There is something wrong with Crushing Blow I

[rabidbite]

On Nightmare, crushing blow cannot hit Giant Rats.

I've been testing this all morning. I couldn't believe it (I thought I must have missed a hit somewhere), so I created a XML table.

At Level 5, when I reach the Gates of the underground city and a horde of Ratkin attack:


Using THE BASIC: Strike I. I conducted 30 attempts. I was able to hit 9 times and do 28 points of damage. There are times when you hit (blood spashes) but there is no damage. I counted them as hits. Not sure if to count those as misses (same effect).

If I deduct those 'blood spashes but no damage' attempts it is: 4 hits for 28 total damage (1 of those hits did 16 points of damage, completely off the chart.)

You'll need to tell me how to count them.

Using Crushing Blow I: I conducted 30 attempts. I was able to hit O times and did ... 0 damage. ( I didn't even get the blood splatter with 0 damage. Simply no hits)


There is something ... very ... very wrong with Crushing Blow. Character stats are not scaling up the Talent abilities along with the basic melee to-hit chance.


rabid

[John Robinson]

rabidbite

I'm wondering about Savage Sweep, giving a +8 accuracy at Level 5. How much Accuracy is needed to hit the tough rats? Vraes sure as heck needs Crushing Blow for raw power (no accuracy bonus). So if you bumped the melee weapon? Where is the sweet spot? Strength increases accuracy, blades with blades, and Savage Sweep. Where does blades + Strength end up just as good as Savage Sweep so you get the same accuracy to deliver a hit with Crushing Blow? I really don't know, wish I did.

Good Lord! 30 for 30 zero hits. I completely agree, something is wrong with Crushing Blow, and or scaling. It will be good when the purchase version shows monster level. Then one could ask. How come my Level 5 Outlander can go 30 for 30 against a Level 2 rat and not get a hit?

The blood splats has really got me confused as well, never seen that one before, maybe it was there all along and I never noticed.

[slayernz]

What weapon did you use for crushing blow 1? My experience with things like Giant Rats, Shamen and Deathkin are that they have high natural armor, and perhaps high constitution, all of which soak a certain amount of damage.
Crushing blow simply does +8 damage to your weapon. If you have the training sword (10-21 dam), then the max damage you can do with Crushing Blow 1 is 21+8=29 points (average would be 15+8=23 points).

Say your target A could soak 10 points of damage. Then on average, crushing blow 1 would give you 13 points of damage (with a successful hit), and max 19 points of damage.
However, if your target B could soak 30 points of damage, then even the max damage crushing blow can cause 0 damage, because every point of your strike is absorbed by the target. Sometimes you get blood splatter here, but zero damage.

The amount of soaking ability must increase along with difficulty, but the first giant rat you come across is at a point where you've had time to level up, and have better gear. You should have the 2H sword (18-30 dam), and that means max damage of 38 with CB1. In the above example with a target B, you would cause max 8 points of damage.

Increasing CB1 to CB2 means you can do max 46 points, or between 4-16 points of damage against mysterious target B.

Wielding 2 weapons might also be an option ... eg:
Training Sword (10-21 dam)
Long Knife (8-17 dam)

WHY? Total damage with both weapons is calculated before soak is subtracted as a single amount!

Assume you were successful with both weapons, and used Crushing Blow 1, THEN
Min damage = 10+8 + 8+8 = 34 dam
Max damage = 21+8 + 17+8 = 54 dam.

With Target B, you would be able to do 4-24 points of damage with each strike.
With CB2, you would be able to do 20-40 points of damage with each strike.


At least that's the logic I figured out while playing - I could be way off-base, but experience has told me
1) Upgrade CB1 to CB3 quickly
2) At LEAST upgrade the training sword to something decent.
3) If you really want to cause some pain, consider dual wielding, but you only get the defensive bonus from one of the weapons (the one with the highest parry).

[rabidbite]

Sorry, I didn't read your entire post slayernz, because of what I typed in mine. I'm comparing Crushing Blow I (using sword) with the basic melee attack.

The Basic Strike I, hits and sometimes does damage.

Crushing Blow I, does not hit and thus will never cause damage.

As far as I understand it, all Talent attacks start from the base level of your own basic melee attack. As in Strike I is non powered. Crushing blow does your Basic Strike I but with the +damage.

So, Crushing Blow should be using the basic melee to hit chart but provides increased damage if the hit lands. Crushing Blow will NEVER increase your Accuracy to hit. It only adds damage. THUS, it should have a comparable TO HIT ratio to Strike I (basic melee attack) -AND- more damage.

That doesn't happen. Thus, I call bug.




rabid

[John Robinson]

I just remembered fallen gave a really good explanation in the Battle Diary Thread

startradersrpg.proboards.com/thread/5893/battle-diary

John Robinson
I need to understand how a training blade that does 10 - 21 damage with +8 for crushing blow could hit for 7 points of damage, which is less than the minimum damage of 10 listed for the Training blade. The Outlander's toughness skill is 7. How high would the guard’s toughness have to be, can I estimate his armor class by what he is wearing


fallen

In response to:
"I need to understand how a training blade that does 10 - 21 damage with +8 for crushing blow could hit for 7 points of damage, which is less than the minimum damage of 10 listed for the Training blade. The Outlander's toughness skill is 7. How high would the guard’s toughness have to be, can I estimate his armor class by what he is wearing."

Rolled Damage = (Base Damage) + dice(damage). So a weapon causing 10 - 21 damage is (10) + dice(11). When I say dice(11), I mean I roll an 11 sided dice, with numbers 1 - 11 on it. Any damage added by a Talent is added into the dice, so with Crushing Blow you've got 10 + dice(19).

Soak = [(Armor + Toughness) / 2] + dice([Armor+Toughness]/2). Armor and Toughness (natural physical armor) is at least 50% effective all the time. This equation is the same for magical damage, except its [(Fire Resistance + Resistance)/2] instead.

Final Damage = Rolled Damage - Soak

So, its pretty reasonable to see how you got below the weapon's minimal damage. The highest cause of this is that your weapon rolled low damage. If you don't like this, then put emphasis on weapons like Spears that have a "narrow range" of damage, but this will come along with a smaller max possible damage vs. other available weapons.

[rabidbite]

Guys, I don't want to sound like a sour puss, no pun intended, I still call bug.

Crushing Blow I should always do more damage than Strike I, regardless of anything else. If I can inflict damage with Strike I and not with Crushing Blow I, something isn't right

[slayernz]

Because there is no "hit/block/miss" indicators on each strike, you don't know if you're missing, or just hitting and having your damage soaked. I do think the talent needs to be double-checked, but I can definitely hit and hurt the ROUS's pretty effectively
Outlander has CB3, Wizard has FB3, Thief has AS3 and they can put down a single rat comfortably in a single turn on Hard.

[rabidbite]

Dec 6, 2013 23:14:21 GMT -5 slayernz said:

Because there is no "hit/block/miss" indicators on each strike, you don't know if you're missing, or just hitting and having your damage soaked. I do think the talent needs to be double-checked, but I can definitely hit and hurt the ROUS's pretty effectively
Outlander has CB3, Wizard has FB3, Thief has AS3 and they can put down a single rat comfortably in a single turn on Hard.

Ah, ok. Is not that you're saying there isn't a problem. It's that you're working out what might be wrong. I'm with you now.


rabid

[fallen]

rabidbite - a couple of things:

1) I double checked the Crushing Blow talent, it works as described, adding damage and using your weapons's base accuracy. The only difference from your basic attack is the extra damage.
2) In a sample size of 30, I believe 4 hits to 0 hits can be chalked up as insignificant statistically, but I am not a statistician. And I can't spell either, ... but I did check the code . After a close code review, there is nothing wrong with Crushing Blow 1.
3) However, there WAS something really wrong with monster scaling and Nightmare. Combining these two bugs, and you get monsters that have insane amounts of armor and defensive skill. This has been resolved for the upcoming release of Heroes of Steel and you should find that the "unhittable" and annoying nature of creatures like Giant Rats and Deathkin will be highly mitigated.

[slayernz]

Yeah! I call the update the "Catequalizer" ...

Rakin 0, Cat 1

[rabidbite]

Dec 7, 2013 18:37:00 GMT -5 fallen said:

rabidbite - a couple of things:

1) I double checked the Crushing Blow talent, it works as described, adding damage and using your weapons's base accuracy. The only difference from your basic attack is the extra damage.
2) In a sample size of 30, I believe 4 hits to 0 hits can be chalked up as insignificant statistically, but I am not a statistician. And I can't spell either, ... but I did check the code . After a close code review, there is nothing wrong with Crushing Blow 1.
3) However, there WAS something really wrong with monster scaling and Nightmare. Combining these two bugs, and you get monsters that have insane amounts of armor and defensive skill. This has been resolved for the upcoming release of Heroes of Steel and you should find that the "unhittable" and annoying nature of creatures like Giant Rats and Deathkin will be highly mitigated.

So ... basically I took too small a sample?


Huh.


Well, I'm willing to try 100 times. *rubs neck* I'll get back with the new test when its done.


No sleep for the diligent.


Another thought, could it be that Empowered abilities are resisted differently than normal attacks?


rabid

[fallen]

rabidbite - sorry, don't mean to accuse you of faulting testing. I am also testing on a version that is 2-3 weeks past yours in code and bug fixes, so who knows.

My best suggestion is to go to Google Play and download Heroes of Steel RPG. If you still don't trust CB1, let's talk then

EDIT: but yes, I think that scenario - the sample size is too small. For both Strike and CB1, you have a very low percentage to hit. Then you have a low percentage chance that the heavily armored monster is going to roll near 0 on his armor roll (he gets 50% automatic armor, as do characters). And, on top of that, you need that near 0 armor roll to line up with a high damage roll. In that case, I'd agree that 8 points of damage is going to make very little difference.

[rabidbite]

Goodness gracious dude, don't sweat the small stuff.

If the sample is too small, its too small. I'll try it again before any other upgrades because I want to make sure that if there IS a bug (maybe with resistances? who knows) that I can reproduce it accurately.

rabid


PS: fallen My HoS now reads version 1.1.1. Does that mean it auto-updated on its own again? Cause if it did... I won't be able to test this again.

rabid

[fallen]

rabidbite - but we always sweat the small stuff That's what makes us the Trese Brothers!

[slayernz]

rabidbite, 1.1.1 was the last Alpha build that everyone has been playing on for weeks
The full release of the game is 1.1.7