Why Melee Damage is so low (and 0 damage hits)

Not sure what to say, because I think it does.

Two things. One is that I don't believe in this era of the game that you saw damage numbers appearing above heads, like you did in AOS+. But perhaps you were fighting friends or alts and they were telling you they were never getting hit for 1? I dunno, I can't argue with recollection.

I completely agree with the premise that weapons don't do enough damage against armor. I've been arguing this since probably my third day on this shard. The first thing I do on a new shard is fire up some macros for herding and eval int and stuff, and compile a spreadsheet of weapons and armors and figure out what might work especially well on a given shard.

But I don't think this means that we have to go to a system that never existed in UO, for player vs. player at least. I don't think this means we should adopt the monster AR system for players. I just think a few simple tweaks can improve the way this works, namely decreasing the dex penalty of metal armor, and decreasing the effectiveness of leather armors.

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The point of Virtual Armor is clear, you outlined it perfectly there.

What I don't understand is when you say that it's OK for Monsters to have damage absorbed based on Displayed AR but that is absolutely forbidden for Players? I just don't understand the reasoning behind that

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I do appreciate the witty remark. My theory has some proof behind it.

All I'm asking is for some proof behind your claim

Gideon and Dalavar are right.
No more to say here I think.

If the lower Armor parts would be really so low we would see much to high hits.

So be realistic:
Why should plate on breast protect less than plate on hands or as gorget?
Just think about it "realistic"

The shown AR is, how already correctly said, just the "calculated all over average AR"

Example: Plate Breast with 43% hitchance has 20 AR. But REAL AR on this part is 20 * 1/0.43 = 46.5AR

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But I'm not saying they should have slots. I'm asking why is AR absorption scaled based on body position if that is the wrong way to do it?

Example: A harpy has 38 AR. Its basically wearing a full suit of barbed leather lets say. It gets hit in the chest. The damage absorbed by the harpy is (0.44) * 38 = 17 AR worth of damage. On a player, it's a full on 38 AR worth of damage absorption.

Instead of coming up with anecdotes to sway the audience, I'm claiming there is a simple typo in the RunUO codebase and player armor absorption is supposed to be scaled based on body position.

In fact, I will do some additional testing in the UODemo right now and compare the damage values between there and here to further prove my point.

Dalavar is suggesting to change dex penalties, change the effectiveness of leather armor. I'm sorry, but as a software developer that solution just sounds messy. Why kill the individual bees when you can exterminate the hive? Go to the source of the problem, not mitigate the effects.

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My solution to the bug doesn't effect that so I fail to see your point. I suggest looking over the code in my original post again.

In the fixed code, if someone gets hit in the head and they don't have a helmet on, they will still take full on damage just as before.

All it is is calling ArmorRating vs ArmorRatingScaled. I see developers make mistakes like that all the time and even make the same mistakes myself. I'm simply claiming there was a typo.

If there was a typo, they made it in 1996 or 1997. And then didn't fix it in 1998. Or 1999. Or 2000. Or 2001. etc.

How is it messy? These are fixed values somewhere in the code. I'm suggesting changing them to a different fixed value. It's like the least messy thing you could possibly do. It's like changing 11 numerical digits in a table.

Your solution, on the other hand, requires changing the entire system.

To make more silly metaphors, it's like we're both trying to make the perfect pizza. And I'm saying we should keep the recipe and add 10% more pepperoni and 20% less sauce. And you're saying we should go with thick crust and set the oven temperature in Celsius and put the sauce on top of the cheese.

PS - thanks Gideon for explaining more clearly what I was trying to explain.

Do you have any proof of that? The RunUO devs reversed engineered the server and had no access to official code. I will take it on myself to test this in the UODemo to further prove my point.

My solution involves changing 1 single line, no sorry, 1 single variable. Your solution on the other hand involves changing about 20 scripts and effecting different values that have no merit.

I would say its more like someone meant to put on pepperoni on the pizza but they accidentally put on escargot.

Good luck in your quest for the right meat.

You are correct Dalavar, damage was not displayed above people's heads, however, immediately after Publish 16 my guild at the time wanted to see exactly what the changes were so we all did extensive tests with weapons and armor, calling out damage taken. This was done after each patch that affected spell or weapon damage after publish 16 on up until I quit production shards in 2004. At no time did anyone take just one point of damage from a melee weapon.

I do agree with you, the melee and AR system doesn't have to be radically modified, simply tweaked as metal armor is more of a detriment to a warrior than say, studded barbed leather. Two-handed weapons seem to be more on par with damage than one-handed weapons.

Brymstone, I can't argue with your recollection. I am constantly amazed at how much people remember about this game back then... I remember like 5 screenshots worth of stuff - houses I saw, someone I fought, etc.

The solution here is for Nightwolf to examine the demo code and see if it matches his interpretation of what Stratics and RunUO should look like, or if it matches what they do look like. Short of that, it doesn't appear anything will change his mind.

I wonder how much opposition to this is due to folks not wanting to get their pretty dyed masked heads chopped off.

Edit: BTW I actually installed and played the Demo to UO back in the day (came on the T2A disc I think) and I remember it being like bizarro world. I know for sure many things about that code were not what was on production at the time. Even then I could tell it was wonky and weird.

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"Jim vs Bob" with 3 test cases.​

Test Case 1
- Vanilla out of the box RunUO with AOS ruleset

Test Case 2
- Vanilla out of the box RunUO with PreAOS ruleset

Test Case 3
- Fixed RunUO with PreAOS ruleset (using the solution purposed in my original post)


Preconditions
- Each player has identical skills and stats. All GM skills and 100/100/100 stats
- Each test is run with a fresh suit of leather armor (not exceptional) providing an overall AR of 40 Edit: AR of 13
- Each test is run with a fresh Katana
- AOS Katana does 11 - 13 damage
- PreAOS Katana does 5 - 26 damage

Here are the results

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