This more or less fits with what I noticed when I did my tests on the test server.
Yeah, it noticeably sucked on my robe wearing wizard, too. I gave the system a chance and spent a couple of months playing with it via all my characters, who wear different types of armors ranging from robes to plate. Maybe having a dude who mains a plate wearing warrior taking a sledge hammer approach to revamp a game system that impacts everyone, glass cannon pures included, was not a good idea.
Yeah, plenty of people have already provided feedback on how off-tuned maneuvers felt after PSM 2 on the officials. And those basically were his responses back then. Based on his recent comment on this and how he asked for logs so he can investigate further, I get the impression that there were many different, yet inter-related, moving components that got changed, merged or flat out deleted when the old systems got converted to the PSM 2 system, and that even if he's now open to the idea that something could be bugged or over-tweaked (which to his credit, seem likely) , he has no idea where to start looking to fix the issue.
This actually make me worry a lot about the PSM 3 updates, since there's easily 10 times the amount of different mechanics and moving parts in various game systems that will be impacted by it compared to the PSM 2 update.
When he asked for logs to look into, I just took it as the car dealership asking for copies of all your services records before they will do warranty work. It basically means piss off (but let me know if you want a new car...).
Your mind is completely fucked. It is imperative that you unfuck immediately!
It's kind of hard to blame anyone but whoever at SIMU continues to pay peanuts for coders. If they didn't treat their language like some ancient Chinese secret it would give them a lot more eyes to help with testing. It doesn't take a lot of experience to land a job making 70 to 100k to just edit/update systems and do it while working at home.
That's also the most likely reason most their major projects never get finished. It all sounds great until you crack open the bottomless can of worms.
Open source is the future of gaming. There's game currency already being traded in the crypto markets and SIMU still can't get a mail system in their game.
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. ~ Marcus Aurelius“It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.”
― George Orwell, 1984
“The urge to shout filthy words at the top of his voice was as strong as ever.”
― George Orwell, 1984
Naijin yesterday. Sounds like he's trying on his own to verify and not dismiss off hand.
Naijin — Yesterday at 8:15 PMI'd do more testing but I'm currently ensuring SMR rolls are working as intended. Rolled the script back to June of 2020 for some funsies testing.
I keep having people saying that their SMR defense got worse and I've yet to see any concrete examples.
If anyone has any, that'd be great too.
I don't want the world; I just want your half.
Discord BigNasty#8519
That's just horseshit of a response from him.
When they tanked the defense from your guarded/defensive stance to be no better than what forward stance offered, that's where people lost their SMRv2 defense.
I even thought that the tweak from CML getting moved to SMRv2 would make bandits more tolerable, but I was mistaken. Got hit by a maneuver and all the added bonus points (penalty for me) that the next thugs got due to being stunned/injuried/missing health and I got steamrolled like a little bitch.
Then I figured bandits will still be something I avoid. So I run out to hunt with my warmage.....I see that his roughly 15% chance to getting hit from viper spit and boar charges. Usually a roll of around 85 or higher (which wasn't that uncommon due to the open roll system) was a successful hit. After the changes he went to about a 35% chance to get hit....
Naijin saying he hasn't seen any defense getting worse....what a load of shit.
Naijin's full response and testing judge for yourself....
Hey all,
I've taken some time to rollback SMR in Development to the version prior to Phase 2 (June 2020) as due diligence. Below are comparisons from June 2020 and now, with explanations of why the rolls are the way they are. This is a very time consuming process but hopefully helps show exactly how things have changed.
Dwarf Wizard, full leather, self-spelled, and training that correlates with what I would consider freshly capped. Spell ranks may vary slightly but spell based bonuses were not changed and do not impact the results.
Relevant skills are as follows:
Armor Use..........................| 20 4
Physical Fitness...................| 201 101
Perception.........................| 201 101
Spell Lists
Major Elemental....................| 50
Spell Lists
Minor Elemental....................| 75
Spell Lists
Wizard.............................| 100
Relevant Stats are as follows:
Dexterity (DEX): 100 (25)
Agility (AGI): 100 (20)
Intuition (INT): 100 (25)
Spell 917 (Earthen Fury)
June 2020, guarded
The earth cracks beneath you, releasing a column of frigid air!
[SMR result: 60 (Open d100: 33)] = +27
Present, guarded
The earth cracks beneath you, releasing a column of frigid air!
[SMR result: 51 (Open d100: 33)] = +18 magic so the wizard gets a 20% boost.
Result: Net gain of +9%. The change to guarded from Phase 2 was a nerf, but to help offset some of that players were given a bonus against magical SMR rolls provided they are aligned with or know the spell. The wizard here is getting a bonus of 20%. The net result is a boost from June 2020 to present day. See below for an explanation of the stance change as well as the spell knowledge breakdown.
June 2020, offensive
The earth cracks beneath you, releasing a column of frigid air!
[SMR result: 104 (Open d100: 57)] = +47
Present, offensive
Craggy debris explodes from the ground beneath you!
[SMR result: 65 (Open d100: 37)] = +28
Result: Net gain of ~19%. This matches expectations, because offensive stance had no changes. Throw in the 20% bonus for being a Wizard and a d1000 roll for the missing 1%, and it aligns perfectly from June 2020 to present day.
Spell 309 (Condemn)
All results below should match above, with the exception that the wizard no longer has a 20% spell knowledge bonus. Let's see what happens.
June 2020, Guarded
[SMR result: 5 (Open d100: 28)] = -23
Present, Guarded
[SMR result: 48 (Open d100: 59)] = -11
Result: Net loss of ~11%. This is entirely due to the guarded change, and was intended.
June 2020, offensive
[SMR result: 82 (Open d100: 84)] = -2
Present, offensive
[SMR result: 22 (Open d100: 24)] = -2
Result: Net result of 0. Matches expectations since offensive stance wasn't changed at all.
Against combat maneuvers (charge, shield bash, shield charge, etc), this same Wizard went from 100%+ chance to be hit in June 2020 to ~78% in present day.
Why was the stance bonus reduced?
Pures were simply defending too well against maneuvers. That was largely due to their ability to sit in guarded or be in offensive for a very short duration. Pures were defending against maneuvers better than warriors, rogues, bards, paladins, and rangers. They were roughly on par with monks.
To summarize, here's what you should have noticed from the Phase 2 changes.
General SMR
1. The stance bonus that guarded and lower provided was halved. This amounts to ~12% loss of defense for pures who sit in guarded. This value changes slightly based on training, but is roughly in the 10-15% range.
2. Players were given a bonus to magical SMR attacks to help offset some of the effects of #1, and to reinforce magical knowledge helping them out. Here's the outline of how spell knowledge affects your defense:
Knowing the spell, regardless of ability to cast: +20% (Rank 5).
Can learn the spell, but hasn’t yet: +8% (Rank 3).
Can learn from the same sphere of magic, but not the same circle: +2% (Rank 1).
No influence in the spell’s sphere: +0% (No ranks).
3. The racial bonus was moved from a flat bonus to a diminishing return dodge based bonus. This affects all races but dwarves, giantman, half-krolvin, and humans, but the racial bonus is still significant. The same wizard above as a halfling would have had ~10% better defense.
4. Ambush pushdown and Force on Force were added.
5. The amount of damage you take from a roll did not change. A 101 endroll in June 2020 is the same as a 101 endroll today, with the exception of Shield Bash and Shield Charge. These two maneuvers were over tuned slightly and will be brought back to more of a setup and not an instant kill in Phase 3.
Note: maneuvers like viper spit or rift crawler burrows do not consider spell ranks or combat maneuver ranks at all.
Combat Maneuvers
1. Players across the board should have 30% or more of a boost to defense against Combat Maneuvers. The more SMR defense you get, the higher this bonus becomes.
2. Shields help defend against most maneuvers. CMAN HELP <skill> will list whether or not a shield helps in the target's defense.
3. There is a rank based bonus that's similar to the spell knowledge bonus. Here's the outline of how maneuver knowledge affects your defense:
Rank 1: +2%
Rank 2: +4%
Rank 3: +8%
Rank 4: +12%
Rank 5: +20%
Guild Master: +25%
4. The racial size modifiers were moved to post-roll calculations. This means that a halfling is harder to hit (better SMR defense), but when they do get hit with size-based maneuvers the endroll is adjusted based on their size penalty.
Finally, I realize that this is only one example, but it's intended to show precisely how things have changed. Feel free to ask any questions and I'll try to reply as quickly as possible. I realize these are complicated systems with a lot of moving parts so I'll try to break replies down as clearly as possible. I'm also available in #mechanics on Discord and answer questions there.
- Naijin