GM Konacon gives info on smr2

[Xred]

From the gm:

Hi everybody!

Just going to answer a couple of questions I've seen here. Let me know if you have any others.

> has Clunk's ability improved or degraded?

Slightly improved. Clunk away, my friend.

> How much does 704 help? and the demon lore ranks?

How much it helps scales with levels and spell ranks and is comparable to how much the other spells that give SMRv2 defense help. For demonology, +1 per 25 ranks is not unreasonably close to accurate but it isn't that clear cut as each rank of demonology lore helps. There is a difference between 0, 10, 15, 25, 34, 50, etc. ranks.

> I just find it hard to believe that smr2 would count all skills EXACTLY equal.

They are all counted EXACTLY equal. 2x Perception would be counted the same as 1x perception and 1x CM. There is no benefit to training everything to 1x before training anything to 2x. Without giving anything important about the formula away, I can tell you that for skills the number of ranks in each is all just thrown into one big sum to work with.

> Since we are spending a lot of time on the skills, it would benice to get some understanding of how the mechanics work. This isnt 1993 anymore.

Sorry, the team's stance on this is still that the formula should remain hidden.

~ Konacon

[drumpel]

From the gm:

> How much does 704 help? and the demon lore ranks?

How much it helps scales with levels and spell ranks and is comparable to how much the other spells that give SMRv2 defense help. For demonology, +1 per 25 ranks is not unreasonably close to accurate but it isn't that clear cut as each rank of demonology lore helps. There is a difference between 0, 10, 15, 25, 34, 50, etc. ranks.

~ Konacon

This would probably explain the discrepancies I notice across armor ranks and armor worn, the use of spell 913, ranks known (CM/Perception/Dodge/PF) and so on.

For example:

My level 45 rogue earned about 1 SMRv2 defense every 4-5 ranks up through 100 total ranks of CM/Perception/Dodge/PF.
We'll say his base SMRv2 defense = 130 (no skills trained in)
We'll say he learned 3 ranks of above skills; this means he should get 0 points to his SMRv2 defense, but that's not the case. After a dozen or more casts casts of 917 against him he would see his SMRv2 defense go between 130 and 131, but usually 2/3 of the casts shows 130. The other 1/3 shows 131.

Bump up his known skills by 1 (now at 4 ranks) and the 131 shows up a little more frequently - maybe 60% of the time.
Bump up his known skills by 1 more (now at 5 ranks) and 131 shows up almost every time - maybe 95% of the time.
Bump up his known skills by 1 more (now at 6 ranks) and 131 is constant and with enough casts you might see 132.

I think there's some kind of weighting in place on how the actual SMRv2 defense is calculated - so it's not just 1 = 1 or you need 5 ranks to equal 1 point of defense. Think of it as how the CER works. If you have 5 CER (50 services) and you're half way to 6 CER (10 out of 20 ranks), you can sometimes get that 6 point to trigger, but only 50% of the time. I think SMRv2 has that same kind of functionality built into the overall equation.

From my observation, the higher the level you are, the less your ranks are worth at accumulating defense for SMRv2.


Here's my guess on how SMRv2 actually plays out. I don't know all the ins and outs nor the equations, but this would be my guess...hopefully it makes sense:

Level appears to play the biggest roll over all for attack power and defense.
We'll say that any SMRv2 ability, the initial attack (without taking any level or skills into the equation) is 100. (keep this in mind)

Difference of Levels
From what I've seen with testing, it appears every level you gain you earn +3 to your SMRv2 power.
And from every level you go up you also gain +3 SMRv2 to your defense.

Next, we'll say as a player you're level 50. That's +150 to your SMRv2 defense from level 0 (level * 3, 50 * 3 = 150). No other skills in place, your SMRv2 should be (base) 100 + (level * 3) 150 = 250. Against like level creatures.
Next we'll say you're over hunting and the level 55 creature (with no skills applied) SMRv2 attack power should be (base) 100 + (level * 3) 165 = 265.
Next, the level difference between caster and castie is calculated.
Caster level = 55
Castie level = 50
5 level difference in favor of the Caster. So the actual caster SMRv2 power is actually (base) 100 + (Level difference * 3) 15 = 115.

Now all other factors are taken into account for the Castie:
Stats (Dex/Agi/Int)
Size/race
Armor worn and Armor Use ranks known
Encumbrance
Skills (CM/Perception/Dodge/PF), Shield Use (if applicable), Survival (if applicable)
Any defensive spells
Stance (defensive is best)

Now all other factors are taken into account for the Caster:
Skill/spell being used and how many ranks known (917 for example: every spell rank known over 17 and up to your level = 1 point. Every spell rank known over level = .5, so 2 spell ranks = 1 point)
Status conditions of Castie (prone/stunned/injuries/missing health)

Slap everything together and you get your SMRv2 equation that we see on the screen, below is an example:
[SMR result: 193 (Open d100: 62), Bonus: 3)]

I'll break it down:
SMR result: 193 - this is the results of The Difference of Level & Caster vs Castie seen above
* if you're casting at a target, you want this number to be higher. Higher the number for you when casting/using an ability means greater chance to hit the target
* if you're being cast at, you want this number to be lower. Lower means you're better defended

Open d100: 62 - this is the d100 roll

Bonus: 3 - this is an accumulation of Status Conditions, the more Status Conditions you have, the higher this number is and the easier it is to get hit with said spell/ability


Yes, there can be a Penalty instead of a Bonus in the final equation we see. You'll see Penalty if the spell/ability applies one to the caster.

917, for example, has no penalties against the caster. I could have no legs, laying on the ground and be practically dead with 1 health point, but my spell power of 917 is not hindered by my status conditions.

However, we'll say Sweep is on SMRv2 and you have a broken leg while trying to sweep - this is when you'd see Penalty show up in the visible equation against you.

[Fierna]

Now all other factors are taken into account for the Castie:
Stats (Dex/Agi/Int)
Size/race
Armor worn and Armor Use ranks known
Encumbrance
Skills (CM/Perception/Dodge/PF), Shield Use (if applicable), Survival (if applicable)
Any defensive spells
Stance (defensive is best)

So then, the REAL question is what exactly is the percentage contributions for each of those listed variables or at the very least can we rank them by weighting?

[drumpel]

So then, the REAL question is what exactly is the percentage contributions for each of those listed variables or at the very least can we rank them by weighting?

I don't think these skills/factors are weighted by any means. They just add up to accumulate better or worse defense against SMRv2.

Stats (Dex/Agi/Int) - This should be the same across the board. Dex is primary so it's more important (maybe 1/2). Agi & Int are secondary, they should be equal at maybe 1/4 each. Without GMs giving us specifics, that's just a guess on my part.

Size/race - Like it always plays, smaller races should have a slight boost to SMRv2 defense over larger races (this seems to be the norm in the game across other aspects)

Armor worn and Armor Use ranks known - If you're not wearing armor or you're fully trained for full leather or lower, you get no hindrance/penalty for your SMRv2 defense. Any armor over full leather will impact your SMRv2 defense by some amount. Overtraining in Armor Use does negate the penalty of higher AsG, but only a minimal amount which may not be a cost effective way to spend your TPs until post-cap.

Encumbrance - every 1% encumbered, up to 15% (based on my own testing), impacts your base SMRv2 defense. Once you hit 15% encumbered, no amount (based on my testing) of extra weight will further impact your SMRv2 defense.

Skills (CM/Perception/Dodge/PF), Shield Use (if applicable), Survival (if applicable) - These appear to be impacted the most by your level. The higher the level you get, the lower return you receive from your max ranks known.
For example, we'll say level 30 you have 100 combined ranks and you got +1 to your base SMRv2 every 4 ranks. (just a guess)
Then at level 60 your return is lower, those same 100 combined ranks no longer give you +1 every 4 ranks. You see +1 about every 6 ranks (just a guess, I'm just throwing out numbers).
Then at level 100 your return is lower, those 100 ranks no longer give you +1 every 6 ranks. You see +1 about every 8 or 9 ranks (again, just a guess to help those understand what I've seen from testing)

Any defensive spells - these vary depending on spell and any other factors that benefit said spells. A lot of testing would need to be done if GMs won't tell us what spells provide what amount of DS and where they fit into the overall equation.

Stance (defensive is best) - Stance impacts your SMRv2 defense overall, after the rest of everything is taken into account. Think of Defensive as 100% protection, the best your player gets.
Guarded may only provide 95% of your max SMRv2 defense
Neutral may only provide 90%.
Forward may only provide 85%
Advance may only provide 80%
Offensive may only provide 70%, this means if your base in defensive was 200, 70% of that means your offensive SMRv2 defense would be 140
(these are just guess to give you an idea)


Here's my blanketed idea of what the SMRv2 defense equation could look like:

Level Difference of Caster vs Castie + (Stats + Size/Race +((Armor Worn, check AU ranks) = Penalty) + (Encumbrance = Penalty) + (Skills / (some level of character factor)) + Beneficial spells) * Stance

[Xred]

He says in the origial post all skills are weighted equaly. For pures this means if just going for pure smr2 defence, we should 2x in perception before 1x in cm or dodge since every rank is conted the same.

[zephyrii]

This is the results I analyzed using Leafi's data she had done:

Parameter Estimates

Term Estimate
Agility 0.3008197
Dexterity -0.153376
Intuition 0.0036657
Perception 0.0668317
P. Fitness 0.0621906
Dodging 0.0667755
Spells[215] -1.700809+4.55
Spells[313] -0.875809+4.55
Spells[704] 0.2023661+4.55
Spells[712] -0.297634+4.55
Spells[1109] -0.519718+4.55
Spells[215 and 313] 2.1241906+4.55
Spells[215 and 1109] 2.4158572+4.55
Spells[704 and 712] 3.2023661+4.55
Stance[Guarded] 12.2468245
Stance[Offensive] -12.2468245


Kinda too lazy right now to bother explaining the parameters and test and etc but some points:

- Every 101 ranks of PF/Dodge/Perception gave 6 points each
- There wasn't much variety in stats across the 5 races she did had (all were capped) but roughly you can say INT had almost zero effect. Agi/Dex had some effect
- Spells, no idea the lores, basically ranged from 2-3 points (i.e. heroism), to 5 points (i.e. phase). Spell effects stacked.

There didn't see to be any diminishing returns on stacking the effects.