totally understand the advanced concepts but the vast majority would simply be even more confused than they were before.

  also as stated here by others the way that some mechanic is suppose to function does not always go along with how it functions on live because of the layers and layers of code that are a part of this 8 year old game.