Get rid of the damn tohit cap

[Vanden]

5 minutes ago, Razor Cure said:

Yeah..cause EVERY AT should totally be able to kill an AV. Every single build too. Oh no, that grav/bubble troller doesnt have the DPS to kill an AV, despite magically auto hitting with every attack . We better also slap on some extra damage so he can keep up.

Also, trollers have a Mag 4 immob..that works in one single hit. One. So trollers are 'weak' until they 'manage' to land just one high accuracy Immob?

 

This reasoning is utterly stupid.

If a fender can solo an AV, why cant a troller, with the same secondary? Ill/Rad's say Hi!

Even on any other troller or dom, ONE single random miss with a Hold (especially considering how short the time you can hold most AVs for actually IS) is not gonna end a fight. Its when you get hit twice in a row that the problems start. Again, not everything should be able to solo an AV (and why the hell is that some kinda benchmark or justification to your idea? In a team it wont matter, and 99% of people trying to solo an AV will be built to do it).

Psst... I said downgraded AVs, as in EBs, as in, so you can solo them is the entire reason the downgrading happens.

[Indystruck]

Seems an unnecessary adjustment. I'll pass.

[Coyote]

10 hours ago, MoisesG said:

This thread is awesome 😛

 

I didn't think so, until Vanden pulled out the Thread Referees, but then it turned good 😆

[Coyote]

11 hours ago, Vanden said:

But what exactly is the problem with that scenario? Yes, it would let these characters guarantee kills or controls. But that's the whole point of the powers they're using, to kill or control enemies. It's a matter of expecting your abilities to work as advertised.

 

See, I think this is the basis of the argument, and why our arguments seem so incompatible with each other.

I agree that Blaster attacks are meant to kill mobs, of course. And Dominator controls are meant to shut them down. And for both, having +ToHit powers (or lots of set bonuses) make them more accurate so that they are more likely to land. So we're in agreement so far...

... but where we diverge is that I don't see that the powers, or Aim, are advertized as "being capable of becoming auto-hit in some situations". It wasn't like that in Issue 1, and it's not like that now. They've always had a chance to miss, so I don't really them as not working as intended, if there is a small chance to miss.

 

Now, I've said already why I think this is a good thing, so I'm not going to rehash that... this is just to say that "as advertized", to me, does not say that high-accuracy powers, even boosted with +ToHit powers, were ever and in any way advertized as not having any chance to miss in some scenarios. Quite the opposite, the game has always been very open about a minimal possiblity of missing of 5%. The point of the powers is to kill mobs, or mez them... they don't need 100% accuracy to be effective at what they do.

 

Honestly, I always thought that there should be a bonus for having a ToHit higher than 95%... like a small chance of a critical hit or something, with the critical chance based on the excess to-hit, to show that 150% base chance is better than 100% chance. And I would support most methods of achieving this (with the caveat that we have to be careful to not make slotting for Accuracy be effectively a replacement for slotting for Damage)... but while rewarding bonus accuracy makes sense to me, I don't see why it's necessary or implicit in the combat design, to allow attacks to become auto-hit.

[Grindingsucks]

In some cases, it does make sense to me that there would be a 100% chance to hit.  Say, if you have the enemy locked down with a control power and hit them with a melee attack, and there are no other enemies around to distract you from the attack.  But, to be fair, how do you script for something that specific and would it be worth it to take the time to do it?

 

Also, remember that that blade swings both ways.  If you can get to 100% hit capability, some enemies should be able to, as well.

 

The 95% cap seems a good compromise to me.  It's one of the reasons I've come to appreciate the Focused Accuracy power (even though someone once talked me out of taking it, when I was still new to the game.  "Don't do it, man!  It's not worth it!"  Word of advice:  While it's great to take the advice of more experienced players, they don't ALWAYS know what they're talking about.  At the very least, you may find that you enjoy a power that they don't have any use for).  I like Focused Accuracy, because it gets you closer to that 95% and also helps mitigate the effects of stealth.  Just remember to slot a couple of endurance reductions, as it IS a pretty egregious endurance hog.  😛

 

Remember that foes of higher level than your character will cause your base to-hit chance to drop dramatically.  So, if you're running at +1 diff or higher, it's going to impact your chances of landing a hit in a very noticeable way.  This game is somewhat odd, in that the difficulty drops suddenly in groups of characters that hit incarnate, due to extra accuracy/dmg/def/resist buffs and such.  This is also true with regard to hit probability, as once you have incarnate powers slotted, mobs will start to con as one level lower to you than they normally would (mobs +1 lvl higher will be +0, mobs +2 lvls higher will be +1, and so on).  So you will likely be happier once you hit incarnate (assuming you don't already have toons of that level.  If you do, ignore my previous comment, of course).

 

If you have your attack hard-capped, you shouldn't be missing that often, unless the enemy has very high defense + defense debuff, and/or is much higher lvl than you.  If you find yourself getting frustrated, try running at +0 or even -1.  This should go far to ease your frustration, although I suspect, all things being equal, that you may grow bored because you find the game too easy at that point.

 

Solo, I find the sweet spot is about +2 or +3, counting my toon as equal to somewhere between 2 and 4 characters of their level (depending on which AT I'm running).  In group combat, fights simply become somewhat boring and easy if the majority of the 8 members are 50+ lvl, even if the difficulty is set at +4/8.  But if you're having similar struggles in groups at lower levels, simply request to turn the difficulty down (to +0, or whatever).

[Greycat]

Looks like we're just flat out not going to agree on this being unfair or a burden that needs fixing, Vanden. If it were higher (lower?) at even con - say, 10-15%, it'd definitely need looking at. If it did something like the potential "critical miss," or had a chance to be one, sort of like I described earlier (you try, say, a footstomp, it misses and you fall over, or you can't use anything for several seconds,) it'd be - ok, potentially funny, but yeah, it'd need changing.

 

Even with using your definition of what makes this unfair, I just am not sold on it being big enough, frequent enough or having enough of a detrimental effect on the player to warrant changing or removal.

 

Peace.

[tidge]

One of the areas I'd like to test would be removing streakbreaker... or at least set the required number of misses to be something like 100 for all 'buckets'.

 

My motivation is two-fold:

1. It's essentially an ad-hoc mechanism that is supposed to assuage hard feelings about 'unlucky' streaks; but it's very presence just inflames passions and attracts attention to the RNG
2. The RNG is already pseudo-random (requiring a seed, and applying a 'flat-fill' approach to result-space), tacking an ad-hoc system on top of the pseudo-random RNG just seems like applying non-maths on top of maths. (*1)

 

When other testing is done on the test servers, I'd happily play for a while just to test this aspect of combat.

 

(*1) As I wrote elsewhere: when final to-hit chance is already 95%, there is very little need to FORCE a hit after a single miss (ignoring that next result and then resetting  the streakbreaker).  A truly random RNG would make the chance of a miss 5%, but a 'flat-fill' pseudo-random RNG almost certain has a greater than 95% chance that the next RNG roll would be a 'hit'.

 

Streakbreaker isn't really breaking streaks, it's just triggering 'ignore a roll and reset a counter'.

[Troo]

Playing a stalker and missing from hide way more that 5% of the time is maddening.

 

I agree with Vanden that it could be improved. I disagree about removing the tohit cap.

 

Really, missing from the image below is an animation of the target moving it's head on a bad rng roll. Then it would be accurate. Should the chance be higher than 65%, um yes.

On 11/17/2020 at 5:29 PM, Vanden said:

[Mopery]

Some people think cucumbers taste better pickled.

[Grindingsucks]

21 minutes ago, Mopery said:

Some people think cucumbers taste better pickled.

Because they do.  Pwned.  Go home, loser.*  😛

 

*This is a joke, son.

[Vanden]

5 hours ago, Grindingsucks said:

Remember that foes of higher level than your character will cause your base to-hit chance to drop dramatically.  So, if you're running at +1 diff or higher, it's going to impact your chances of landing a hit in a very noticeable way.  This game is somewhat odd, in that the difficulty drops suddenly in groups of characters that hit incarnate, due to extra accuracy/dmg/def/resist buffs and such.  This is also true with regard to hit probability, as once you have incarnate powers slotted, mobs will start to con as one level lower to you than they normally would (mobs +1 lvl higher will be +0, mobs +2 lvls higher will be +1, and so on).  So you will likely be happier once you hit incarnate (assuming you don't already have toons of that level.  If you do, ignore my previous comment, of course).

 

If you have your attack hard-capped, you shouldn't be missing that often, unless the enemy has very high defense + defense debuff, and/or is much higher lvl than you.  If you find yourself getting frustrated, try running at +0 or even -1.  This should go far to ease your frustration, although I suspect, all things being equal, that you may grow bored because you find the game too easy at that point.

I assure you, I take accuracy slotting seriously. I still miss enough at the 95% cap that it gets on my nerves (and I do verify that I am at the cap). That's why it gets on my nerves so much; it's literally not my fault that I'm missing so much, and there's nothing I could've done about it.

 

5 hours ago, Grindingsucks said:

Also, remember that that blade swings both ways.  If you can get to 100% hit capability, some enemies should be able to, as well.

I don't see this as a big concern. You're already well into near-instant death territory when the AI starts making tohit rolls with chances to succeed in just the 80s, let alone the 90s. Letting them get to 100% isn't gonna make them game any harder.

[Purrfekshawn]

If you've private server you can find inside "mapserver.exe" following byte sequence:

33 33 73 3F.

If you replace it to

00 00 80 3F

then the hit cap gets ridden of

[Mopery]

Here's a fun idea I take from the old days of playing AD&D 1st edition:

 

Instead of that ever present 5% chance being a miss, make it a fumble!

 

Then it could have a number of random effects.

Maybe you accidentally hit your teammate(s) or pet(s)!

Maybe you whiffed so hard that you knocked yourself down(bypassing any KB protection)?

Maybe in the midst of chaotic battle, you temporarily became Confused?

And of course, the chance that you simply missed(because it's tradition).

There could be any number of interesting effects!

[Darmian]

Just now, Mopery said:

Here's a fun idea I take from the old days of playing AD&D 1st edition:

 

Instead of that ever present 5% chance being a miss, make it a fumble!

 

Then it could have a number of random effects.

Maybe you accidentally hit your teammate(s) or pet(s)!

Maybe you whiffed so hard that you knocked yourself down(bypassing any KB protection)?

Maybe in the midst of chaotic battle, you temporarily became Confused?

And of course, the chance that you simply missed(because it's tradition).

There could be any number of interesting effects!

Double Zero in Call of Cthulhu = OH BLOODY HELL! RUN!

[Burnt Toast]

On 11/18/2020 at 1:27 PM, Vanden said:

Think about it, though. Really think about it. We need that 5% chance to hit floor, because otherwise you could get 50% defense and you'd be literally invincible to any enemy up to +5 that doesn't have access to autohit defense buffs. But what does the 95% chance to hit cap actually do? What equally important function does that serve? The answer is nothing. There's no critical function it serves to the game balance. It just makes your victory take a little longer. And if it actually costs you the victory, that's fair? That you did everything right, and still lost?

Yes that is exactly right.... guess what this is a game and (gasp) sometimes you lose. I would immediately quit if the to-hit cap was changed ... why... because what is the fun or challenge in never missing? I build my characters to be the best they can, but I also know there is a chance that a battle could not go my way because of all the mechanics... and THAT is what makes this game exciting after playing it since launch. Thankfully this idea; which has come up before a few times... is not even something being considered by HC. So tired of people wanting things to be even easier than they already are.....

[Troo]

@Vanden what would you guess the miss percentage is?

 

With Build Up and Assassin Strike from Hide, I've had streaks of missing 3 out of 10.

Some Characters feel more misses than they should while others feel like they very rarely miss.

 

Edited November 21, 2020 by Troo

[Rejolt]

Would you want a "Glance"? Where a really high accuracy attack vs target still hits for partial damage?

 

/animefacescratchanimation

 

 

[Replacement]

It's that time again?  It's that time again!

 

On 5/24/2020 at 1:04 PM, Replacement said:

The 5%/95% thresholds are old school and outdated.  They were tuned for PnP games where combat is typically resolved within about 15 dice rolls tops.

 

A standard CoH combat sees at least 25 dice rolls per second.  It will just always feel worse by volume, and at the same time less impactful than it does in a tabletop game. 

 

Edited November 20, 2020 by Replacement

[Vanden]

40 minutes ago, Troo said:

@Vanden what would you guess the miss percentage is?

 

With Build Up and Assassin Strike from Hide, I've had streaks of missing 3 out of 10.

Some Characters feel 10% misses, some feel 15%, others feel like they very rarely miss.

I don't think there's likely to be anything wrong with the underlying math that makes the game run. If the game rolls enough dice when the chance of success should be 95% it will most likely end up actually being 95%. I just think that that capping it at 95% is unnecessary and makes it more frustrating than it needs to be.

 

23 minutes ago, Replacement said:

It's that time again?  It's that time again!

The 5% threshold is still necessary, though. While it wouldn't change players' behavior at all if it went away, the AI needs it so they can still, at least on paper, threaten us.

[Rejolt]

On ‎11‎/‎20‎/‎2020 at 5:28 PM, Replacement said:

It's that time again?  It's that time again!

 

 

Assuming your 25 rolls in CoH vs 15 rolls in PnP systems meaning 5 percent chance to miss is too high:

 

Make it so you automatically miss rolling 98.01 percent or higher

 

Make it so rolling 95.01-98.00 is a Half damage glancing blow.

[LQT]

 

On 11/18/2020 at 3:37 AM, Vanden said:

It's just an infuriating, unfun aspect of the game.

Just a bit.

 

I've started saving really bad rolls for this reason, and had this very discussion in game recently.

 

Here are some of the save rolls.

 

Quote

[17:23:46] MISSED X! Your Gloom power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 97.87.
[17:23:48] HIT X! Your Abyssal Gaze power was forced to hit by streakbreaker.
[17:23:50] MISSED X! Your Taser power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 97.11.
[17:23:52] HIT X! Your Moonbeam power was forced to hit by streakbreaker.

So 2 misses and 2 streakbreakers.

 

Quote

[10:05:28] MISSED Your power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 96.67.
[10:05:29] HIT Your power was forced to hit by streakbreaker.
[10:05:31] MISSED Your power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 97.46.
[10:05:40] HIT Your power was forced to hit by streakbreaker.
[10:05:42] MISSED Your power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled 96.56.
[10:05:45] HIT Your power was forced to hit by streakbreaker.

I have the full combat log for the second set of numbers if someone really wants as I've cut out things as pasting that into game needed some editing to fit.

 

It's not fun when half your attacks miss and the other half only hit because the game takes pity on you. You may as well just be flipping a coin/d2 on whether you land an attack rather than the d20 system the game uses as it can disregard any and all slotting you do with rolls going that way.
 

On 11/18/2020 at 10:23 AM, Lines said:

What are the circumstances where a 5% miss chance is a significant problem?

Assassin strike openers. Sure you don't lose hide and can wait for BU to refresh but good luck pulling that off in team play. You won't get the rest of the team to wait

 

Alternatively, Sniper Shot alpha strikes. Especially for those where other alpha strike mechanics exist like /devices Targetting drone.

 

Admittedly these are also apparently separately bugged issues that I've posted about previously. Whether those matters remain fixed or not depends how much I play ATs that can encounter them as I've never been able to reliably replicate the conditions despite then later encountering the problems again down the line.

[LQT]

On 11/20/2020 at 10:09 PM, Troo said:

Some Characters feel more misses than they should while others feel like they very rarely miss.

 

I'd agree but also add in that certain ATs will make this far more obvious [the ones that have massive damage from their alpha strikes - so stalkers, anything with a snipe] so there is observation bias going to be in play as the ATs that don't have that massive alpha strike probably won't register as much.

[oedipus_tex]

So don't quote me but I think there is a way to do this with individual powers where it is (arguably) appropriate. If this became a "Stalker special ability" I think it would fit that class and be a cool and unique special ability.

 

I've noticed in the JSON code for powers that developers can code a power as autohit in PVE but then make the PVP version require a ToHit roll. An example is in the effects of Flash Arrow:

 

 

 

I believe that this means you could manually code a power to hit even if the player had an unlucky roll. 

 

I don't think this is appropriate for all powers, especially AoEs. However I could see something like that existing in Assassin's Strike or in Stalker powers generally.

Edited November 22, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[tidge]

Missing a 95% final-to-hit-chance with an Assassin's Strike is at least half the reason to take an epic snipe from the Patron pools. when you miss with the AS, the (slow, damage-boosted) Snipe will hit for maximum damage.

 

It's Streakbreaker lemonade.

Edited November 22, 2020 by tidge

[Vanden]

14 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

I believe that this means you could manually code a power to hit even if the player had an unlucky roll. 

Well that's not really the same thing as removing the cap, is it? Suppose you roll a 98, but your final chance to hit outside the cap would've been 96.5%. That should still miss, but if the code is to just force a hit in a certain situation, it would be giving you a hit you didn't need.