Stonewall and Shielding

[trevius]

Hmm, I thought your server was already running the code that included the min enforced damage. If that was the case though, your players would NEVER be hit for less than 2k on a mob with 2k min.

It was finalized in the 1081 build.

==01/22/2008
KLS: Melee mitigation should now properly enforce minimum damage.

And thanks, I am glad you are benefiting from the quest. It seems to help my server considerably. I still do regular reboots to keep things running as smooth as possible, but it isn't nearly as bad as it was before. I could now leave the server running for a few days if I wanted and not have to worry about the players suffering too badly.

I am still looking into a few other things that might help clear up other connection issue like the well known "lag bug" and connections hanging and building up over time. I will certainly share anything I find here and on your forums as well.

[thepoetwarrior]

Yeah, same here. I try to do regular reboots, about once every 24 hours, but at least I know if life gets busy for 2-3 days, the users can still play.

I did some test of my own. By the way, running server build 1096, and tested on one boss that hits for minimin 2k dmg, and it works. What I didn't realize is that "Cripple" was being casted on the mob. So I did a #findspell and #cast cripple on the boss, and that dropped its dmg down to about 1400. (I made a 50k hp BP for testing this). I looked up the info on cripple, and its only suppose to lower the STR and a few other stats a little bit, so how does this affect min damage? Maybe nobody knows, but at least we know how users can lower the min dmg in a fight which can change the difficulty of a raid.

[KLS]

I am revisiting this just to say with my next patch shielding effects will affect damage below the damage bonus or minimum hit. It will still be enforced on AC though.

[ChaosSlayer]

very good =)

[trevius]

Originally Posted by KLS

I am revisiting this just to say with my next patch shielding effects will affect damage below the damage bonus or minimum hit. It will still be enforced on AC though.

That sounds ok as long as it doesn't mean the player will be getting hit for the exact same damage every time. I don't think it is right to see hits like 500 500 500 500 500 etc.

[KLS]

Nope, unless they're hitting minimum every time already shouldn't be an issue.

[ChaosSlayer]

Originally Posted by trevius

That sounds ok as long as it doesn't mean the player will be getting hit for the exact same damage every time. I don't think it is right to see hits like 500 500 500 500 500 etc.

well actualy if player AC insanly high, even with new shilding you stil ggoing to see hits like 233, 233, 233, 233 etc.
Cuase min dmg is enforced onto AC.
The diffirence that shielding will now reduce the final dmg, so it will actualy matter vs all types of dmg not just nax dmg.

in other words- the problem with identical hits is with players AC, not with the shielding =)

[trevius]

Well, I find from my testing that the problem is actually caused by the range from min and max damage if you have it set to a small 30% difference, they will almost always be hit for the min damage. But, if you set it to a big 80% difference, they will still get hit for a good range of damage.

To adjust for players with high AC, you just raise the NPC's STR up really high and it will consistently hit harder and won't be hitting for the min very often. So, if you set min to 200 and max to 2000, you would probably want to set the STR around 1500 or so depending on the AC your players should be having for that encounter. With the min being that low, players won't be hit for min very often even after factoring AC, Discs, AAs and Shielding.

My point is that adjusting shielding in the way that it sounds like KLS has planned, won't really fix the problem some admins are seeing. If they have the encounter set wrong with a small min/max difference, they will be hit for min damage every time and if they use shielding or stonewall after KLS makes the new change, I believe they player would be getting hit for the same lower than enforced min damage every time.

Server admins have to set their encounters properly for them to work right. That is why I suggested a new tool be created to help calculate mob stats and DPS vs players for the old and new combat systems (under dev tools section).

[ChaosSlayer]

the is no "problem" per say =)

there is no problem other than the one you(server admins) created themselves =)

the identical dmg hits come and will always come from MINDMG stat.
since mindmg is a damage npc will ALWAYS hit for regardless player level or ac.

KLS fix merely fixes so shielding will now also reduce mindmg not just random dmg.
but you will still get identical hits.

The only true solution to this is to set mindmg to 0 - atleast for most mobs.
Only raid bosses should have mindmg stat so they will still like a truck regardless of how many levels lower than they are.