Whats up with Vectors?

[____________Sigfried]

THe Vector shotgun has me puzzled.

I used one for the first time the other day and the difference was amazing!

Before I was using a veriety of weapons, pistols, shotguns, hybrids. They did mostly impact damage, some used duck some used dodge for defense. They used variouse skill sets for the attack value, used different kinds of ammo. Some had high min, damage, others had high max damage. But they all had one thing in common, they did min damage most of the time. And when they didn't they did average to min allot.

So I pick up the vector and wham, near max damage about 80% of the time. What is it that makes it so good? It can't be just the duck for defense, I've tried other guns with that like the home defender, biopower, and others to no effect. Its not the shotgun skill (lower than my pistol skill.) I've got two guesses at this point.

1. Energy damage: I havn't used any other energy damage weapons, are MOB ACs especialy lacking in this?
2. High Max Damage: This seems strange. Why would high max damage make you hit for max damage allot? It makes sense you would see higher average damage but thats not what I'm seeing. Its either all near max or all near min.

Its a great weapon, I don't think it should be nerfed or the like, but I'd like to understand why it is so good so I can select other good weapons in the future.

[________________Miir]

It has to do with the way AC absorbs damage.

It abosrbs a set amount instead of a percentage.
This is the reason why 95% of the weapons in AO are complete and utter crap.

Fast, low damage weapons are completely useless.


For example.
My level 55 Enforcer is using a QL101 Galahad Sword.
Against heavy AC mobs (Soldier, Advnet, Engineer) she hits for minimum damage (roughly 72 per hit.. it's a fast weapon so it's not too bad). A high green Soldier will give me a tough time.... every (non crit) hit does the exact same damage....
Against Enforcers, Fixers, Crats, Metas, Nanotechs, Crats MAs and Traders....I own.

I can rip through a deep red Trader like a hot knife through butter, but the green Soldier sends me running to the zone a lot of the time.

Your Vektor ND has high average damage.
Mob AC absorbs much of it, but after the set damage is subtracted, you're still left half decent damage.

[________________Ming]

Yep Miir got it on the nose. AC as done in AO is FUBAR for all but the big slow hitters.

[____________Sigfried]

Ok two wepons.....

Pistol - Boomer M30 Damage 8-65

Shotgun - Vector whatever Damage 7-90

Ive used them both on the same MOB

Boomer - Hits between 15 and 25
Shotgun - Hits between 70 and 95

So sometimes the shotgun is hitting for near max damage, not proportialaly more, but in a higher range of its overall damage range. The pistol is getting minimum or near minimum where the shotgun is getting max or near max.

So lets say the armor was taking 30 off a typical shot.....

You would get 8-35 for the boomer and 7-60 on the vector.

But it dosn't work that way at all, sometimes the vector is losing no damage due to the armor, but the pistol is losing almost all the damage. I have seen the Vector do low damage but its uncommon.

It seems like first the armor is compared to the damage, if the damage exceeds the armor then all of the damage is applied and the armor is basicly ignored. But if the armor wins it effects the damage. So the armor is all or nothing, min damage or the full damage range, almost nothing in between.

[Cheddar]

Remember, you also get a +25% damage bonus for every 33 points of skill. This multiplies out nicely for slower, higher damage weapons.

I've played with alot of shottys and found even a little bit of extra damage on the high end will make a noticeable difference.

[________________Zaal]

Keep it up and they'll nerf the Vektors just like they nerfed the Freedom Arms. I miss Freedom Arms....

[Cheddar]

Originally posted by Zaal
Keep it up and they'll nerf the Vektors just like they nerfed the Freedom Arms. I miss Freedom Arms....

They ruined alot of fun with the removal of Freedom Arms and the scaling up of MR reqs.

Two nerfs based on the experiences of the player base when most people were under level 40. Most of the clowns who cried had no idea how powerful a soldier's alpha strike could be, or how devastating an overequipped rifle would soon become.

Just goes to prove that timeless adage: Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers.

[____________Sigfried]

I think they should leave the Vecters as is, and make some of the other weapon lines as good. It seems like one of the few viable guns for non-soldier/agent types. It does damage about the same as Mobs of the same level, more if its over-equiped but we should do a bit more as they have more HP than we do.

Mostly I think they need to change their damage formulas to something with more gradiation. It needs a bell curve so that average damage is what you see except in extreem circumstances.

The skill effect seems a little muted to me. My pistol skill is much higher than my shotgun skill, but I do better with 100% shotguns.

If max damage is all that seems to matter everone should go with hammers even at a quarter your level they do allot more than an over equiped pistol. I'm guessing the IP cost to under equip hammers would be less than over equiping pistols.

[________________Ming]

Yazule, i think it was who predicted that Vectors and decus cloaks would go nerf nerf soon, and of course they will! Whenever you see 99% of a certain class using the same weapons and armor there's a problem.

But the question is, why wouldn't you use the most effective item out there?

1) roleplay.
2) ignorance


Let's not only look at what makes these things better, let's look at what makes the other things suck. Low damage weapons damage is being absorbed by AC. I've written a number of detailed posts on this.

Basically, with low damage weapons the majority of each individual hit is getting absorbed. Absorbed=nullified. There is no grey area..that damage is gone.

High damage weapons hit less often, but a much greater percentage of their damage per hit goes into the target, not their target's AC.

(over the same timespan)
(fast weapon is 60-200)
(slow wepaon is 1-700)
(we're even giving the fast one max damage on every hit)
Fast weapon: 200, 200, 200, 200, 200 = 1000
Slow weapon: 500, 500=1000
-----------------
If AC absorbed 20% of all damage:

Fast weapon: 160, 160, 160, 160, 160 = 800
Slow weapon: 400, 400 =800

------------------

Instead you've got this in AO (assume 3000 AC or -300 absorb)

Fast weapon: (min) 60, 60, 60, 60, 60= 300
Slow weapon: 200, 200 =400
-------------------
Actually with the recharge bug you've got:

Fast weapon: (min) 60, 60, 60, 60, 60= 300
Slow weapon: 200, 200, 200, 200= 800

That's right, if you choose the right "slow weapon" there are no slow weapons! Yay!

[___________Aggelikki]

Maybe, you're doing critical damage everytime with your shotgun. It could be that you're just hitting for 30-40, but criticals add more to make it up to 70-95.

[telanon]

Originally posted by Ming
Whenever you see 99% of a certain class using the same weapons and armor there's a problem.

Well, 99% of all Fixers use Maussers but FUncom hasnt done squat about that...

-Ballpin

[____________Sigfried]

Originally posted by Mimi
Maybe, you're doing critical damage everytime with your shotgun. It could be that you're just hitting for 30-40, but criticals add more to make it up to 70-95.

If only that were true. The crits on a Vector at my level are in the 300 range.

Look at maussers vs vectors. The damage ratings are simmilar but the damage output is vaslty different as devending ACs go up.

[Alaysia]

so should they nerf the nova-flow and mausser too? i think ppl tend to use the same thing when there are no other viable choices. it doesnt make any sense to pay more in ip's for less effect, regardless of roleplaying. if anything, the weapons which are 'easier' to use, like the vektor, should kinda be the less effective ones, but its just not so.

if ppl had real options, they wouldnt all use the same thing.

[___________Aggelikki]

Maybe, there's a hidden parameter that controls the damage distribution of a weapon. Vektor is tuned to have an average damage very close to the max while pistols are tuned to the lower end.

[________________Ming]

Let me rephrase that.

Whenever you see 99% of a class with the same weapon, it means there aren't any options. This is a problem.

There aren't any options really. You can choose the best weapon, or choose a shotty weapon. Is that a choice?


enforcer choice:
Here, I'll either give you this volkswagon, or this Lambourghini.

MA choice:
Here, you can mow the lawn by hand picking each blade of grass, or use these handy tweezers.

fixer choice:
Here, i'll either give you a kick in the nuts, or this 5 dollars for your monthly allowance. *Gee, thanks.*


What I want as an MA is a little button I can carry in the palm of my hand. When the "bad people" (tm) show up, I want to be able push the button and have their heads pop off. IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK FOR!? (it's called thinking outside of the box, people! sheesh!)


=/

[Ashuras]

Do u realise that vecktor requires atleast 1.5 times more skill pts on a single skill compared to many other weapons coz it is a single skill weapon.

The most unfortunate thing abt single skill req pistols is low regular dmg, but the PNG and the other clan design do have very high crits and fast speed.

As for vektor scoring a consistent high end dmg, that is simply FALSE, unless ur target (pvm) is relatively lower lvl compared to the QL of ur weapon and ur attack skill.

[Calox]

vektors hit low to minimum damage a lot, out of my experience. my engineers vektor shotgun has something about 240 max damage and hits for 18-150 most time against greens and yellows, and constant 18 against reds (energy rings increase my min damage). and i miss a lot of shots (ok overequipped weapons seem to do that), imho vektor is not the best weapon, its slow and min/max damage scale is very high. im thinking of spending more ips into other skills to use something like electrical pacifier or something with shotgun now.

[________________Zaal]

Chtuluh - what level are you?

My eng is using a ql 52 Mausser right now [4-100(68)], 4 second total firing time (1 sec to fire 3 to recharge).

I knocked around switching to Vektors but i dont knwo if that will make a difference on the long run. What do high end Fixers (100+) use usually?

[Cosmik]

Originally posted by Miir
It has to do with the way AC absorbs damage.

It abosrbs a set amount instead of a percentage.

What Miir says it true. AC absorbs a set number of damage rather than a percentage. I just wanted to back up this comment.

[_______________Tnite]

Ok I have a good answer but first some stats on weapons. A ql120 boomer has 19-124(567) damage and a ql 70 vektor has 6-158(328) damage. So just in comparison of the guns themselves a vektor does a lot more damage at the same ql as a regular gun.
Now the second thing is the defense skill. Vektor is duck--most people in the game and most npcs in the game have crappy duck skills. Why is this important? Your attack initiative whatever your weapon skill is compared against your targets evade skill in the defense of your weapon. Melee - evade, impact/proj-dodge, shotgun/thrown-duck. If your intiative is equal to the defense skill I believe you have around an 8% chance to crit. The more your initiative exceeds the defense skill the better your chance. Most of us know this already but what everybody seems to forget is most weapons have a range of damage 6-158. What determines what damage is going against the armor? Initiative of course. If your weapon is in a skill that is not commonly defended then your going to get the upper part of that damage a lot. Becauses the persons defense is low allowing you to consistenly get the higher part of damage. Subtract the armor and then thats your damage. It may not be a crit which ignores armor but it will be high. Intiative is kinda hard to test with guns but with swords its a little easier. There is a device called flurry of blows that pumps intiative up by at least 150 for 20 seconds. In that time the damage can go from lots of min hits to lots of max hits because you are now beating the npc defense skill. Ok hope that helps.