Wrt damage formula thread

[Annaise16]

I just read through that locked thread on damage and damage formulae. Unfortunately I can't post in that thread but I can provide some background to a few of the claims made in that thread.

To start with, let me say that I have no opinion on the current implementation of the percentage based damage modifier.


With regard to the claim that the devs of AOR were not allowed to change the damage formulae:

This did actually occur in around April 2013 but you need the context in which the statement was made to understand what they meant. I'll provide the context below.

Towards the end of March 2013, the devs proposed changes that would have given casters a weapon dps contribution to their abilities. The proposed changes could be tested on the pts. So I logged onto the pts and checked the damage of abilities for BW, sorc and magus and compared them with the values on live. This is a ss that I made at the time of the pts damage of a Doombolt, along with the sorc's stats.

http://i1229.photobucket.com/albums/ee4 ... b22c59.jpg
http://i1229.photobucket.com/albums/ee4 ... c15db9.jpg

From the testing that I performed, it was obvious that the proposed changes involved adding 1.5 x weapon dps value to the damage formula for every direct-damage ability of the classes.

So the overall formula (without mitigation) would have looked like:

damage = base value + damage bonus x cast-time factor + 1.5 x weapon dps value

So the devs were proposing to implement a weapon dps contribution to caster's abilities by simply adding an extra term, without changing any other part of the formula.

When I suggested that it might be fairer to implement it by reducing the base values of abilities and making it work the same as the way that physical damage formulae worked:

damage = (much lower) base value + (damage bonus + weapon dps) x cast-time factor,

a dev replied that were not allowed to change the base values in the database.

To provide some context for their statement, this all occurred during the dying days of the live game when there appeared to be only a couple of fairly inexperienced devs working on the game.


Apart from the situation described above, the damage and healing formulae of various abilities were definitely changed at different times during the live game. Most of these changes occurred in the first 6 months after the game was launched in 2008 when the game still had its original devs.