Curse

FelixCarter · Sep 25, 2007, 07:41 AM // 07:41

I've read multiple times that people don't like "random" in PvP and PvE, because it adds a sense of "imbalance" in terms of luck.
I want to know people's thought on a change in things such as HSR and HCT modifications. This will require a small knowledge math to understand.
Skip to the bottom for an "over-all" summery, but please read the entire thing if you are going to respond.

Possibility - Equivalent Reduction
We'll use a HSR modification on a standard staff. with it's 20% chance, that means that 20% of the time, a skill's recharge time will be reduced by half (50%).

In fractions, we can say 1/5 of the time your skill's recharge time will be multiplied by 1/2. From here on, we will remove the "luck" part of the game and assume that when it says "20% of the time" it means once every fifth skill.

Now, let's remove the first fraction and change the fundamentals of the modification. In doing so, we must make the recharge time lower than 50% in order to keep it equivalent.

In order to do this, we must "spread" the 50% chance over the span of 5 different skills. This can by done by multiplying the first fraction by the second. To check our work, we can divide .50 by 5 (spell recharge rate [in percentage] by the number of skills).

(1/2)*(1/5) = .1
.50/5 = .1

Our new "spread out" percentage is 10%.

Therefore, if we wish to remove the "luck" part of the game in place for a "standard", all skill's recharge time is reduced by 10%.

Before: 20% of the time. 50% recharge.
After: 100% of the time. 10% recharge.

However, this still means that skills with higher recharge will benefit more from such a modification. In the end, this method may be less efficient than the current one. But this cannot be said for sure without proper testing.

Possibility - Enhancement
Another possibility is to "enhance" the game mechanic so that it will automatically "choose" when a 20% chance "should" have occurred. However, this will still keep an ample portion of the "luck" mechanic that we are trying to rid ourselves of.

Currently, the game calculates the recharge time of each skill in accordance with the HSR mod individually. This means that skills do not necessarily recharge half as fast 20% of the time.

Example: If you flip a coin 100 time, you will not necessarily get 50 heads and 50 tails.

Luckily, we are not dealing with a coin. We're dealing with a game that can be programmed and changed.

Back to the fractions, we can see that once out of every five skills we should see a recharge rate cut in half. If we change the game to monitor how many skills have been activated for a brief period of time, such a "chance" will be turned into a mathematical fact.

That is, when a user activates a skill with a HSR mod in hand, the game will "flip the coin." If that skill is not affected, then the game will wait for the next skill.

If the user's skills still have not been affected by the fifth skill, then the game will automatically make the fifth skill recharge half as fast.

If, however, the game grants the user a halved skill recharge on the second skill, then the three skills after that will be unaffected.

Once five skills have been activated, the game resets the counter to prepare for the next five skills.

This will ensure that the 20% chance will activate once (and only once) every five skills. If closely monitored, the user can even catch the "chance" on the fifth skill (assuming it hasn't already happened on the for preceeding ones).

I was going to do a "do while" statement in pseudo code to simplify this for everyone, but I'll just skip right to the "over-all" summery.

Over-all Summery

Equivalent Reduction:
100% of the time. 10% recharge.

Pros:
Always happens.
Cons:
Not necessarily efficient.

Enhancement:
100% only once every 5 skills.

Pros:
Ensured chance.
Cons:
Still draws from "luck"

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Please discuss these possibilities. Their pros and cons should already be evident, however I believe this is better than the current system we use.

Antheus · Sep 25, 2007, 01:16 PM // 13:16

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Please discuss these possibilities. Their pros and cons should already be evident, however I believe this is better than the current system we use.

So you want HCT/HRT 25%/33%, or a free skill that gives you guaranteed HCT/HRT.

Current system is fine for what it does. If you need quicker casting/recharge, then there's skills that do that.

That new glyph is very helpful, there's also a mantra, and a few others.

These bonuses are only icing on the cake. They mustn't be guaranteed, or predictable. Otherwise, they'll need to be severely reduced.

Consider that I carry several identical weapons, and I switch them (people are really good at weapon swaps). I wait until all of them have accumulated the guaranteed bonus.

Then I just use those weapons in order to get 2,3,5,10 casts out with HRT/HCT. It may seem far fetched, but I've seem people juggle their weapons.

And if this bonus isn't calculated on per-weapon basis, what happens if I swap out weapons to different mods? How are chains calculated then?

Does that mean that monks who use weapons to manage energy will suffer because of it?

FelixCarter · Sep 25, 2007, 05:56 PM // 17:56

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