Crit damage variance... and crit RA

Ehm... ok nice job to have the % variance on crit damage back as it was before that unlucky April change....

But you forgot to put the crit RA (Wild Power, Wild Minion and MoP) as they were. Please don't tell me that they will stay as they are now because it does not make any sense at all to spend 34 RA points to have a 25% of doing a crit which will deal 30dmg lol

Sun 11 Oct 2020 9:05 PM by Gildar

Good point ... change of variance as it was in the original manner need also a turn back in the relared RAs

Mon 12 Oct 2020 6:31 AM by Ceen

Mean damage didn't change you can also do 300 extra damage.
That's the whole point of the change

Mon 12 Oct 2020 7:19 AM by Kazimir

In the survey i only read "Do you prefer the original way critical hit damage variance works" - nothing about the RA they changed in April too ... so more Pain is still to expensive at higher levels ... bad luck for Melee-Users

Mon 12 Oct 2020 10:29 AM by Valaraukar

Kazimir wrote: ↑
Mon 12 Oct 2020 7:19 AM
In the survey i only read "Do you prefer the original way critical hit damage variance works" - nothing about the RA they changed in April too ... so more Pain is still to expensive at higher levels ... bad luck for Melee-Users

Yes that's right but I assumed (wrongly it seems) that the obvious change reflected also to the % of chance, not only to damage. Now it is a madly expensive RA and all is given to luck..
If I knew that the RAs would have remained the same I would never vote for YES about this change. Simply because if you use the "old" method for damage % you should also use it for chance %.

Mon 12 Oct 2020 10:33 AM by Valaraukar

Ceen wrote: ↑
Mon 12 Oct 2020 6:31 AM
Mean damage didn't change you can also do 300 extra damage.
That's the whole point of the change

So why the chance % was reduced with the "fixed" damage %?
And why not change it too when the damage % is changed?
How do you know that the mean damage has not changed? Do you have statistics to compare?
If the chance % is so low I greatly prefer a fixed damage %, because I know that it happens less frequently but it hits for a known value.

If the damage now can be so different it's not fair to have such a low chance % on crit because it is too much based to pure luck.
And again, the survey question was badly written, or at least I understood it in a wrong way, and I wonder how many others that voted Yes like me made the same mistake.

Mon 12 Oct 2020 5:00 PM by Nogrod

Wow!

Changing the crit variance back without changing the % back in the RAs (MoP WP) it's a huge nerf to those!

You were saying at the time of the change for a fixed value that you had to change de crit % so that the overall dmg stay the about the same.

Now it's a straight nerf!

Why not change back MoP and WP too ?

Thx for your answer.

Mon 12 Oct 2020 5:24 PM by

gruenesschaf

The crit % for the crit ras will remain as they are, the OF values, the vote explicitly said crit damage variance.

Nogrod wrote: You were saying at the time of the change for a fixed value that you had to change de crit % so that the overall dmg stay the about the same.

Now it's a straight nerf!

When the change still included the increase to the fixed crit damage % it was the same average damage once that was removed the crit change was always a nerf to the crit ras by bringing their value down to the OF crit ra value.

Mon 12 Oct 2020 8:29 PM by Valaraukar

gruenesschaf wrote: ↑
Mon 12 Oct 2020 5:24 PM
The crit % for the crit ras will remain as they are, the OF values, the vote explicitly said crit damage variance.

Nogrod wrote: You were saying at the time of the change for a fixed value that you had to change de crit % so that the overall dmg stay the about the same.

Now it's a straight nerf!

When the change still included the increase to the fixed crit damage % it was the same average damage once that was removed the crit change was always a nerf to the crit ras by bringing their value down to the OF crit ra value.

The problem is not the nerf itself, it is the same for everyone so ok, everyone got nerfed. The issue is that no one will ever spend 34 RA point to get undetermined % of crit damage once every 4 hits (25%). It's a nonsense. Maybe some RR10+ caster will do this with WP, but I can't see any known reason to spend so much RA points if you are below RR10. So in the end you made this RA quite useless but for very high Ranks.

And don't tell me that you can use Acuty or MoM (or melee equivalent) to increase damage, because I've got a BD and my dps comes from pets, and the only way to increase it is by Wild Minion that now is screwed more than ever

Tue 13 Oct 2020 8:23 AM by Nogrod

Thank you for your answer Gruensschaf,

So juste to be sure :

-Crit variance is same as before ( between 10-50%) but Crit % RA are nerf to the curent value ?

I'm not sure that's what ppl wanted from this vote but here it is.

It's good to know that those RAs are pretty much worthless now.

Wouldn't a Realm Respec in order for this change ? it's way more impacting that the TL/LW change ?

Juste asking

Tue 13 Oct 2020 9:07 AM by Sepplord

gruenesschaf wrote: ↑
Mon 12 Oct 2020 5:24 PM
The crit % for the crit ras will remain as they are, the OF values, the vote explicitly said crit damage variance.

Nogrod wrote: You were saying at the time of the change for a fixed value that you had to change de crit % so that the overall dmg stay the about the same.

Now it's a straight nerf!

When the change still included the increase to the fixed crit damage % it was the same average damage once that was removed the crit change was always a nerf to the crit ras by bringing their value down to the OF crit ra value.

Yes, it was always a nerf, a nerf that you justified because you said that "deadly spikes" occurred too often because of the consistent crit dmg. Logically with crit-dmg variance reintroduced you should also roll back the nerf, as the reason you told us doesn't exist anymore.

When you first wanted to normalize critdamage and make it a constant the goal was to not nerf overall damage output.

Then after making the changed you claimed that "deadly spikes" went up and were happening too often, so you nerfed the RA to have the same amount of "deadly spikes" but overall heavily nerfed the average DPS increase that the crit-RAs delivered.

Now you are changing back the crit-dmg, reintroducing variance. Logically that would mean that the "deadly spikes" do not happen as often anymore and the crit-RA nerf should be reverted.

At least if you want to be consistent with the claims you made.
I am a fan of this server and it's staff, and so far i have always defended your credibility when i heard someone talking bullshit.
In this case i have a really hard time finding a reason why the crit-RAs aren't getting changed back, that doesn't logically conclude that you bullshitted us in April with the "deadly spikes" argument instead of simply saying "Crit-RAs are too strong, we want to nerf them".

Status quo right now is that you simply nerfed the classes depending on those RAs even more...similar as back then, melees suffer the most since they do not have an alternative like casters with MoM

Tue 13 Oct 2020 10:28 AM by Sunkissed

Just did some testing with the recent change to damage variance.
I'm specced 50+21 bow and now the variance in my critshots go from 697 (lowest) to 970 (highest) on test dummies.

Is that really working as intended?
Now I can get normal shots with a crit that are higher or nearly the same damagewise as/than my critshots

critshot

Tue 13 Oct 2020 11:06 AM by skipari

Sunkissed wrote: ↑
Tue 13 Oct 2020 10:28 AM
Just did some testing with the recent change to damage variance.
I'm specced 50+21 bow and now the variance in my critshots go from 697 (lowest) to 970 (highest) on test dummies.

Is that really working as intended?
Now I can get normal shots with a crit that are higher or nearly the same damagewise as/than my critshots

critshot

Looks about right, the dmg varies now at around 10-40% up/down depending on the target armor/resists etc (better armor, spec af, absorb, resists will result in a lower variance).

Note that the test dummies are basically npcs and therefore allow up to 100% Crit damage instead max 50% as players. So for your testing with normal shoots probably just half the additional Crit damage to get an more realistic result.

Tue 13 Oct 2020 2:57 PM by Horus

skipari wrote: ↑
Tue 13 Oct 2020 11:06 AM
Sunkissed wrote: ↑
Tue 13 Oct 2020 10:28 AM
Just did some testing with the recent change to damage variance.
I'm specced 50+21 bow and now the variance in my critshots go from 697 (lowest) to 970 (highest) on test dummies.

Is that really working as intended?
Now I can get normal shots with a crit that are higher or nearly the same damagewise as/than my critshots

Looks about right, the dmg varies now at around 10-40% up/down depending on the target armor/resists etc (better armor, spec af, absorb, resists will result in a lower variance).

Note that the test dummies are basically npcs and therefore allow up to 100% Crit damage instead max 50% as players. So for your testing with normal shoots probably just half the additional Crit damage to get an more realistic result.

Isn't archer crit shot always supposed to be a flat 2x on yellow targets? This is a bit diff than just a regular shot that randomly crits?

The damage multiplier for critical shot is based on your level, and is determined by the difference between your level and the targets level, indicated by the target’s con. The multiplier is a maximum of 2.0 and a minimum of 1.1. As a broad generalization which does not take the continuous curve nature of this into account, critical shots will do 2.0 times normal damage to all targets that con grey, green, blue, or yellow. They will do approximately 1.7 times normal damage to high- orange targets, 1.4 times normal damage to high-red targets, and 1.1 times normal damage to purple targets.

Tue 13 Oct 2020 3:43 PM by skipari

Horus wrote: ↑
Tue 13 Oct 2020 2:57 PM
skipari wrote: ↑
Tue 13 Oct 2020 11:06 AM
Sunkissed wrote: ↑
Tue 13 Oct 2020 10:28 AM
Just did some testing with the recent change to damage variance.
I'm specced 50+21 bow and now the variance in my critshots go from 697 (lowest) to 970 (highest) on test dummies.

Is that really working as intended?
Now I can get normal shots with a crit that are higher or nearly the same damagewise as/than my critshots

Looks about right, the dmg varies now at around 10-40% up/down depending on the target armor/resists etc (better armor, spec af, absorb, resists will result in a lower variance).

Note that the test dummies are basically npcs and therefore allow up to 100% Crit damage instead max 50% as players. So for your testing with normal shoots probably just half the additional Crit damage to get an more realistic result.

Isn't archer crit shot always supposed to be a flat 2x on yellow targets? This is a bit diff than just a regular shot that randomly crits?

The damage multiplier for critical shot is based on your level, and is determined by the difference between your level and the targets level, indicated by the target’s con. The multiplier is a maximum of 2.0 and a minimum of 1.1. As a broad generalization which does not take the continuous curve nature of this into account, critical shots will do 2.0 times normal damage to all targets that con grey, green, blue, or yellow. They will do approximately 1.7 times normal damage to high- orange targets, 1.4 times normal damage to high-red targets, and 1.1 times normal damage to purple targets.

my comment about crit+npc was more regarding comparing the critshot (which does the multiplier) with the normal hits+crit since last can show an higher damage on the dummies as it would be possible against players.
Both still use in the beginning the damage modifier, where basically the damage variance is part of it.

Tue 13 Oct 2020 4:19 PM by Valaraukar

Archery Crit Shot has nothing to do with crit RA and crit damage %
it is a flat 2x dmg of the base dmg, and of course it may change depending on the base dmg done.

You should see the effect of Falcon Eye, and remember that crit shot does not trigger the crit % given by Falcon Eye (else you could get a Crit Shot for 900hp plus a crit on it of 450hp lol)

Returning to the matter... I completely agree with Sepplord about the change, it makes no sense at all to put back crit damage variance and leave the chance % as it is. If you go back with one you should go back also with the other, restoring things as they were before the crappy change of April, that no one asked for (or as far as I know no one did, but maybe someone actually did lol).

Wed 14 Oct 2020 3:37 AM by gotwqqd

While I’d like to see the old % increases

Your logic fails that they must come hand in hand

Wed 14 Oct 2020 4:01 AM by easytoremember

gotwqqd wrote: ↑
Wed 14 Oct 2020 3:37 AM
While I’d like to see the old % increases

Your logic fails that they must come hand in hand

His logic was the gm's posted rationale and looks pretty sound to me

To paraphrase: 'We gonna make all crits feel like crits, big crits for everyone :ＤＤＤdＤddＤ
no more randums lol 30% for me 30% for you everyone 30%
oh no big bursts of damage ):sads
we're cutting crit chance to match the old damage lol
now you guys do the same damage as n approaches infinity, promise *kiss*'

Wed 14 Oct 2020 6:52 AM by Sepplord

The reasoning of "there are now too many deadly spikes" was fishy to begin with...at least for me it doesn't make sense statistically
before half the crits statistically were above 30% and produced an even bigger spike

but hey, in doubt i default to believing the staff.
Maybe because of the way they simulate the RNG the normalization led to too many deadly spikes.
Could be possible.

But logically, then there must be too few deadly spikes now if the normalization is reverted, but the nerf isn't.

Conspiracy theory time:
They wanted to nerf crit-RAs but knew it would create a huge shitstorm because crit-RAs are the most picked passives and tons of people would feel nerfed, so they didn't want to tell. And now it's coming to light, but fewer people realise and therfor the shitstorm is much smaller compared to if they just told us the truth from the beginning.

I would LOVE to hear an explanation that proves me wrong, i really do.
Please, restore my trust

Wed 14 Oct 2020 2:21 PM by

gruenesschaf

Sepplord wrote: ↑
Wed 14 Oct 2020 6:52 AM
Conspiracy theory time:
They wanted to nerf crit-RAs but knew it would create a huge shitstorm because crit-RAs are the most picked passives and tons of people would feel nerfed, so they didn't want to tell. And now it's coming to light, but fewer people realise and therfor the shitstorm is much smaller compared to if they just told us the truth from the beginning.

Not quite, the intentions were indeed as stated, however, it being the most picked passive beforehand is indeed the reason why the vote was just about the variance and not the full thing to return to mopain/wp over all.

Wed 14 Oct 2020 2:56 PM by Sepplord

gruenesschaf wrote: ↑
Wed 14 Oct 2020 2:21 PM
Sepplord wrote: ↑
Wed 14 Oct 2020 6:52 AM
Conspiracy theory time:
They wanted to nerf crit-RAs but knew it would create a huge shitstorm because crit-RAs are the most picked passives and tons of people would feel nerfed, so they didn't want to tell. And now it's coming to light, but fewer people realise and therfor the shitstorm is much smaller compared to if they just told us the truth from the beginning.

Not quite, the intentions were indeed as stated, however, it being the most picked passive beforehand is indeed the reason why the vote was just about the variance and not the full thing to return to mopain/wp over all.

I am thankful you directly replied to me and answered regarding the issue (seriously, thanks for that)

Just because something is ""the most picked" doesn't mean it should stay nerfed. Last time we heard about a most picked passive, you gave it to us for free

I know that is not an equivalent comparison, but that presupposes that there are other reasons besides pick-rate.
Wild guess, Purge is the most picked active. Does that need a nerf too?

Why are those cases (tireless/LW & Purge) different from the crit-RAs?
If you pinpoint that, it probably explains the actual reasoning.
Maybe you wanted TTK to be further decreased because you thought that would weaken the castermeta. Maybe that even happened and it just feels different to me.

Fact: Nerfing the crit-RA had different effects on different classes (even only looking at classes picking crit-RAs) and it definitely shifted class balance.
Opinion: It nerfed lighttanks the most, while casters have direct alternatives to increase their dmg.

PS: sideremark since you mentioned voting: voting on balance changes is at best a two sided sword, imo it leads to biased blaance changes driven by the majority (which seems to be the opposite of what you want, aka nerf the most played classes / buff the unloved underdogs.
In the survey suddenly classes that noone groups are the most OP, while classes that are must haves or at least favored in metasetups have really low percentages.

I love that you ask the community for changes like variance, OF/NF, more/less teleports...etc... things that influence gameplay in general.
Class Balance based on votes sadly doesn't work very well to create an environment for everyone, it works very well to let the majority exploit the minorities though (<- that sounds more theatralic than i intended, but i am missing the right words to tone it down)

Wed 14 Oct 2020 3:12 PM by imweasel

Sepplord wrote: ↑
Wed 14 Oct 2020 2:56 PM
gruenesschaf wrote: ↑
Wed 14 Oct 2020 2:21 PM
Sepplord wrote: ↑
Wed 14 Oct 2020 6:52 AM
Conspiracy theory time:
They wanted to nerf crit-RAs but knew it would create a huge shitstorm because crit-RAs are the most picked passives and tons of people would feel nerfed, so they didn't want to tell. And now it's coming to light, but fewer people realise and therfor the shitstorm is much smaller compared to if they just told us the truth from the beginning.

Not quite, the intentions were indeed as stated, however, it being the most picked passive beforehand is indeed the reason why the vote was just about the variance and not the full thing to return to mopain/wp over all.

I am thankful you directly replied to me and answered regarding the issue (seriously, thanks for that)

Just because something is ""the most picked" doesn't mean it should stay nerfed. Last time we heard about a most picked passive, you gave it to us for free
I know that is not an equivalent comparison, but that presupposes that there are other reasons besides pick-rate.
Wild guess, Purge is the most picked active. Does that need a nerf too?

Why are those cases (tireless/LW & Purge) different from the crit-RAs?
If you pinpoint that, it probably explains the actual reasoning.
Maybe you wanted TTK to be further decreased because you thought that would weaken the castermeta. Maybe that even happened and it just feels different to me.

Fact: Nerfing the crit-RA had different effects on different classes (even only looking at classes picking crit-RAs) and it definitely shifted class balance.
Opinion: It nerfed lighttanks the most, while casters have direct alternatives to increase their dmg.

PS: sideremark since you mentioned voting: voting on balance changes is at best a two sided sword, imo it leads to biased blaance changes driven by the majority (which seems to be the opposite of what you want, aka nerf the most played classes / buff the unloved underdogs.
In the survey suddenly classes that noone groups are the most OP, while classes that are must haves or at least favored in metasetups have really low percentages.

I love that you ask the community for changes like variance, OF/NF, more/less teleports...etc... things that influence gameplay in general.
Class Balance based on votes sadly doesn't work very well to create an environment for everyone, it works very well to let the majority exploit the minorities though (<- that sounds more theatralic than i intended, but i am missing the right words to tone it down)

You cannot take whatever the publicly stated reason given by the devs as the 100 percent truth.

They may have "stated guidelines", but they follow them to randomly to fit my definition of guidelines. YMMV...

Fri 16 Oct 2020 12:56 AM by OceanSky

@GM please kindly consider to revert back the dmg/crit dmg variance back or at least give us some info of the followings
1. What exactly is the percentage of the variance? (10-50%) as i heard
2. Whats the correlation of dmg/crit dmg vs chance? a normal bell distribution? (whats the percentage say +/- 10% of the old nominal value), a skewed distribution or purely random (10 50)
3. Dose increase weapon spec/comp spec reduce the variance of the variance?

The world is chaotic enough now and please allow us a predictable and orderly environment in our virtual word.