The Renaissance combat system was designed to provided expected results when using a weapon based on information that OSI has published. It was our belief that they would not clearly state the damage of a weapon should be x-y. And then proceed to design a system where that is impossible, or you would see damage above or below this stated damage range without specific indicators of bonus damage (Exceptional, Magical Damage Bonus). On this page we find some conflicting information, when compared to information available on stratics and elsewhere. But it can still provide a clue to the logic used by the original developers. Section 3 states clearly that a certain weapon should inflict a certain range of damage. However in the next step of the process they indicate that the bonus for strength should be applied after the damage roll is calculated. What is missing here, and is the subject of much discussion in the classic emulation world is exactly how/when/why the effects of skills are factored into the base damage. Stratics indicates that tactics gives you 50 to 150%, Anatomy a max of 30%, and Str a max of 20%. (Notice, no information is available for overages of these values). In some situations I have seen these numbers capped. In some situations they are allowed to flow over 100. But related to strength there are a variety of statements/sources that indicate the maximum bonus is 20%. So 100, 125, 200, 1000 strength would all provide a 20% bonus. I have yet to find any statement from OSI regarding overages related to strength. However there is a common assumption that this is the case because this formula is regularly posted. STR % Bonus= STR ÷ 5. The formula simply explains the scale of 10 to 100 strength. Common sense could take this either way. OSI clearly stated the max bonus was 20% at a time when spells/potions and jewelry could affect strength over 100. You can even dig up some information on how OSI handled players stacking strength items in 1998 to see how that factors in. (Reference needed) Another aspect missing is where in the process magical and exceptional bonuses are applied. (Stratics, Guides, Available Resources) Stratics indicates the damage roll is modified, and then halved. So if you rolled a 25, and had a combat calculation of 200%. The modified damage value would be 50. If this weapon was exceptional. The modified roll would be 54. And then halved to 27 damage. Essentially halving the exceptional and magical bonuses. This is the method that RunUO uses by default. (I can go into the RunUO methods in detail, should players wonder why certain expectations are so common in the free shard emulation world) The Lumberjacking bonus was later added to the stack, but before the halving as well. Which if anyone has ever played on a UOR server in the first year of its life complaints about how pointless lumberjacking are will be a common sight. This is because even with a 30% bonus, it is completely based on your damage roll and then halved. So even if you rolled a 36 with an axe, the bonus damage would only be 5. The average bonus for grandmaster lumberjacking (with default RunUO) would be 2-3 damage. Our combat system was based on the following factors. Understanding the goals of the original OSI developers. Meeting the expectations of the players when using a specific weapon. Properly taking into account the effects skills have on the combat effectiveness process. (Modifying the damage roll). Providing players with the understood damage modifiers for weapons. Rewarding players who add the lumber jacking skill to their template with a more stable bonus damage. The following statements are also true. You can mitigate a reduction in your players strength with the use of a strength potion/spell or tactics bonus weapon. You can mitigate, to a lesser degree, a lack of tactics with the application of a tactics bonus weapon or strength potion/spell. You can mitigate a lack of anatomy skill with the application of a tactics weapon or strength potion/spell. You cannot however exceed a certain point by modifying your tactics and strength values. It is only applied after the combination of those 3 factors. This is based on our understanding of the maximum effect your skills can have on a damage roll. To exceed a weapons base damage you would need an exceptional or magical weapon. Or application of the bonus from lumberjacking. To be clear this is something custom that the Renaissance staff came up with after months and months of testing across the combat spectrum. We even designed the combat log book as a tool to assist us in getting it write, a large project in its own right. And to give an example of the difficulty in coming to a 100% consensus on how combat should work. Take a look at the differences from these two pages from the Official Origin Guide to Ultima Online in 1997 compared to the Prima Guide from 1998. You will notice some interesting information regarding the magical bonuses to weapons and the difference in wording on the accuracy bonuses. Both guides do clearly indicate that accuracy bonuses should affect the combat skill of the weapon. Not the tactics skill. So in the end, we have simply worked to provide the players with something that feels as close to possible combat wise to December 1999. Is it perfect, probably not. Could it use more work down the road? Probably. Our #1 goal was for players to log in, grab a weapon and go beat on another player/monster and immediately experience something that feels like Ultima Online in 1999. To a large degree I feel that we have been successful. References used above. Renaissance Getting Started Section Official Guide to Ultima Online By Origin (1997, 306 Pages) Ultima Online the Second Age Official Strategy Guide by Prima (1998, 306 Pages) Renaissance Stratics Archive Note: I have excluded armor absorption from this discussion because that is another matter entirely in which I could talk for 12 pages.
The distribution of an ex. axe is even narrower. I disagree that smaller deviation is necessarily optimal for pvp. Damage spikes drop people. Double axe for life!
Thanks for all that (additional) work Chris, I appreciate it. The big hurdle in my mind is the historically and almost globally understood factor of gaming, wherein more strength = more damage, does not exist here now. The cap here has left me feeling like I wasted quite a long time with max strength for literally no reason other than a few hit points. I specifically ran max strength on my macer and LJ because I wanted maximum damage potential. I would even use Str pots to shoot for even higher damage.......and just recently learned it is all for naught. Had I known there was a cap, I could have been balancing my stats a lot better and that's something that needs to be in a guide or taught to our players in a clear manner so no one else is negatively impacted by thinking the time-honored GM Tactics/Anat + Max Str = Max Damage, without question. Knowing that on Renaissance you can (or really should) find the best balance of those three things to find peak damage, then allocate points elseware, is something that should not have been left in the file cabinet this long. Don't get me wrong, weapons are light years beyond beta days here and I have been having a lot more fun with them. I just feel like I wasted a lot of time and strength potions doing jack shit over the past....however long this cap has been in place. Hail Renaissance.
Holy crap-a-moley 1. So anatomy @ 100 is 30%? 2. Can someone provide an actual formula for for combat ability. If statements are fine 3. Chugging STR pots was not a waste - Really were you chugging em for 2% increased damage or the health? 4. I hate to say "I remember" but I remember when runics first came out people were 2 hit killing foo's with axes 5. THX for the input everyone, tis helpin me piece together viable templates.
When I run a big damage template, yes, I will chug pots or do anything that can eek out even a scrap more damage. That's the whole point of big damage. Go big, or go home. Big damage has a cap here (by way of Combat Ability cap) and we need to adjust templates accordingly to not waste stats or skills trying for more than is possible, here.
OK, this is the formula I will use. • WHERE is the damage halved before armor though? before or after #4? Updating chart with this for now. Still need to update rolls v armor (need to remember my statistics for it, bleh...)
1. Yes. Well, if the ceiling or floor don't override. 2. See my first post in this thread. Nowhere. It isn't.
Here's the fix: armor. Try subtracting 10 or 12 from those average damage figures, and then see which one is better. Also cut them in half because you're only hitting on half your swings. Furthermore, you get into the fact that other people don't just stand still and let you hit them, so swing intervals (for disruption) and the actual number of times you can hit a moving target come into play. So it really is an art, not a science. If you want to use calculations to determine what the best weapon against a monster is, I think there is value there. They stay still and behave predictably. They always wear the same amount of armor and use the same weapon against you. But for PvP purposes, it is very hard to come up with a useful model in a spreadsheet. TRUST ME. This is where the train went off the tracks for me. You have a reference point of another shard that went through the tediousness of looking into the Demo, Stratics, and a few other sources, and came away with a model that pretty precisely matches the Stratics combat page. And it worked pretty well and people were pretty happy. I'm not sure why the wheel needed to be reinvented. Go with that starting point (I think default RunUO gets pretty close to it), and tinker for this era as needed. Now the combat on this shard works pretty well too, and people are pretty happy. The issue with getting to this point via custom code is that precisely zero people have experience in tinkering with it and seeing the results. Publishing the formulas (if Bogugh's info is correct) is a good start though.
^ this It is provable that smaller deviations do less damage. Thus wide variations do more damage. So that is one strike against smaller deviations. And secondly, I agree with Bogugh that damage spikes are what kill competent players in this game. If you have a significant advantage against someone, you want consistency. But given that most players are of reasonable competency and similar skill, damage spikes give you one of the few elements of surprise.
They are cut in half; that's what the /2 is for. I posted numbers with armor too. Not a huge deal imo and at least the relationship between speed and damage bonuses is intuitive. I guess, in a way, it kind of balances out with the katana. I tossed out the idea of converting all tactics mods to be like archery for offensive purposes. This preserves the intent of the design of the combat system here, but makes it completely intuitive. It would reduce the max to 1.04CA. Even uncapped, it doesn't meaningfully increase max damage per swing and it doesn't favor any weapon class. If changes are ever considered, then I think this is worth testing. Just to be clear: I don't think the existing system is that bad at all. It is just a little quirky and the quirks weren't understood. No one was getting the most out of their template and you can now do that without the need for a patch.
Yes - it gets to a good place, agreed. I am mostly frustrated that it departs from my conception of era mechanics. But, not my shard, so w/e. Funny, we could model this (along with the damage range of Explosion and Ebolts you'll be getting from teammates). But even all this strategizing would pale in benefit compared to a quick IRC ping to a teammate about suggested roles. I had the most fun in CTF when I fooled around. At some point I'll get back on IRC more, and try to catch some matches, and bust out my valorite runic dagger and see what I can do with it
The formula is very close but perhaps I am missing something? greater of 0 and (Tactics - 50)/100 + (anatomy)(0.2) + 0.1 if (anatomy = 100) + (strength)(0.2) (100-50)/100 = .5 0*.2=0 (75*.2)/100=.15 =.65 Combat ability is shown to be 68% difference = 3%
