#[Suggestion] Modify how Damage Weighting works

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

real lark
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https://gswiki.play.net/Weighting#Damage_Weighting
Damage weighting currently has a randomized effect to a floor of Somewhat weighting, which makes damage weighting consistently undesirable over crit weighting. In an effort to improve damage weighting vs crit weighting, I would like to propose some potential alternatives. The current mechanic is available on the wiki linked above for those who want to review.

Some proposals to modify how damage weighting works, in no order of preference:

  1. Variable amount of HP damage with a floor of 50% of the damage weighting total and no less than Somewhat equivalence
  2. outputs to 100% HP damage, no wounds or criticals
  3. Add Concussive Blows feature to damage weighting
  4. Damage weighting should lower the AsG of the target

Have any other suggestions on how to improve damage weighting? Concerns on changing how damage weighting works today? Share 'em here!

unkempt spruce
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It would be cool if the effect were separate from the attack's damage: almost like a flare on every swing for extra damage. Then it would feel much better to see more damage happening explicitly.

real lark
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Yep that's basically number three imo, If they were to convert it to a concussive blows type feature.

buoyant drum
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if clerics can do up to 150 HP damage to undead with holy fire flares.... 100-125 should at least be a baseline for what damage weighting should be able to regularly add to an attack with enough damage weighting

cursive forge
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Didnt read the idea yet. Im already on board. Horrible thing to have a completely dead and pointless upgrade in the game

wicked oasis
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Bring back damage weighting being powerful with batter barriers. My black ash mattock used to be a monster.

+30 damage weighting on a two handed weapon was useful at one time for lots of situations.

I’m greedy. I’d like it to be equal to a percent total increase in raw damage or equal to the damage weighting. Whichever is greater for the strike.

cursive forge
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Okay, had a chance to read the OP. I'd love to see Damage Weighting stay as is (because if you take away ANYTHING in gemstone, someone will get angry), but lets add some effects to it.

An added bonus to flare damage sounds interesting, such as mentioned with concussive blows in the op. So if it did what it does now, but ALSO added its effects to flare damage, that is suddenly a bit more interesting to me. More chances to proc its effects across weapons with many different flares.

DW adding its hp loss value to flares of all types as well as weapon swings seems pretty decent. Flare heavy, fast builds with light weapons benefit more. Even from weapon tech flares like slashing strikes and concussive blows.

silk pendant
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You could probably just remove (or improve) the randomization on damage weighting and call it a day

cursive forge
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I think ages ago it wasn't randomized at all and this was deemed as too OP? Im okay with 100% removal of random. CER 10 granting 10+ damage per hit is fine with me

silk pendant
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Yeah. I’m a big proponent of fixes like this that are easy for dev to implement. So if no randomization is deemed too powerful (which perhaps in today’s GS it no longer should be?) you could just increase the floor a bit

buoyant drum
cursive forge
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Seems like the easiest way to create immediate and real value

trail idol
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Getting 10 extra damage on a 10CER weapon doesn’t seem very impressive to me. How many swings does it take to kill something. Is that 10 damage really going to make a difference? I agree with the idea of adding the damage to all flares. Then at least it could stack up.

cursive forge
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I would take either. +10 raw hp damage per swing in something like HW is noticeable. Things there have 1000hp. If I hit it ten times (very very common) with a thrash, flurry, hamstring/etc combo, thats 10% less hp I need to bleed out.

That said I personally like the idea of damage weighting as a flare augmentor

young reef
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Considering waylay was like the equivalent of around +200 or whatever damage weighting and it was STILL viewed as lackluster, i think even giving 100% of the dmg every swing is barely making it good. How many peoppe are going to go to +50 cer with that? Still nobody. I still wouldnt go much past 5 or 1O cer wuth thst change

trail idol
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Maybe make the damage equal the percent of total HP. 10 CER equals 10% of total HP. That could get interesting. If that’s too OP, give half percentage points for each CER

real lark
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My whip has 820 services of damage weighting and it still hits worse than a cudgel. So... I would like to see something change.

buoyant drum
crimson trout
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Damage weight just needs to be DoT weighting. It would then compete with the Critical weighting. (DoT kill vs Instant kill)

lone saffron
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hmmm, with changes i might pull about my old weighed white ora bearded axe, and weighed white ora warhammer

lilac topaz
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Randomization in general feels like the problem

young reef
# lilac topaz Randomization in general feels like the problem

Only part of the problem, the benefits from getting 1 additional damage just will never be worth it compared to the cost of adding that many services to a weapon. Just look at waylay to see how much dmg is needed before it becomes actually valuable

cursive forge
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better is better. i'd rather see whatever change makes something here useful.

real lark
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Hmmm. What if damage weighting randomization was changed to affect just the percentages between whole CER? E.g. a weapon has 10 CER with 30% svcs toward 11. Damage weighting would guarantee the 10 plus a 30% chance of hitting 11 due to intermediate services. That could create normalization and still honor the deep stretch in higher echelon CER.

Maybe that's the only way you could do it if the solution it is something like #2 from above, 100% damage.

analog fjord
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I’d like to see the randomization gone as well. Or, as someone else suggested, make the CER % based damage, compared against your targets total health. With something like 10 cer doing 3-5% of the targets total health per hit. This would incentivize getting more damage weighting. Topping out at 50 CER and 3- whatever % of targets health per hit.

It would need to be subjected to weapon base speed. So that it’s total effect over time is the same across all weapons.

Regardless, something needs to change. As it exists currently it sucks and only really serves to make putting other services onto your weapon cost more.

real lark
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Any chance this could get a review? Maybe model it after sighting, where gets converted to critical weighting after a point...

dreamy silo
lone saffron
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I loved my axe back in 96-97 ish, 10 points of damage weighing every swing

cursive forge
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Why not a diminishing return then? Extend the floor up to like 10 or so

hybrid socket
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I've got a 15 CER damage weighted & 6 CER crit weighted flamberge. Frankly, I've got nothing better to put my warrior grit into so I've been building up damage weighting on the weapon. This got me thinking that maybe a weighted (no pun intended) system could be put into play for damage weighting using the summation system.

Every point of damage increases the floor of the minimum damage weighting that triggers after 5 CER with a summation of 1 after 5 CER.
5 CER = +5 base damage
6 CER = +6 base damage
8 CER = +7 base damage
11 CER = +8 base damage
15 CER = +9 base damage
20 CER = +10 base damage
26 CER = +11 base damage
33 CER = +12 base damage
41 CER = +13 base damage
50 CER = +14 base damage

Granted it's not as beneficial once you go past that 20 CER mark, but it does make things much more beneficial for those wielding a heavily to exceptionally damage weighted weapon. After that the diminished returns, like you see with all summation use, sucks, but at least there is still room for increasing the minimum floor damage as you continue to build up your damage weighting.

Right now I find it kind of funny that if I swing my flamberge and I only get a 102 endroll and I only see 6 total damage, it makes me feel a little sad, like all this effort to improve my weapon isn't really doing much for me.

real lark
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Just curious if there's been any more thought on this from staff.

cursive forge
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i'm here for anything that makes this better

wicked oasis
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I used to carry a weapon specifically for uncrittable critters. +30 damage weighting. I put it away once I came back and learned that it wasn't 31 damage on a 101. Not really clear on the concern with the old method other then it was a unilateral push across weightings and paddings. A claid is going to be a better newbie weapon then some rare high DW weapon.

Maybe there is some game breaking scenario I'm not seeing. I see damage weighting as fine the way it was. Maybe bonus damage added to the final damage equal to a percentage of the raw damage.

slim lantern
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Just take out the randomization on weapons, higher min random on armor. Flat bonus like old days for weapons only. It's very difficult to get pass 20 CER nowadays, so a 20 flat damage isn't going to break the game. People spending serious money at mania to stack CER will fill the reward going well pass that and simu has another carrot for people to chase after.

silk pendant
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I think Sunstar hit the nail on the head. For armor (which I primarily care about), a higher min random floor on armor would be really cool. You could have something like the current system (floor is 6 CER) until the armor reaches maybe 20 CER of total padding. Any padding beyond that would increase the floor 1:1.

Ex.

20 CER padded armor has a floor of 6 CER

21 CER padded armor has a floor of 7 CER

30 CER padded armor has a floor of 16 CER

I don’t think this would be game breaking in any way, and it would encourage people to pay up big time for WPS

20 CER is sort of a natural point to start allowing the floor to increase, because there is a huge step up in required services to hit the next CER. So if you want to increase the randomization floor, it’s going to be a meaningful undertaking

#

Another idea: Beyond 20 CER padding, every 5 (?) CER adds 1 non randomized CER protection against SMR, CS-based and other non-standard attacks

analog fjord
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it's damage padding/weighting, it's less effective than the critical version all the way around. It doesnt lower the critical, regardless of the damage it removes. I take 1 point of damage all the time and still end up with minors (for certain) and bleeders (I think). You could remove all the randomization from it, and still not have it compare to most of the existing scripts. Look at the cost it's going to take to get to 20 cer. Thats for 6-20 points of damage. Look at 20 cer critical now. Which one are you going to choose every single time if given the option? (aside from an RP choice).

Just get rid of the randomization. It's still not going to be as good as the critical version.

slim lantern
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It's understandable most might perceive it to be that way. But in actuality, without random Damage weighing and padding was king. Back it gs3 it use to be that way. even when crit weighing was not random. Damage weighing/padding was king. Everyone wants that black ash mattock over a claidh anyday. and damage padded armor was worth way more than crit padded. nowadays you have kroderine soul for spell redux and all kinds of resistance to 40%. damage padding would win out even further. Sure it might take some time for people to see it if it ever changes. But base on history, flat damage weighing/padding is far superior than even flat weighing.

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alot of warriors move on to shield since the change. but shield was absolutely worthless mainly in part because you get 30 pt flat damage padding on armor. Put up sign of staunching and your ds can be 0 and you don't need to care except for that spell/mauever crit death, which people as still dying from anyways.

wicked oasis
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I have a black ash mattock. I used it mostly for crit immune things or where DS was hard to overcome. Like being a warrior hunting Magru.

Otherwise I used other weapons, and I carried a lot. I miss mostly that it's not very good at battering boxes anymore.

GS3 was a different animal.

Grouping damage weighting with padding is no go for a proper conversation. They have very different consequences.

real lark
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Since it was on my mind this morning...
Bump. Would be great to see damage weighting randomization changed.

wintry lily
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I think without getting too fancy 2 ways to approach it would be 1). Double the damage per CER to make it actually impactful. It’s just too minor in the modern game. Or 2). Have the damage added prior to the crit so it was a factor there. No matter what almost anymore above is better than the current state.

real lark
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Definitely would like to see the randomization base floor increase with more CER. Seems so goofy to cut it at Somewhat.

analog fjord
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just make it do what it's cer is. It's not like a ton of people are walking around with +30 or higher damage weighting. same thing with padding, if you have 12 cer damage padding, (if it doesnt) it should take off 12 points of damage per hit. In today's terms of power, it's not a lot either way.

real lark
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That'd be dandy too!

meager depot
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Not sure if this is worthwhile but maybe damage weighting could lower the targets EPB by a percentage amount equivalent to CER. 6 CER DMG weighting reduces targets EPB by 6 percent.

Padding would have a halved opposite effect. 6 CER DMG padding increases EPB by 3 percent.

real lark
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Boomp. Would still be dandy to reassess Gemstone's damage weighting mechanics.

wintry lily
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Damage remains an abused and neglected service. Of inconsequential value but taking up half the warrior service room while providing questionable value but at the same cost as crit. Any and all of the recommendations above should be considered and it would be great to get it acknowledged as a thing that’s being explored for change.

hybrid socket
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I don't spend my grit on anything but my own weapons. Most weapons I get to around +8 CER for crit - it just becomes more noticeable once you get to that 7-8 spot for crit. As for damage, for kicks and giggles I finally got my flamberge up to +20 CER damage and it currently sits at +6 CER crit (will eventually get it to +10 and stop there)....the return for my investment is pretty sad. Sometimes I only see a few points of extra damage and sometimes I see a lot because of the stupid randomization of it. I will say that when I pair that weapon with my paladin and his Fevor (618) spell, he gets an extra +13 making the weapon a +33. However, the randomization still means a basement return of just +5/6 on attacks. I'd like to see the base level for damage weighting improved. I have a suggestion above....or I'd even be content if the base damage was limited to half of the full CER.So a +20 CER weapon means it would randomize between 10-20. A +10 CER weapon would randomize between 5-10. A +17 CER would be randomized between 8-17.

Though, I think the chances of damage weighting seeing some love is about as good as the poison vial holding weapons from the original Dhu Gillywack getting the script updated to allow the poisons to work like other DOTs do - somewhere between 3-5 seconds. Right now for these weapons the DOT ticks every 30 seconds.....30 seconds! You kill your target way before that so the poison DOT from the weapon is pointless.

unkempt timber
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The reason I have no interest in it as a THW is that the damage does not affect the crit rank it’s a couple extra points of hp dmg. When im swinging for 100-150 damage and fishing for crits to keep me alive adding an extra 10pts of damage at the end of is a moot point and not impactful at all. Either 1. incorporating dmg weighting into the calc to determine crit rank or 2. Making it entirely something else like a stance or ASG debuff would be my preferred options.

robust violet
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I think removing randomization completely from weapons is a no brainer. There are so many ways to one shot most things, even someone with +50 damage weighting (I don't think it exists) isn't gonna change anything.

If there's an issue with boss mobs based on really high HP, give them specifically a way to mitigate damage weighting. Tougher to code maybe, but better for the game.

Meanwhile, padding is a little different. I remember the days where damage padded armor for a warrior was king. I think realistically, a way to raise the floor is the answer for padding. I like some of the floated ideas, every CER should raise the floor by a percentage point or something. I think raising the floor by half the CER is reasonable, so if you made it all the way to +50, the floor would be +25, at +20 the floor would be 10, etc.

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Honestly, here's what I'd love to see:

Step 1...a review of Damage Padding as it stands. From Dev's perspective, does it fit with today's gemstone. Specifically look at the reasons for randomization, and if it randomization still makes sense today. Potentially separate weighting and padding as balance parameters seem very different for each.

Step 2...start by trying to make some simple changes. Remove randomization if deemed appropriate, adjust the floor, do whatever needs to be done to make damage padding more in line with the value of crit padding in today's gemstone. The costs are the same, both from the smithy and in grit, so the benefits should be as well.

Step 3...a potential revamp to one or both. Perhaps over a certain CER there are added benefits. If randomization has to remain, adding some other ways to make damage padding desirable might be a solution.

I think a more simple solution is more likely to see some real action, based on the way development in gemstone happens, but I think we'd all love to see damage padding modernized eventually.