Fix Initiatives! (Except Nano)

[Kinkstaah]

Having high base init removes recharge speed.

[__________Lucid Flow]

Originally posted by MartinDeShade


Don't forget that full agg, automatically removes 0.5sec of attack and 0.5sec of recharge. So, for a 2.5sec recharge you would only need to raise init 300.

Martin

Thats not true. Being at full aggro gives you your base attack speed of the weapon.

[_______________Nieth]

that last one is true for sure

[Mercatura]

But #1-3 are reason enough to get an official answer on this.

I agree

Somehow I think the answer might be: "Working as intended"

Meaning: "The people who worked on and developed the combat system are long gone now, so we don't really know. All we can do is try to fix bugs, and we don't consider this a bug."

I can live with that, if they wouldn't take quite so long to fix the bugs

[______________Krneki]

Weapon base speed IS at 75%.

You can test this by making a new character and time his newbie weapon. For instance a MA hits for 1.00/1.00 on 100% Agg-Def although fist speed is 1.25/1.25. A trader hits for 1.00/1.00 on 100% Agg-Def, although his gun is 1.00/1.50 etc...



Base abilities not afecting recharge. It's true.

You can test that by having a high lvl character with maxed abilities, which translates into 120+ initiatives skill. Equip a weapon that uses the initiative raised by abilities only and has attack=recharge. You will notice that attack speed is faster then recharge, which shouldn't happen if recharge was afected by ability.

[________Miniexplicit]

What is Attack, and what is recharge?

Attack is how long it takes for you to bring the weapon up, line up on target, and pull the trigger or swing at it.

Recharge is how long it takes you to cope with recoil or follow through, how long it takes a weapon to charge up for another attack or to chamber another round. How is a scope going to improve your weapons ability to charge up or prepare for another round? Real Skill would help you to recover from recoil and follow through faster, because that has to do with you. Artificial skill (Scopes, implants, buffs) shouldn't help out on that. Likewise someone casting a debuff on you to slow you down really won't affect how fast the weapon does those things.


No, what I say isn't perfect. Getting a real world accurate system would be time-consuming, expensive, confusing, and ultimately not fun at all.

Know whats funny -

Ranged Attacks are checked against Dodge OR Duck. Specials always go right through
Nano Attacks are checked against Nano Resist, or can be stopped by doing damage to the caster and having the gods favor you.
Melee attacks are checked against Evade AND Parry, specials may not go through.

[Mercatura]

Given Krneki's info on full agg looks like a TIM scope is all you need to cap most 2.x/2.x weapons at title4. Explains why I didn't notice a speedup at title5

Hmm, when they delete traders, I want to be a MA using certain weapons that are perfect for the way inits work

[__________Lucid Flow]

Originally posted by Krneki
Weapon base speed IS at 75%.

You can test this by making a new character and time his newbie weapon. For instance a MA hits for 1.00/1.00 on 100% Agg-Def although fist speed is 1.25/1.25. A trader hits for 1.00/1.00 on 100% Agg-Def, although his gun is 1.00/1.50 etc...

I have a firm belief you are wrong on this part, for 2 reasons. The first being I just did the "Trader" test you explained above (Trader over MA since the Trader has the varying attack/recharge speed) and started using a Newbie weapon. My attack bar filled faster then my recharge bar unfilled.

It was hard to notice, keep in mind at MAX it's half of a second difference, but it definatly IS slow.

The second reason is long ago when the game came out, the way initiatives work was pulled straight from code and posted publicly on the internet. Inits work the exact same way as they did when the game was released. In the code, Attack Speed was capped at 1/1 and your base attack speed was represented at full aggro.

[______________Krneki]

Well it's actually more close to 80%. If the base was at 100% AggDef, traders shotgun would fire at exactly 1.00/1.50. Can you say that it does? You just said it yourself that it was hard to notice. 1 sec or 1.5 sec is what you definatelly notice easy when you compare it a few times.

As far as I know Funcom never released the server side code. If it's public, mind sharing the source, so we can stop developing our own theories, because it should be obvious once we see it?

[_______________Nieth]

FC really needs to clarify this

[______________Krneki]

LoL, they won't....they RARELY post about core mechanics. It's what makes the game interesting for non-rping population. I doubt any designer that had any part in this wil even comment this thread.

[__________Lucid Flow]

Originally posted by Krneki
Well it's actually more close to 80%. If the base was at 100% AggDef, traders shotgun would fire at exactly 1.00/1.50. Can you say that it does? You just said it yourself that it was hard to notice. 1 sec or 1.5 sec is what you definatelly notice easy when you compare it a few times.

As far as I know Funcom never released the server side code. If it's public, mind sharing the source, so we can stop developing our own theories, because it should be obvious once we see it?

As far as you know. Thats the problem. The original contraversy stemmed from when Funcom released HOW initiatives worked back close to the games release (I believe about 3 months after it came out). They claimed

For every 1000 initiative, attack speed is lowered by 1 second.
For every 1000 initiative, recharge speed is lowered by 1 second.
The minimum limit to both attack and recharge speed is 0.5 seconds (even if your initiative would bring it lower than that)
Your AggDef slider speeds up attack/recharge speed by 1 second each at full Agressive, and slows attack/recharge speeds by 1 second each at full Defensive.

It was quite apparent early on that this WASN'T The case. People were noticing much more dramatic increases to the speed in Recharge with Common weapons from the most Common Professions (back when this came out, Soldiers and Nova Flows were most of the population).

So, it was quickly debated on the message boards. I remember those time, and people really didn't know what to think and why. Funcom refused to change their view. Most people certainly claim this could still be true if people kept their bar at Neutral and used slower speed weapons and considered the "Neutral Agg/Def" bar as the base weapon speed.

But it isn't. Soon, people started looking at the code and finding out exactly how it worked. What was derived from it was the following:

For every 600 initiative, attack speed is lowered by 1 second.
For every 600 initiative, recharge speed is lowered by 2 seconds.
The minimum limit to both attack and recharge speed is 1 second (even if your initiative would bring it lower than that)
Full Agressive is your base speed, moving the slider to the neutral position decreases your attack/recharge speeds by 1 second, and moving the slider to Full Defensive decreases your attack/recharge speeds by 2 seconds!

Does most of that sound familiar? This is basically the gospel that everybody preaches today. Most people if you ask them how Initiatives work, they say it works exactly like this.

Could all of this be wrong? I will be the first to admit it COULD be, but like all things it's all a learning process. There is NO way I will ever be the one stomping on previous players research as if because it's "old" it's also "wrong." There may need adjustments to be made.

Such as why does Aunos damage calculator sshow that with a 2.5/2.5 weapon, you cap your speed at 600 Initiatives? According to the above, it doesn't work that way. It would take 900 to cap your speeds at 1/1. And yet people still consider it truth?

Who knows. I'de be interested in seeing his calculation which has been posted on the message boards many times, but yet I cannot find it now.

There is 1 thing I know for sure. Recharge does NOT work as intended.

What isn't helping is people posting information such as "Weapon base speed IS at 75%." and then later changing it to "Well it's actually more close to 80%." Doing this would require me to throw away previous players research as if it was trash for no apparent rhyme or reason. I'm unwilling to do it. Until I can get a clear answer either from code or from Funcom -- or even convincing testing -- , I'm willing to accept the old knowledge as the current truth because EVERYTHING in game reflects that, and is MORE easily tested with weapons of higher attack speed.

I *have* tested BBI Faithfuls extensively with no Initiatives and they always reflected a 2/2 attack speed at full aggro. 1 full second is much easier to see with the human eye then half a second.

[______________Krneki]

I said that it's at more close 80% , because there's so little difference. Or are you saying that the difference betwin 75% and 80% is obvious to you?

I always thought it's at 75% (there quarters) because it makes more sense to be at 3/4 of the agg-def bar then some lame number like 74, 80 or 83. In the last post it seems you have a problem telling apart results 0.5 sec off and now you gonna drag me through this because I was 5% off, which is 0.1s?

At least I'm willing to admit my mistakes, adding it up and presenting the results. You say that your BBI fires at 2.00/2.00 at full aggressive. Well, I just tried every single weapon one store had on the test server. EVERY one of them fires almost a half a second faster on full aggressive then what it says in the description. Which either means you either lie (no pun intended) or we have different methods of timing it. Personally, I time the speed of the attack/recharge bars on the client. For attack speed I start the stopwatch when it starts on the left side and stop it when it reaches the right side. For timing recharge I start it when it when starts on the right side and stop it when it reaches the left side.

If it's still too fast for you to test, try it on full defensive and just add 2 seconds to attack and recharge. How about some1 else tries it to? It's not like it's gonna take 30 min of your time.

[______________Krneki]

Oh and btw, if you quote, name the source (url or somethin) next time.

[__________Lucid Flow]

Originally posted by Krneki
Oh and btw, if you quote, name the source (url or somethin) next time.

I could, but I don't have it anymore. What I am basically asking for is some numbers. This isnt a personal attack at you. Hardly. But if you are going to clain 75-80% difference in speed, then show us some numbers and how you went about testing it.

That would give conclusive evidence vs what was pulled directly from code long ago.

[______________Krneki]

Using a 2.50/2.50 weapon on 100% Agg-Def and no spent IPs on the particular Initiative. I timed the recharges.

Recharge(s)	Deviation(s)
2,21	0,0542
2,04	-0,1158
2,03	-0,1258
2,21	0,0542
2,21	0,0542
2,22	0,0642
2,16	0,0042
2,21	0,0542
2,08	-0,0758
2,15	-0,0058
2,21	0,0542
2,22	0,0642
2,18	0,0242
2,15	-0,0058
2,1	-0,0558
2,24	0,0842
2,21	0,0542
2,12	-0,0358
2,15	-0,0058
2,17	0,0142
2,09	-0,0658
2,21	0,0542
2,15	-0,0058
2,15	-0,0058
2,21	0,0542
2,11	-0,0458
2,15	-0,0058
2,16	0,0042
2,15	-0,0058
2,04	-0,1158
2,21	0,0542
2,17	0,0142
2,12	-0,0358
2,15	-0,0058
2,15	-0,0058
2,1	-0,0558
2,17	0,0142
2,12	-0,0358
2,18	0,0242
2,12	-0,0358
2,22	0,0642
2,1	-0,0558
2,21	0,0542
2,15	-0,0058
2,15	-0,0058


Average 2,1558s
Recharge 2,15(1±0,025)s

[Chronita]

i've worked on this lately again myself, and here is the short version of results i found (using the base model presented by krneki as a guide)

-aggro bar spans a total 2s/2s time

-the "base" spot on the aggro bar is 87.5% aggressive.

-for every 1/8 of the aggro bar, the speed is affected by .25/.25. So if you place the bar at full aggresive, you get a -.25/-.25 speed bonus for your weapon. This explains why MA fists (base 1.25/1.25) hit full speed at lvl 1 and no init, but startup weapons such as the trader or the one i used - enf bat (1/1.5) do not hit full speed at full agg. (the speed max for any weapon is 1/1, so the bonus .25 to the atk speed does nothing). my test for this was timing 15 atk/rchg bar cycles for each - MA was 30s (the lowest it can be 1/1) and the enf bat was 34s (the left over recharge .25 x 15 = 3.75 extra seconds)

-at base speed setting (87.5%) both of these weapons have the same overall speed (2.5s). at full def, they still did - both timed 15 cycles at 90s, or an overall speed of 6s (3s/3s for the MA, 2.75s/3.25s for the enf). again, according to this set-up, from 87.5% agg to full def will add 1.75/1.75 to your atk/rchg time.

-only IP spent on init affects recharge, all other bonuses do not -this i confirmed on test by reseting my phys init and using a variety of MA weaps and timing the recharge. even with more than 100 points of init added by base abilities at lvl 200, all the weapons recharges behaved as if i had no init applied at all (cycled at the listed speed).

a few notes here on trying to test this stuff now -

-its fairly difficult. the most accurate method is timing the atk/rchg bar cycles, tho even that is affected by God knows what kind of outside interference to a degree. and certainly the client bar cycle and in-game action are WAY off in terms of production.

-I use the omni terminal skin, which has nice tic marks at each 10% of the aggro bar. however, when i look at it close, the bar doesnt quite slide all the way to the end of the agg side (graphically) but slides far past the end of the def side, so those marks, while well partitioned, must be off to a degree.

-at lvl 200 with a green phys init skill i can invest 595 points worth of init before title max. thats pretty close to the 600 figure obviously, so according to this the absolute most you can take off of a weapon's recharge would be 2.25 seconds (2 sec from init, .25 from aggro bar max).


while i don't really advocate making recharge live under the same rules as attack (all bonuses affecting it), i do agree that this IP-only thing makes it very hard to keep track yourself of how much recharge bonus you have. basically you will have to remember how many points you have upped it in your char's career (if you are not at a title max or something), and that is quite inconvenient hehe

again a big thx to krneki to pointing out the aggro bar max bonus and recharge init facts a while back on the auno forums i had no idea about either, even after testing inits for forever it seems on test. as far as i can tell, the modifications i made to how the aggro bar works are accurate to all my tests, but i certainly invite challenges to that system which could bring about a more precise model.

[nipsnaps]

Actually, checking your skill raised ini isn't hard.

Next skill cost - 1st skill cost, divide by (1st skill cost / 5).

So if your next ini point costs 210 IP and its a full green (5 start IP) skill: 210 - 5 = 205 -> 205 / 1 = 205.

So, 50% aggdef is -0.75 atk/rch.

As for the "ini not working as intended", _WE_ have no clue if it is or not. Most likely it IS working as intended, but the intent is different from what is the easiest and simplest method. Doesn't mean it is a bug, it is just a more complex design.

[__________Lucid Flow]

Originally posted by ewert
As for the "ini not working as intended", _WE_ have no clue if it is or not. Most likely it IS working as intended, but the intent is different from what is the easiest and simplest method. Doesn't mean it is a bug, it is just a more complex design.

I would have to disagree. The fact that Recharge doesn't follow any rules for any rhyme or reason shows that. It needs to be fixed.

I wouldn't put too much faith in Funcoms coding, they have fixed many skills over time.

[Mercatura]

They say "working as intended" on things when they probably don't even know.

The people who had the intent when they wrote the code may be long gone.

I'd like to hear some info from FC, but I really don't think getting them to rework initiatives is in our best interest.

Nerfs suck. Getting confirmation on how skills work is great, so we can build within a system. Having a system completely change after a year (what would you have FC "fix") is something I'm totally against.

Under the current system you can cap most decent weapons, and you can tune a good scope to certain weapons and still be capped.