There are people that have burned bridges, and there are times to let them be restored. I, more than most, will usually let this happen. Others will not. Is there a right or wrong? Is "once bitten, twice shy" a better or worse standard than "turn the other cheek"? Who knows? Who cares?
Forgive them for they know not what they do. That sounds about right, for everyone.
Why start with cliches? Well, they are a great fill-in for those days when I know what I want to talk about but I don't know how to approach it. Meh. And I forgot my screenshots today (well, I didn't so much forget them as it didn't autosave like I thought it would). Do I have a point to this? Not really. I just wanted to point out that forgiveness is a case-by-case scenario, and that respect, acceptance and forgiveness can go a long way to mend fences. But then again, arrogance, deceit and manipulation can destroy cooperation before it even starts. I am pretty happy with my friends, and though I may not like some people, I try not to let it effect me too much in game, because you never know who you are going to be working with next week. But with all these aspects and all of these consideration, to me, the most important part of what defines a relationship in this game is loyalty. Friends are loyal, and they help whether it helps them or not. They do not look for the angle, or their cut, especially if an action can help a friend. They just help because making a friend happy can be just as rewarding as making themselves happy.
I am not trying to espouse anything new or innovative, just more like a general statement. I think we all seek approval by our friends and acquaintances, and there are times when that approval should not limit our actions, but it should temper our thoughts. We can disagree and still be loyal, not every dispute is a line in the sand. This is a lesson I need to learn. I do draw these lines, and I do get upset when people cross them. And often I regret doing that. The real issues is not so much whether we do that or not (we should strive not to, but we are human) but really it is about how we handle the situation. The real problem that FFXI has with communication is the lack of non-verbal cues. You know situation where you ask a friend if something is wrong and they say nothing, but they are obviously lying and they need to be pressed? That can't happen in FFXI, and that is why I think that sometimes relationships can be more fragile in-game than in real life. So, I think a little more forgiveness is a nice thing to have. I also have a problem with over-empathizing with my friends about certain people, but meh, thats just me.
I don't really have a point here. Just thinking about people I know and relationships I have had. Conflict isn't necessarily bad, it's the recovery from conflict that is important.
All that being said, an asshole will always be an asshole and an arrogant prick isn't going to sudden change into a humble humanitarian. But I try to avoid people like that as much as I can. :) And I have known a few. Users also really get under my skin, probably more than any other kind of bad people. I usually just want to stab them right in the junk!
Since I am randomly babbling about tangential issues to the game, I wanted to talk about luck for a minute. Luck is a great thing to have in this game, if you are on a lucky streak, abuse it. If you are down on your luck, then conserve for the future. But if you are naturally lucky, you are blessed, not cursed. Enjoy it. The only person that can judge you on your luck is sitting in the room with you. And believe me, as I have always had the most mediocre of luck, use that luck while you have it because you are going to get your unlucky streak just like everyone else.
Well, Salvage tonight, yay! People better show up because I want to get some freaking Ares bodies completed. Bhaflau it is, and that means killing some gears that can't link, can't disappear and have to be killed fast. Redundant? Perhaps! But we are sitting on 4 Ares 35 Bodies, and the need for completion is growing even considering the cost to make them.
Anyway, I am going home, early. You get this crappy blog post as a consolation.
Friday, March 07, 2008
Coming back around again.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
After getting kicked in the nuts for two weeks straight, a punch to the face is like cake.
So there is finally an update note that I actually care about, or at least partially care about, or probably wouldn't care about at all if the last two weeks of updates hadn't been filled with Pankration updates, new emote dances, and other fucking irrelevant shit. Well, lets get right to it.
A number of job and battle system adjustments have been scheduled for the next version update.What all this really amounts to is this:
- New Magic and Job Abilities
A host of new magic and job abilities will be added to a number of jobs for the next version update. For example, teleport spells for the white mage, a warp spell for the black mage, sneak ninjutsu for the ninja, elemental spirit MP absorption ability for the summoner, and new automaton weapon skills for the puppetmaster.
Additions and adjustments are also in store for the two new jobs introduced in the Wings of the Goddess expansion.
For the dancer, adjustments will include shortened ability delay to six seconds for all waltzes used when trance is in effect. Adjustments for the scholar will see an increase in the maximum number of charges available for stratagems, and a reduction in charge time.
Apart from job abilities, new status-specific status icons will be also introduced to further enhance playability.The issue whereby certain restoration magic causes the character to become temporarily immobile, will be addressed. Up until now, casting cure on a character immediately after they initiate the attack command will result in that character becoming unable to move until spellcasting is complete, even after they have assumed battle stance. This immobility duration will be reduced drastically with the next version update.
- Shortened Immobility Duration
- Teleport spells for WHM - Depending on the placement of the telepoints these will be anywhere from useful to complete waste of time.
- Warp spell for BLM - Depending on where this sends you these will be anywhere from useful to complete waste of time. Sound familiar? And BLM's thought they had it bad when they were just D2 bitches after events, now they might even have to deal with picky people wanting a certain D2. Unless, of course, its Warpga, then they are much better off.
- Sneak ninjustu for NIN - I am going to stab the popular opinion right in the eye here and go ahead and say that this better be above level 37. The last thing crafters need is another one of their crafting items that actually sells destroyed because people will just use these instead. And they will stack to 99, so it's not like their will be an even trade off between those that gain a new craft from this. And as a totally nerdy response to the totally nerdy comment that "NIN's are Ninjas, they should have a sneak spell because they are sneaky." Ok, look nerd, Ninjas are indeed sneaky, that is why they get the stealth trait. Ninja spells in the game are fashioned after a traditional view of Ninjas, not some modern Americanized/Animized version that are magical or something. Think of the invisibility as the shattering egg with the puff of smoke that covers their retreat but in a game related context. Yes, oh mega-nerd, I understand that it is a game and SE can do whatever they want, but they were using a style in the game that was drawn from a historical perspective. Now they are just tossing that out the window for a little fan service. God, that speech felt so hypocritical. LOL
- Elemental MP absorption ability for SMN - Really, couldn't care less. All I know is that when I am leveling SMN, I will do it ostensively as a WHM. It's probably the job I know the least about and care the least about in the entire game. Yeah, while you were collecting every single last Esper in FFIII, I was kicking Kefka's face in with Locke, Sabin, Edgar and Shadow. Sure they did a ton of damage, but stabbing was so much more fun.
- New Automaton WS for PUP - Cool, I guess, if anyone cared. Cynical enough for ya?
For the new jobs, changes were inevitable, but I don't think that Dancer really need any tweaks, I mean this just basically makes Dancer have a full time Benediction ability for however long Trance is active. If you are going to make it like Dancer Manafont then you need to limit it based on recast time, if you are going to make it like Chainspell, then limit their TP pool. Giving them both just pushing WHM more to the side than they already were by Dancer. As much as people scream, whine and cry for new and better things, obsolescence is always a dangerous path to take. Bgalvin left I comment a couple of days ago pointing out that Byakko's Haidate still being top notch gear is a bad thing, but I have railed against this in many a post. WoW and EQII both have this problem. WoW essentially destroyed all of the work that everyone in the game had done up until that point when they released their first expansion, and it looks like they are going to do it again with this new expansion. EQII just kills anything they have already done in every patch just to have new things for people to do. For longevity, you need to add new things that are harder to do in tiers, and you need to fill gaps, or you need to make the next upgrade very, very hard to get. If you do not do that then you are just pissing over all of the work that people have already spent years on. And this is the reason why, despite all of the moaning and wailing, FFXI has maintained an incredibly steady player base. Yes, WoW has millions of more players, but they were in the right place at the right time, FFXI was before it's time. I am not trying to directly compare FFXI and WoW on anything other than obsolescence, because if WoW was released earlier or FFXI released later, the games would have been different. I am just saying that timing more than anything played a role in WoW's success, so citing it's success as a validation of it's construction will fall on deaf ears to me. I mean, how many people that you know that quit FFXI are back? And how many new FFXI people have you met since WoW was released. If you say not many, then you either lying or don't get out of the Mog House much. LOL Consistency is the first rule of MMO's, if you destroy that, you can destroy a game, evidenced by the utter collapse of Star Wars: Galaxies. So, Bg is wrong about Byakko's Haidate, and ultimately about how gear should be improved upon. The same theory applies to jobs, and this is why just handing out abilities and neat trinkets to new jobs without considering how they effect old jobs is bad. BLM's were tossed from merit parties and their wasn't even a change in the game, but more of a discovery on how to exploit the games mechanics. WHM's were already marginalized from these parties too, but at least they can sometimes take part, but giving another job an improvement upon someone that that another job specializes is just change for change sake. SE puts so much consideration into some of the games balancing while almost wholly ignoring other aspects. In the end, what the game needs instead of new trinkets, is a set of balanced abilities that has some kind of general draw for every job to a party situation, and to an end-game situation. Now, hold on! I am not saying that all jobs should be equal far from it! I am saying that maybe SE should take a look not at the job by itself but how it operates in a party, you know that fundamental basis of the game that SE made essential to any potential advancement, and then add something to the jobs that need it to make it more attractive in those situations. Give more -ga buffs (hastega for WHM), give more short term buffs (short duration accuracy and attack bonuses, etc.), give them stuff we know they should have for someone (regain), give them amplifications (BLM gets a buff they can put on another that decreases resists to skillchains), the list goes on and on. Don't make them better or strong that a BRD's songs or a COR's rolls, just make them so that when people do a /search and don't see a BRD or COR seeking they don't just give up. Once you add these party amplification buffs you can spread the wealth on the old "must have to make a party" abilities. Maybe give out Haste to a few more jobs, Gravity, Refresh? Maybe not to start, but if you tweak it so that those new abilities make it so that the old abilities while still greatly beneficial, are not absolutely required, you will have balanced the game, added new content that is better than the old content without completely making the old content obsolete, and added new options for the future. There is always a danger going down this path but as long as they go slow, which SE seems to have no trouble with, they can chart a new path, and not just make ad-hoc adjustments that force more and more jobs to larger and larger margins.
So, as I was saying, the Dancer changes are retarded.
Scholar? Definitely needed, and they did one of the best things they could do to tweak the job and improve it. Stratagems are powerful and they can be abused if there are too many, but they can also be too weak if they don't get enough of them. And the fact that a SCH subjob only gets one every four minutes is kinda useless. Also, man, they can get more creative with the Stratagems too. Give a stratagem that lets you cast one spell as Light while Dark Arts is up? How about one that shortens the recast of a spell (HINT, HINT WEATHER EFFECT SPELLS) since you are already stealing from BLM and WHM, why not steal from RDM too! Also, they could do so much more with their "battlefield knowledge" like giving elemental DoT's that give the status effect of their element. Dark = Blind, Water = Poison, Earth = Slow, or better yet Break, etc. Make them really powerful but really short like the Helices, and have whether being a large modifier, etc. Make two tiers for whether effects and helices. Or add two of my ideas together and add make a tier two Helix that has those additional effects. Or if you don't want to do any of those, just give Scholar Regain, it fits the storyline (they are battlefield mages which enhance the strength of others) and it gives them a role to play end-game. More charges is a good thing, but does it make Scholar's role unique in the game? Hardly. If balanced well it will strengthen the job as a WHM or BLM or both, but it wont make it anymore of a Scholar. But that then only runs the risk of further marginalizing WHM and BLM again.
So as I was saying, the Scholar changes are good, but more are needed.
Status-specific icons? Rock my world, baby. Man, it is retarded that we have 1 icon for anything that increases our attack and one for defense, etc. Souleater, Berzerk, Hasso and Barrage aren't even close in form or function, but when I am trying to figure out which is up and which isn't I either have to remember where they fall in the list of buffs at the top of the screen or I have to cycle through to check them. I don't know if they are just talking about Scholar buffs here or all game buffs. If it's Scholar buffs thats fine because they both use the same damn icon and I have to check if I have the one I want up if I have been idle for more than a minute or so, but I sure would like a complete overhaul of the icon system. And while you are at it! Lets get some more in-game animations for statuses. I am talking about buffs, debuffs, anything that gives you or the mob a status icon. And don't you parrot PS2 limitations either! It's in the freaking game already! Mobs in ToAU areas already sleep! And it doesn't even have to be that often, just every 5-10 seconds toss up a Z~Z~Z animation at the head of the mob if you put it to sleep. If it's poisoned make a few poison bubbles pop up, and maybe tint the mob a little purple. You can do this for all of the statuses, and if it gets to be too much, just have the most recent applied pop up. Or the better solution would be to have them all on some kind of rotation timer, so that each one gets there own little slot of time in a ten second period. This would be pretty easy to do based on SE in game time system. If you are worried about animations, just turn them off in the config. And you could do the same thing for buffs, Berzerk, Warcry, etc. I would be much less averse to the idea of grouping together buffs if you they are animated. An attack up effect would just give a little flame animation and maybe a slight red tint. Or as an alternative to all of that graphical stuff, just add a series of icons that appear above the name of the character when the character is engaged on a mob. This will prevent people from just walking around with stacks of buffs in Whitegate or whatever. Ultimately, I think there should be some kind of graphical indication of the status effects in the game on players and mobs. The only difference it would make besides convince is that it would let people know when someone else's buff or debuff has worn. And that really isn't a bad thing at all. For everything else it just has to do with chat filters, and how quickly you can screen everything that flashes by way too fast. The way that I read the update is that we are all getting new status effect icons, and I will be displeased if they stop at just Scholar.
Spell-lock fix. This is good and long overdue, I mean come on, there is no reason I should be standing there essentially stunned while being healed. We all have experienced this and sometimes to our own demise. But really, this is just one small facet of the spell-lock problem. Another, more substantial problem occurs when you are already engaged or have no plans on engaging, but what you really want to do is just GTFO. But if you were just standing when the spell was initiated on you, you have to wait until it terminates to be able to move again. I assume this will be covered by this portion of the update, but that almost definitely means that it will not be covered just to spite me. They also say that "this immobility duration will be reduced drastically" but what are they reducing? Either it spell-locks you or it doesn't. The pretty obvious reading is just that you will be able to move again earlier than when the spell is supposed to go off, which means it won't just effect engagement but also standing to movement time, but not necessarily a given. I just hate the way they word things, always open for interpretation.
So, at least this update had something but lets put it all together and see what we are getting, lets make two nice columns shall we? Key to levels of suck: Suck = Suck, Meh = Meh, Not Suck = Not Suck, Woohoo = Woohoo.
| Update Info | Level of suck |
| Update Announcement | Meh |
| New Campaign Elements | Woohoo |
| SCH and DNC AF | Not Suck but for some I can see this being Woohoo. |
| Wings Missions | Not Suck |
| New Equipment | Could be Suck to Woohoo, but right now it gets a temporary WTF. |
| Battle Music | Ummm... people play mage jobs? Meh. |
| Monster Name Text Color Changes | Not Suck |
| Macro Saving | Potential for Woohoo, but if it's used to ban people for using Windower macros this could be the biggest mega-Suck ever. |
| Fellowship Crap. | Suck, really suck, there is a whole lot of suck going on here. And if you say you love fellows, blah, blah, I am just going to go ahead and stab you right in the face. |
| Dancing Emotes | Suck |
| Pankration | Suck! |
| Adventurer Recruitment | Come on, give me a break. Suck!!! |
| Emperor Band | Woohoo to Woohoo++ (See below) |
| Magic and Job Abilities | Woohoo (See below) |
| Shortened Immobility Duration | Woohoo (See below) |
Overall the Update notes so far have been a mediocre Meh+ with the day of Fellows and Pankration being the most Suck in one Update since the RNG nerf. As for the notes, the Emperor Band should go down like this: if you use it, it makes the Signet effect give you an XP bonus up to +15% depending on your rank. So rank 1 would be 5% and rank 10 would be 15%. This would mimic pretty well the Sanction bonus in Aht Urhgan areas and would be A-MAZ-ING for clearing up the congested XP areas there. I mean, there are no places like some of the camps in Aht Urghan, but the alternatives would be great. Sky, Sea, Kuftal Tunnel, Lufaise Meadows, Boyhada Tree, the list goes on and on. And this is something that most people don't realize because their minds have numbed from XPing in Aht Urhgan for so long, but the base XP for mobs in the older areas is higher than in Aht Urhgan. I doubt this is going to be what they give us, but hey I man can wish can't he? What about the last two Woohoos? Well, I don't think they would be Woohoos if the rest of the update notes hadn't be so totally awful. And here is where we get the title of today's post, if you have trained yourself to set your standards low, then any improvement looks better in comparison to crap that came before. Now, if the update notes had been "New Relic Weapons!" and "Sandworm is gonna drop some cool shit now!" then these two items would still be cool, but their comparative coolness would fade. And what about those Relic Weapons? Whats up with the insanely vague New Equipment post? With all Aht Urhgan style weapons? My guess is that we are going to see more information on the Aht Urhgan relic weapons here, and that update note will actually be the most important one of the entire set, and SE is just playing it cool.
Bonus update note: AV Video? Biggest Woohoo tease turned into a Suck ever! :(
Am I done ranting for the day? Yeah, probably, but hey, everyone loves a good rant post every once in a while.
So, I use this thing called StatCounter to stalk everyone that reads my blog! No, but really, its more to get an idea of how many people read my blog and where they link in from. It's usually one of three places, Google, BG Forums or TTTO (Tarutaru Times Online, it's Wyred's site you should check it out). Anyway, I hadn't checked it in a while, so I peaked around yesterday and I found this:
If you look at the ISP, it plain as day says Square Enix, but the location is the Isle of Man, which if you don't know your British geography is a small little and pretty desolate island between Great Britain and Ireland. My guess is that is the placement for "we are hiding our exact location" for the UK or Europe. Either way, unless someone is masking themselves as Square Enix, then that means that someone, somewhere at mother fucking SQUARE ENIX, reads my blog. Man... thats just cool. NOW LISTEN TO MY RANT TODAY! Anyway... In other news, I actually did play the game yesterday, and got my WHM to 49 and only about 1.3k to 50.
50 is irrelvent to me because all of the sweet, sweet mage gear is at 51. That is where I want to be sometime today or tomorrow, I don't care how late I have to stay up. I will do it through Campaign if I have to but I am going to get my Light Staff, Dark Staff and Serket Ring if it freaking kills me! Thats it. If that wasn't enough for you then, man, it's time for you to get two straight weeks of nut-kicking.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Need/Want part 2. (I think there was a part 1 a long time ago)
I am at another point where I can look at the things I have and the things I want and I can start doing another want vs. need discussion. Yes, of course there is nothing in this game that is needed, in that there is nothing that you must have to survive the day-to-day life of Vana'diel. But need in the game is more defined by what really is good out there that will really improve yourself and your abilities. The definition of need changes as the location of the word changes. I very much want a pair of Dusk Gloves +1 and a Speed Belt, but I am not in need of them (not yet, anyway, LOL). And then there are needs that have suitable temporary replacements. Then there are those that believe they have needs and are able to fulfill these needs but just do it because other people do it but since their situations are not the same, the result is confusion. I will get to that last example later. So, do you guys even care what I think I "need"? Doubtful, but since I am writing and you reading, there will be no backseat blogging here! Don't make me turn this blog around! Try me! I will do it!
Anyway, my MNK is pretty stacked right now. I could pick up a Smart Grenade, and I could HQ some gear, but the cost starts to get ridiculous after a while. I might try to pick up the abjurations to store them until such time as I can afford the HQ abjurations, but thats still a long way off. I can also look into getting a Sniper's Ring +1 or a Toreador Ring, maybe too, but I like the Ulthalum's Ring and it is especially nice in Salvage. The best thing I could pick up soon is a Forager's Mantle. This is all in exception to Usukane gear, which I need all of for my MNK. I wonder how good full Usukane will be compared to my current set up, but I do know that it will get me to 25% Haste without any substantial sacrifices.
My SAM is lacking a lot more than my MNK. Hagun is good, but I need a Pole Strap to start. Again, Smart Grenade would be a good upgrade, but here I can find a lot more to critique. First, an Ace's Helm would be perfect or an Askar Zucchetto would probably be a nice improvement over my Walahra Turban. Even the Usukane Somen would be a nice step up without much loss in haste. Right now, I am using my PCC for a neck piece, and I am (will be ^.^; once I trade in all of these orgins and buy those chips) using Sea gorgets for WS. If the Justice Torque existed and I could win the lot on it, I would use that for TP and maybe for WS too. I really need my Bushinomimi too, as it will really improve my SAM. It will make my NIN very :( but its something that I have come to accept. I will get to my Haub +1 in the next section. Dusk Gloves and Myochin Kote +1 are serving my purposes very well. I have come to the ultimate conclusion that I am not going to worry about Gigas bracelets for now, not until I can make up the loss in accuracy through other gears first (i.e. through more Usukane gear). It's a lot of STR to give up but missing a WS hurts much more than that missing STR. Forager's Mantle would definitely help, and once I get the Usukane Sune-ate I will use my Cerberus Mantle because I will have so much Enmity anyway it isn't going to matter that much LOL. Speed belt, yadda, yadda. Byakko's and Usukane for legs, got. My feet are gimp so that I can keep my 6-hit build.
Now, for my little commentary on the body pieces. There is this guy, you might have heard of him. Rukenshin, LOL yeah, away so he has an Amanomurakumo which has +20 Accuracy, so he had switched from using a Haubergeon +1 to using a Byrnie +1 because he did not need the accuracy of the Haubergeon +1 and could easily support the Byrnie +1. The problem is that without the +20 accuracy from the Amanomurakumo the Byrnie +1 gives you a rather large accuracy deficit of 17.5 compared to a Haubergeon +1. I have pretty decent gear and I tend to favor accuracy after Haste because missing on SAM is problematic. I just can not fathom losing that much accuracy in almost any situation. And I believe this is where mimicking those that are the most uber is not always the best idea if you can't exactly mimic them. Need should be personalized and not based on perceived notions of what is the best.
Anyway, now that we have finished that discussion, I get to show off. As I mentioned I completed my Usukane Hizayoroi, and got them delivered to me yesterday. Here is the obligatory sig screenshot. 
And here is the obligatory, Street Fighter 2 melodramatic Ryu pose shot. 
This angle is actually the best for seeing the detail in the pants because the front is just kind of drab and black. Anyway, I am super happy to have them! ^.^
I will leave you with this Freaky Friday... well maybe Freaky Tuesday picture. Glacian and Akanea in the face-off, show-down, battle-of-wills of the century. 
Enjoy!
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
It finally happened!
I really couldn't believe that it happened. The run started out great, except for a lesson finally learned on the QQA on the second floor. We have lost 3 QQAs now (out of a ton though) because of Sleepga, and I even had poison potions on me to prevent that, but sometimes in the rush you forget things. But after that is was a great run, and I think people were actually excited for how fast we cleared things out. Omoi was on Kirameki and was doing a great job at tag-team pulling with Skur. Akanea actually came on MNK because we usually like to go with two MNK, and Esor and Darkdawn came on their first run with us, both performing exceptionally well for being Salvage novices. For me that means not complaining about cells and not screwing anything up. LOL But they really performed and listened to quickly delivered directions. Hiryo has now pretty much become a staple for our Salvage runs, he is incredibly attentive, and will do just about anything to improve a run. We really over-farmed the first floor last night, but heads and opacus just weren't dropping as we needed them. Only ended up with 2 total opacus drops for the zone (2 in the chest thankfully) but we still managed. Like I said we lost the 2nd floor QQA, but killed the third floor QQTH, fourth floor QQTH, fifth floor QQA, and the Archaic Chariot 
I really couldn't even believe that they had dropped with how often we have killed that stupid Chariot. Hiryo even said that he didn't even know that the Archaic Chariot could drop anything. LOL I believe that is three total drops from Archaic Chariot which is supposed to be one of the better mobs for dropping items in Salvage. I mean we have more Macha's Cuffs than that, and now Espera is stabbing me with her mind! LOL Anyway, I had to take a double take to see if they had actually pooled to me. 
Yep, there they were. After the Archaic Chariot we went back around to the QQA and killed it, but since we didn't even have an Opacus for Kira we couldn't use Soul Voice or Troubador for the last floor. We ended up pulling it a lot faster and without anywhere as much death as the first time that we did it, but we just couldn't kill the mobs fast enough. I think that next time we should be able to clear it in under 7 minutes. Well, as soon as we got out of Arrapago Remnants I rushed around collecting my pieces for my Usukane Legs. 15, 25, 35 pieces, check! 10 Imperial Gold Coins, check! 1 stack Wamoura Cloth, che... wait, freaking price jackers. Well, haha, I just bought them in singles and saved on the deal. Then over to the Salvage guy! 
Now I just have to wait until I get home to pick them up and I will have my shiny new pants. :) I haven't really considered how exactly I am going to use these yet. I might use them for TP on MNK and SAM, but Byakko's Haidate still has a lot of accuracy and more haste. BUT once I get Usukane Sune-ate to go with it, there is a huge change in consideration. In a straight up comparison between Usukane Hizayoroi and Byakko's Haidate there is a little bit of a problem. 
The Usukane Hizayoroi is a devastating DD piece, completely destroying Byakko's Haidate in that department, but it has less haste and it has much less accuracy. 
Since I am very reliant on my accuracy to be able to eat meat on MNK, and since I am not at capped Accuracy on SAM, it is hard for me to give up on Byakko's Haidate. This scenario is completely changed when Usukane Sune-ate are thrown into the mix. 
The real reason they are so great is because of what they replace. For MNK they replace my Dune Boots, which are still pretty good as they significantly boost my kick attack damage. 
But ultimately they don't do anything beyond that for TP, and they do absolutely nothing for WS and Usukane Sune-ate absolutely shine there. And for SAM it's an even better improvement over the Hachiman Sune-ate. 
So when I get both of them I will be going from meh or a little better than meh to O.O;
For MNK:
Byakko's Haidate + Dune Boots:
DEX: +15
Haste: +5%
Accuracy: +7.5~
Kick Attacks D: +30
To:
DEX: +5
STR: +5
Haste: +5%
Attack: +19.5~
Accuracy: +9.5~
"Store TP": +7
Enmity: +5
So I will lose 10 Dex and Kick Attacks D of 30, but I will gain 5 STR, 19.5~ Attack, 2 Accuracy, 7 "Store TP" and 5 Enmity. The last two would normally appear to be marginal, but on MNK I get to 99 TP a lot more than I want, so that much Store TP will almost definitely get me to 100, and the Enmity is also fantastic for Salvage. I do not in general use a 25% Haste set up, so I don't mind the shift in Haste.
For SAM the difference is even more radical, but I think I could justify a Byakko's Haidate/Usukane Sune-ate pairing also.
Status Quo SAM:
DEX: +15
STR: +2
Haste: +5%
Attack: +1.5~
Accuracy: +11.25~
Weapon Skill Accuracy: +2
"Store TP": +5
An Usukane pair for my SAM would net even larger gains because of the two-handed bonuses:
To:
DEX: +5
STR: +5
Haste: +5%
Attack: +20.75~
Accuracy: +10.75~
"Store TP": +7
Enmity: +5
This set-up is super yummy, only a smidge of accuracy and DEX lost, while I gain 5 STR, about 19 Attack, and even more Store TP, in fact enough Store TP that I can use anything I want for feet on WS and I don't have to use anything besides Rajas Ring and Brutal Earring for TP build. The only difference is that I could use Byakko's Haidate and Usukane Sune-ate for a rather good combination also, which gives these stats:
DEX: +15
Haste: +7%
Accuracy: +18.25~
Attack: +7
Store TP: +7
Enmity: +5
This set-up has more haste and more accuracy, which is nice, but it has a big drop-off in attack and STR. The really nice thing about SAM is that I can now use Usukane Hizayoroi for WS's. Which does have a loss of about 3.25~ Accuracy over Shura, but with equal STR and more Attack, that should be a decent increase in damage. In the end, I will likely be rocking Usukane legs and feet (when I get them) on both SAM and MNK.
I also parsed Salvage last night, just to get an idea of damage and drop rate in the zone. 
Unsurprisingly, I won the parse, but that is because I get the most cells to start. Also, Akanea's MNK is not equal to his other jobs because it just hit 75 and he still needs to fill in some gear slots. Esor and Skur were both fine too considering the fact that cell drops weren't proportional last night as you can she here: 
Few Opacus, only one head cell and not a lot of balance. I am going to use this to parse drops and make sure the BGwiki has the right information for drops (I think there might be some mistakes).
Talking a lot about Salvage again today, but we also did a quick tier 2 Temenos Elementals run, which completed my Ultima set which we are doing on Thursday, then a good set of points runs for Assault. I went as DRG to both of those runs, and I am going to be picking up the lance again soon with DRG. I need to get a few things done, like get a lance LOL and I need to get my Hecatomb Mittens made, maybe pick up a few Homam pieces, then ultimately an Askar or Ares's body piece. But thats all still a long way off considering that my DRG isn't even merited beyond full Angon. DRG is just insanely powerful now, it really is shocking.
Finally, here was that pic I forgot yesterday, next time we will spend more time with the Tragopans and see if we can't get a Peryton for our troubles. 
That's it for today, I get to show off my new pants tomorrow!
Monday, March 03, 2008
The lady doth protest too much.
Ok, first things first. Yes, Omoi did beat me on a parse this weekend. Dual BRD, and the other melee was a SAM. Omoi DRG: 37%, Ring MNK: 32%, Other SAM: 28%, Omoi's freaking Wyvern Nanaja: 3%, Blaize BRD: .01% This was on BIRDS! Ok, so she gets the 15% damage bonus or whatever. She barely ever got below 1k on a Pentathrust. Give me a freaking break. And her DRG isn't even fully pimped out. It's fully merited, but she only has 1 piece of Homam and she is still using freaking Barone pants... FREAKING BIRDS... here is another bird for ya... 
Crow, it's whats for dinner. Lets try a neutral camp next time, eh?
I fucking hate this worthless blogger software sometimes. It can't fucking figure out the difference between a smilie and a god damn link. Anyway, this is where I lost a good section of my blog on what I learned about the strangness from last weeks discovery that the results I had did not match what I expected. The first problem was with one of my assumptions, that the graph of damage per hit would be a normal distribution. You might remember that discussion from Friday and you can peek at the results here. Instead of a normal distribution, it is in fact, a flat distribution. For those that don't understand, a normal distribution is how a group of events (in this case damage per hit) should be distributed, there should be more events in the average (the middle of the graph) than the outlying areas. That would mean that there is a greater chance of getting a damage in the middle between the two limits. Bell curves are the example of this kind of distribution. For FFXI though, it appears that SE has used a flat distribution, which just basically means that there is an equal chance that any result will appear anywhere between the limits. The simple reason that SE is probably using this over a normal distribution is because of something I mentioned on Friday, it's just easier. A normal distribution by itself requires a more complicated algorithm to get good results, and that is only compounded as more influences are placed on the algorithms results, i.e. Attack and STR. A flat distribution is actually much easier to apply influences like Attack and STR to because they just become the curve itself. Since a flat distribution isn't effected by the curve that a normal distribution has naturally it should be easier to test how changes in attack and STR affect your damage. I have a baseline on which to test changes, though I will do a larger sample before the next test. As long as the levels of the birds are the same and my equipment stays the same I should be able to just add new baseline tests onto my old ones.
The other problem from Friday still persists though, but that is apparently not my fault. The old pDIF formula does not apply to two-handers any longer. This was likely changed with the two-handed update, and my guess is that it is in the level correction part of the equation. I believe this for two reasons. The first is that level correction is the place that is most likely to effect the range of damage, especially considering that it the range is not just wrong, but also too wide. The second is that SE mentioned they were making changes so that two-handers would have less of a penalty dealing with high level monsters. So, that is where I will be testing next. I think that the multiplier for the Attack/Defense ratio might be .030 for two-handers now, as that matches perfectly with my results for fMax but is providing a much too high limit for fMin and that doesn't match with my findings. Anyway, I am going to figure this out one way or another. Tomorrow, I will be looking at my MNK in different situations, calculating fSTR and Attack.
But enough with numbers for today, lets have a nice old school post with pretty pictures and neat stuff. :) And since the thing I like to talk about most is Salvage, lets do that. First, I have to say that doing Salvage with another group is great, its really helping me to run Versus Salvage much better. Last night for example, we did an Arrapago run (no drops, of course) but we did manage to do almost all the NM's and also do a quick run at the boss (timed out). We are now farming way more on the first floor which is making things easier in general, and we won't do Arrapago without a THF ever again. LOL We did 2FL QQA, 3FL QQTH, 4FL QQTH, 5FL QQA and Archaic Chariot, and on the sixth floor we started off really well but ended up with some crowd control issues and didn't clear the floor in seven minutes. We had about 5 minutes left at this point so we just zoned up and got Armored Chariot to 87% when we timed out. I have ways to shave time, and if we really need to we can get there with lots of time left over, but right now we have no Zhayolm 35's for it to matter very much.
That was Sunday's run, Saturday's run was another Arrapago. We did the big Bhoot also which didn't drop anything. In fact, Arrapago has been sucking a lot for drops as of late. LOL Friday night was an excellent Bhaflau, we did 10 minutes on the second floor Rampart with no spawns, then just killed it so we could move on. Cleared the first five gears on the fourth floor, waited for five minutes for wind weather to end then cleared the other five gears, and went into the fourth floor rampart. Which I had a screenshot of but apparently didn't upload. Fuck you again blogger for being completely retarded and ruining this post! Anyway, we went into the Rampart and killed a couple of Tragopan, but after about 10 pops we just killed the Rampart so that we could kill KBC with plenty of time. But once LBC is nerfed you usually have too much time! LOL Which is what happened with us. But man, I just didn't want to take any risks, and just get the win. Next time I will be way more lax about it though, LOL. A nerfed LBC was just ridiculous, it's damage is cut at least a 1/3 to a 1/4 and it took us less that 10 minutes to kill. Leaving us with about 25 minutes of wasted Remnant farming. 
Rygar was so used to moving for Homing Missile that he didn't stand in front of it to get hit with it and kept moving to the side. LOL Ah well, hopefully many more nerfed LBC's will be in our future. 
The results were a pair of Tsukikazu Haidate for me 
(I always feel bad lotting alone, but Rygar already has Usukane legs and Akanea and Hiryo, though now very consistent just haven't been going as long as I have and Hellz is lotting on Ares gear and he smells too) and another pair of Ea's Dastanas which went to Ashhhhh. That leaves us with all of the drops except for the bodies and the Ares's head piece. With three or four people waiting on that 25 body piece, I would appreciate if it would drop a little more often. LOL In other Salvage news, I did a SSR run with the other Salvage group that I go with and it went pretty well. We did all of the NM's except for Dekka (because its a forced choice) and Gyroscopic Gear (because once you choose to do Hammerblow you can't do Gyroscopic Gear). Gyroscopic Gear is a pain in the ass. Huge Restorals and huge AoE damage moves. And here is where blogger tried to fuck me a third time! At least I fucked it back. Anyway, we were onto the turtle after the Gears, which is actually surprisingly easy to pull if you don't need to get to the boss. We were limited on numbers for that run, but we I think there is a way with competent people to do the turtle, kill the Chariot to reach the boss all while avoiding the gear train. It just involves sacrificing Blaize to the gods of Salvage two more times. LOL We pulled the four Ramparts back to the start room, killed them then Blaize pulled the turtle. 
It is probably much more difficult when you need to get to the boss but this run wasn't too full so we just focused on the turtle. We killed it but of course it did not drop anything worth while. 
Ok, enough Salvage, on with other stuff. Well, things have been rather plain. We did a couple Ix'MNK and we finally got our second Merciful Cape which went to Crlmsonking, the luckiest person in the universe. LOL 
Hehehe, I think we are going to do a couple of Fortitudes soon to try to get some kind of torque drop from something. As if Torques existed in Sea! Hah! Finally, I had to work on my BLM a little more to be able to level my WHM, so that got to 27. 
And my WHM got to 49 I think, maybe I am just close to 49. Hopefully after Assaults tonight I will be able to get to 49 or 50 in Campaign. 51 still remains elusive!
Friday, February 29, 2008
Enough abbreviations to make your mind bleed, Part 4: Mo' Numbers, Mo' Problems.
Ok, so we are done with the numbers right? I freaking wish. But at least today, we will do something useful and practical with the numbers and we have some incredibly limited tests to see how this all works out. But first a recap, and no this recap involves no formulas. Just our high and low damage numbers. After all of that math and putting everything together, we know that our sexy Samurai should have this as there damage range:
Damage = 59~100Now, lets stop for a second. Is that really the damage they should be hitting for? Or is it just another number that acts on something else?
Here is where I fail you, dear reader. I just don't know. That is part of the reason that I am trying all of this out. I need to know. So, what is the best way to see if these numbers work? Well, obviously it is to test them out! So take one sexy Samurai, one Greater Colibri, two WHM that are willing to help test and one bored DRG, and mix it all together. The outcome is not what you expect (luckily the unexpected outcome was not goblin-humping). Let's look at the results.
Ugh! Raw data! LOL Anyway, I only tested 3 Greater Colibri. Yes, I know that is nowhere near enough to draw any conclusions, but it can provide insight into the damage formula. The testing conditions were very simple, Samurai/Warrior 75/37, only buff was Seigan and Third Eye, STR as listed before 98, Attack as listed before 422. No other buffs were place on me, and I never used food or job abilities. I did no weapon skills and did not include any critical hits in my results.Houston, we have a problem. Here is where things break down. The damage formula that I have religiously followed for the last three days doesn't match the results I saw during the test. We should have seen results always land between 59 and 100, but in this test the results land between 63 and 112, and they could go further out as this was just the observed limits. Now, you are probably expecting me to step up at this point and say, "Haha! I know why it is doing this!" but I don't. I am going to blame my own limited understanding of the formula and maybe the fSTR formula. So, since we don't know what is going on, but we have some data to test, lets make a new testing formula. This equation is going to be actually useful (maybe) for figuring out not just this problem but the effect that changes in your set up will have on the range of damage you are doing. For this formula we are going to use the level 81 Greater Colibri because it is nice and simple and we know (or at least, we think we know) the stats for it. Ultimately, I am not looking for my exact damage against each possible mob, but rather, what kind of effects that STR and Attack have on my damage dealing possibilities. So lets look at the huge formula from yesterday and reduce the things we don't need.
Damage = (D + ((STR - VIT) + N)/2)/2 x (fMax(ATT/DEF - 0.050 x (mobLVL - playerLVL) ~ fMin(ATT/DEF - 0.050 x (monLVL - playerLVL))It may still look like a lot but it's not really. All you have to do is plug in STR and ATT and you should be able to come up with your new range. Just remember that if you change you ATT, you could end up changing you pDIF range equation. If you are increasing STR and ATT, it's not going to matter much because you are already in the highest bracket, but for the lower end it could effect it.
can become
Damage = (D + ((STR - 67) + 4)/2)/2 x (1.2 x (ATT/322 - 0.3) ~ -0.5 + 1.2(ATT/322 - 0.3)
I think the problem with the results is that somehow I am screwing up the fSTR calculation. I just don't know for sure, and that is the area that people don't know that much about either, because it is so hard to test. Well, lets see what happens when we add one point of STR.
Damage = (75 + ((99 - 67) + 4)/2)/2 x (1.2 x (423/322 - 0.3) ~ -0.5 + 1.2(423/322 - 0.3)(How did I know that 1 STR added one point of ATT? Well, I used this equation:
2 Handed Attack = {( 8 + Combat Skill + 3STR/4 + (+attack from gear) + (+attack trait/ability/minuet)) * berserk effect (if available)} * (1+ percentage increase from food )I am not totally positive that is the correct adjustment for STR but, I am going to use it for now anyway) So that gives us a new range of 60-102. So we are moving in the right direction. The problem becomes that it is pretty difficult to shift these ranges without adding a whole lot of STR into the equation. And I am left scratching my head. Ahh, well. The best laid plans of mice and men. Either there is something wrong with my equations, or there is something wrong with other people's equations. If you leave the fSTR factor as fSTR2 you come up with results that are much closer to what they should be (with a range of 65 to 111) but it still does not line up. I am going to ask around and see what I can come up with.
After four days of this, my brain is absolute sludge. I currently have open in my Firefox tabs: 2 work tabs, 2 blogger tabs, 1 BG forums tab, 1 e-mail tab, 1 graphing website tab, 1 regular wiki tab and 1 god damn melt my fucking brain graphic calculator tab. This is too much! LOL
Anyway, lets see what my other testing came up with? This is the frequency of the damage per hit during my really short test:
Ok, I am going to include some things that you should take into consideration even though they may hurt your brain. The average was 86.5625, the median was 85, and the mode was 84. Now, you should know what an average is, so I am not going to explain that. The median is the number that is exactly in the middle of a set of numbers. The mode is the number that occurs most often. You can use this to help you understand what is happening when you do damage. Here is that same data now graphed out. 
Again, the distribution is not what I expected. For this though the sample size is too small so I am not sure if this is exact, or if it should be taken with a grain of salt. Also there is another consideration which is the strength of the random number generator that SE uses. I am not sure how good it is, but the results are kind of weird. Normally, I believe in this case, SE is going to basically want to start with an algorithm that is going to makes a bell curve (or a normal distribution) whose outside parameters are defined by what we have seen before. If I am wrong about this, then a lot of the things I think about how damage is done behind the scenes might be wrong. The problem is that if they didn't use some kind of curve shaped algorithm then we would end up with an even distribution of damage across the range and, at least I am sure about this one, that is not the case. If you haven't been reading for the last three days, this is the place to start. I am going to start making suggestions now about how you should approach STR and Attack in the game.
So operating on what I believe is the sound assumption that SE is using some kind of curve to determine damage, lets look at some of the possibilities. But first a diagram of what an imaginary damage curve would look like:
This just shows how a normal distribution would work. It is a representation, not a real depiction of SE's random number generator. Basically the idea is that you are more likely to hit for amount in the middle if no other factors are at work on the damage. Actually, this baseline could be anything because it is just a measure against other tests. Well, I think there could be problems if you do start with too many conditions because it will create a skew in the data before you even begin. But for determining your damage, you can use it as a logical representative starting point. Now, lets have some fun. This whole discussion was created in my mind to try to understand how STR and Attack interrelate, and what you should do in different cases. Lets look at fSTR first, because that is in the first part of the equation.
This one is pretty simple to understand, as fSTR increases the curve increases. Meaning that fSTR increases damage all throughout the range of damage. Now, remember the equation for fSTR is fSTR = ((dSTR + 4)/2)/2and since it is divide by two twice, it means that for every point you increase in STR you only get a .25 increase in fSTR. Further, since these numbers are all rounded down, for each point of fSTR you want to gain you will need to get to the next full point, so it can take up to 4 points of STR to increase your fSTR by 1 point. (This is true if the equations for fSTR are correct, if they are not then I have just wasted 4 days on this LOL) So depending on how close you are to your next fSTR point increasing STR over Attack may be a bad idea. But remember! Increasing fSTR by 1 point will have a much larger impact on your damage than increasing Attack by the same amount. Think of it this way, if you can not get to the next fSTR then Attack will always be better, because increasing your STR will literally do nothing besides increase your attack.
Now, lets go over attack. There are basically two scenarios under which Attack can increase your damage. This is the first one, which I believe is incorrect, and I will explain why in just a sec.
Now if you look at this graph it would seem reasonable, because all attack does is shift up the amount of damage each swing can do, but it doesn't change your damage range. The problem with this design is two fold. First, it would be hard to do as it would require constantly adjusting the random number generation with information for each character. Let me stop there, because I don't know if that is hard to do at all. Just in my little wee brain it seems harder than the equation we already have. Second, it would really reduce the effect of attack by a lot. Notice that the extreme ends are still there with their massive drop offs and though the area over which damage is shrunken and improved, the frequency with which all occurrences has no changed. This would have a very limited effect on damage over all. That is why I believe that a scenario something like this is what really happens: 
In this scenario, the effect that Attack has is to increase the number of times that a higher end result will occur. The more Attack the more times you will hit for a higher Attack number. But this scenario is also wrong, because Attack does not have a cap on it, while fSTR does. So it is usually said under the fSTR cap that comparable amounts of Attack and STR favor STR, but after the fSTR cap Attack will have a larger effect on damage than STR because STR will only be increasing damage through Attack. The effect you see pictured above could happen when you are adding Attack below the fSTR cap, but there would still be a curvature that I did not show. Honestly, after days of this it's hard to even wrap my mind around it. LOLUltimately, the thing to remember is this, if you can determine how much STR will get you to the next fSTR point, you can better evaluate if you should use more Attack or STR. There is more to discuss here, but I am done for the day and the week on the subject. On Monday, I will talk about more practical applications, and hopefully I will have an answer to the question of what the hell STR and Attack do to the damage curve and what it would look like!
Honestly, I am surprised my brain made it this far.
I have other business that I will cover quickly, but since I skipped it, I should cover it before the weekend. First, I got to tank Armored Chariot, wee!
This fight is pretty damn easy, it is just getting to the top that is the hard part. 
Both Zhayolm and Arrapago have pain in the ass final floors to get to easier bosses. With Versus we did a Zhayolm run which though didn't drop any 35's, but we did get Skur a pair of 15 hands for completing his Morrigan's Cuffs from the first floor frog, 
then we cleaned out the rest of the frogs up to the 6th floor. Doing the frogs is actually pretty easy, and with practice and good frog selection we should be able to add the boss. 
Blaize apparently isn't very attached to his THF AF. 
See you on Monday, hopefully the bleeding will have stopped.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Enough abbreviations to make your mind bleed, Part 3: Becoming Dar Master in the Klingon Empire.
Thank god I have this to work on, because if I didn't I would have to spend this entire blog post about the fact that we got another lame info post about the update. Maddening it is. But I have my little refuge, my opus, my endless babbling and this will be my shelter from the string of completely useless info posts.
We are getting closer and closer to completely understanding the damage formula in FFXI, and if you thought that the last two days were esoteric then today is going to send you for a loop. But before the mind melting begins lets look at what we did yesterday.
cRatio = ATT/DEF - 0.050 x (mobLVL - playerLVL)This is the equation that you use to factor your attack and the mob's defense into the damage that you do. Now, this would be really simple if we just left it here, but it would also mean that you would always hit for the same amount of damage, and that would be pretty lame. LOL So, we are going to get to another place where we are going to have upper and lower limits of damage. Unlike fSTR and other limiters up until this point that have just dictated that the result of the formula has to be limited within a range, these limits will actually provide the outlying limits for a variable that is inserted into the equation to randomize damage results.
That sounded a little bit dry and technical, to put it more simply: the next thing we are going to look at are the highest damage and lowest damage that you can possibly get. Now, back to the complicated part. Time for more charts! This first one is the way that you determine what the maximum amount of damage you can do. The maximum can change depending on your cRatio (remember, it means your level corrected attack/defense ratio) but for the most part on XP mobs you are going to be in the highest bracket (the 5/6 (.83~).
| cRatio Range | Function Value |
| 0 ≤ cRatio ≤ 0.5 | fMax(cRatio) = 0.4 + 1.2 x cRatio |
| 0.5 ≤ cRatio ≤ 5/6 (.83~) | fMin(cRatio) = 1 |
| 5/6 (.83~) ≤ cRatio ≤ 2 | fMax(cRatio) = 1.2 x cRatio |
Now remember this is just the highest possible damage you can get on a normal melee attack. We need another chart to figure out the minimum amount of damage that we can do on one normal melee attack so we can get the range in which any normal melee attack can land.
| cRatio Range | Function Value |
| 0 ≤ cRatio ≤ 1.25 | fMin(cRatio) = -0.5 + 1.2 x cRatio |
| 1.25 ≤ cRatio ≤ 1.5 | fMin(cRatio) = 1 |
| 1.5 ≤ cRatio ≤ 2 | fMin(cRatio) = -0.8 + 1.2 x cRatio |
Ok, so now we have some pretty sweet looking charts, but what the fuck do they mean, right? Ok, lets start with f~ thingees. fMax(cRatio) and fMin(cRatio) just means that these are the maximum and minimum of the functions that determine your damage, and that means that they are just the neat little notation that we use to say this is the most damage you can do and this is the least damage you can do! Kind of like how cRatio has a maximum amount, when the minimum is determined by the game to be below 0 it will be rounded up to 0. I think this is just so that gimp players would start giving the mob HP with their weak swings. LOL
Now, lets take the cRatio that we got yesterday from the "sexy Samurai slaughters the Greater Colibri" scenario.
cRatio = 422/322 - 0.050 x (81-75) = 1.310 - 0.3 = 1.01With this information we can stare at those charts I posted above and become even further confused. LOL Since we know that our cRatio is 1.01 we can pick out the fMax(cRatio) and fMin(cRatio) for our scenario. 1.01 falls between 5/6 (.83~) <>fMax(cRatio) = 1.2 x cRatio For the minimum, since 1.01 falls between 0 ≤ cRatio <>fMin(cRatio) = -0.5 + 1.2 x cRatio So, we have a fMax(cRatio) of 1.212 and we have a fMin(cRatio) of .712, and what does that mean? Remember pDIF? Well, pDIF is the number that lands between those two numbers. The fMax(cRatio) and the fMin(cRatio) were the ways that we figured out how high and how low your pDIF can reach. In the end this is what pDIF kind of ends up looking like:
pDIF = (fMax(ATT/DEF - 0.050 x (mobLVL - playerLVL) ~ fMin(ATT/DEF - 0.050 x (monLVL - playerLVL))The problem is that fMax and fMin use different calculations when the cRatio changes. ; ; That is hard to illustrate in a single equation, but I will deal with that in a little bit.
And thats it. o.o; No, really, thats everything we need to know to put together the entire damage formula. So, lets walk through this one more time. From the beginning we have the physical damage formula:
Damage = Base Damage x pDIFand since we know the formulas for Base Damage lets go ahead and plug that in there!
Damage = (D + (dSTR + N)/2) x pDIFNow, notice that I haven't actually had an equation that involves pDIF yet, but actually I have! I haven't tricked you, but I should definitely explain this now. pDIF is actually the representation of all the numbers that can fall between your fMax(cRatio) and your fMin(cRatio) so by finding those two numbers we actually know our pDIF! But knowing that doesn't make completing the equation any easier, in fact it really makes things a much larger pain in the butt. Just before I do that, I am going to change the equation slightly so that it better represents each of the individual stats that we are going to need to get an actual number out of the formula. The formula should look like this now:
Damage = (D + (dSTR + N)/2)/2 x (fMax(ATT/DEF - 0.050 x (mobLVL - playerLVL) ~ fMin(ATT/DEF - 0.050 x (monLVL - playerLVL))And thats just a nice representation of what happens, but as you already know, the pDIF can change based upon changes in the cRatio, so lets go a bit further and make specific equations for all of the potential cRatio outcomes. This should be fun.
For cRatio between 0 and .5 our equation looks like this:
Damage = (D + (dSTR + N)/2)/2 x (0.4 + 1.2 x (ATT/DEF - 0.050 x (mobLVL - playerLVL) ~ -0.5 + 1.2 x (ATT/DEF - 0.050 x (monLVL - playerLVL))Between .5 and .83~:
Damage = (D + (dSTR + N)/2)/2 x ((ATT/DEF - 0.050 x (mobLVL - playerLVL) ~ -0.5 + 1.2 x (ATT/DEF - 0.050 x (monLVL - playerLVL))Between .83~ and 1.25:
Damage = (D + (dSTR + N)/2)/2 x (1.2 x (ATT/DEF - 0.050 x (mobLVL - playerLVL) ~ -0.5 + 1.2 x (ATT/DEF - 0.050 x (monLVL - playerLVL))Between 1.25 and 1.5:
Damage = (D + (dSTR + N)/2)/2 x (1.2 x (ATT/DEF - 0.050 x (mobLVL - playerLVL) ~ (ATT/DEF - 0.050 x (monLVL - playerLVL))And finally between 1.5 and 2:
Damage = (D + (dSTR + N)/2)/2 x (1.2 x (ATT/DEF - 0.050 x (mobLVL - playerLVL) ~ -0.8 + 1.2(ATT/DEF - 0.050 x (monLVL - playerLVL))Now, I know that is a lot, but its actually pretty helpful. We can now see what parts of the equation you can know and what is determined by the random number generator that is built into the game.
I am adding in something new pretty late in the game but hey, its not that complicated. For the Damage equation in the next part I have I just changed dSTR to (STR - VIT), and if that is going to throw you off then you should have given up on Tuesday. The only reason that I did that was because it makes it easier for listing out all of the components of the equation. I also should mention this point that I also corrected something else that really was kind of an error from Tuesday. At one point on Tuesday's entry I listed the equation for fSTR2 incorrectly and I had just left it as fSTR, so I have adjusted that page. This page is accurate. Anyway, like I said this is a learning process for me too, so you have to accept things like that are going to happen.
Anyway, with the small adjustment to the change of dSTR into (STR - VIT) our final formula looks like this:
Damage = (D + ((STR - VIT) + N)/2)/2 x (fMax(ATT/DEF - 0.050 x (mobLVL - playerLVL) ~ fMin(ATT/DEF - 0.050 x (monLVL - playerLVL))So now lets apply this to a practical situation, how about our sexy Samurai? Indeed! The very first thing that we need to know is the cRatio because that determines which equation we need to use, and since we are going to list that anyway, lets go ahead and list out all of the values that we already know.
- D = 75 (Hagun's Damage)
- STR = 98
- VIT = 67
- ATT = 422
- DEF = 322
- mobLVL = 81
- playerLVL = 75
Damage = 75 + ((98 - 67) + 4)/2)/2 x (1.2 x (422/322 - 0.050 x (81 - 75) ~ -0.5 + 1.2 x (422/322 - 0.050 x (81 - 75))
Now since this is a range, and ultimately we are looking for the outliers to find out what our range is, I am going to break this into two equations. First, the high end:
Damage = 75 + ((98 - 67) + 4)/2)/2 x (1.2 x (422/322 - 0.050 x (81 - 75))) = 83 x 1.212 = 100.596And for the low end:
Damage = 75 + ((98 - 67) + 4)/2)/2 x (-0.5 + 1.2 x (422/322 - 0.050 x (81 - 75))) = 83 x .712 = 59.096
Finally! We have something to work with, or do we? Sure that is the range, but what is it the range of? And what does all this mean? Well, that is what tomorrow is for!
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Enough abbreviations to make your mind bleed, part 2: the nerdination!
I have heard several people so far level a very legitimate criticism of yesterdays post. They said that its too much and to them the information is too in-depth and they will just do what they are going to do, and also that they weren't going to read this. In response to this I have three thoughts, first I do hope that there are people out there that do enjoy this level of detail and they will be able to draw insight from a more layman's description of the damage formula. Second, for those that feel this is too much, I do plan on adding some explanations at the end on how people can use the information in practical situations. Finally, I am not just doing this for you, I am also doing it for my own edification. It is the nature of blogging, but in essence writing all of this out is making it much more comprehensible to me. So even if I am the only one that learns from these explanations then I have achieved something.
Now, back to the show.
Yesterday, we left off with only the first half of the damage equation completed. Lets take a moment to go over what the equation looks like at this point:
Damage = Base Damage x pDIFbecomes
Damage = (D + (dSTR + N)/2) x pDIFNow, remember that these numbers are limited on the high and low end not at just at the dSTR level, but also at the fSTR level, I didn't add that to the equation because writing that into the equations would require like Sigmas and functions and other crap that I don't know how to notate. LOL Now it is time for pDIF.
Lets start with what pDIF means and what it represents. pDIF has several difference components but essentially it boils do to a calculation that takes the player's Attack and subtracts it from the monster's Defense, then a level correction is applied, finally SE inserts a random factor that causes the variance in damage that you see in the game. Knowing that, lets take a look at the actual pDIF formula and I will describe the different portions of the equation. Actually, lets not, because the pDIF isn't really so much an equation, but an algorithm that has a modification place upon it. Since we don't really care about (or actually, we can't really do anything about) the algorithm that SE uses in this part, what we want to look at is the modification that is applied to the algorithm. That modification is:
cRatio = Ratio - 0.050 x level differenceRatio is simply your Attack divided by the Defense of the monster you are trying to kill. This is different than the simple subtraction that happens in the fSTR formula for the comparison between player STR and mob VIT.
Ratio = ATT/DEFIn this case, for simplicity I have adapted ATT to mean the player's Attack and DEF for the monster's Defense. Level difference is again pretty simple, it is just the monster's level minus the player's level. So the complete equation would look like this:
cRatio = ATT/DEF - 0.050 x (mobLVL - playerLVL)Now let us recall from yesterday our sexy Samurai scenario, here is a picture in case you had forgotten!
Our sexy Samurai has an Attack value of 422, and from the previous mentioned research that others have done we know that the Defense value for a level 81 Greater Colibri is 322. With this information we can determine cRatio (I believe this stands for corrected Ratio because it is a ratio that is "corrected" by the level difference). cRatio = 422/322 - 0.050 x (81-75) = 1.310 - 0.3 = 1.01Well, it's much later than I had hoped so I am going to leave off here for today. The next part involves ranges and randomness and I need to leave more time for it anyway. Hopefully, I can finish this up tomorrow!
#1 ~ Monk
#2 ~ Samurai
#3 ~ Ninja
#4 ~ Dragoon
Chaotic Pellucidity
Teabags and KY Jelly
The Bloggaru!
