Lessons from the Demo: Monster and Animal stats

[Faust]

I am no longer a huge pvper, in 1998 I was...I still want the spell mechanics to be as accurate as possible. There are already posts out there that have point out the flaws in our system.

What posts and flaws are you specifically talking about?

Our spell mechanics are probably the most obvious accurate portion of this shard with the most concrete proof of their correctness than anything else.

[Mikel123]

Everything up there seems to be right except for the part where Ogres (at least regular ones) hit harder than Drakes and Reapers only cast up to level two spells. I can say from memory that Reapers definitely casted up to an E-Bolt back in the day. Good finds.

Again the demo proves to be only partially correct, and we use it as our "bread and butter".

I can't ever remember a time reapers couldn't cast lightning.

Regarding the Ogres... wouldn't shock me if they did hit harder than Drakes. According to the demo stats, against an unarmored player, ogres should average 19 and drakes should average 18 per hit. On top of that, drakes have firebreath, and about 140 dex on average, compared to something in the 50's for ogres.

This is precisely what I'm talking about though. We remember drakes being harder than ogres, which is and was certainly true... and we THINK we remember drakes hitting harder, when in reality it's completely plausible (and according to the demo stats, quite likely) that they hit slightly softer.

As for reapers... I remember them casting all spells too. There's a stat that's called "spellCastersLevel" which their value is 1d2. However, they use the script "spellai", which is identical for all magic casters... so it may turn out that "spellCastersLevel" is not actually used in practice, but is like the "invulnerable" tag and some of the other ones that are present on all monsters but unused in the game mechanics.

[Kaivan]

Actually, ogres should only be hitting for approximately 11 damage if we account for their base weapon class. They do not possess any tactics ability, and their strength is 1d30+165, which means that a 16 damage base has a 39% damage modifier associated with it. After all damage modifications have been taken into consideration (at the time of the demo, strength and tactics), the damage is cut in half. Running the calculation with 195 strength and 16 damage yields a damage amount of 11.

Also, we must also consider that ogres were equipped with a club. Given the fact that they have a club, and are assumed to use it, we would need to look at the weapon damage for a club, which is recorded as 5d5. In this situation, their average damage output is only 15 damage, and yields an average final damage of only 10 per hit.

If we consider the drake, their weapon class is 4d6, and they do not have a weapon equipped. In a drake's case, the average damage per hit is 14 damage, and using the maximum possible strength for a drake, which is 230 strength (1d30+200), we get a final damage of 10 from a drake as well.

Finally, if we recall, during pre-T2A the speed at which things swung was based off of their dexterity. An ogre's dexterity was 1d20+45 while a drake's dexterity was 1d20+132, causing it to swing much faster than an ogre.

[Mikel123]

Kaivan, sorry, but I think you're way off on this.

For one thing, STR is not a modifier, it's a bonus. See: http://web.archive.org/web/199910090018 ... bat.htm#4b

Second, I'm of the strong belief that they did not have their club equipped or in use in combat. If you check the demo code, they don't actually have any macing skill! So if they are truly using their club, they should never be able to hit a trained warrior.

[Kaivan]

Strength and tactics (and later anatomy) are in themselves damage modifiers. A modifier is a generic term that can modify the original damage either up or down. Beyond that, while it is possible they did not use the club given to them in the demo, a quick test yields an unusual sound of the ogre missing or hitting with a weapon (this functionality is later edited across the board; many animations and sounds were removed or added). This is a strong indicator that an ogre did swing with their weapon. Beyond that observation, regardless of whether an ogre swung with an average 15 damage club, or with their static 16 damage wrestling swing, their damage will still produce results of no more than 10 or 11 damage. Here is a calculation to exemplify the point:

Ogre damage of 15
15 * 39% (str modifier at 195 str) = 5.85
15 + 5.85 = 20.85
20.85 / 2 = 10.425 or 10 damage

Ogre damage of 16
16 * 39% = 6.24
16 + 6.24 = 22.24
22/24 / 2 = 11.12 or 11 damage

[Derrick]

If you check the demo code, they don't actually have any macing skill! So if they are truly using their club, they should never be able to hit a trained warrior.

For monsters and NPC's, the higher of their wrestling skill, or the skill of the weapon they are holding is used to calculate their hit.

[Mikel123]

If you check the demo code, they don't actually have any macing skill! So if they are truly using their club, they should never be able to hit a trained warrior.

For monsters and NPC's, the higher of their wrestling skill, or the skill of the weapon they are holding is used to calculate their hit.

Cool, didn't know that. And I never noticed the animation sound, mostly because I play with the sound off 90% of the time. Though I will repeat... I've never lost stamina from an ogre hit unless I was less than 25% health. Theoretically they should be reducing stamina with their mace weapon hits. It's been a while since I've fought one though, maybe there was a patch between then and now.

I use "modifier" as you do, in words, but you use it differently in your calculations. I think it's misleading to call it a modifier if it doesn't actually modify the base damage - it only adds to it (or subtracts). Modifiers, in my eyes, imply multiplication or division. Bonuses (or penalties) imply addition or subtraction. Regardless, I was confused by what you meant - your math looks right.

Your calculations of the Ogre are ignoring Tactics. Not a huge deal since they only average 65.1, but it gives me a final value of 11 and 12 in those cases, and 12 for drakes. I think I had an error in how I accounted for Tactics in my initial calculation. I'm currently multiplying base damage by (.5 + tactics).

I think this divide-by-2 thing for physical damage has already been discussed, but... wow. 10 damage hits from drakes? Harpy averaging 5? I would have guessed 20 and 10, respectively.

[Kaivan]

According to the demo information, ogres and drakes do not possess any tactics skill at all. Skill_melee is the skill assignment for wrestling while skill_fighting is the assignment for tactics.

[Mikel123]

There's no such thing as skill_fighting.

skill_melee = tactics
skill_weapon_hand = wrestling

I assume bashing, slashing, and piercing refer to maces, swords, and fencing weapons.

[Eulogy]

Summoned Daemons are still weak, IMO.