Let's tidy up the numbers a bit

Mashille · April 25

As this year seems to have a heavy focus on User Experience improvement I think it's about time we tidy up some of the numbers in the game. This change would mostly benefit new players.

A lot of the numbers in the game from buffs etc, feel strangely specific, and I genuinely think these numbers can be confusing or baffling to new players. I'm sure there was probably a reason why these numbers were originally chosen when the major and minor buffs were first added to the game back in 2015 but the actual numbers for some of the buffs and debuffs in the game feel a bit silly.

Major Resolve and Major Breach: Increases or decreases resistances by 5948. Let' just make this 6000 shall we? An extra 52 resistances isn't exactly gonna break the game, and it makes the buff abilities much more digestible.

Minor Resolve and Minor Breach: Increases or decreases resistances by 2974. Let make that 3000.

Major Savagery: Increases crit by 2629. Let's make that 2650.

Minor Savagery / uncertainty: Increase or decreases crit by 1314. Let's make that 1320.

These numeric changes would essentially be negligible when it comes to gameplay, but I think they would help a lot with clarity and the new user experience.

kargen27 · April 25

I've never understood the obsession with using numbers divisible by 10.

xylena · April 25

kargen27 wrote: »

I've never understood the obsession with using numbers divisible by 10.

Game math is easier to understand if people can do it mentally, without a calculator spitting out an answer that is less a number, and more some unknowable arcane rune.

Crit Chance used to be displayed as a straightforward 10% not 2190 or whatever. And that's not even the same factor used with PvP Crit Resist where 10% CD reduction comes from 660, which is another different scale from Armor where 10% mitigation is approximately 6600, but not really because IIRC the armor formula is a capped curve and not linear.

YandereGirlfriend · April 25

Add to this the rounding done after each step of damage and how that makes a complete mockery of player-facing buff/debuff magnitudes.

Recent · April 25

Yes i totally agree OP.

Im a vet player and still feel my brain scramble when i see these odd numbers. Not everyone is mathematically gifted.
I would welcome the number tidy up, yes please.

Afcourse it would also help new players.

spartaxoxo · April 25

I agree. I think it would make it a lot easier to understand.

Mashille · April 25

kargen27 wrote: »

I've never understood the obsession with using numbers divisible by 10.

Part of it is aesthetics and part of it is function. Round numbers are better looking in tooltips, quicker to read, and easier to digest when thinking about their impact.

From the perspective of an outsider or someone who's leveling their first character, imagine being level 8 and reading a new ability that says "increases resistances by 5948". It's actually ridiculous.

Treeshka · April 25

Funny thing is whenever we calculate penetration values randomly in a voice chat. We always use 6000 and 3000 for breach values. Gold Crusher Enchant is always 2000 for me as well, it is 2108 in the game. So it is like 11000 for all, even though it is 11030.

Gabriel_H · April 26

I think the reason for the values for Breach/Resolve are lost to the sands of time - it was a combat balance value long long ago - but Savagery is not. 219 crit = 1%

Changing those values would require updating an awful lot more than just a single buff.

Gabriel_H · April 26

xylena wrote: »

Armor where 10% mitigation is approximately 6600, but not really because IIRC the armor formula is a capped curve and not linear.

Yes/No. 6,600 is exactly 10% miitigation if no other mitigation exists.

The maximum resistance you can stack without wasting resistance is 66,000 BUT mitigation from resistance is capped at 50% (being 33,300). However damage taken happens after resistance calculations. So someone with 43,000 resistance being hit with someone with 10,000 penetration is still getting 50% mitigation.

Damage mitigation is multiplactive, and so has diminishing returns for each new source you stack including block. A tank with 33,000, relevent CPs, and ~85% block mitigation for example when casting Major Protection only gets an increase of around 0.3% to mitigated damage when blocking, and around 3% when not blocking.

Umbracat449 · April 26

And can we pass a plan english test over the tooltips while we are at it?

Most of them are incomprehensible without advanced understanding of the game.

TX12001rwb17_ESO · April 26

While they are at it remove a 0 from everything like it used to be, instead of 30,000 have 3,000.

Mashille · April 26

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

While they are at it remove a 0 from everything like it used to be, instead of 30,000 have 3,000.

I 100% agree with this. I much preferred having stats in the hundreds and thousands, rather than thousands and tens of thousands.

This is another thing I can also vouch for being confusing / a turn off for some new players. When my brother started playing the game he was so confused why he was like level 5 yet had over 20,000 health and his weapons dealt thousands of damage.

Zodiarkslayer · April 26

@Mashille and all the others here!
I get that you feel inconvenienced by large numbers without a lot of zeros. Comprehension is important, I get it.
But you are missing the point entirely.

The focus of game code (software in general, really) is not your convenience, but stability. And if a code uses small base numbers, it is exponentially more likely to produce crashes, bugs and unintended behaviour.
That has to do with math, computer science and how processors work.

I mean, we can talk all about how the UI could be changed to display low percentage numbers instead. But I am pretty sure, ZOS tried that in the beginning and they found that it makes the UI a little bit too laggy.

GeneralGrundmann · April 26

The numbers are fine.

Gabriel_H · April 26

Mashille wrote: »

This is another thing I can also vouch for being confusing / a turn off for some new players. When my brother started playing the game he was so confused why he was like level 5 yet had over 20,000 health and his weapons dealt thousands of damage.

That's a different thing. ESO doesn't have different levels in different zones, so sub level 50s are scaled up to be Level 50 CP160. There's a power dip at Level 50 as the "boosting" is taken away and the player has to rely on their own gear and CPs.

Mashille · April 26

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Mashille wrote: »

This is another thing I can also vouch for being confusing / a turn off for some new players. When my brother started playing the game he was so confused why he was like level 5 yet had over 20,000 health and his weapons dealt thousands of damage.

That's a different thing. ESO doesn't have different levels in different zones, so sub level 50s are scaled up to be Level 50 CP160. There's a power dip at Level 50 as the "boosting" is taken away and the player has to rely on their own gear and CPs.

Well, yes and no. Even taking into account the scaling, it feels less weird to start with 2,000 health and deal hundreds of damage than with 20,000 health and deal thousands of damage.

Gabriel_H · April 26

Mashille wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Mashille wrote: »

This is another thing I can also vouch for being confusing / a turn off for some new players. When my brother started playing the game he was so confused why he was like level 5 yet had over 20,000 health and his weapons dealt thousands of damage.

That's a different thing. ESO doesn't have different levels in different zones, so sub level 50s are scaled up to be Level 50 CP160. There's a power dip at Level 50 as the "boosting" is taken away and the player has to rely on their own gear and CPs.

Well, yes and no. Even taking into account the scaling, it feels less weird to start with 2,000 health and deal hundreds of damage than with 20,000 health and deal thousands of damage.

But you can't start with 2,000 health. At level 5 you aren't fighting level 5 mobs, you are fighting level 50 160CP mobs.

Mashille · April 26

Gabriel_H wrote: »

But you can't start with 2,000 health. At level 5 you aren't fighting level 5 mobs, you are fighting level 50 160CP mobs.

I think there's a miscommunication here. Prior to update 1.6 in 2015, all ESO's stats were lower by a factor of 10. What is now 20,000 health, prior to update 1.6 was 2,000 health. And what is now 7,000 damage, was 700 damage etc.

So, even assuming the One Tamriel scaling is the same, if the numbers were brought back to where they were in 2015 it would feel less odd. As players would have 2,000 or 3,000 health rather than 20,000 or 30,000 etc.

xylena · April 26

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Damage mitigation is multiplactive, and so has diminishing returns

Common misconception, convert to Effective Hit Points to see what is really going on. For example, 99% DR is a whole 10x order of magnitude stronger than 90% DR, not a mere 9%.

EHP = HP / (1-DR) which becomes EHP = HP / (1-(Armor/66000))

Above, the scale on the left is the added % EHP multiplier from Armor. IIRC DR = Armor/66000 is an approximation, no idea if this is what is coded, other games like Warframe use a forumla that results in a linear Armor vs DR relationship. You can see that you have double (+100%) your original EHP at 33k armor, which is effectively the same TTK as from halving incoming damage.

Below is a graph of the relationship between your damage buff from 15k Pen, and enemy Armor values that affect it (input different Pen values and get a different curve).

The inflection points are where the enemy is no longer being fully penetrated, and where you run into the Armor cap. If you fight an enemy above the Armor cap, some of your Pen is being completely negated, because reducing 40k Armor to 33k Armor doesn't actually change their DR. Anyway tl;dr this is why stacked Armor or stacked Pen are so strong in PvP.

Toanis · April 26

AFAIK the original values were based on level 66 (level 50 + 16 veteran levels aka CP160) the max level from back when each zone had its own level range.

If you divide any current number by 66 you get almost even results, the difference between 90 * 66 = 5940 and today's 5948 is the result of years and years of spreadsheet optimization.

Malyore · April 26

xylena wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Damage mitigation is multiplactive, and so has diminishing returns

Common misconception, convert to Effective Hit Points to see what is really going on. For example, 99% DR is a whole 10x order of magnitude stronger than 90% DR, not a mere 9%.

EHP = HP / (1-DR) which becomes EHP = HP / (1-(Armor/66000))

Above, the scale on the left is the added % EHP multiplier from Armor. IIRC DR = Armor/66000 is an approximation, no idea if this is what is coded, other games like Warframe use a forumla that results in a linear Armor vs DR relationship. You can see that you have double (+100%) your original EHP at 33k armor, which is effectively the same TTK as from halving incoming damage.

Below is a graph of the relationship between your damage buff from 15k Pen, and enemy Armor values that affect it (input different Pen values and get a different curve).

The inflection points are where the enemy is no longer being fully penetrated, and where you run into the Armor cap. If you fight an enemy above the Armor cap, some of your Pen is being completely negated, because reducing 40k Armor to 33k Armor doesn't actually change their DR. Anyway tl;dr this is why stacked Armor or stacked Pen are so strong in PvP.

When videogames have to turn into this kind of discussion on the forums for players to even understand what is happening in the game they've been playing for years...

Lots of esoteric knowledge that is not communicated by the game and instead requires the community to make it comprehensible.

I have an okay understanding of the numbers in this game but that's after forcing myself to memorize data from Skinnycheeks, and even so I have no idea what the heck is being said in this.
I think this just supports OPs point.

Gabriel_H · April 26

xylena wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Damage mitigation is multiplactive, and so has diminishing returns

Common misconception, convert to Effective Hit Points to see what is really going on. For example, 99% DR is a whole 10x order of magnitude stronger than 90% DR, not a mere 9%.

EHP = HP / (1-DR) which becomes EHP = HP / (1-(Armor/66000))

Above, the scale on the left is the added % EHP multiplier from Armor. IIRC DR = Armor/66000 is an approximation, no idea if this is what is coded, other games like Warframe use a forumla that results in a linear Armor vs DR relationship. You can see that you have double (+100%) your original EHP at 33k armor, which is effectively the same TTK as from halving incoming damage.

Below is a graph of the relationship between your damage buff from 15k Pen, and enemy Armor values that affect it (input different Pen values and get a different curve).

The inflection points are where the enemy is no longer being fully penetrated, and where you run into the Armor cap. If you fight an enemy above the Armor cap, some of your Pen is being completely negated, because reducing 40k Armor to 33k Armor doesn't actually change their DR. Anyway tl;dr this is why stacked Armor or stacked Pen are so strong in PvP.

Lets say you have two scenarios. 33k and 50% mitigation, and 26.4k and 40% mitigation. Add Minor Protection (5%).

The 50% becomes 52.5% and the 40% becomes 43%. You get more mitigation added on the lower amount - that's a diminishing return.

The reason you are probably not seeing a linear relationship with armour resistance is because of the hidden 10% damage reduction that was introduced with CP 2.0. It's applied last after all other mitigation.

6,600 is exactly 10% miitigation if no other mitigation exists. So 33,000 is exactly 50% damage mitigation if no other mitigation exists. I.e. it is linear. What is getting applied to actual hits has an additional 10% reduction which again is multiplactive and therefore gives less reduction the more reduction you've already got.

xylena · April 26

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Lets say you have two scenarios. 33k and 50% mitigation, and 26.4k and 40% mitigation. Add Minor Protection (5%).

Please stop here. Multiplicative DR works like this:

EHP = (HP / (1-DR1)) * (HP / (1-DR2)) * (HP / (1-DR3))...

So for your example of 26k armor and Minor Protection:

EHP = (HP / (1-0.4)) * (HP / (1-0.05))

So your Armor multiplies your EHP by a factor of 1.66, then your Protection multiples that resulit by a factor of 1.05, meaning your final EHP is 1.75x your base HP. Notice that the increase in EHP factor was 0.09 not 0.05 so it is clearly NOT diminishing returns.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

I have no idea what the heck is being said in this. I think this just supports OPs point

Correct.

Jestir · April 26

I think the only thing needed to change is how crit chance is presented to the player

Even if the kept they did it in a lazy way like "increase crit by 219 (1%)"

Everything else doesn't really work in a way for simplifying it to matter

Malyore · April 26

xylena wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Lets say you have two scenarios. 33k and 50% mitigation, and 26.4k and 40% mitigation. Add Minor Protection (5%).

Please stop here. Multiplicative DR works like this:

EHP = (HP / (1-DR1)) * ((HP / (1-DR2)) * (HP / (1-DR3))...

So for your example of 26k armor and Minor Protection:

EHP = (HP / (1-0.4)) * (HP / (1-0.05))

So your Armor multiplies your EHP by a factor of 1.66, then your Protection multiples that resulit by a factor of 1.05, meaning your final EHP is 1.75x your base HP. Notice that the increase in EHP factor was 0.09 not 0.05 so it is clearly NOT diminishing returns.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

I have no idea what the heck is being said in this. I think this just supports OPs point

Correct.

Does this mean it's still worth me trying to get major and minor protection and other percentage negations even at 33k armor for PvE? Or would that bar space be better put into damage shields and other abilities?

I've also heard that damage-shield depletion is not affected at all by mitigation, correct?

xylena · April 26

Malyore wrote: »

Does this mean it's still worth me trying to get major and minor protection and other percentage negations even at 33k armor for PvE? Or would that bar space be better put into damage shields and other abilities?

Yes stacking Protection is worth it, though it depends on how efficient the source is. Ideally I'd think you'd want to get the named buffs from a group source, and prioritize active tactical defenses like shields on your bar (this is how I've always played tank in 4p Vet content).

IIRC shields benfit from all forms of mitigation except for block mitigation.

Gabriel_H · April 26

xylena wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Lets say you have two scenarios. 33k and 50% mitigation, and 26.4k and 40% mitigation. Add Minor Protection (5%).

Please stop here. Multiplicative DR works like this:

EHP = (HP / (1-DR1)) * (HP / (1-DR2)) * (HP / (1-DR3))...

So for your example of 26k armor and Minor Protection:

EHP = (HP / (1-0.4)) * (HP / (1-0.05))

So your Armor multiplies your EHP by a factor of 1.66, then your Protection multiples that resulit by a factor of 1.05, meaning your final EHP is 1.75x your base HP. Notice that the increase in EHP factor was 0.09 not 0.05 so it is clearly NOT diminishing returns.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

I have no idea what the heck is being said in this. I think this just supports OPs point

Correct.

Effective Hit Points are irrelevent outside of a spreadsheet. Actual gameplay does not work that way.

A boss hitting for 100,000 unmitigated hits for 45,000 at 33k and no buffs.
A boss hitting for 100,000 unmitigated hits for 42,750 at 33k and Minor Prot - a 2.25% reduction on a 5% buff
A boss hitting for 100,000 unmitigated hits for 38,475 at 33k with Minor Prot and Major Prot - a 4.275% reduction on a 10% buff

i.e. diminishing returns.

Gabriel_H · April 26

Malyore wrote: »

xylena wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Lets say you have two scenarios. 33k and 50% mitigation, and 26.4k and 40% mitigation. Add Minor Protection (5%).

Please stop here. Multiplicative DR works like this:

EHP = (HP / (1-DR1)) * ((HP / (1-DR2)) * (HP / (1-DR3))...

So for your example of 26k armor and Minor Protection:

EHP = (HP / (1-0.4)) * (HP / (1-0.05))

So your Armor multiplies your EHP by a factor of 1.66, then your Protection multiples that resulit by a factor of 1.05, meaning your final EHP is 1.75x your base HP. Notice that the increase in EHP factor was 0.09 not 0.05 so it is clearly NOT diminishing returns.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

I have no idea what the heck is being said in this. I think this just supports OPs point

Correct.

Does this mean it's still worth me trying to get major and minor protection and other percentage negations even at 33k armor for PvE? Or would that bar space be better put into damage shields and other abilities?

I've also heard that damage-shield depletion is not affected at all by mitigation, correct?

Depends entirely on what else you have in terms of damage mitigation, champion points, and the nature of the fight. Majopr prot isn't going to do much for you in a block heavy fight with full CP and a 80% block mititgation.

Something like Asylum for example. You are going to be mitigating a little bit extra but it's irrelevent, your healers are putting out a massive amount of overhealing. An extra 500 damage isn't going to kill you, and you are wasting a slot when you could have something more useful like a sustain skill.

xylena · April 26

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Effective Hit Points are irrelevent outside of a spreadsheet.

You are mathematically wrong. Do not spread further misinformation.

Build #1 has 30k HP and 0 Armor, this is 30k EHP.
Build #2 has 30k HP and 30k Armor, this is about 60k EHP.

Against build #1, my burst combo deals a lethal 30k damage in 3 hits.
Against build #2, my burst now only deals 15k in 3 hits, meaning I need 6 hits to kill it.

Double the EHP = double the effective damage needed to kill it. This is how EHP works.
If you don't think this is relevant, then I guess I am just sorry for you.

Gabriel_H · April 26

xylena wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Effective Hit Points are irrelevent outside of a spreadsheet.

You are mathematically wrong. Do not spread further misinformation.

Build #1 has 30k HP and 0 Armor, this is 30k EHP.
Build #2 has 30k HP and 30k Armor, this is about 60k EHP.

Boss hits for 70k. Both die. Get it?!

It still does not alter that damage mitigation has diminshing returns. It's literally defintional.

A tank has 40K health and 95% damage mitigation.

A boss is hitting for 19k. The tank can survive 2 hits without healing.

The tank throws on Major Protection - a 10% buff that at this point only provided an additional 0.05% of mitigation - see diminishing returns.

The boss is now hitting for 17k. The tank can survive 2 hits without healing.