Get rid of the damn tohit cap

[Akisan]

Very interesting ideas in this thread, always despised the 5% miss chance, especially since it highlights the RNG's notoriously streaky behavior.  I quite often run 2-3 missions without missing more than once or twice, then can't hit the broad side of a barn in the next.  5% miss chance, fine, but I shouldn't be having consistent runs of 8+ misses in a row (I've defeated EBs with my only hits being Streakbreaker)

While I definitely agree that the game would be quite dull at 100% chance to hit, doing something about the cap would be nice, and there are several fun ideas already here.

 

I like @Number Six's idea of a slow, diminishing returns way to raise the cap.  Perhaps tying it to the +acc set bonuses would give a reason to seek those set bonuses. Easy way to do this is your absolute miss chance is 5% divided by your global accuracy bonus (95% at x1.0, 96% at x1.25, 97.5% at x2.0, etc.).

 

@Coyote mentioned crit chance, and @Rejolt mentioned glancing blows, both of which are good indicators of being exceptionally accurate.  Perhaps those could be tied to -def and +to-hit, respectively. 

 

While I don't necessarily agree with @Vanden's motive here, I feel that changing this would address a different issue - once you start slotting sets, to-hit buffs and -defense debuffs start to become more or less meaningless.  Even in those sets, those +acc bonuses start to feel like a dead bonus after you've accumulated 10-15% global acc worth.  On a team of 50+1s, it's not unreasonable to expect everyone on the entire team to be capped at that 95% chance (unless an enemy has defenses), even before Tactics or any defense debuffing occurs.  Kinda makes stuff like Radiation Blast, or Paralytic Interface's core feel rather... underwhelming.  I'd be really nice to have some sort of tangible benefit to overtuning your accuracy, because (enemy defenses aside), there's no functional difference between having an (uncapped) 97% to-hit vs. an (again, uncapped) 300% to-hit (triple build-up, anyone?)

[Jacke]

10 hours ago, Hew said:

What is next, 99% resist in armor sets?

That's another difficult issue that is interlaced with other stuff that does need to be reconsidered.  Right now Defense is better than Resists because for squishies, not getting hit means not getting mezzed or other secondary effects, but even more so, all can get Defense (and -ToHit) high enough that the mobs have the minimum chance to hit (5%; Lts 5.75%; Bosses, EBs, Snipers 6.5%; AVs, Monsters, GMs 7.5%).  While going with Resist Armours means mezzing still takes place and 25% of the damage gets through.

 

The resistance cap is higher for Tankers and Brutes, 90%, and Kheldians and Arachnos Soldiers, 85%, but I think many should be improved.  Say 95% for Tankers; 90% for Brutes, Kheldians, and Arachnos Soldiers, 85% for Scrappers and Stalkers, 80% for the rest.  Such a change would need other adjustments and careful thought, testing, and review.  But this should be looked at.

 

 

2 hours ago, Akisan said:

Very interesting ideas in this thread, always despised the 5% miss chance, especially since it highlights the RNG's notoriously streaky behavior.  I quite often run 2-3 missions without missing more than once or twice, then can't hit the broad side of a barn in the next.  5% miss chance, fine, but I shouldn't be having consistent runs of 8+ misses in a row (I've defeated EBs with my only hits being Streakbreaker)

 

The long existence of the Streak Breaker shows this is an issue that really does affect play.

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Attack_Mechanics#The_Streak_Breaker

 

Although mobs get to benefit from it too, I think the players get more out of the Streak Breaker.  What we're talking about is a real corner case, because with 95% chance to hit, you will only get one miss in a row (assuming there's no issue with the Streak Breaker).  It's why I have "Last Hit Chance" at the top of every toon's Combat Attributes Monitoring Window.  I want to know when my chance to hit starts dropping so I can do something about it.

 

But then that 1 miss in a row happens to a long recharge power with no backup alternate power and suddenly things are very different for a great part or all of a battle  To fit in the Pool and Epic Powers I want, I'm always looking to only keep the Powers from the Primary and Secondary that are the best.  And those that are flawed get put on the list to skip.  And because Siphon Speed is long recharge and the speed boost isn't autohit and will have that chance to miss--and radically alter what the toon can do--I decide not to take it and build the toon to move faster despite not having Siphon Speed.  Because I'll need that 100% all-the-time speed anyhoo.

 

 

Quote

I like @Number Six's idea of a slow, diminishing returns way to raise the cap.  Perhaps tying it to the +acc set bonuses would give a reason to seek those set bonuses. Easy way to do this is your absolute miss chance is 5% divided by your global accuracy bonus (95% at x1.0, 96% at x1.25, 97.5% at x2.0, etc.).

 

@Coyote mentioned crit chance, and @Rejolt mentioned glancing blows, both of which are good indicators of being exceptionally accurate.  Perhaps those could be tied to -def and +to-hit, respectively. 

 

While I don't necessarily agree with @Vanden's motive here, I feel that changing this would address a different issue - once you start slotting sets, to-hit buffs and -defense debuffs start to become more or less meaningless.  Even in those sets, those +acc bonuses start to feel like a dead bonus after you've accumulated 10-15% global acc worth.  On a team of 50+1s, it's not unreasonable to expect everyone on the entire team to be capped at that 95% chance (unless an enemy has defenses), even before Tactics or any defense debuffing occurs.  Kinda makes stuff like Radiation Blast, or Paralytic Interface's core feel rather... underwhelming.  I'd be really nice to have some sort of tangible benefit to overtuning your accuracy, because (enemy defenses aside), there's no functional difference between having an (uncapped) 97% to-hit vs. an (again, uncapped) 300% to-hit (triple build-up, anyone?)

Excellent thoughts, @Akisan.  I too like the idea of an Enhancement-Diversification-like solution to give actual final calculate ToHits higher than 95%.

 

And you're right about only so much +Acc, +ToHit, -Def (as well as +Def and -ToHit) is needed.  Right now, I go into Mids and change the base ToHit to 48%, that against a +3 target.  If I build to a final hit chance 95% or better on the powers, I know that toon is good in virtually all cases.  Allowing more out of both player and mob buffs and debuffs can make more things possible, useful, and interesting.

 

Edited November 24, 2020 by Jacke

[Jacke]

9 minutes ago, Monos King said:

Wait why?

That's a suggestion for a changed set of resistance caps just for discussion.  Those numbers would need hashing out a lot before a final settled change.  As well as other changes at the same time.  I picked 95% for Tankers to equal what they can get from Defense against Minions.  Of course, all toons should layer all protections, Defense, Resistance to Damage, and Absorb/Heal/Regen.

 

But right now, Resistance Armors are worse for all ATs compared to Defense Armors.  Because all ATs can build more Defense protection than Resistance protection.  And it's hard to get Resistance from Pool Powers and IO sets bonuses but easy to get Defense to build up the layers of protection.

Edited November 24, 2020 by Jacke

[Monos King]

19 minutes ago, Jacke said:

But right now, Resistance Armors are worse for all ATs compared to Defense Armors.  Because all ATs can build more Defense protection than Resistance protection.  And it's hard to get Resistance from Pool Powers and IO sets bonuses but easy to get Defense to build up the layers of protection.

Ok we're off topic a bit but real quick...I don't know about that, and tanks really don't need to be more impervious to harm than they already are. On paper sure, hitting the soft cap and beyond will let only 5% of damage in, but it's not like the damage is a constant stream. There are attacks that slip through that will just instant murder you, which becomes more and more likely the more enemies you are surrounded with. You only have so much health, and as this very threads purpose is in proclaiming...luck is not always on your side. In fact, it's inevitable that it won't be. Try facing AVs with damage buffs like Statesman TF Lord Recluse, Miss Liberty, Aeon, or even the ones with build up or -res.  Or even run into a fire farm. You're not about to be doing better with SR or Energy armor than you would with Radiation or Elec.

 

I think you have a point about it being better for squishies due to the nature what not being hit can protect against, but it's definitely not the case for the melees. Res with some def is nearly always better than def with some res.

Edited November 25, 2020 by Monos King

[Jacke]

One last post about this.  It is off-topic, but like all the things being considered for change in the game system, there is some interaction between them.  This does matter for considering reducing the minimum 5% chance to hit mobs and vice versa.

 

1 hour ago, Monos King said:

I think you have a point about it being better for squishies due to the nature what not being hit can protect against, but it's definitely not the case for the melees. Res with some def is nearly always better than def with some res.

 

It definitely affects all ATs, some in different ways.  The 90% resistance cap ATs, Tankers and Brutes, can almost work with either Resistance or Defense based armours.  Defense is easier to build tough, but a good resistance armour build can potentially be tougher, but the build is harder to get right and more expensive.  True is same for the HEATs and VEATs at 85%.

 

For everyone at 75% resistance cap, which is all other ATs, including the melee Scrapper and Stalker, armoured Sentinels, mixed mode Dominators, and all the rest, Defense is much better than Resistance builds.  Go with a resistance armour set (Secondary or Epic), can get Defence to around 30%, so damage admittance against an AVs is:

 

0.20 (ToHit) x 1.5 (AV acc bonus) x 0.25 (damage after resistance) = 0.075 = 7.5% of DPS, 0.25 = 25% of damage spikes (like a big AV hit)

 

while with a defense armour, Defenses will be over 45% and resists will be around 50%, so damage admittance against an AVs is:

 

0.05 (ToHit) x 1.5 (AV acc bonus) x 0.50 (damage after resistance) = 0.0375 = 3.75% of DPS, 0.50 = 50% of damage spikes.

 

So the Scrapper and the Stalker will always be better with a Defense armour except against the biggest hits (think Marauder on the Lambda iTrial).  But against the toughest hits, only Tankers, Brutes, and maybe the HEATs and VEATs can get a good enough build to take the biggest hits and not be defeated right then.  Part of it is their tendency to greater HP and HP cap, so they have more HP to take the resisted alpha strike.

Edited November 25, 2020 by Jacke

[EmperorSteele]

So, I kinda had an idea that might mitigate this all somewhat... dunno if this is an original idea, and I don't have time to read a 7 page thread, so, apologies!

"ADVANTAGE".

In D&D 5e, when you roll to make an attack (or try to do anything that requires skill), you roll a 20-sided die, and usually have to meet or beat a certain number to succeed... A 20 is an auto-hit, and 1 is auto-miss. 5% chance either way, sound familiar? However, there are certain situations that allow you to roll TWICE, and select the better result (or sometimes, you have to take the worse result - Disadvantage). Some of these situations are the following:

You are hidden, and your target doesn't know you're about to strike;
You are invisible, and your target cannot defend against your attack;
Your opponent is prone, and unable to defend themselves.

Conversely, you have Disadvantage in the reverse situations:

If you are blind, or your opponent is invisible, you have disadvantage on attacks against them;
If you're trying to fire a ranged weapon while a foe is in your face, you have disadvantage;

If you're prone or unable to move, you have disadvantage on dexterity-based saving throws.

etc etc.

Now, for CoX, maybe we can have an "Advantage"-like system where the game will occasionally roll TWICE to see if we hit. Mathematically, this would result in only a 2.5% chance of missing. Maybe it could be an enhancement that has a "Chance for Advantage" proc? A tier-6 set-bonus? A condition that occurs when we have 150% Accuracy?

Conversely, maybe having a LARGE amount of defense, or stacks of defense (like high def + stealth on) can impose Disadvantage on attacks against you.

I dunno, something to chew on.

Yay? Nay?

[Vanden]

I see a lot of posts treating the 5% tohit floor and the 95% tohit cap as equally important, and intrinsically linked, but the fact is they are not. Changes in hit percentage have much larger impacts on overall damage output at the lower end of the spectrum than the top; if you go from 5% chance to hit to 6% chance to hit, your overall damage output has gone up 20%. But if you go from 95% chance to hit to 96% chance to hit, your overall damage output has gone up 1.04%. Same change in percentage, much different change in the overall result. Going from 95% to potentially 100% chance to hit only increases overall DPS by about 5.3% with maximum accuracy, a very small margin that can be easily compensated for. Changing the tohit floor at all is going to cause much bigger ripples in the overall game balance.

Edited November 25, 2020 by Vanden

[Jacke]

49 minutes ago, EmperorSteele said:

Yay? Nay?

 

They're interesting ideas.  In many cases, a doubled-roll with both having to fail to fail overall will help a lot.  (Note that it will take the minimum chance to fail from 5% to 0.25%.)  I think a more ED-like non-linear but continuous system that makes better use of buffs and debuffs is a better way to do this.

 

But the problem is long recharge powers that have radical effects.  Or when a failure causes serious consequences.  This is why so many powerset resources, like Titan Weapon's Momentum and Energy Melee's Focus, now are gained from autohit effects of attacks.  Because not getting the resource is a massive penalty with far reaching consequences.  Not to mention the player may not even realise things are broken for several seconds and not adapt quickly.

 

Even with a 0.25% chance to fail, that's still 1 in 400.  Less irritating.  Maybe I'd take Siphon Speed if it only had 0.25% chance to fail.  I use Secondary Mutation and if I Rikti-Monkey meself, I just roll with it.  Mind you, that's not in combat.  Siphon Speed is used in combat.  And if it fails, even only once in 400 uses, there's still the next 30s or so to get through.

Edited November 25, 2020 by Jacke

[LQT]

On 11/22/2020 at 9:07 PM, tidge said:

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.

Providing Snipe works properly, sure.

 

If I could reliably test the issue regarding what causes Snipe, and AS since that has examples there too, to sometimes do zero damage yet still cause procs to work, damage and non-damage ones, then that thread would have a lot more to it. However it's never been something I could duplicate and just kept encountering once and a while on different ATs in different situations.

[thunderforce]

On 11/18/2020 at 3:32 AM, Number Six said:

This is something I've kicked around a bit internally, but with a twist. The idea is to make to-hit chances above 95% possible, but not easy. It wouldn't simply be a matter of just getting 5% more tohit, but applying some sort of severe diminishing returns curve for every point past 95% you push it.

I feel a difficulty there is that it opens the can of worms of fixing Defence's crazy utility curve, where the more you have, the better it is to have yet more, until suddenly more does nothing at all except help against debuffs.

 

I would love to see a diminishing-returns system for both accuracy/to-hit and defence, FWIW.

[tidge]

1 hour ago, LQT said:

Providing Snipe works properly, sure.

If I could reliably test the issue regarding what causes Snipe, and AS since that has examples there too, to sometimes do zero damage yet still cause procs to work, damage and non-damage ones, then that thread would have a lot more to it. However it's never been something I could duplicate and just kept encountering once and a while on different ATs in different situations.

I've never seen that issue on Snipes, but I have seen it on Assassin's Strikes (for multiple different primaries). The weirdest part of the issue on AS I observed was with a /Bio Stalker running Offensive Adaptation: The extra damage from the Offensive Adaptation occurred, but the actual AS never took. I have been patient, and occasionally the AS damage is applied (~30 sec?) after the AS itself.

[Ghost]

Amazing

Hit 100% of the time

 

Would this be the same as everyone getting a ribbon, or not keeping score in sports so no one gets hurt feelings ?  

 

[chi1701]

tbh, I would change how defence works and to-hit, but I doudt the engine is capable of doing what I would suggest as a solution.

[Doomguide2005]

4 hours ago, thunderforce said:

I feel a difficulty there is that it opens the can of worms of fixing Defence's crazy utility curve, where the more you have, the better it is to have yet more, until suddenly more does nothing at all except help against debuffs.

 

I would love to see a diminishing-returns system for both accuracy/to-hit and defence, FWIW.

While I agree that defense has a wicked curve to it ... That is sort of double jeopardy especially for defense sets.  ED already plays a role when you place your enhancements.  The problem would be that set bonuses specifically aren't effected by ED but instead are effected by the Rule of Five.  And for whatever reason the Live Dev team didn't see (or perhaps forsee) OR had long range plans/didn't see it as an issue providing an absolute slew of +def set bonuses.   Otherwise while we might still be having this discussion very few defense sets can reach the softcap 24-7 while solo on powers alone.  You need a team, constant inspire usage etc.  to reach the softcap much less the Incarnate cap.  And it doesn't really address the idea of the 95% clamp on Final To Hit for players (and foes).

 

Again I think it's really a boat that's long since sailed and not worth the time and effort to change.  There are far many more issues of greater importance to the health of the game.

[chi1701]

Question, are accurate based on healing both self and group heal more due to being able to miss than those heals which dont use accuracy?

 

[Jacke]

2 hours ago, chi1701 said:

Question, are accurate based on healing both self and group heal more due to being able to miss than those heals which dont use accuracy?

I believe you are right.  The Healing powers that need to hit, Kinetics Transfusion and Dark Miasma/Darkness Affinity's Twilight Grasp are stronger Heals.  I'm not sure of the original motivation to make them stronger, but it may be because they had to slot for Accuracy as well as everything else auto-hit Heals had to slot for.  Transfusion could also slot for Endurance Modification (to buff its -End effect) and Twilight Grasp could slot for ToHit Debuff enhancement.

[Doomguide2005]

Indeed a Power Boosted Transfusion is ... wow, make an Empath jealous 😜

[thunderforce]

16 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

While I agree that defense has a wicked curve to it ... That is sort of double jeopardy especially for defense sets.

I mean, this is why I say it opens a can of worms to think about changes to the to-hit system; each change naturally suggests a better but more complex one.

[Ghost]

This is just ridiculous.

The OP wants to change something because it frustrates HIM

What makes his frustration more important than everyone else's ?

 

I want my tanks to be impervious to damage - after all, that's what they are supposed to be

I want my blasters to kill everything with one shot 

My stalker to never ever be seen.  If I want to stealth past level 50's at leave 2, I should be able to.  Its what I want. 

Swords.  If I wield a sword, it shoulda automatically kill anything it hits - its a sword after all.

Finally, I want endurance to go away.  Not fair that I have to worry about too many toggles draining my endurance.

 

Know what happens next ?  I get bored.  Then I find something else to do.

 

  

Edited November 26, 2020 by Ghost

[thunderforce]

2 hours ago, Ghost said:

This is just ridiculous.

The OP wants to change something because it frustrates HIM

What makes his frustration more important than everyone else's ?

I'm not sure anyone has, even the OP (who may or may not be a "he").

 

Individual players can only really talk about what they would like to change. Then there's a discussion to find out if other players like that, or if some similar idea is more widely acceptable. The OP has done nothing wrong by talking about something they'd like to change.

[srmalloy]

On 11/24/2020 at 7:11 PM, Vanden said:

if you go from 5% chance to hit to 6% chance to hit, your overall damage output has gone up 20%. But if you go from 95% chance to hit to 96% chance to hit, your overall damage output has gone up 1.04%. Same change in percentage, much different change in the overall result.

Or, to slant your argument differently, increasing your chance to hit from 5% to 6%, you reduce your chance of missing by about 1%; increase your chance to hit from 95% to 96%, and you reduce your chance of missing by 20%. Statistics can be so endlessly flexible, able to be twisted in ways that can create almost any impression you want.

Edited November 26, 2020 by srmalloy

[aethereal]

On 11/24/2020 at 1:18 PM, Akisan said:

Very interesting ideas in this thread, always despised the 5% miss chance, especially since it highlights the RNG's notoriously streaky behavior.  I quite often run 2-3 missions without missing more than once or twice, then can't hit the broad side of a barn in the next.  5% miss chance, fine, but I shouldn't be having consistent runs of 8+ misses in a row (I've defeated EBs with my only hits being Streakbreaker)

It is impossible to miss 8 times in a row if your hit chance is 95%.  The streakbreaker kicks in after one miss if your chance to hit is 90%+.  If you saw a multiple miss streak, that necessarily means that you did not have capped to hit chance.

[VV]

That's a lot of hate for something that only happens once out of 20 times. Seriously, I hardly notice. If your build requires the need to hit every single time, it's a bad build, that's all. You know you're gonna miss every now and then, take that into account when you build.

[Akisan]

Sorry, should have clarified - that's not 8 pure misses in a row, that's miss, streakbreaker, miss, streakbreaker, miss, etc.  So it *is* 8 rolled misses in a row, with 7 forced hits in-between.

 

I don't think touching the to-hit floor is a good idea - if we change that, we also change defense's 90% damage reduction cap (since 45% defense makes 9/10 attacks that would have hit miss), and that's not a good idea without seriously reconsidering the def/res balance.

Edited November 26, 2020 by Akisan
Bad math - only 7 (not 8) streakbreakers between 8 misses. The 8th is after the last miss

[Purrfekshawn]

Well if get rid of ToHit cap ENTIRELY We would imagine it becomes in the following way. Each attack hits more than once (you can call it CRITICAL):

90% ToHit - 90% chance to hit enemy. If accuracy mod is 1.5x then it's 135% chance. But as there's no cap that means attack hits once in 65% cases and hits TWICE in 35% cases, resulting an attack deals 135% of its damage in average.

100% ToHit - 100% chance to hit enemy. If accuracy mod is 1.5x then it's 150% chance. But as there's no cap that means attack hits once in 50% cases and hits TWICE in 50% cases, resulting an attack deals 150% of its damage in average.

160% ToHit - 160% chance to hit enemy. If accuracy mod is 1.5x then it's 240% chance. But as there's no cap that means attack hits TWICE in 60% cases and hits THREE TIMES in 40% cases, resulting an attack deals 240% of its damage in average.

 

More thoughts...