Lucky Strikes (Full Version)

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CH4OT1C! -> Lucky Strikes (7/20/2024 13:38:23)

This has been a long time coming.

With the donation suggestion contest now entering the voting round, and @Gwenmay currently (as of 07/20/2024) possessing the largest vote share, it currently looks like this year's set will be focused around Lucky Strikes (LSs). This poses something of a problem; the staff have, in no uncertain terms, stated that the majority of the suggested set cannot be implemented because major updates need to be made to both LSs and the hypercritical status. The outcome of these updates will significantly affect the resulting set, and community interest is therefore spiking. For this reason, I want to provide my own perspective on these mechanics, and also provide (what I consider to be) an elegant solution to resolve them.

The Problem
As the staff already recognise these mechanics need to be updated, I won't discuss the problems associated with these mechanics in exhaustive detail. Nonetheless, I do feel it necessary to highlight some of the key issues.

When the player LS, the following is added to your stat damage:
quote:

LUK*3/8

How this is converted into player damage is irrelevant for this GBI. The relevant point is this value is three times the value provided by your main stat (STR/DEX/INT). Also important: stat damage is worth 50% of your total damage. This means that a normal LS is expected to be dealing +150% damage (250% damage total). LSs are assumed to occur 10% of the time, and the balance of items which modify LS damage and rate apply with respect to this value.

There are, however, a few issues with this setup. First, some items which modify critical hit chances (e.g., Arms of the Dragonguard) undervalue critical hits. Since each LS adds 150% damage (150% melee), meaning each 1% increase in LS rate should be worth 1.5% melee. Arms of the Dragonguard only pays 90% melee to guarantee your next strike is lucky. This should cost 150*0.9 = 135% melee. Similarly, items boosting LS rates by *1.5 (+5%) should cost 1.5*5 = 7.5% melee, not 5% (an MC) as is standard practice now [NB: you could potentially make the argument that this should count as a trigger since the bonus scales with LUK, but whether having stats should count as a player-controlled trigger is a matter for a different GBI].

Far more importantly, effects that increase your LS rate (including hypercritical) can also make it extremely likely or even guarantee that your next strike is lucky. This is a problem because the mechanics which boost LS damage all assume that your strike rate is 10%. As such, each lucky damage boosting item is effectively 10* stronger than normal when LSs are guaranteed. This modifier is considerably larger than the modifiers for (i) weapon damage to spellboosting [*4] and (ii) dodging [*6.67], which are both already carefully managed problems in their own right. Compounding the issue further, because LSs are so rare, the modifiers to LS damage are considerably larger than those found on other damage modifying items. For example, Granddad's Greatsword causes you to deal *3 LS damage. By contrast, average damage boosters cap out at +20% damage, 1/15th of this bonus.

These serious issues make it extremely difficult to produce LS and hypercritical gear. Even small bonuses become uncontrollable so rapidly that they simply cannot be made, under the current model. @Gwenmay's Misc, which was intended to heal on LSs, inflates the 13.5% Melee of Bell Shell to 135% Melee, considerably more than a standard player attack, just due to the LS modifier. In a world where you can guarantee critical hits, this simply isn't a feasible design, as the staff have rightly pointed out. This is far from unique, most items simply cannot be made to interact with LSs for similar reasons.

The Solution
A simple and elegant solution is needed to solve these problems. If the hypercritical donation set is chosen, this will likely shorten the timeframe for making changes to LSs, complicating the problem further. There are two courses of action I think need to be immediately discounted:
  • Doing nothing: This is completely unfeasible due to all the problems stated above, and also contradicts the existing staff position on balance.
  • Changing the % chance of LSs occurring: Even doubling the base chance of LSs occurring to 20% won't nearly be enough to effectively cap the power ceiling achievable with LSs. Granddad greatsword and hypercritical can still combine to make LSs 15* stronger than normal under this scenario. Moreover, it has no degree of future-proofing; this 'solution' could almost entirely become undone simply by reducing more LS damage boosters to compensate for the loss. I simply do not see this as a viable option.


    However I do have a simple, elegant solution to propose:
  • LS items should be valued properly.
  • Hypercritical and items that modify LS rate should function as leans rather than as a direct boost. Doubling LS rate would therefore halve LS bonus damage. Items like Arms of the Dragonguard would therefore take no damage penalty to modify critical hit rate.

    Doing this significantly reduces the power ceiling of LS gear in a way that can far more easily be future-proofed (i.e. just don't release items which directly increase LS rate). This is also a mechanic that already exists in-game (Frostval Crown), and thus can more rapidly be implemented than having to commit to a full review of critical hits and Hypercritical. Applying this mechanic also means that LS gear can be released in greater abundance and variety, allowing LUK to begin to reduce the gap with CHA in terms of item support.
    I recognise that this constitutes quite a significant nerf, but I consider it necessary given the extremely overpowered nature of LSs and Hypercritical.




  • Aura Knight -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/20/2024 14:58:52)

    The fix is simple. 50/50 chance to lucky strike if you max the luck stat at 250. Limit power to 2x your typical output. Maybe have turn loss following a lucky strike. No lucky strike without 250 luck.





    Lorekeeper -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/20/2024 15:05:50)

    Even if a baseline crit chance of 50% was feasible, when part of the foundational problem is trivially guaranteeing lucky strikes (Not just for output, but from on-crit effects not being valued around a variable rate), a random chance to not have a turn after any given turn would be too steep and unfun of a drawback.




    Aura Knight -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/20/2024 15:10:57)

    Thought a turn loss works if on the lucky strike you can deal 2x damage.




    Korriban Gaming -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/20/2024 15:18:26)

    quote:

    At its core, this is because it revolves around mechanics that are subject to updates at a time when we are too overloaded to predict when we'll be able to revise them.

    quote:

    It would be very difficult to maintain this idea's identity without having to perform all the work for this revision before or in time with this set, at which point the values themselves would still be different.

    I do not foresee staff having time to change LS mechanics this time and I most definitely would not want a 2 year delay on a dono set just to fix a mechanic that has been around for years when the game is perfectly playable with it.

    While Gwen's set obviously needs some big changes, I do not think the general idea of Hypercrit and LS would change either otherwise it would be a completely different idea altogether and would not be the set that the supporters wanted to begin with.

    The items that you brought up, namely Arms of the Dragonguard and Granddad's Greatsword are also premium items. While I understand premium items aren't exempt from balance standards, this will no doubt cause a significant amount of backlash as with any other nerfs done to premium items before.

    I know LS and Hypercrit will get changed, it's only a matter of time, I just don't think it will be soon.

    That being said, I don't have ideas on how to change it too drastically without killing off the mechanic entirely for now so I will just comment on suggestions.
    quote:

    LS items should be valued properly.

    And what are these proper values?

    quote:

    Hypercritical and items that modify LS rate should function as leans rather than as a direct boost. Doubling LS rate would therefore halve LS bonus damage. Items like Arms of the Dragonguard would therefore take no damage penalty to modify critical hit rate.

    That sounds like a horrible idea. It's basically turning all LS items into server caps and frostval crowns. Which leads to my point below.

    quote:

    just don't release items which directly increase LS rate

    Sounds like a great way to kill off item diversity.

    quote:

    Applying this mechanic also means that LS gear can be released in greater abundance and variety

    How is there variety when you all want them to function the same way but just with different values?

    quote:

    I recognise that this constitutes quite a significant nerf, but I consider it necessary given the extremely overpowered nature of LSs and Hypercritical.

    Define "necessary" that such a significant nerf is needed (I didn't say no nerf). This mechanic has been around for years and the LS and Hypercrit items are pretty popular. We could go with something that isn't as heavy-handed




    Dardiel -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/20/2024 15:23:52)

    I largely agree with Chaotic, my own set suggestion for the donation contest included a form of Ferocious Strike interaction that accounts for rate to determine power. I feel the same here; any LS effects should be divided by LS Rate instead of /0.1

    Eg granddad's greatsword goes from +200% damage to +20/LSRate % damage, making it a +20% weapon at maximum rate.




    CH4OT1C! -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/20/2024 16:07:20)

    quote:

    I do not foresee staff having time to change LS mechanics this time and I most definitely would not want a 2 year delay on a dono set just to fix a mechanic that has been around for years when the game is perfectly playable with it.

    To be blunt, I believe this statement entirely misses the main point of this thread. As innovative as it may be, @GwenMay's LS set is effectively unimplementable because it would be so overpowered due to the current lucky strike interactions that it would completely undermine basic game balance. I recognise that not everyone supports the concept of balance, but this is something the staff adheres to. My aim with this thread is to address a major outstanding balance issue, and I hope a possible side effect of doing so is that implementing such a set will be a little more feasible.

    quote:

    And what are these proper values?

    A lucky strike = +150% damage (also %Melee for a standard attack). This means *1.5 LS damage would cost 7.5% Melee.

    quote:

    Sounds like a great way to kill off item diversity

    Lucky strike items are heavily restricted currently because of how overpowered they are. The LS rework is the major reason for the staff's comments on @GwenMay's suggested set. Fixing the issue means there is no longer a need for a blockade on such items.




    Branl -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/20/2024 16:58:18)

    quote:

    Sounds like a great way to kill off item diversity.


    It's very much the opposite. The untenable nature of hypercrit as it stands is part and parcel, the reason why hypercrit related items have been fairly limited in item design currently. They could be doing a lot more creative stuff with hypercrit than "pay to increase damage" or rate, but can't because they need to design these items in a way that future hypercrit changes would bring these items in line immediately.
    To do otherwise would basically be setting themselves up to do more work going back and re-balancing a bunch of hypercrit items.




    dizzle -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/20/2024 21:54:37)

    I think changing hypercrit to some sort of lean system is a pretty interesting idea that definitely deserves some consideration and discussion, however, I’m worried that if we do this -1:1 ratio where the damage drops as the rate increases, especially at the clip that has been proposed, it will push lucky strikes stacks (almost) entirely into redundancy.

    I have an alternative idea that hasn’t been thoroughly thought out, so take it with a grain of salt but, I actually don’t think lucky strikes are too OP. I think that at base value they should be rare and they should hit like Iron Mike. I also think that you should be able to achieve guaranteed crits through various stacking methods. Yes I’m saying that you should be able to use Granddads and deal 3x LS damage (as it is currently) at a 100% rate.

    What I believe should really be re-evaluated is the cost of boosting LS rate. Stacking LS rate boosting items is a massive part of this game and is enjoyed by many many many players I’ve encountered over the years. It’s crazy, it’s outrageous, it’s overkill, but it’s freaking fun and I would hate to see the big numbers go away due to a very unaesthetic lean system. What I would like to see from the Devs is some sort of re evaluation on how LS rate modification is valued. I think that instead of moving backwards and taking away a big part of the game for many, we instead move forward and create a new value for hypercrit. One that will have to almost certainly be arbitrary, but at least make it more fair. I don’t want to see LS stacks get buried, I want to see the player actually have to pay a significant cost for such a significant reward. I’ve said this a few times but given the massive leaps in power creep over the last year and a half, I’ve change my mind on balance in this game. I think that there shouldn’t be any steps backwards in terms of player power, but instead a step forward in properly and fairly valuing the power the player receives. Like, okay, you want to use granddads sword to deal stupid overkill damage? Fair enough, but you’re gonna have to sacrifice a massive amount of resources or defense. Way more than what we’re currently paying. Again, to re iterate, I don’t want to see the LS stacks buried, I want to see the player actually pay for what they’re getting. Raise the cost of time killer/dguard, tack on some extra resource cost for Lust/Envy, raise the HP cost for the lunar hare weapons. I’m just listing the meta LS items for simplicity but I think you get the point. And besides, from my understanding, most all hypercrit items are going to have to re evaluated *anyway.* So don’t nerf the power, increase the cost so the player isn’t losing out on the oogabooga big damage crit experience, they’re just actually paying a fair amount for what they’re getting




    Korriban Gaming -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/20/2024 22:22:41)

    quote:

    To be blunt, I believe this statement entirely misses the main point of this thread. As innovative as it may be, @GwenMay's LS set is effectively unimplementable because it would be so overpowered due to the current lucky strike interactions that it would completely undermine basic game balance. I recognise that not everyone supports the concept of balance, but this is something the staff adheres to. My aim with this thread is to address a major outstanding balance issue, and I hope a possible side effect of doing so is that implementing such a set will be a little more feasible.

    1. Staff literally said it themselves that they are too overloaded to implement a mechanic change at this point
    2. Changing Gwen's entire set idea now is a slap in the face to all the supporters of the set. Some things will definitely need to be changed but the core idea which is LS and Hypercrit won't be

    quote:

    Fixing the issue means there is no longer a need for a blockade on such items.

    quote:

    The untenable nature of hypercrit as it stands is part and parcel, the reason why hypercrit related items have been fairly limited in item design currently. They could be doing a lot more creative stuff with hypercrit than "pay to increase damage" or rate, but can't because they need to design these items in a way that future hypercrit changes would bring these items in line immediately.

    Oh? I'm interested to hear what other creative ideas there are to implement Hypercrit and LS that aren't possible on the current system apart from "pay to gain rate/damage"

    quote:

    I think changing hypercrit to some sort of lean system is a pretty interesting idea that definitely deserves some consideration and discussion, however, I’m worried that if we do this -1:1 ratio where the damage drops as the rate increases, especially at the clip that has been proposed, it will push lucky strikes stacks (almost) entirely into redundancy.

    I have an alternative idea that hasn’t been thoroughly thought out, so take it with a grain of salt but, I actually don’t think lucky strikes are too OP. I think that at base value they should be rare and they should hit like Iron Mike. I also think that you should be able to achieve guaranteed crits through various stacking methods. Yes I’m saying that you should be able to use Granddads and deal 3x LS damage (as it is currently) at a 100% rate.

    What I believe should really be re-evaluated is the cost of boosting LS rate. Stacking LS rate boosting items is a massive part of this game and is enjoyed by many many many players I’ve encountered over the years. It’s crazy, it’s outrageous, it’s overkill, but it’s freaking fun and I would hate to see the big numbers go away due to a very unaesthetic lean system. What I would like to see from the Devs is some sort of re evaluation on how LS rate modification is valued. I think that instead of moving backwards and taking away a big part of the game for many, we instead move forward and create a new value for hypercrit. One that will have to almost certainly be arbitrary, but at least make it more fair. I don’t want to see LS stacks get buried, I want to see the player actually have to pay a significant cost for such a significant reward. I’ve said this a few times but given the massive leaps in power creep over the last year and a half, I’ve change my mind on balance in this game. I think that there shouldn’t be any steps backwards in terms of player power, but instead a step forward in properly and fairly valuing the power the player receives. Like, okay, you want to use granddads sword to deal stupid overkill damage? Fair enough, but you’re gonna have to sacrifice a massive amount of resources or defense. Way more than what we’re currently paying. Again, to re iterate, I don’t want to see the LS stacks buried, I want to see the player actually pay for what they’re getting. Raise the cost of time killer/dguard, tack on some extra resource cost for Lust/Envy, raise the HP cost for the lunar hare weapons. I’m just listing the meta LS items for simplicity but I think you get the point. And besides, from my understanding, most all hypercrit items are going to have to re evaluated *anyway.* So don’t nerf the power, increase the cost so the player isn’t losing out on the oogabooga big damage crit experience, they’re just actually paying a fair amount for what they’re getting

    I fully agree with Dizzle's take and this is the best proposed solution I've seen so far. Stop looking at trying to take things away from players. Nobody likes that, even more so when premium items are involved. The solution of implementing a higher cost but giving us the same output retains the value of the items we originally paid for which is an important thing to note when implementing changes to premium gear. Of course, not at a 1-1 rate as mentioned by Dizzle since that would be far too drastic. I would like to point out the successful example of the Arcane Cutlasses change as a reference to the right way of balancing things.

    The problem isn't the damage, we have 1001 ways to deal big damage in this game even without LSes. Plenty of caps and plot armors over the years have also pretty much made 90k damage and 90 damage the same. There is no need to kill off damage when are already so many mechanics in modern bosses to stop it. Another suggestion I have is to just implement a universal soft cap for Hypercrit chance at something like 50%, then slightly tone down how much Hypercrit the Hypercrit items give so we don't hit that 50% as easily.




    Dardiel -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/20/2024 22:30:07)

    I realized I had said that I "mostly" agree with Chaotic but didn't say where I differ, and it lines up with some of what Dizzle is saying - like Dizzle, I think that there can/should be balancing that allows for increasing LS rate without reducing LS damage; however there would be the caveat that everything else still has to be /LSRate to stay balanced.

    A Lucky Strike is worth 150% melee, so it's pretty easy that 1% LS Rate is worth 1.5% melee. Easy simple math there, +90% LS Rate to reach the 100% would cost 135% melee. I personally believe that should be allowed, without being a lean that affects your Lucky Strike damage.

    However that's specifically Lucky Strike from luck itself and nothing else; it's still very simple math to understand that you can't just spend 135% melee to deal +435% melee by holding a Granddad's Greatsword - for it to stay balanced, everything other than core Lucky Strike LUK*3/8 damage would have to match the cost paid. Theoretically though, I do also support the potential for items where the cost scales up rather than the multiplier scaling down. Eg a weapon that does have a fixed x3 LS damage which is worth 30% melee but scales up to 300% melee at maximum LS Rate; assuming that there's a universe where that amount of cost can somehow fit on a weapon (charging over time like Kindred, minus the part where you can charge against the practice trainer?).




    Branl -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/20/2024 22:40:28)

    quote:

    Like, okay, you want to use granddads sword to deal stupid overkill damage? Fair enough, but you’re gonna have to sacrifice a massive amount of resources or defense. Way more than what we’re currently paying. Again, to re iterate, I don’t want to see the LS stacks buried, I want to see the player actually pay for what they’re getting. Raise the cost of time killer/dguard, tack on some extra resource cost for Lust/Envy, raise the HP cost for the lunar hare weapons. I’m just listing the meta LS items for simplicity but I think you get the point. And besides, from my understanding, most all hypercrit items are going to have to re evaluated *anyway.* So don’t nerf the power, increase the cost so the player isn’t losing out on the oogabooga big damage crit experience, they’re just actually paying a fair amount for what they’re getting


    Actually, most of the items would be virtually good to go with direct formula adjustments to hypercrit specifically. The items assuming a 10% lucky strike rate wouldn't be a problem if the damage stayed proportional to how much LS Chance the player had. They can't really balance items in respect to their synergies with other items, which is why hypercrit and Lucky Strike is a formula specific problem and not an itemization issue, or a problem that can be fixed through itemization.

    Dragonguard's banned void status, in addition, kind of implies that guaranteed Hypercrit might not even be an effect the staff wants to continue to exist. This would be one of the items that would probably need to be directly changed.




    Grace Xisthrith -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/21/2024 0:50:59)

    Edits: Point 3 for clarity, as it was missing stuff. Removed shocked monkey board as a crit item (whoops!)
    My opinion on the largest topics to change with crit chance modifiers in their order of importance are:
    1: The 3 standards of crit chance increases, additive, multiplicative, and hypercrit status, stack in a multiplicative fashion, not additive. Currently, a 10% additive, 2x multiplicative, and 2x hypercrit boost, all of which cost the same amount (10% melee each, total 30% melee), instead multiply 2x2x2=60% crit chance. Instead of going 10 (base) + 10x3 = 40% crit chance, multiplicative relationships add extra power. This is particularly problematic when stacking multiple sources, say Lunar Hare Weapon (3x), Lust (+40%), and Timekiller (2x hypercrit), while only 70% crit increase is being paid for, you instead receive (10+40)x3x2=300% crit chance. The solution for this is to make all crit chance boosters additive. Potentially, that would be an easy fix, as prior iterations of crit boost items were all done additively. Server Caps and Crown miscs would be problematic if additive, however, they can instead use the hypercrit status, with ferocious crowns / red caps getting .5 hypercrit, and price crowns / blue caps giving 2x hypercrit while doubling and halving damage as they currently do, respectively.
    2: Lucky strikes output 150% melee, but crit chance increases are 1% melee to 1% crit chance. Unless staff are satisfied with this unbalanced input to output ratio, and justify it with something like a player controlled trigger for an item requiring two stats to use, dividing crit rate increases by 1.5 or multiplying costs by 1.5 is a solution to this problem.
    3: Lucky strike damage modifiers don't take into account current crit chance. To be more balanced, LS damage increases should take into account current crit chance (LS damage at 10% crit would be 10x LS damage at 100% crit, for example). I personally don't see this as a real bossing issue to be honest, since I expect the staff to remember to add plot armor and damage caps with .5 or below clawback to bosses. However, realistically having LS damage scale off crit chance is much more future proofed for future items, and if staff wish to tackle pumping big numbers with LS damage modifiers, then take dardiel's solution a post above.

    Reason I think leans are a terrible idea:
    Making all crit modifiers a lean would mean that crit rate increases do not increase damage dealt. If lucky strike rate goes up, damage goes down, if damage goes up, rate goes down to match proportionately. No crit chance or damage modifier would actually change average damage dealt. This would have several ramifications:
    1: There would be no meta purpose to using items to change crit. All effects modifying crits would average out to no change from not using them. This decreases item diversity players would use, because crit chance increases would serve no purpose.
    2: There would be no reason to use crit items together. As stated above, crit items would average out to no change in damage. Currently, there are plenty of reasons to use 2, 3, or even 4 crit items at a time to synergize with each other (I don't mean timekiller + lust = 100% crit, I mean using more than one crit item to work together to reach a higher crit chance w/out the multiplicative stacking). Again, reducing the meaningfullness of player choice, and removing item synergies.
    3: Leans are free effects, so all crit items would need to be adjusted to do something with the %melee paid for their effects. Presumably, since they were designed as damage items, all crit modifier effects that cost %melee would be rerouted into some kind of damage boost. Lunar Hare Weapons pay 20% melee, so they'd deal +20% damage (bloodblade). Granddad's Greatsword pays 20% melee, so it'd deal +20% damage (bloodblade). Zealot weapon + clone, for the same reason as above, bloodblade. This would be another example of reducing item diversity, as all these items which are currently markedly different from bloodblades, would instead become bloodblades with flavor RNG in damage dealt per turn.
    4: If you'd like to argue that granddad's greatsword would be different from a bloodblade, because when you lucky strike (5% chance of occurring with the described lean model in the first post), you'd deal a boatload of damage, I'll make a comparison. If you have a 5 Proc weapon, 5% of the time, it does a boatload of damage. How different is that weapon from a 10 Proc, which 10% of the time, does a smaller boatload of damage. How different are those from a 0 Proc, which does pretty much the same exact damage without RNG each turn. This is why I believe that a lean would tank item diversity, because there'd be no real difference between Graddad's Greatsword, Lunar Hare Sickle, and any Bloodblade.

    I have some other ideas and claims I want to respectfully disagree with:
    quote:

    Lucky strike items are heavily restricted currently because of how overpowered they are. The LS rework is the major reason for the staff's comments on @GwenMay's suggested set. Fixing the issue means there is no longer a need for a blockade on such items. ------- These serious issues make it extremely difficult to produce LS and hypercritical gear. Even small bonuses become uncontrollable so rapidly that they simply cannot be made, under the current model.

    This is not true. As of the third week of July last year, there had been 5 4 Crit related items released (Slaymore, 3 Lunar Hare Weapons, Shocked Monkey Board). As of the third week of July this year, we have 4 (Zealot Clone, Granddad Clone, Lunar Dragon Misc, Lunar Dragon Pet). There's not a blockade on crit items, they are being released at the same rate as last year. It's particularly telling that Granddad's clone was judged by staff as not needing adjustment, so clearly the power of crit items is not a cause for staff to block their release.
    quote:

    This modifier is considerably larger than the modifiers for (i) weapon damage to spellboosting [*4] and (ii) dodging [*6.67]

    There are no magic weapons that pay weapon damage to increase spell lucky strike rate. Lunar Hare Lantern and Scythe of Serenia pay 15% melee in HP on spellcast, and their 5% melee MC. They give 30% increased crit chance to spells, which I can only assume is a mistake of some kind. If you count MC as weapon damage, that's 5x4=20% melee, +15% melee = 35% melee, so it would be 4.5x spell lucky strike chance if they were valued that way. Either way, using the current spell lucky strike booster weapons as a part of an argument when they don't seem to be balanced correctly on current standards is iffy.
    Secondly, weapon damage to spellboosting and dodge trigger items having strong valuations are not at all isolated to lucky strikes. Given there's a single dodge related lucky strike booster, and (from my understanding of the inexplicable subs for the magic weapons) 0 weapon damage to spellcasting crit boosters, in my opinion it's iffy to use them as part of justification for a change.
    quote:

    allowing LUK to begin to reduce the gap with CHA in terms of item support

    As I stated above, if crit modifying items were all leans, there would be no benefit to the player to use them in terms of their output per turn. This would obliterate LUK's item support, and gut it, not bring it any closer to CHA.
    quote:

    While Gwen's set obviously needs some big changes, I do not think the general idea of Hypercrit and LS would change either otherwise it would be a completely different idea altogether and would not be the set that the supporters wanted to begin with.

    I think the staff said very clearly in their notes that this would be the case. LK wrote, " but must unfortunately include the caveat that most of it cannot be implemented as suggested." The staff were very upfront that this would be the case if Gwen's set was picked. Whether that's a good or bad thing is open to discussion, but the staff have clearly stated that's what would happen.
    quote:

    It's very much the opposite. The untenable nature of hypercrit as it stands is part and parcel, the reason why hypercrit related items have been fairly limited in item design currently. They could be doing a lot more creative stuff with hypercrit than "pay to increase damage" or rate, but can't because they need to design these items in a way that future hypercrit changes would bring these items in line immediately.
    To do otherwise would basically be setting themselves up to do more work going back and re-balancing a bunch of hypercrit items.

    I also disagree with this point, as I've stated above, I very strongly believe, and in fact cannot understand the logic behind your belief, that making crit modifiers universally into leans would obliterate item diversity. Please feel free to debate me or discuss with me on this, but in short, can you explain how Lunar Hare Sickle would actually perform differently than Masamune in terms of their crit modifiers? (ignore the bth on masamune of course since it's not relevant)
    quote:

    Dragonguard's banned void status, in addition, kind of implies that guaranteed Hypercrit might not even be an effect the staff wants to continue to exist. This would be one of the items that would probably need to be directly changed.

    That's a fair point. I'd counter by saying that they made Tiger Cannon after Dragonguard (100 Proc with a toggle for 100% crit chance, you have to pay for it in a similar way that you have to pay a turn and resources for dragonguard), and that they made the Skystalker bow, which has 6x LS chance turn one. I don't think staff imagined that players wouldn't use a second item to bring that 6x chance up to 100%.

    TLDR: Leans demolish item diversity for LUK, and remove meaningful player choice in item selection. Crit boosts stacking multiplicatively makes them significantly stronger than the player pays for.




    dizzle -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/21/2024 1:39:25)

    I agree I think all LS rate modifying items need to be on the same standard. Combining hypercrit with items that modify base LS rate is where the nonsense starts cooking




    LUPUL LUNATIC -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/21/2024 2:37:39)

    quote:

    However I do have a simple, elegant solution to propose:
    LS items should be valued properly.
    Hypercritical and items that modify LS rate should function as leans rather than as a direct boost.


    While i do agree that LUK damage needs a nerf in its output, currently is +150% damage i suggest it being tone down to +100% damage instead via stat damage formulas, i cannot agree with turning +LS rate into a lean, for reasons gibby already stated the LS weapons would turn into bloodblades which is the least of what i want with Lucky Strikes.
    And also Pet LUK damage needs a revision as well, lowering its LUK damage contribution from stat formula.




    Branl -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/21/2024 3:02:43)

    quote:

    1: There would be no meta purpose to using items to change crit. All effects modifying crits would average out to no change from not using them. This decreases item diversity players would use, because crit chance increases would serve no purpose.


    You mean like how Ranger lean "decreased item diversity?" Or how nobody liked server caps?
    It's fine if you personally can't imagine a utility for it, but I think acting like it's useless might be a tad extreme...
    Triggers based on Lucky Strike occurrence or rate? LS damage increases, for example?

    quote:

    2: There would be no reason to use crit items together. As stated above, crit items would average out to no change in damage. Currently, there are plenty of reasons to use 2, 3, or even 4 crit items at a time to synergize with each other (I don't mean timekiller + lust = 100% crit, I mean using more than one crit item to work together to reach a higher crit chance w/out the multiplicative stacking). Again, reducing the meaningfullness of player choice, and removing item synergies.


    Increased damage you can rely on or inconsistent, but explosive damage.
    This isn't any different from ranger lean being accurate or inaccurate, and yet, that idea breathed new life into Def Loss/Cold statuses.

    quote:

    3: Leans are free effects, so all crit items would need to be adjusted to do something with the %melee paid for their effects. Presumably, since they were designed as damage items, all crit modifier effects that cost %melee would be rerouted into some kind of damage boost. Lunar Hare Weapons pay 20% melee, so they'd deal +20% damage (bloodblade). Granddad's Greatsword pays 20% melee, so it'd deal +20% damage (bloodblade). Zealot weapon + clone, for the same reason as above, bloodblade. This would be another example of reducing item diversity, as all these items which are currently markedly different from bloodblades, would instead become bloodblades with flavor RNG in damage dealt per turn.



    Why would they all HAVE to do nothing but deal extra damage? You're kind of forcing your conclusion here. On top of that... it's not an conclusion that even makes sense. Your scenario of "every crit modifier would necessarily HAVE to be a damage effect" would be the same level of "item diversity" as LS currently enjoys.

    quote:

    4: If you'd like to argue that granddad's greatsword would be different from a bloodblade, because when you lucky strike (5% chance of occurring with the described lean model in the first post), you'd deal a boatload of damage, I'll make a comparison. If you have a 5 Proc weapon, 5% of the time, it does a boatload of damage. How different is that weapon from a 10 Proc, which 10% of the time, does a smaller boatload of damage. How different are those from a 0 Proc, which does pretty much the same exact damage without RNG each turn. This is why I believe that a lean would tank item diversity, because there'd be no real difference between Graddad's Greatsword, Lunar Hare Sickle, and any Bloodblade.


    One is rarer and more explosive, the other is more reliable, but more stable?
    Are you this insistent that berserk lean is useless?




    Ward_Point -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/21/2024 3:37:01)

    Keep things on topic. Lucky Strikes are a game balance problem. The solution should, ideally, not be limited by time nor other external factors that may be at play here.




    CH4OT1C! -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/21/2024 5:32:27)

    quote:


    1: The 3 standards of crit chance increases, additive, multiplicative, and hypercrit status, stack in a multiplicative fashion, not additive. Currently, a 10% additive, 2x multiplicative, and 2x hypercrit boost, all of which cost the same amount (10% melee each, total 30% melee), instead multiply 2x2x2=60% crit chance. Instead of going 10 (base) + 10x3 = 40% crit chance, multiplicative relationships add extra power. This is particularly problematic when stacking multiple sources, say Lunar Hare Weapon (3x), Lust (+40%), and Timekiller (2x hypercrit), while only 70% crit increase is being paid for, you instead receive (10+40)x3x2=300% crit chance. The solution for this is to make all crit chance boosters additive. Potentially, that would be an easy fix, as prior iterations of crit boost items were all done additively. Server Caps and Crown miscs would be problematic if additive, however, they can instead use the hypercrit status, with ferocious crowns / red caps getting .5 hypercrit, and price crowns / blue caps giving 2x hypercrit while doubling and halving damage as they currently do, respectively.
    2: Lucky strikes output 150% melee, but crit chance increases are 1% melee to 1% crit chance. Unless staff are satisfied with this unbalanced input to output ratio, and justify it with something like a player controlled trigger for an item requiring two stats to use, dividing crit rate increases by 1.5 or multiplying costs by 1.5 is a solution to this problem.
    3: Lucky strike damage modifiers don't take into account current crit chance. I don't see this as a real bossing issue to be honest, since I expect the staff to remember to add plot armor and damage caps with .5 or below clawback to bosses. However, if staff wish to tackle pumping big numbers with LS damage modifiers, then take dardiel's solution a post above.

  • We appear to be aligned on solution 2, so no need for me to comment on that.
  • Regarding issue 1, there are definitely issues with stacking. I disagree that this would be an easy fix, but as @Ward_Point has requested the discussion ignore time limits, and given the pool of items that modify critical hit is relatively limited, this is something possible in the longer run.
  • I also partially agree with 3; I don't think it's necessarily a problem that LS items don't account for current crit chance. However, my reasoning differs to yours. I believe that soft/hard damage caps are often employed as an excuse to try and implement/retain extremely overpowered interactions on the basis that they won't affect powerful bosses so severely. I consider this justification to be bad practice, barring certain exceptional circumstances. With that said, depending on the solution implemented to fixing lucky strikes, I think we could potentially still continue to calculate Lucky Strike items based on the assumed 10% proc chance.

    quote:

    Reason I think leans are a terrible idea:
    Making all crit modifiers a lean would mean that crit rate increases do not increase damage dealt. If lucky strike rate goes up, damage goes down, if damage goes up, rate goes down to match proportionately. No crit chance or damage modifier would actually change average damage dealt. This would have several ramifications:
    1: There would be no meta purpose to using items to change crit. All effects modifying crits would average out to no change from not using them. This decreases item diversity players would use, because crit chance increases would serve no purpose.
    2: There would be no reason to use crit items together. As stated above, crit items would average out to no change in damage. Currently, there are plenty of reasons to use 2, 3, or even 4 crit items at a time to synergize with each other (I don't mean timekiller + lust = 100% crit, I mean using more than one crit item to work together to reach a higher crit chance w/out the multiplicative stacking). Again, reducing the meaningfullness of player choice, and removing item synergies.
    3: Leans are free effects, so all crit items would need to be adjusted to do something with the %melee paid for their effects. Presumably, since they were designed as damage items, all crit modifier effects that cost %melee would be rerouted into some kind of damage boost. Lunar Hare Weapons pay 20% melee, so they'd deal +20% damage (bloodblade). Granddad's Greatsword pays 20% melee, so it'd deal +20% damage (bloodblade). Zealot weapon + clone, for the same reason as above, bloodblade. This would be another example of reducing item diversity, as all these items which are currently markedly different from bloodblades, would instead become bloodblades with flavor RNG in damage dealt per turn.
    4: If you'd like to argue that granddad's greatsword would be different from a bloodblade, because when you lucky strike (5% chance of occurring with the described lean model in the first post), you'd deal a boatload of damage, I'll make a comparison. If you have a 5 Proc weapon, 5% of the time, it does a boatload of damage. How different is that weapon from a 10 Proc, which 10% of the time, does a smaller boatload of damage. How different are those from a 0 Proc, which does pretty much the same exact damage without RNG each turn. This is why I believe that a lean would tank item diversity, because there'd be no real difference between Graddad's Greatsword, Lunar Hare Sickle, and any Bloodblade.

  • Crit chance items would serve a purpose, there just wouldn't be the same mathematical underpinning there is now. Players would be forced to make a tradeoff between the chances of landing a crit and the extra damage they provide, riding their luck to see if it pays off. To me, this increases item diversity by providing additional use cases for sub-100% crit rate modifiers
  • Regarding point 2, I can't say much more than I completely disagree with your interpretation.
  • Correct. You would need to retroactively adjust items. There are no situations in which there wouldn't need to be long-term investment. However, my lean change could be implemented relatively rapidly as the initial stage and primarily target the hypercritical status. While this would leave some items e.g., Arms of the Dragonguard underpowered, it is far less problematic in terms of balance to leave something underpowered as compared with overpowered. My solution is still long-term, but comes with the benefit of being able to implement the initial stages in a way that could make implementing @GwenMay's set more feasible. This is not something you could expect with the solutions you raise (fixing interactions on a number of items rather than a single status is likely to be more time and labour intensive).

    quote:

    This is not true. As of the third week of July last year, there had been 5 Crit related items released (Slaymore, 3 Lunar Hare Weapons, Shocked Monkey Board). As of the third week of July this year, we have 4 (Zealot Clone, Granddad Clone, Lunar Dragon Misc, Lunar Dragon Pet). There's not a blockade on crit items, they are being released at the same rate as last year. It's particularly telling that Granddad's clone was judged by staff as not needing adjustment, so clearly the power of crit items is not a cause for staff to block their release.

    Arms of the Dragonguard, the earliest hypercritical item, was released in 2019, not last year. Nonetheless, there has indeed been an increase in hypercritical items more recently (no doubt due to persistent player demand):
  • Willbreaker at most boosts LS rate or damage by *1.5
  • The Lunar Hare weapons provide up to a *4 LS chance
  • Granddad's Greatsword and clones provide *3 LS damage
  • The Monkey Shortboard isn't associated with crits, but dodging. Maybe you were thinking of another item?
  • Slaymore offers pets +25% crit chance.
  • The Lunar Dragon Misc offers +50% LS chance.
  • The Lunar Dragon Pet has +50% LS chance.
    Taking a closer look at this list, with the exception of Granddad's Greatsword, every one of these items offers equal or lesser power to items that were released 5-10 years ago. Dragonguard Guarantees crits, and LS damage bonuses of *1.5 have existed at least as far back as Midnight Wish Dagger in 2016. Moreover, all of these effects purely concern either Lucky Strike chance or damage. The variety of effects like those proposed in @GwenMay's set e.g., healing on lucky strike attacks, are completely missing. The staff explicitly mentioned that this kind of mechanic (healing on crit while multiplying the value by 10) is something that's not possible to implement when crits can be guaranteed. The evidence therefore points towards the staff intentionally restricting the LS items being released.

    quote:

    There are no magic weapons that pay weapon damage to increase spell lucky strike rate. Lunar Hare Lantern and Scythe of Serenia pay 15% melee in HP on spellcast, and their 5% melee MC. They give 30% increased crit chance to spells, which I can only assume is a mistake of some kind. If you count MC as weapon damage, that's 5x4=20% melee, +15% melee = 35% melee, so it would be 4.5x spell lucky strike chance if they were valued that way. Either way, using the current spell lucky strike booster weapons as a part of an argument when they don't seem to be balanced correctly on current standards is iffy.

    This is perhaps a miscommunication on my part - In no way was I claiming that the spellboost mechanic and the LS mechanic are combined on a single weapon. If the staff are already careful about the crit mechanics they release, as is indicated by recent evidence, then combining lucky strike mechanics with larger multipliers would be completely out of the question. Take Monkey Shortboard, for example - if it really did boost crit power in the same way that it boosts regular attacks now, the amount would approximate +1000*[Blocks]/[Attempts]% Melee! I Mentioned both the Dodge and Spellboost modifiers because both of these modifiers are considered problematic for the power they provide. The *10 provided by lucky strike rate is considerably bigger than both.



    Regarding both @Dizzle and @Dardiel's point for potential ways to boost LS rate directly - So long as Hypercritical is made into a lean, and the direct modifiers to LS chance were considerably lower than the 100% they can reach now, this is something I'd be open to agreeing with. This could effectively turn hypercritical into something very broadly similar to Berserk, where you can partially make up for missing LS rate and damage. To reiterate, though, it would need to be far smaller than the numbers now for it to be reasonable.




  • Sapphire -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/21/2024 9:41:16)

    Yesterday I formulated a post, and decided to delete it and hold off and give the lean idea some more thought and to give it a chance. But I just do not see this as being beneficial in a number of ways.

    First, it's way way way way too harsh. Luck is propped up as a desirable stat SOLELY because of lucky strikes. While some of the other things it does are helpful, and certainly lucky break does have very niche, but powerful case usages, it's not a good enough reason to train it. You can't gut luck that harshly without giving luck a few new ideas IMO. You'll see mass adoptions away from luck. In fact, you'll see non-BM's become BM's or hybrids as a result.

    The lean system has zero valuation. That's a major issue. At least with the BTH lean system it is interacting with monster blocking and is attempting to create specific monster by monster positives and negatives. A Hypercrit lean system is just about manipulating rates, and if damage goes down what's the point? In a game where you wish to do lots of damage, and in a game that's been more and more about trying to kill mobs as fast as possible, there's no incentive to increase LS rates if damage goes down. I saw that grandad's greatsword with this system at 100% rate would simply be a +20% weapon. Um, sorry, but who in their right mind wants to spent an UR GGB or tokens on the dev ticket clone to push rates to 100% just to get a +20% bonus? There's literally no value in doing that. All you're doing is pushing players to figure out a middle ground. Is it 50% rates? 30% for some? It would depend, and it would even matter because going to x3, x5, or x10 there is no valuation change. The more I think about it, the more I hate it. There is no benefit to increased lucky strike rates. In fact, I'd hate it.

    So instead of actively going overboard again with another GBI topic and stealing the one thing that players like about luck, I think a far less heavy-handed approach is a much better path forward.

    For starters, I noticed in the OP that my position was outright attempted to be discounted, and likely because I've mentioned my position on discord. I don't think the pre-emptive attempt to discredit it was necessary, especially considering staff never mentioned that the power ceiling was the issue. So capping the power ceiling, while is a part of what I would be willing to deal with, is a matter of opinion and nothing more. Again, it's not even mentioned in the dev notes post. So here is what I think should be done:

    First, it does sound like valuations are not correct. Staff said this in the dev notes post about hypercrit/lucky strikes:

    quote:

    Lucky Strikes and Hypercrit are currently slated for revision. This is partly due to inconsistent values that need to be consolidated. Additionally, they're based on multiplicative bonuses that make it too easy to guarantee critical strikes with minimal setup. The setup-to-output ratio is virtually all output, making it very unbalanced. It would be very difficult to maintain this idea's identity without having to perform all the work for this revision before or in time with this set, at which point the values themselves would still be different.


    It sounds like to me they already seem to have at the very least, a general idea of the direction they plan on going, but may not have fully fleshed out what that looks like.

    So, fix the valuations. Ensure that the output matches the cost to obtain it.

    Secondly, change stacking rules so that stacking the idea isn't so simple. This does not mean that you can no longer stack, but again, the simplicity and ease to get guaranteed lucky strikes with massive damage output on some combos need to be addressed.


    Third, in the event this wasn't enough of a fix, and only then, alter base lucky strike rate to 20% to match ferocious strikes, and half the damage output. By halving the damage output, you are actually reducing the power ceiling some. This will make things such as Grandad's greatsword's x3 LS damage be less of an issue. However, this leads me to the last thing:

    Fourth, you must make sure to bubblewrap some items. The pumpkin spice weapons were all altered to ensure that the effect only work as long as the attack was fire. This means A. Straight using it B. Fire elelocks C Fire imbues. This disabled using it with off-element elelocks, which was sort of turning several armors into psuedo H series.

    Grandad should have always been given the pumpkin spice treatment, so that the effect can only work on-element. This might not be necessary if rates double and damage halves, but if that doesn't happen then I think for sure it should get this bubblewrap.


    Lastly, when I look back at how we got here, in hindsight I guess the issue is item support and not the "system"

    Remember, we altered lucky strike items to be multiplicative because server cap/frostval crown existed. If you go back to an additive-only system, you just need to actually get rid of leans.

    Instead of the crown et al affecting the lean..ie half the rate but 2x damage and vice versa, just change the ITEMS to simply charge SP for 2x damage or 2x rate, depending on the version used. The lean system on an item actually propagated the OP current state of things, and we altered the system to fix a bug when we should have altered the item. Sometimes maintaining an item's flavor at all costs isn't the best path forward.


    Ultimately, going too harsh with this fix isn't good. It's cherry-picking one aspect of the game's 'stack' and claiming it to be OP, but there are 869876956 other very OP stacks..some I'd argue even more OP than this. I'm not saying working for some corrections isn't needed, but always going down some draconian, unfun, stat-killing direction would be a horrendous decision







    Korriban Gaming -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/21/2024 9:52:55)

    quote:

    I think the staff said very clearly in their notes that this would be the case. LK wrote, " but must unfortunately include the caveat that most of it cannot be implemented as suggested." The staff were very upfront that this would be the case if Gwen's set was picked. Whether that's a good or bad thing is open to discussion, but the staff have clearly stated that's what would happen.

    Yea I'm saying how the set functions will need to be changed but I don't think the general mechanic of Hypercrit and LS will be changed to something else entirely

    quote:

    However, my lean change could be implemented relatively rapidly as the initial stage and primarily target the hypercritical status.

    You are attempting to rush in with a less-than-satisfactory band-aid solution that will only cause a large amount of backlash due to how drastic it is. From this thread alone, you can already see many who don't agree. I'd much rather they take a longer time to give us something we all can accept. Rushing in with the "simpler" fix just to balance something that has already been there for years at the cost of pissing off the playerbase is such a bad idea.

    quote:

    While this would leave some items e.g., Arms of the Dragonguard underpowered, it is far less problematic in terms of balance to leave something underpowered as compared with overpowered.

    This is entirely your opinion. To me, an underpowered premium item is far more problematic than it being overpowered. It's also been around for 5 years at this point. Not only did the game not collapse because of it, but it also brought in some amount of revenue, I find it funny that this is considered problematic.

    quote:

    but comes with the benefit of being able to implement the initial stages in a way that could make implementing @GwenMay's set more feasible.

    As someone who helped with the ideation of Gwen's set as well as someone who voted for it, I can straight up tell you that turning Hypercrit into a lean system is not what any one of us will want. I believe there will be more ideas to make the set feasible later on that doesn't involve anything as drastic as the solution you proposed.

    quote:

    The variety of effects like those proposed in @GwenMay's set e.g., healing on lucky strike attacks, are completely missing. The staff explicitly mentioned that this kind of mechanic (healing on crit while multiplying the value by 10) is something that's not possible to implement when crits can be guaranteed. The evidence therefore points towards the staff intentionally restricting the LS items being released.

    Well that's cos nobody expects copy/paste clone suggestions for something as premium as a donation set item? Hence the new/unique mechanics. The staff shot down this idea yes, doesn't mean we can't come up with something else. It's also not a hard no to everything else crit-related. I agree with Grace that the recent releases prove that the staff are open to different LS items and mechanics. Restricting LS items is something you want. We don't agree and staff never explicitly said anything about it.

    quote:

    I saw that grandad's greatsword with this system at 100% rate would simply be a +20% weapon. Um, sorry, but who in their right mind wants to spent an UR GGB or tokens on the dev ticket clone to push rates to 100% just to get a +20% bonus? There's literally no value in doing that. All you're doing is pushing players to figure out a middle ground. Is it 50% rates? 30% for some? It would depend, and it would even matter because going to x3, x5, or x10 there is no valuation change. The more I think about it, the more I hate it. There is no benefit to increased lucky strike rates. In fact, I'd hate it.

    So instead of actively going overboard again with another GBI topic and stealing the one thing that players like about luck, I think a far less heavy-handed approach is a much better path forward.

    quote:

    Ultimately, going too harsh with this fix isn't good. It's cherry-picking one aspect of the game's 'stack' and claiming it to be OP, but there are 869876956 other very OP stacks..some I'd argue even more OP than this. I'm not saying working for some corrections isn't needed, but always going down some draconian, unfun, stat-killing direction would be a horrendous decision

    This exactly.




    Aura Knight -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/21/2024 13:20:27)

    Would there be any acceptance for restricting lucky strikes to only resource recovery effects? Only regen can do it. This will help resource management while cutting down direct offense.





    Telcontar Arvedui I -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/21/2024 23:12:41)

    First off, I agree with proper Lucky Strike valuation, and am here to provide a slightly different package of solutions (to be taken in whole, please do not piecemeal the solution below). Skip to the bottom for tl;dr

    * * * * * * *


    Starting off with LS rates, I am on-board that 1% LS rate (or LS chance, however you like to term it) should equal 1.5 %Melee baseline. If people are arguing to shift it, there should be justifications (so far I haven't read any that's convincing, and I've read the possibilities presented by @Grace Xisthrith on post #13).

    * * * * * * *


    Between turning multiplicative LS-rate modifiers (or even all LS-rate modifiers, including additive ones) into lean mechanics, and turning all LS-rate modifiers additive, I'm currently leaning towards the latter, mostly because I think it'd be easier to re-code all LS-rate modifiers as additive. This includes the Hypercritical status. Turning all LS-rate modifiers additive will also inherently make it more difficult to cap or overcap LS rate IMO, effectively deterring abuse. Outliers such as the Dragonguard spells can then be dealt with on a per-case basis, depending on dev discretion. EDIT: see below.

    (I can support turning only multiplicative LS-rate modifiers into lean mechanics, but even that is a somewhat distant second to the above)

    * * * * * * *


    w.r.t. LS-damage, I propose to scale costs up to match the modified-LS-damage output, which is slightly similar to what @Dardiel suggested in post #11. However, the costs are paid if and only if the LS happens, and the LS-damage modifier only takes effect when the cost is paid. Let's take an example:

    quote:

    If the player has no other stuff that modifies LS damage, then I propose that on a LS, Granddad's Greatsword pays the 300% Melee cost in full, because the 2x extra LS damage equals 300 %Melee. No more paying 30 %Melee (currently Granddad underpays by only paying 20 %Melee) per turn to fish for a LS.

    If the player is also using a Precise Frostval Crown (halve LS damage, but double LS rate), then on a LS, Granddad has to pay 75 %Melee cost because it only gets an extra 0.5x LS damage (x1.5 instead of x3). Frostval Crown already pays its price, so no need to adjust that.

    If the player is not using a Frostval Crown, but a future-designed item that has no effect other than further 2x LS damage, then on a LS, Granddad first pays 300 %Melee, AND THEN said future-designed item must pay 450 %Melee cost, since it turns a 3x LS damage into a 6x, and therefore has to pay for 3x extra LS damage. If the player can only afford less than 300 %Melee, then Granddad's effect is not paid for and does not occur, but the future-designed item can then pay 150 %Melee to turn the LS damage from 1x to 2x.


    Basically, for every LS occurence, go through the equipped items in an arbitrary order (eg. weapon -> armour -> shield -> spell -> pet -> misc), check LS damage modifier outcome, and then pay equivalent cost to activate LS damage modifying effects. If the player cannot pay the cost (whether be it having insufficient resources, or because paying the HP costs would cause them to die and lose), they will not pay, and the LS damage modifier won't take effect. If LS-damage-modifiers stacking multiplicative is an issue, whether due to difficulty in implementing cost-calculating code, or just in general, I am happy to also turn all LS-damage-modifiers additive - this would fix the costs, and devs will now only have to account for dividing the cost by armour / weapon-proc / spell / skill hitcount.

    Inevitably this sweeps the LS damage problem under the "resource availability problem" rug, because paying 300 %Melee per LS weapon-hit is, IMO, bonkers - but I do think this let's us get as close as we can get to current LS power levels while still being mathematically consistent.

    Narrative-wise, this turns all LS-damage modifiers into "opportunity only comes to those who are prepared", as in "ludicrous LS damage only happens if you are prepared enough to pay for them". Or, if devs decided that such costs can be paid via reducing the players' defensive capabilities (reduced blocking, increased damage intake, self-inflict EleVuln, etc. etc.), LS-damage modifiers can thematically become "stretching your luck thin in hopes that you don't have to do it again". Although, I do think such defensive handicaps are false penalties when LS builds are designed to OTK / nuke.

    * * * * * * *


    After some thought, I feel that I cannot ignore the need to address the two most egregious outliers in the room - Dragonguard spells and Granddad's/Lazgorath.

    Dragonguard spells
  • Using only 1 spell to guarantee the next turn's LS is too much IMO, as it renders other LS-chance-modifying items redundant. Personally I'd propose inherently requiring a minimum of 3 LS-chance-modifying items to stack up to +90% LS chances (guaranteeing LS), so I would suggest turning Dragonguard spells' Hypercrit into 2 turns of +30% LS chance. This means there'll be no need to adjust the cost, as 2*30*1.5 = 90% Melee, exactly the cost currently-paid-for by the spell for Hypercrit effects.

    Granddad's/Lazgorath
  • If paying the full 300 %Melee in one go (which can happen if the player scores a LS using a 1-hit armour or weapon-based skill) is too much, then I propose allowing a small part of the cost to be paid every turn, assuming 10% chance of LS - but the majority of the cost should still be paid on-LS, subject to the devs' discretion.
  • Personally I see no problem with capping the on-LS payment to be on-par with the likes of Paladin armour's Sunscale Legacy skill, which costs 200 %Melee. This would mean Granddad/Lazgorath pays 200 %Melee on-LS, alongside paying 10 %Melee per turn. That could come from weapon MC, plus 5 %Melee of SP per turn. The on-LS cost can be split between HP and SP, if the devs so choose, as long as the SP cost is high enough to prohibit casual activations on consecutive turns, IMO (eg. 50 %Melee HP, 150 %Melee SP).
  • Alternatively, these weapons may even change their MC to reduce the on-LS cost based on LS rate. This means they're paying 5 %Melee per turn, and then having a base LS rate of 10 percent will reduce their on-LS cost by 5/0.1 = 50 %Melee (i.e. from 250 to 200 %Melee), while having a 100 percent LS rate only reduces that cost by 5/1 = 5 %Melee (from 250 to 245 %Melee).
  • Again, since the on-LS cost is divided by armour / weapon-proc / skill hitcount, therefore aside from the 1-hit situation outlined in bullet point 1 above, each on-LS payment should be quite palatable without further implementations, especially if we account for non-100-percent LS scenarios.

    * * * * * * *


    Finally, I hope that more interesting things can happen when players (or even monsters) LS. @GwenMay suggested damage-based heal on-LS with her Giftmaster's set, and I believe if we remove the damage-based component, a heal on-LS, or any effects-on-LS (eg. inflicts Bleed/Cripple on-LS) isn't unreasonable, provided it scales in inverse proportion to the LS rate, ie the higher the LS rate, the lower the output of effects-on-LS, given the cost paid is equal. This could really open up LUK's niche and turn LS into the foundation for a diverse playstyle, where the whole spectrum of LS chances can be useful and tailored to each individual player's preference, instead of just the "ohoho I want consistently 100 percent chances of dealing 1000 %Melee in weapon damage every turn when I Hypercrit + Granddad + Ferocious Crown" meta that we have right now.

    * * * * * * *


    In summary,
  • 1 % LS chance or damage should equal 1.5 %Melee, to align with base 20-turn model standard.
  • Make all LS-rate modifiers additive.
  • LS-damage modifiers should only activate by paying their full cost on a LS, otherwise they don't activate at all.
  • I have proposed changes to Dragonguard spells and Granddad/Lazgorath specifically, because they are extreme outliers.
  • Please consider other effects that can happen on LS, instead of just boosting LS damage.

    EDIT: Further fleshed out the proposal by clarifying the proposed changes to LS-damage-modifers' on-LS cost payment, as well as changes specifically targeting outlier items w.r.t. LS/Hypercrit.




  • JasCK -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/22/2024 3:51:21)

    didnt finish reading, but why always thinking in the way of 'the dmg is too op, lets balance (nerf) the dmg'? Why cant it be 'the dmg is too op, let the player sacrifice more for it'? items provide more then it s intend to? pay more rss for it, it is just pay more gain more. I see someone mentioning Granddad's Greatsword, etc and believes LS is broken, how about just require SP/HP paying for the effect? like how Masamune works, paying a chunk of SP for the big dmg. Chaning the whole LUK mechanism will broke all the LUK-related items. Taking away smthng that a player already paid for is a terrible idea, I still remember how bad i feel when I pay 50 bucks buying the updated Akriloth's Wrath for its OP dmg and suddenly it got nerf because of the OP dmg.




    Branl -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/22/2024 4:53:25)

    quote:

    didnt finish reading, but why always thinking in the way of 'the dmg is too op, lets balance (nerf) the dmg'? Why cant it be 'the dmg is too op, let the player sacrifice more for it'? items provide more then it s intend to? pay more rss for it, it is just pay more gain more. I see someone mentioning Granddad's Greatsword, etc and believes LS is broken, how about just require SP/HP paying for the effect? like how Masamune works, paying a chunk of SP for the big dmg. Chaning the whole LUK mechanism will broke all the LUK-related items. Taking away smthng that a player already paid for is a terrible idea, I still remember how bad i feel when I pay 50 bucks buying the updated Akriloth's Wrath for its OP dmg and suddenly it got nerf because of the OP dmg.


    A Suggestion that LS Damage weapons charge sp that varies depending on LS Rate isn't an impossible idea. The problem with it, however, is that it'd be largely held up by yet another aspect of game design in need of a GBI thread (Resource Regeneration, things like EO, etc). If that change is implemented, there will be a holding period where the difficulty of using items like a Granddad that lets you pay up to 1.2k SP (Ignoring that even spells only allow a max SP investment purely into damage of around 700, based on drop the MOAP), would suddenly increase exponentially for practical use after resource regeneration (Like EO) is reigned in. It effectively pushes the issue of balance onto another problematic mechanic, which would also necessitate pushing the timeframe on implementing fixes to resource regeneration up sooner. This wouldn't ultimate wind up looking like how it will in the future, and it doesn't fully fix LS until resource regen becomes more restrictive.

    I just don't want people to think "Let us pay up to 280% melee in SP for Granddad" is a "softer" solution. It will ultimately end up in a similar position as it would in any other feasible suggestion, except now we have to discuss whether letting an effect pay up to 280% melee for damage boosting is something that we should even allow, and we'll have other contraints in item design until the resource regeneration is fixed (You likely wouldn't be seeing SP regen on LS, for example).




    CH4OT1C! -> RE: Lucky Strikes (7/22/2024 6:10:01)

    @Aura Knight: Restricting LS only to resource recovery would be a larger nerf than anything I've suggested on this thread. It also undermines a key component of LUK. Neither would it make any difference to how overpowered LSs are.

    @Korriban Gaming: I wish to avoid derailing this conversation into another yet another discussion with you around whether we should balance items and mechanics in AQ. I shall therefore respond to your criticisms within the context of this suggestion:
  • The reason I consider it preferable to leave Arms of the Dragonguard and other similar items in an underpowered state is because, on this official thread, the staff explicitly state that nerfs are often prioritised for precisely this reason. Also note that it echoes another of my key points - that this affects the fun ideas they can implement in future:
    quote:

    Overpowered Items: While they seem like a simple opposite of underpowered items, they pose a different kind of problem. An underpowered item is largely an isolated problem: The problem boils down to the item itself, what it could have done better, and how to improve it. An overpowered item or broken combination affects other items and battles. When it IS practical to deal with them, they're a higher priority because the more overpowered something is, and the more overpowered items there are, the fewer fun ideas we can design in the future, as early as the week after such an item comes out. This includes buffing items.

  • This thread is principally about resolving LSs, largely because it is most practical to start discussing the topic now. The reason I have chosen to post this thread now, is that the reasonable possibility of @GwenMay's set being selected has compounded the problem. If the initial stages of a fix aren't implemented before this set gets released, it is at significant risk of becoming redundant. This would apply regardless of the initial state that the set is released in. It would also force the staff to be more conservative than they otherwise would be precisely because of the information provided in the quote above. Any subsequent feedback would be subject to the same restriction. The changes I have in mind are designed to make it possible for these more unique items to be implemented.

    @Sapphire: My comments in the OP regarding doubling the chance of LS occurring still accurately summarise my thoughts following your proposal.

    @Telcontar Arvedui I: Of course, one of the alternative measures that could be implemented is to increase the amount the player pays, rather than reducing the bonus. I must confess that I don't like this solution, purely and simply because it puts even greater emphasis on resource regeneration. Healing is already the subject of multiple other GBIs (including several of my own), and a number of healing items are already pending significant and controversial nerfs. I do not think it's a good idea to kick this can down the road, placing even more emphasis on such changes. It is, however, a viable method to solve a problem. With that said, I do still have some pretty important questions:
  • How much should they be able to pay?: Even if we could make a LS boost cost 1200-1300 SP to activate, should we allow the player to spend 1200-1300 SP to boost a LS? The maximum that's generally allowed to be spent is ~250% Melee with overcharged spells, and even the upper extreme (e.g., Drop the B-Bomb) maxes out your damage bonus at 722 SP. I don't think these items should function with no limits and, if so, this severely limits how far these items can boost LS damage at base.
  • What happens if they can't pay?: Tracking the exact LS rate is a little more difficult than one might first imagine, due to the different methods of boosting it (it's not just hypercritical). What happens if the player doesn't have enough of a resource to pay the added cost? Do we take it out of HP, another resource? Do we not apply the boost if the player can't pay? If so, wouldn't we also need to apply this cost before the attack?

    @JasCK: Granddad's Greatsword Triples LS rate. 5% Melee is paid for with MC, but you would be adding approximately 300% Melee to your attack assuming you increase your critical hit rate to 100% (e.g., using Arms of the Dragonguard). Since the damage reduction of dragonguard is meant to cover the additional %Melee given to crits without boosts, it covers none of the value provided by Granddad. At Level 150, 100% Melee costs 392 SP or 349 HP (since the cost is paid in HP). This means:
    quote:

    Cost = 392 * ( 3 - 0.05) = 1156 SP
    or:
    Cost = 349 * ( 3 - 0.05) = 1030 HP

    As you can see, these numbers are not only massive, but vastly exceed current precedent around how much SP/HP you can spend in one turn. The current SP limit is 722 (i.e. this attack would increase that by 62%) and the maximum HP spent is around 349 HP (i.e. it's effectively being tripled for Granddad alone). Please note this is for one booster. If you added more, this cost would increase further.
    As for your other points, see this staff thread.




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