(Not a bug) - Melee Weapons + Quick Action % chance of consuming fewer action points?

[mikeprichard]

Not sure if this is a bug or intended (and if intended, it should probably be explained better in game), but with 16 points in Melee Weapons and 12 points in Quick Action, I had assumed from the tooltips that I'd have a (16x3%) + (12x4%) = 96% chance for Quick Action to proc with every basic melee attack. However, while it does happen quite often, after about 200 attacks I can say it's not 96% - maybe more like 70-80%. Do these separate chances maybe combine multiplicatively instead of additively? Anyone have any insight on this? Adding the confirmed information to Strategy Central would also be helpful.

Edited March 3, 2021 by mikeprichard

[Ardent Trove]

If I understand correctly:

16 Points in Melee Weapons gives a 1-((1-0.03)^16) = 38.6% chance (not 48%, as would be easily assumed).

12 Points in Quick Action gives a 1-((1-0.04)^12) = 38.7% chance.

16 Points in Melee Weapons and 12 Points in Quick Action gives a 1-((1-0.03)^16 * (1-0.04)^12) = 62.4% chance.

I did a small test of 133 attacks, with 16 Missile Weapons and 12 Quick Action, which resulted in haste 62.4% of the time, supporting the above.

 

[mikeprichard]

Thanks, Ardent - that was what I was guessing from my own results.

[Mechalibur]

Generally speaking, Spiderweb games tend to process game mechanics like this multiplicatively.

 

On another mechanics note, percentage increases work a bit differently than I would have initially expected. Like, if you have 20% armor, sometimes you see weird things like half the damage being mitigated, or none of it. If I had to guess, I think each point of damage is considered separately for any percentage-based increases or reductions. I think the same works for buff/debuff durations (e.g. if you have 25% extra effectiveness on a Bless effect that normally lasts 4 rounds, each round of the effect has a 25% chance to be increased by 1 round).

[mikeprichard]

I noticed the same thing with armor, Mechalibur - many of these calculations don't seem to be based on a flat percentage as the tooltip info would have you believe. I think this has been a trend with some of Jeff's more recent games; in general, speaking as someone who enjoys the stat-crunching aspects of CRPGs at least to a point, Spidweb in-game information often seems unfortunately somewhat unclear with things like this.

[Randomizer]

Armor blocking damage calculated for each point goes back quite a bit in games. It's why to os better to have the largest percentage items instead of several smaller ones.

[Mechalibur]

1 hour ago, Randomizer said:

Armor blocking damage calculated for each point goes back quite a bit in games. It's why to os better to have the largest percentage items instead of several smaller ones.

 

I'm not talking about how armor stacks with itself multiplicatively, I mean how the actual calculation for damage received works once you already know your overall armor. For example, in the Avernum remakes, if you have 20% armor (on normal difficulty), you'll block 20% of physical damage received all the time, right? That's not the case in Mutagen - I've seen 20% armor block over 50% of an attack's damage on rare occasions.

Edited March 4, 2021 by Mechalibur

[Randomizer]

Avernum had the same thing as Geneforge has now. A 20% piece of armor chess 20 times to see if each point blocks damage.

[le retour des marmottes météorologues]

Yeah, this has been the case since at least Nethergate: Resurrection.

 

I don't think it's one check per percentage point of blocking, though.  I think it's one check per potential point of damage.

 

I don't know that we know for 100% sure that is how the mechanic works but somebody did some testing once (Lilith maybe?) and IIRC that was the best fit.

[Mechalibur]

14 hours ago, Randomizer said:

Avernum had the same thing as Geneforge has now. A 20% piece of armor chess 20 times to see if each point blocks damage.

 

Ah, I didn't realize that. Thanks for the clarification!