Veteran content: actual numbers (with proof)

MeowGinger

I still see people pulling numbers out of thin air. So...

MeowGinger wrote: »

The addon used is LUI. Images cropped so they wouldn't be resized as much, but guess I'm out of luck. Clicking on the image will take you to the full size uploaded on tinypic. You're looking for the red hp box provided by LUI. Sorry for small text; that's from the addon, not from me (although I am playing on a small monitor right now).

Okay. Sincano. In Silumm (in Glenumbra), VR6, 8740 hp. BEFORE:


7283 hp, AFTER:


Percent change formula:
[(8740 - 7283) / 8740 ] * 100% = 16.6704805499... % less health

This is across the board.

Bloodthorn assassin, 2582 hp, BEFORE:


Red Rook bandit, 2152 hp, AFTER:


I know these mobs aren't identical and that enemies have different amounts of health depending on their role (bandit vs enforcer, etc.), but these seem to match and I was in a rush.

Percent change formula:
[(2582 - 2152) / 2582 ] * 100% = 16.65375677769... %

MeowGinger wrote: »

Same mod data, etc. as for my last post. For those wondering... yes, I did just stand there and let her ravage my sweet, sweet body. For the second time, anyway. The first, I didn't even realize she was a boss since I didn't see a shiny health bar courtesy of my addon. Oops.

Again: my spell resist, armor rating, and VR level all changed (I was wearing VR1 gear at VR5 or VR6, vs. now wearing gear at my level and softcapped), and I didn't think to record the decay level of my armor in the first image so I don't have that information (this would have affected spell resist due to the heavy armor passive).

Before:


After:


[(1279 - 894) / 1279] * 100% = 30.1016419774...%

I can't check with the worm cultists in Vernim wood since they're cleared out of the area now that I finished the questline. So the only thing I have left for comparison are the boneshapers, which I'm still trying to find -- don't remember where they are. If I find anything else at VR level that isn't Fildgor Orcthane, I'll compare that too.

Zebug

as I said in the other thread, thanks for the screenies and the work getting this info together, I just fear you might be spreading false info on the damage part being that your VR level and gear has changed from one time to the other....the HP differences are perfect and thanks again for that.

MeowGinger

Zebug wrote: »

as I said in the other thread, thanks for the screenies and the work getting this info together, I just fear you might be spreading false info on the damage part being that your VR level and gear has changed from one time to the other....the HP differences are perfect and thanks again for that.

You're welcome, I hope it helps.

I don't think it's false as it is, as this the damage that could be expected with softcapped armor and near softcapped spell resist (as an aside, the mitigation for a VR1 with softcapped armor should be almost identical to that for a VR8 with softcapped armor). At best, my armor was softcapped then, even at a higher VR (purple heavy armor), but I can't tell for sure at this point. I also think this would affect spell resist more than armor value itself. I have heard people mention 90% armor penetration, but I have not checked this myself.

If anything, the damage in the "before" screenshot could have been lower, resulting in a decrease lower than 30%.

Zebug

Totally with you... If anything the 30% damage reduction is error on the high side and it'll only get less with what you and I are saying.. So maybe like a 20% damage reduction for example (totally making up that number to clarify my comment)

I'll try and do a test myself... Unfortunately I just hit vr7 last night so it'll be a couple days but I'd like to see a test where I let a mob kill me at vr7... Screen shot it, then hit vr8 and without changing any gear at all let the same mob kill me again. This will let us know if your level alone does anything for damage mitigation

Guppet

Any chance you can get some damage stats with and without armour, to see if they have changed the armour penetration?

kewl

Great work! Thanks for making an objective contribution to this debate.

ers101284b14_ESO

Guppet wrote: »

Any chance you can get some damage stats with and without armour, to see if they have changed the armour penetration?

I'm also interested in this.

Lord_Draevan

So this is what people are complaining about? 16% less health and 30% less damage? By the way people are complaining you'd think it'd be 60% less health and 80% less damage :P
This is good info to know.

LariahHunding

However, how about a 3-pack (This was the most often complaint)?

Overall damage reduction will be greater because you can dispatch 1 and 2 faster.

Just a research question. No opinion on the change.

Arato

Lord_Draevan wrote: »

So this is what people are complaining about? 16% less health and 30% less damage? By the way people are complaining you'd think it'd be 60% less health and 80% less damage :P
This is good info to know.

That's a rather substantial change actually, particularly the outgoing damage. Prior you had to be really careful about avoiding or blocking attacks because they hit really hard, now it seems like you can ignore/absorb most attacks and only avoid things like uppercut, like in 1-50 content.

Arsenic_Touch

Arato wrote: »

That's a rather substantial change actually, particularly the outgoing damage. Prior you had to be really careful about avoiding or blocking attacks because they hit really hard, now it seems like you can ignore/absorb most attacks and only avoid things like uppercut, like in 1-50 content.

It is more than the "middle ground" they claimed it would be. You can stand in the red zones and nullify the entire dodging mechanic (which needed an overhaul but this wasn't it) Also, the change isn't consistent across the boards .Some mobs are insanely easy and some are only moderately easy.

Lyall84

Arato wrote: »

Lord_Draevan wrote: »

So this is what people are complaining about? 16% less health and 30% less damage? By the way people are complaining you'd think it'd be 60% less health and 80% less damage :P
This is good info to know.

That's a rather substantial change actually, particularly the outgoing damage. Prior you had to be really careful about avoiding or blocking attacks because they hit really hard, now it seems like you can ignore/absorb most attacks and only avoid things like uppercut, like in 1-50 content.

The real problem before was that the VR NPCs hit harder with light attacks than players could with similar weapons and heavy attacks. The damage nerf was needed. If the change is too much and they decide to make it harder. Instead of just add a bigger stat increase to the mobs like they did before. I would like to see them remove the NPC skill wind up that you see, so the NPCs cast more like a player. Whirlwind should be instant cast, not 2 seconds fiddling with their junk before hitting you for 700 (1k damage pre patch). Also increase the rate and variety of skills that they use. No more just spamming throwing knife, but hit me with sparks or twin slashes or whatever. That would make things like blocking and interrupt more important while not making the game numerically crushing like it was before.

I think it would do wonders of making NPC combat more like player combat. (Player combat can be both the easiest and hardest depending on the player)

EDIT: fixed typo.

Arato

Without the windup you don't really get a chance to block or dodge the attack. Then you have to neuter its damage or people will complain its too hard because they get hit every single time.

in GW2 it's pretty much they left mob damage high, mobs have very subtle tells (not easily readable like here) that are often obscured by particle effects from your attacks, and you just get one shot, and arenanet just considers players getting downed in 1 hit as the norm, and excuses it as "downed is not dead"

I find having easy to read tells makes for a better combat experience than "well watch his eyebrows, if he raises one eyebrow up and faces your direction he's about to do a 1 shot attack that you have to dodge"

ers101284b14_ESO

Arato wrote: »

Without the windup you don't really get a chance to block or dodge the attack. Then you have to neuter its damage or people will complain its too hard because they get hit every single time.

in GW2 it's pretty much they left mob damage high, mobs have very subtle tells (not easily readable like here) that are often obscured by particle effects from your attacks, and you just get one shot, and arenanet just considers players getting downed in 1 hit as the norm, and excuses it as "downed is not dead"

I find having easy to read tells makes for a better combat experience than "well watch his eyebrows, if he raises one eyebrow up and faces your direction he's about to do a 1 shot attack that you have to dodge"

Stalwart385

At one time I noticed mobs were breaking CC a lot after a patch. It seems they stopped doing that also. I liked that, it killed the monotony.

And yes 30% damage reduction and 16% health reduction is significant. A total of 46% easier. That is all we have found that was nerfed.

Loco_Mofo

Lord_Draevan wrote: »

So this is what people are complaining about? 16% less health and 30% less damage? By the way people are complaining you'd think it'd be 60% less health and 80% less damage :P
This is good info to know.

Huge nerf, especially for the people that didn't want the change in the first place. If you think this is a minor change, I don't know what to say...

Arato

ers101284b14_ESO wrote: »

Arato wrote: »

Without the windup you don't really get a chance to block or dodge the attack. Then you have to neuter its damage or people will complain its too hard because they get hit every single time.

in GW2 it's pretty much they left mob damage high, mobs have very subtle tells (not easily readable like here) that are often obscured by particle effects from your attacks, and you just get one shot, and arenanet just considers players getting downed in 1 hit as the norm, and excuses it as "downed is not dead"

I find having easy to read tells makes for a better combat experience than "well watch his eyebrows, if he raises one eyebrow up and faces your direction he's about to do a 1 shot attack that you have to dodge"

This is what your average GW2 world boss fight looks like. Spot the one shot incoming tell on the boss.

ers101284b14_ESO

Arato wrote: »

ers101284b14_ESO wrote: »

Arato wrote: »

Without the windup you don't really get a chance to block or dodge the attack. Then you have to neuter its damage or people will complain its too hard because they get hit every single time.

in GW2 it's pretty much they left mob damage high, mobs have very subtle tells (not easily readable like here) that are often obscured by particle effects from your attacks, and you just get one shot, and arenanet just considers players getting downed in 1 hit as the norm, and excuses it as "downed is not dead"

I find having easy to read tells makes for a better combat experience than "well watch his eyebrows, if he raises one eyebrow up and faces your direction he's about to do a 1 shot attack that you have to dodge"

This is what your average GW2 world boss fight looks like. Spot the one shot incoming tell on the boss.

Right there ....................... ^

Loco_Mofo

Arato wrote: »

ers101284b14_ESO wrote: »

Arato wrote: »

Without the windup you don't really get a chance to block or dodge the attack. Then you have to neuter its damage or people will complain its too hard because they get hit every single time.

in GW2 it's pretty much they left mob damage high, mobs have very subtle tells (not easily readable like here) that are often obscured by particle effects from your attacks, and you just get one shot, and arenanet just considers players getting downed in 1 hit as the norm, and excuses it as "downed is not dead"

I find having easy to read tells makes for a better combat experience than "well watch his eyebrows, if he raises one eyebrow up and faces your direction he's about to do a 1 shot attack that you have to dodge"

This is what your average GW2 world boss fight looks like. Spot the one shot incoming tell on the boss.

Haha to be fair, the elemental effects were toned down eventually. This looks like a screenshot from the beta.

Eorea

Thank you for doing that, OP.

MeowGinger

I hope this was helpful. To those who have asked: I'll try testing damage with and without armor tomorrow.

I wonder why a (hopefully) informative and unbiased post is getting LOLs? Maybe people just don't like numbers...

After playing for a few hours, I also think the changes were a little much. I do not feel that any VR players should be able to solo any veteran zone dolmen (I'm sure this has happened pre-patch, although I have never seen it for myself before). I also have another observation (without screenshot proof this time): enemies are still inconsistent. The "trash" trolls (in Erokii Ruins?) still have more HP than the dungeon boss, Grimtooth. I don't have a death recap, but I feel as though the damage was comparable. It would be nice if the inconsistency could have been fixed.

Lord_Draevan

Loco_Mofo wrote: »

Huge nerf, especially for the people that didn't want the change in the first place. If you think this is a minor change, I don't know what to say...

People who didn't want the change would've complained over a 1% decrease

I also never said it wasn't massive (that's a matter of opinion), I said people were blowing it out of proportion, i.e people saying stuff like "Oh I can solo Vet 10 world bosses and Anchors at Vet 1 naked now". Seriously, I'm trying to find that comment again and enshrine it somewhere...

dolanjamieb16_ESO

Stalwart385 wrote: »

At one time I noticed mobs were breaking CC a lot after a patch. It seems they stopped doing that also. I liked that, it killed the monotony.

And yes 30% damage reduction and 16% health reduction is significant. A total of 46% easier. That is all we have found that was nerfed.

lol your not good at maths are you

46% damage reduction and 46% health reduction is a total of 46% easier

its more like 22% ish total easier and that's ignoring any background stats that may have been changed and is very very rough i mean less damage from mobs might be considered more highly than mob health

forthewinn2

If prior to the patch it would take you 10 seconds to kill a mob and if you take 100 damage per second fighting that mob you would take a total of 1000 damage for the duration of fighting that mob, now after the patch it would take around 8.4 seconds to fight the same mob(because the mob has 16% less health) and you would take 70 damage per second fighting the mob(the mob now does 30% less damage) so over the course of the fight you would take 588 damage.
This basically means over the course of a fight you would take 41.2% less damage

How this is converted to the % easier is beyond me, but I personally consider damage taken during the entire duration of a fight to be a reasonable indicator of how difficult that fight was (with of course a few exceptions ie very long fights where you take very low damage per second, are still easy)

Lyall84

MeowGinger wrote: »

I hope this was helpful. To those who have asked: I'll try testing damage with and without armor tomorrow.

I wonder why a (hopefully) informative and unbiased post is getting LOLs? Maybe people just don't like numbers...

After playing for a few hours, I also think the changes were a little much. I do not feel that any VR players should be able to solo any veteran zone dolmen (I'm sure this has happened pre-patch, although I have never seen it for myself before). I also have another observation (without screenshot proof this time): enemies are still inconsistent. The "trash" trolls (in Erokii Ruins?) still have more HP than the dungeon boss, Grimtooth. I don't have a death recap, but I feel as though the damage was comparable. It would be nice if the inconsistency could have been fixed.

Don't let it bother you. Some people get personally offended if you disagree with them and they react by finding other of your posts and "LOL"ing all of them just to get a rise out of you. Personally I find it amusing, but at the same time, it would be nice if they only did that to posts that were intended to be funny. Like that Super Punch Out link.

fosley_ESO

I honestly didn't realize the nerf had been implemented until I read the patch notes. Stuff that used to take me down to 1/3 health now takes me to 1/2 health, so yeah it's easier, but it's not the "just stand in fire and you'll be ok herp derp" that people are claiming. If I engage three pyromancers without a resist buff and shielding myself, they still take me down in half a second, and I still have to block/dodge and heal myself while trying to solo world bosses. I haven't tried to solo a dolmen yet, but we duo'd one before the nerf, so it's not like they were super-hard content already.

Bear in mind, I'm still in the first vet zone, so I can't speak for VR4/5/12 content. But if the nerfs are roughly the same across the board, anyone who is able to kill stuff while standing in fire now, would have been able to do the same before, except maybe needing to saunter out of the fire so the last couple ticks didn't hit them.

Also, you can't necessarily combine the health and damage numbers to get an even more drastic nerf. With my healing build, I'm taking and healing damage and using mana regen, so I can either sustain myself throughout a fight or I can't. A 30% damage nerf means I can sustain myself against considerably harder enemies, but their health is pretty irrelevant unless they were so easy I was killing them before they hit me anyways. With my archer "build" on the other hand, I'm not really taking a ton of damage because I just bubble, so unless they're eating through my mana because of how many bubbles I cast, it's only about how long it takes to kill them, and the 16% reduction isn't as noticeable except on bosses (probably why I didn't notice). (Note that my archer "build" is utter garbage just to level my medium armor and bow skills, and I have no perks in either skill line -- just using class skills and light/heavy bow attacks.)

Zebug wrote: »

This will let us know if your level alone does anything for damage mitigation

All else being equal, leveling up will decrease your mitigation by a small amount. A VR12 with no armor takes the same damage as a level 3 from the same enemy. Then your percent reduction is just that - so a 30% reduction means you take 70% of the original damage.

A VR7 soft-caps at (49+7)*30+100 = 1,780 armor/spell resist, which is exactly 30% mitigation. At VR8, that same armor rating converts to (1780-100)/(49+8 ) = 29.47% mitigation. The same thing, but using a VR6 in VR1 gear: VR1 soft-caps at (49+1)*30+100 = 1600, and at VR6 the rating converts to (1600-100)/(49+6) = 27.27%. Note the assumption that a set of VR1 gear on a VR1 brings you to the same percent as a set of VR6 gear on a VR6, which I'm not positive is true.

So, if the VR1 is at 30% mitigation, he's taking 70% of the hit, while the VR6 is taking 72.73% of the hit. 72.73/70 = 1.039, or about a 4% increase in damage taken. Take Thunderthrall at 1279 damage, that becomes 1279/1.039 = 1231 damage if he'd been wearing VR6 gear pre-nerf. Compare that with the 894 damage post-nerf, and you have 894/1231 = 72.6%, or a 27.4% damage reduction.

So the actual damage reduction is a little lower, but it's not going to be a difference of 30% vs 10%. You can see this thread for more info on the mitigation formulae and testing.

Malpherian

Lyall84 wrote: »

Arato wrote: »

Lord_Draevan wrote: »

So this is what people are complaining about? 16% less health and 30% less damage? By the way people are complaining you'd think it'd be 60% less health and 80% less damage :P
This is good info to know.

That's a rather substantial change actually, particularly the outgoing damage. Prior you had to be really careful about avoiding or blocking attacks because they hit really hard, now it seems like you can ignore/absorb most attacks and only avoid things like uppercut, like in 1-50 content.

The real problem before was that the VR NPCs hit harder with light attacks than players could with similar weapons and heavy attacks. The damage nerf was needed. If the change is too much and they decide to make it harder. Instead of just add a bigger stat increase to the mobs like they did before. I would like to see them remove the NPC skill wind up that you see, so the NPCs cast more like a player. Whirlwind should be instant cast, not 2 seconds fiddling with their junk before hitting you for 700 (1k damage pre patch). Also increase the rate and variety of skills that they use. No more just spamming throwing knife, but hit me with sparks or twin slashes or whatever. That would make things like blocking and interrupt more important while not making the game numerically crushing like it was before.

I think it would do wonders of making NPC combat more like player combat. (Player combat can be both the easiest and hardest depending on the player)

EDIT: fixed typo.

Increase the veriety of skills? Are you crazy 90% of all the NPC spells and abilities they use a player has absolutely 0 access to.

Especially dremoras, and necromancers / cultist. Players can't use ANY of those abilities and thers like 100 of them.

If anything PLAYERS need to be given access to MORE traits and skills. NOT NPCs

fosley_ESO

I don't think it's so much about adding more npc skills, as giving each npc access to more of the current skills. Right now, any given npc has two or three skills they use. A light, unavoidable attack; a heavy, interruptable/blockable attack; and a special, interruptable/dodgeable attack. And it's the same set of attacks for any given npc type. A scamp will have a little firebolt, a heavy firewall, and a special puddle of fire, no matter where you find it.

To make it more interesting, they could give scamps a firebolt plus a melee attack, a heavy firewall plus a fire nova aoe, and a fire puddle plus a cone attack. Or something. Then any given attack isn't particularly over-powered, but you still have to be more careful than right now because there are more possible attacks to consider when defending against them.

kewl

fosley_ESO wrote: »

I don't think it's so much about adding more npc skills, as giving each npc access to more of the current skills. Right now, any given npc has two or three skills they use. A light, unavoidable attack; a heavy, interruptable/blockable attack; and a special, interruptable/dodgeable attack. And it's the same set of attacks for any given npc type. A scamp will have a little firebolt, a heavy firewall, and a special puddle of fire, no matter where you find it.

To make it more interesting, they could give scamps a firebolt plus a melee attack, a heavy firewall plus a fire nova aoe, and a fire puddle plus a cone attack. Or something. Then any given attack isn't particularly over-powered, but you still have to be more careful than right now because there are more possible attacks to consider when defending against them.

Make fights more dynamic, what a brilliant idea!

SDZald

kewl wrote: »

fosley_ESO wrote: »

I don't think it's so much about adding more npc skills, as giving each npc access to more of the current skills. Right now, any given npc has two or three skills they use. A light, unavoidable attack; a heavy, interruptable/blockable attack; and a special, interruptable/dodgeable attack. And it's the same set of attacks for any given npc type. A scamp will have a little firebolt, a heavy firewall, and a special puddle of fire, no matter where you find it.

To make it more interesting, they could give scamps a firebolt plus a melee attack, a heavy firewall plus a fire nova aoe, and a fire puddle plus a cone attack. Or something. Then any given attack isn't particularly over-powered, but you still have to be more careful than right now because there are more possible attacks to consider when defending against them.

Make fights more dynamic, what a brilliant idea!

Ahhh but now we are talking AI, well ok maybe not true AI but what you are asking for is what every gamer has asked for since the first computer games. NPC's that act more 'real' is very tough to do, requires a heck of a lot of code. Add to that the verity of NPC types in a game like this, that is asking for a lot from a company that can't even fix quest bugs, FPS problems, and memory leaks.

kewl

SDZald wrote: »

kewl wrote: »

fosley_ESO wrote: »

I don't think it's so much about adding more npc skills, as giving each npc access to more of the current skills. Right now, any given npc has two or three skills they use. A light, unavoidable attack; a heavy, interruptable/blockable attack; and a special, interruptable/dodgeable attack. And it's the same set of attacks for any given npc type. A scamp will have a little firebolt, a heavy firewall, and a special puddle of fire, no matter where you find it.

To make it more interesting, they could give scamps a firebolt plus a melee attack, a heavy firewall plus a fire nova aoe, and a fire puddle plus a cone attack. Or something. Then any given attack isn't particularly over-powered, but you still have to be more careful than right now because there are more possible attacks to consider when defending against them.

Make fights more dynamic, what a brilliant idea!

Ahhh but now we are talking AI, well ok maybe not true AI but what you are asking for is what every gamer has asked for since the first computer games. NPC's that act more 'real' is very tough to do, requires a heck of a lot of code. Add to that the verity of NPC types in a game like this, that is asking for a lot from a company that can't even fix quest bugs, FPS problems, and memory leaks.

That would be nice, but not what I or @fosley_ESO was referring to.

fosley_ESO wrote: »

To make it more interesting, they could give scamps a firebolt plus a melee attack, a heavy firewall plus a fire nova aoe, and a fire puddle plus a cone attack. Or something. Then any given attack isn't particularly over-powered, but you still have to be more careful than right now because there are more possible attacks to consider when defending against them.

Noting abut AI. Just looking for a bit more variety in attacks. Thanks for the input thou.