Do us all a favor and don't use a Mausser, please

[_______________Chill]

My soldier dual wielding el diablo was hitting at 1.0/1.0 with 600 range init and agg bar at 40% (there was absolutely no difference when I was at 100% agg).

I don't know the exact formula but it sure isn't 1000 init = 1 less sec.

[____________Ejeckted]

well we all want to think whatever strategy we are using is the right one.

im not as conspiricy-minded perhaps.
i accept that devs are tight-lipped on some stuff,
but i wouldnt expect them to lie.

fact is, the weapon eval's based on that 600 figure
dont seem to be accurate.

under subjective observation,
you believe your theory is showing to be true;
but in my experience the theory i repeated seems
to be working out . . so who knows.

i just want to put that info out there,
let people believe who they like.

to me, the theory put forth by the dev appears
much more simple and elegant and 'common sense'
when you look at the caps and weapon stats etc.

edit:
just to be clear
"I don't know the exact formula but it sure isn't 1000 init = 1 less sec."
1000 init would actually be 2 seconds less; -1 attack + -1 recharge.

so a weapon whos stats are 2.5/2.5 with 1000 init
would now be 1.5/1.5 with agg/def bar in center
and 0.5/0.5 with agg/def bar on full aggro.

[______________Nianna]

I did some more extensive testing tonight, but my results were not conclusive.

I used a Mausser and had my ranged initiative at 300 points. My method was to reload then start firing and start my stopwatch at the moment that the first shot hit the monster then watch for 20 more shot hit messages and stop the watch on the 21st hit which should mean I would be timing 20 full shot cycles. If I missed a single shot and I could feel the rhythm of the shots enough to know that there should have been a shot attempt in that moment but that it must have missed, then I would count that at a shot and continue, however if there were multiple misses in a string that made me uncertain of exactly how many miss shots were attempted I would restart. My goal was to do this with and without my low light targeting scope which is -330 ranged init and measure the difference.

I did this once in Greater Omni Forest with my scope off and once with it on and got 72.86 and 72.94 seconds for my results (not sure which is which). I did the same thing in Clon**** on a reet of some kind and on a supa leet and I got 71.21, 71.07, 71.20, and 70.97 seconds two with the scope on, two with it off.

Needless to say, these results boggled me. The scope was -330 init so I should have seen some difference in the firing speed I thought but I saw none. I tentatively decided that the -ranged init on low light targeting scopes does not work. It does show an adjustment of the ranged init in the client side stat readout, but I guessed that perhaps the server side did not share those same numbers and ignored the effect of the scope.

The average of the Greater Omni figures calculates out to 3.56 seconds per shot and the average of the Clon**** figures come out to 3.65 secs per shot, so if we assume when the stats say that a gun has a 1s attack and 3s delay that is in real life time then the gun would have taken 4 seconds to fire with 0 ranged initiative and what I measured was decreases from that 4 second time of 0.44 and 0.35 seconds due to my initiative score of 300. These figures dont exactly agree with either the 1s per 1000 init or 2s per 600 init, but they seem much closer to 1s per 1000 init. It seems that if the recharge was supposed to lower two seconds every 600 points of init then it should have taken 3 seconds (1+2) for each firing cycle or if it was supposed to decrease by 1s per 1000 init then it should have taken 3.7 seconds for each firing cycle.

Since I couldn't check the differences between the times with and without the scope I thought I'd check the difference in the measured values with my 300 init versus the stated values on the weapons which should correspond with 0 ranged init so I obtained another weapon to test with.

The second weapon had an attack of 1.29 seconds and a recharge of 1.51 seconds. I expected that if I should save 2 sec of recharge and 1 secs of attack time for 600 initiative, then it would take 2 seconds to fire the gun since both numbers would reach their minimum of 1 sec. If attack/recharge decreased by 1s per 1000 init then the attack would reach 1 sec and the recharge would go for 1.21 seconds making a total of 2.21 seconds. I tested this twice and received 46.69 secs and 46.67 secs for the results, which both average at 2.33 seconds. While I dont think this is a resounding yes for 1000 init per 1 sec decrease, it definitely seem pretty far off if the number should have been 2 secs.

The numbers I got for these two weapons didn't really seem as close to each other as I would like in order to say definitively that the amount is 1s added to recharge per 1000. The numbers didn't really even indicate the same amount of speedup, which I calculated from the three sets of numbers (mausser greater omni forest, mausser clon****, other gun clon****) as 1.481s per 1000 init, 1.183s per 1000 init, and 0.6s per 1000 init, however none of them are anywhere near that 2s per 600 init number which would be 3.33s per 1000 init.

The fluctuations in the numbers make me think that the timers in the zones are not the same, and that those timers may even accelerate and decelerate over time so that may make it more difficult to say with certainty what the times are supposed to be due to server clock inaccuracies. One way to test this would be to begin with the assumption that the minimum weapon speed is 2s per shot which people generally seem to agree with, then use a nord armwerk max (attack/recharge around 0.5s) to measure that time and see how close it actually is to exactly 2.0s in any given zone then use that to scale other time values measured in the zone to get a more accurate reading. It was getting too late and I don't have a nord armwerk max level 10- to test with so I will have to get to it tomorrow.

I used some implants and some natural stats to make my 300 ranged init and I am not sure I trust that the initiative from them is actually applied as it should be especially considering my tentative evaluation that the initiative on low light scopes does not work. I need to look more into that with some weapons that have both a large attack and recharge time to make sure there isn't some bottoming out that is possible after which extra init is not applied to either the attack or recharge rate because one is too low already. I'd swear that my low light targeting scope did reduce my speed with my home defender shotgun (which does too much damage for me to go around shooting mutants and reets 20 times each to really get an accurate measurement), but I'm not measuring that with the mausser and I have no explanation without more testing.

At this point all I can say is that I don't see any evidence at all that the initiative speedup is anywhere near what other here people claim to have measured extensively. Perhaps speed is based both on your weapon skill and your initiative, or it does not affect all professions the same, or perhaps those persons just measured the speed of the animation which is not the same as the speed of the actual attacks which the server responds to with damage messages. Perhaps when I measure weapons with significantly longer attack and delay times I will see this trend and find that my lack of ability to measure it is due to the attack and recharge rates not having the same minimum value of 1s but some other values like 0.8s for one and 1.2s for the other.

I hope to put some more thought into this tomorrow.

[______________Yazule]

Originally posted by Scumbug
well we all want to think whatever strategy we are using is the right one.

im not as conspiricy-minded perhaps.
i accept that devs are tight-lipped on some stuff,
but i wouldnt expect them to lie.

fact is, the weapon eval's based on that 600 figure
dont seem to be accurate.

under subjective observation,
you believe your theory is showing to be true;
but in my experience the theory i repeated seems
to be working out . . so who knows.

i just want to put that info out there,
let people believe who they like.

to me, the theory put forth by the dev appears
much more simple and elegant and 'common sense'
when you look at the caps and weapon stats etc.

edit:
just to be clear
"I don't know the exact formula but it sure isn't 1000 init = 1 less sec."
1000 init would actually be 2 seconds less; -1 attack + -1 recharge.

so a weapon whos stats are 2.5/2.5 with 1000 init
would now be 1.5/1.5 with agg/def bar in center
and 0.5/0.5 with agg/def bar on full aggro.

subjective? and why do you assume I am subjective? In real life I am an engineer, and you know what I have to do? Test things and make sure they work, and they HAVE to work. I know how to test.

Using a combination of low light targeting scopes of varying qualities and buffs I can change my inits by 600, almost exactly. I have used all scientific method in my tests and still I would say that the results are inconclusive due to an inability to accurately time things.

BUT, I am absolutly positive that it is NOT -1/-1 because it is VERY obvious if you use a 2.5/2.5 weapon that the RECHARGE is much more greatly effected by inits than the attack. This means that a -1/-2 theory is much more likely.

Because it is also known that each dev member works on different aspects of the game AND few if ANY of the origional designers are still working on the game AND it is obvious from statements made by the dev team that they dont play the game much (sorry about the run-on sentence) it can be concluded that it is very easy for them to MISSINFORM people.

I dont think they lied to ruin it for us, I just think that they are expected to answer and they are human and make mistakes too (even though they are not allowed to admit it).

Add to that the fact that someone disasembled the code on client side to get the 600=-1/-2 along with all the other facts I tend to believe that 600 init = -1/-2 to be true.

I wont reply again I promise

Just that "subjective" thing got to me a little, my job is objectivity

[____________Ejeckted]

i'm not sure you can ever trust the stopwatch method,
simply because of lag issues.
lag fluctuates constantly, even if it's not bad enough to
visually percieve as lag, and the speed at which you are
sending and recieving info is never going to be constant
enough (even within a single fight) to consider the data
reliable..

but if the numbers you got were close,
then i'll declare that a delicate victory for the 1000=1sec side.

[____________Ejeckted]

Originally posted by Yazule
Because it is also known that each dev member works on different aspects of the game AND few if ANY of the origional designers are still working on the game AND it is obvious from statements made by the dev team that they dont play the game much (sorry about the run-on sentence) it can be concluded that it is very easy for them to MISSINFORM people.

for the record,
the interview was with one of the original devs right around release. .
before they got shuffled off to midgard and/or laid-off.

[______________Yazule]

ookies (said I wouldnt post, but this is just not a rant this time)

hehe

who knows what the done to the game since then hehe

you know, their monkeys, bob and jim, they write the code now



lets just agree to disagree

I did my testing and not really doing it anymore, those are the conclusions that I came to, all in all my beam SHREDS stuff hehe so I could care less what the numbers are, I just keep making them higher

[____________Ejeckted]

ultimately none of this matters much,
as you will always want to hit as fast as possible
so it's a good skill to keep pumping IP into for
any weapon user. and when it's maxed, then
figure out where you think you should set the agg/def bar
for optimal speed vs evades.

however

not to beat a dead horse,
but take a look at all the various weapon stats
and then try and figure out which theory makes
more sense. with the exception of slower enforcer
and soldier weapons, the 600 init = -1/-2 concept
really doesnt fit very well.

the max 1000init in your theory would = -1.666666etc/-2.666666etc.
who would want to base a system on numbers like that?

and how do you apply that to a 0.30/2.22(approx) weapon
like a burning crescent? or a 2.5/0.50(approx) weapon like
some other MA one i cant remember the name of . .
(sorry but hackersquest is down for me;
i'd much rather examine specifics but cant atm)

?

tomorrow, when im not half-asleep,
maybe ill look up some weapons and try
to do the math for them with both systems.

[______________Nianna]

Originally posted by Scumbug
i'm not sure you can ever trust the stopwatch method,
simply because of lag issues.
lag fluctuates constantly, even if it's not bad enough to
visually percieve as lag, and the speed at which you are
sending and recieving info is never going to be constant
enough (even within a single fight) to consider the data
reliable..

To minimize the effect of lag and accuracy of measuring times I measured not the time for one single swing, but for 20 consecutive swings which I then divided by 20 to get as accurate a time as I could. This makes the inaccuracy due to lag 20 times less. Certainly if you just tried to measure one swing at a time with a stopwatch, you would have such a large error value that you couldn't make any judgements at all. Likewise if you try to measure the time that a swing takes by looking at that little bar that goes up and down you will not be getting an accurate result since it doesn't actually even synchronize with your attack.

[__________starknaked]

Here is a better way to test weapon firing speed.

Don't pay any attention to the attack bar, or to the damage coming across the screen. Just reload the gun before the fight, and using a stopwatch, fire continuously at something until the gun reloads on it's own, then you'll know exactly how many times it fired in a certain amount of time.


And, here's an indisputable fact for you all. Under false profession, nanoinit drops by 2000. I have never raised my nanoinit once, so it can't be more than 75 or so. It drops to close to -2000. All nanos, including those that are almost instacast, take 10+ seconds to cast under false profession. I have timed it.

So -2000 nanoinit = 10 seconds casting time penalty.

And, the -2000 nanoinit doesn't seem to affect nano recharge time at all.

If 2000 nano initiative = 10 seconds, then it certainly stands to reason that 2000 ranged init or melee init would also be 10 seconds, although divided between attack and recharge time.

[__________BestDealer]

I've also done a lot of extensive testing on all kinds of mobs, on RK2 and with tons of weapons and would think very little lag. I'm also still pretty sketchy on how exactly initiatives and evades work. With my level 165 character who has both evades around 800 base, even on full-agg the Veteran mobs I usually hunt in teams almost never crit me even on full-aggressive. In approximately a 3-5 hour hunting period on the weekends with a team, I'd say I probably only notice getting crit at most one or two times.

My main way to test was to throw a heal pet on my character and just fire continuously onto various mobs. I can also definately confirm that damage increases by a factor of two for every increase in attack rating of 400 points, and that critical hits are the result of the factor of maximum base damage + crit-modifier, so: (1 + attk/400) * (max-base + crit-mod) = base-crit.

One thing that I have noticed is that I will often get a critical hit on a mob for exactly the same amount that I would on a level 2 backyard mob with 0 AC. Even on the same mob that respawns periodically, sometimes I will get critical hits as if they absorbed none of the damage and other times ~200-300 points lower -- the same story with AimedShots.

When testing AimedShots on backyard mobs I've never been able to do an AimedShot thats lower than the base critical hit, even after thousands of rounds. "On the field" though, I will sometimes score a minimum AimedShot that is exactly the maximum base damage that my weapon will do based on my attack-rating at the time.

The difference to me indicates the value in evades the mobs likely had. In the cases where I score very high critical hits or AimedShots that reflect values consistent with hitting 0 AC mobs, I would speculate that is probably the discrepancy that can account for what Yazule was talking about when describing occasional "super crits".

Another thing I've noticed is that AO often suffers from odd off-by-one rounding errors. I've noticed base critical hits and maximum base damage hits often fluctuate by 1 point over prolonged periods of time where attack-rating had not changed. On several occasions I've also lost 1 point in some nano skill permanantly after applying all buffs and allocating the least amount of IP possible to reach a minimum requirement for something. [ Still awaiting a response from one of my support requests on one too, sent eons ago.....]

Just today fully buffed my attack-rating was 893, but after I swapped in 3 map-nav implants to upload new maps and then re-installed my usual implants, my attack-rating dropped by one point to 892.
An interesting thing I noticed is that my buffed rifle and shotgun skills are 1024 and 627, and with the OETs attack rating 67% dependant on rifle and 33% on shotgun my attack rating should be 1024*.67 + 627*.33 = 892.99.

[______________Nianna]

I suspect that the roundoff error you are describing is because those 67% and 33% numbers are rounded to the nearest percentage when they are placed in the stat list. If the actual rates are 2/3 or 66.66... and 1/3 or 33.33... then you'd have

1024*(2/3) + 627*(1/3) = 891.67 = 892

This would agree with the value you are getting.

[__________BestDealer]

Originally posted by Nianna
I suspect that the roundoff error you are describing is because those 67% and 33% numbers are rounded to the nearest percentage when they are placed in the stat list. If the actual rates are 2/3 or 66.66... and 1/3 or 33.33... then you'd have

1024*(2/3) + 627*(1/3) = 891.67 = 892

This would agree with the value you are getting.

Yup, that would -- and how would you suggest I had 893 before that?

[______________Nianna]

Whoa missed that part. Did you zone? When you zone the server tells the client what's what. Maybe the server is using the 2/3, 1/3 numbers and the client is using 0.67 and 0.33. Very odd indeed.

[__________Daemonicus]

Originally posted by Nianna
Ok, I'm going to just come out and say it. Fixers suck!

I'm not sure that the reason they suck is only because they use Mausser Particle Streamers or not, but we need to put an end to the use of this weapon.

Please fixers, stop using this weak gun so you can provide a reasonable amount of offense to a group and stop just wasting space.

Let me clarify that I'm not a fixer, I'm a trader. I don't have any fixer characters. I have never had a fixer character at any point in time.

The Mausser Particle Streamer QL200 can be outdamaged by QL200 weapons of every single weapon class, including *pistol* if you have a critical hit buff or high level scope.

So many people just calculate the average raw damage of a weapon not including skill levels, monster ac, or initiatives and come off with the idea that the Mausser is only slightly underpowered, but this is not the case! Here are my own calculations for various weapons assuming 800 initiative, 800 attack skill, and 2500 or 5000 ac for the monsters and not taking into account any special attacks (the first number is the damage per second vs 2500 ac, the second the damage per second vs 5000 ac):

QL200 Rider Executioner (1h edged) - 183, 147
QL200 Sledgehammer (2h blunt) - 168, 150
QL200 Home Defender (shotgun) - 167, 128
QL200 Nova Flow (assault rifle) - 155, 109
QL188 Type 77a (rifle) - 153, 115
QL200 Mausser (smg) - 124, 86
QL200 PNG Tactical (pistol) - 65, 65

Now add in a 14% critical hit buff:

QL200 Home Defender (shotgun) - 284, 240
QL200 Nova Flow (assault rifle) - 255, 202
QL188 Type 77a (rifle) - 244, 202
QL200 Rider Executioner (1h edged) - 226, 183
QL200 PNG Tactical (pistol) - 205, 187
QL200 Sledgehammer (2hblunt) - 196, 176
QL200 Mausser (smg) - 174, 129

Look, the thing sucks. Don't use it. STOP I SAY!

Ok, you are not as good with other weapons weapon types as SMG and that means you will do lower damage with them. Maybe you'll suck with all of them. Well there's a reason I'm not a fixer and I dont have any fixer chars.

P.S. For anyone trying to read too much into these numbers do realize that not all classes weapon skills will reach the same skill level naturally and they do not have the same amount of buffs available so they don't actually do damage in precisely the ratios these numbers would suggest. For instance you can see that the PNG Tactical Revolver outdamaged the Sledgehammer with a 14% critical hit buff, but in actuality an enforcer will do much more damage with his sledgehammer because he gets to brawl for probably an average of 500 damage every 10 secs or so and his challenger spell and flurry of blows will raise his initiative and hit damage to much higher values than he has at the 800 init 800 skill level. Similarly, the rider executioner will not actually do more damage than the sledgehammer before a critical hit buff because the enforcer using the sledgehammer will be able to use brutal thug to raise his attack skill and his damage higher, whereas there's no corresponding buff for 1h edged/heavy weapons. The 800/800 numbers are just a point I picked out for easy comparison. Still, fixers have less SMG buffs than other classes have for those other weapon types except shotgun, so if anything the numbers above the SMG will be at an even greater advantage than calculated here.

"QL200 Sledgehammer (2hblunt) - 196, 176"

How in the world? The day I see a hammer do that low dmg is the day NTs become GMs and run around insta-killing everyone for nerf revenge.

*looks at Garzu

[______________Yazule]

she is talking damage per second there, not damage per hit. You HAVE TO look at damage over time to get any idea of what weapons do.

so 196 and my swing is aprox 1.5/5.0 so 6.5

6.5 * 196 = 1274 AVERAGE hit with a crit buff on (if crit buffs were not bugged all to kingdom come).

[___________randomjoe]

you guys still failing to realize that those numbers mean NOTHING they are only comparison numbers(some ratio to what dmg should really be)
and agreed with earlier person, ive noticed that low light scopes seem to not actually slow you down, but im relatively sure i got faster when i equipped the tim device. (not positive) ive also noticed that some days i seem to hit faster then others, another non equateable i realize, but /shrug might just be server calcing everything slower, or whatever. but it DOES happen hehe.
soo i belive the relative agreement is that ranged init does help recharge more then atk? other then the one guy who pointed out recharge stays the same with ruse on(-2000 init) and its true that 600 is kinda a weird number to be there, perhaps 500 accounting for timing errors? who knows. im interested in more responses by ppl who have done actual tests

blizzaro

[Myga]

I'm 100% sure scopes actually do slow down. Or rather I'm 100% certain the scope I tested slowed me down. Its very noticable if you are near speedcap, and I'm also convinced using scopes are not worth it if you near speedcap. Only if you have a fast weapon and high ranged init so you dont loose speed is it worth it imo (or maybe a very slow so you dont notice that much diff):

Lets say you have 20% chance to crit from buffs/atk without scope and 800 ranged init. Fire every 2sec.

With ql 200 scope you have 35% chance to crit and 0ranged init. If you were just capping speed in previous example, you will now fire every 3.6sec if the original poster is correct in that 1000ranged init = 1sec.

First example gives 1 crit every 8sec on avg. Second example gives 1 crit on avg every 10.3sec. IE the scope slows you down so you crit less over time than without, and you loose alot of non crit attacks.

[______________Nianna]

Yes the scopes do work. They do reduce your init and they do make your gun fire slower. In my testing tonight I did definitively measure the effect of ranged init and I found out something that bodes very ill for the Mausser. I don't have time to write something up now, but I'll do it tomorrow (actually later today since its the wee hours of the morning already). Stay tuned.