Critical Strike Chance And Critical Damage

[Judopunch]

Critical hits do have a place in a non competitive environment. 

 

Effectively it is a flat dps increase over a given amount of time. The problem is everyone wants to one or two shot enemies. During a sustained encounter with a gun that has over a 30 round clip crit damage can effectively add a flat % to the total amount of damage you do over a given amount of time. This extra damage is not 'on demand', however over time it can add up and will make a substantial difference in total damage.

 

The issue is, is critical hit and damage modification competitive with other damage enchantments. The below example will illustrate the point.

 

Assume 10 shots with a 10% crit chance on 100 damage and a 2.0 modifier. you would effectively gain 100 bonus crit damage on average every 10 shots. The problem comes in when you add 10% damage to the base amount of 100 damage, making each shot deal 10 more damage for 100 bonus damage without the random number generator at all. 

 

This ties into elemental mods and how they interact with base damage and mods like serration, and if it is easier to gain more free damage over a given number of shots by only flatly increase your damage. Personally id love me some spreadsheets and graphs and know if elemental mods can crit...

 

Another factor would be at what point would critical damage modifiers push the modified damage into the 'acceptable' range even at 20% chance to crit. 

 

And if anyone knows if elemental damage mods can crit, or how they modify base damage that would be great information to have.

Edited May 3, 2013 by Judopunch

[Phoenix86]

/signed & agree

 

Crits and weak points mechanic are redundant and imho weak point's one is waaay better

[Dawnseeker_Ch]

I approve so far.  I know that this game already supports weak spots, so crit doesn't seem to be an explainable mechanic.  getting "lucky" is not a build I can say I approve of.  Getting high numbers randomly is like playing the lottery, and hell, might be the reason why some people (especially in the WoW/LoL community) like it, because it gives the feeling of something good for no extra effort or skill like winning the jackpot. Chop that mechanic right on out.  It's not needed here!

[matrixEXO]

I approve so far.  I know that this game already supports weak spots, so crit doesn't seem to be an explainable mechanic.  getting "lucky" is not a build I can say I approve of.  Getting high numbers randomly is like playing the lottery, and hell, might be the reason why some people (especially in the WoW/LoL community) like it, because it gives the feeling of something good for no extra effort or skill like winning the jackpot. Chop that mechanic right on out.  It's not needed here!

LoL does not use much luck mechanics unlike DotA. You mistaking things?

 

PS: LoL's crit mechanics are done in such a manner that even players in tournaments have their items to give them at least 25% only. That's not including standard PD builds that raise it to 55%. And it's a guaranteed 250% damage (since 25% is from IE, which also increases crit damage by 50% thus 200%+50%=250%).

Edited May 3, 2013 by matrixEXO

[DangerousMaster]

support!

 

weak spots and shooting repeatedly at the same (area, part) should give damage bonuses like cracking the armour et cetera.

[krisp]

High RoF weapons rely heavily on crits to actually boost their damage thus can't be compared to either the Snipetron or the Paris. More obviously is the Grakata being the weakest dealing weapon in the game (at 9 damage per shot). While there are more tactical guns with high crit rate and low RoF, the more prominent ones are the high RoF, low/mid damage guns being reasoned that they would need more crits to dish as good as a damage to compete with other highly capable guns whereas the tactical guns can just be aimed for headshots and weakpoint shots, giving them more of an edge.

 

The shift in the key feature of crits in this game would not affect those tactical guns but would adversely affect high RoF guns. You gotta understand why I mentioned it.

Not really, no. At 7.5% base crit the Grakata gets more out of regular elemental mods than it gets out of crit.

 

RoF has little to do with it. Crit is percent-based and lower, more frequent crits is the same thing as higher, less frequent crits unless you 1-2 shot any enemy.

[Worira]

Do it do it do iiiiit

[Fredlicious]

As far as weapons losing damage from the removal of random criticals, it's trivial to roll the average damage increase from base critical strike chance and damage into the base damage of the weapon. If a weapon has 10% base critical strike chance and deals 150% base critical strike damage, then increasing the base damage by 15% has the same effect (except that it's arguably better because it's more consistent).

[NoOneCares]

I don't know about you guys but I would like to see more melee attack animations that could depend on the area of the enemies you aim for that would also Fix The problem of melee crits. Don't get me wrong I like the idea of stealth / ground attack crits, but I would love to be able to aim for a guys arm and chop it right off or his head etc... 

[Xrylene]

As far as weapons losing damage from the removal of random criticals, it's trivial to roll the average damage increase from base critical strike chance and damage into the base damage of the weapon. If a weapon has 10% base critical strike chance and deals 150% base critical strike damage, then increasing the base damage by 15% has the same effect (except that it's arguably better because it's more consistent).

 

Actually, it would be even less than that, since it's a 10% chance for 50% extra damage, which is equivalent to 5% extra damage. In order for it to be a 15% base damage increase, it would have to be a 10% crit chance and 250% crit damage, or a 15% crit chance and 200% crit damage.

[Zimmies]

sounds like a great idea.

though.. what about those who had invested in mods with crit chance?

[matrixEXO]

Not really, no. At 7.5% base crit the Grakata gets more out of regular elemental mods than it gets out of crit.

 

RoF has little to do with it. Crit is percent-based and lower, more frequent crits is the same thing as higher, less frequent crits unless you 1-2 shot any enemy.

You forget how many bullets/arrows that those higher crit weapons (Snipetron, Paris) can do all-together with the idea being proposed. Even now, they do more damage by just aiming to the head consistently, something that high RoF guns do not do often because 75% of the bullets fired in that general direction would miss.

Edited May 4, 2013 by matrixEXO

[krisp]

You forget how many bullets/arrows that those higher crit weapons (Snipetron, Paris) can do all-together with the idea being proposed. Even now, they do more damage by just aiming to the head consistently, something that high RoF guns do not do often because 75% of the bullets fired in that general direction would miss.

As far as I know crits don't actually ignore armor

[Dawnseeker_Ch]

Crits don't ignore armor as far as I can tell, and just a thought, Armor pierce seems to be bugged as far as I can tell.  My friend and I have compared paris damage with our only difference between our weapons (deliberately for the test) was armor piercing and 1 rank difference, I was doing 10% of the damage he was doing with a rank 4 armor pierce compared to his rank 5.

(sorry if this derails the thread a little, just pointing out that armor pierce for rifles at least isn't a good way to compare damage at the moment due to that bug)

 

All I know is Crits really serve little purpose right now because they're extremely ineffective.  Trying to make crits an effective build isn't productive to encouraging smart play, at least in comparison to asking players to aim.  If you get a weapon that has spread, then you pick that weapon knowing you have spread and deal with it.  This granted could introduce the possibility of mods that have improved accuracy, decreased spread and/or drop from distance.  Either way, I prefer to be told to do more damage, I need to play better, not "oh, in that case, build this way and you almost do as well."  I'm a bad/unskilled player who is ok with being told "get better, play better, and you'll do better" and not ok with "its ok, we'll just ramp up your avatar strength so you don't have to be better." (see what i did there?)

[Grulos]

Perfect idea, I have only 1 thing to add: Make the critical damage bonus different for each weapon: the fast-firing weapons get a lower crit damage bonus than slower firing ones.

[matrixEXO]

As far as I know crits don't actually ignore armor

Crits don't ignore armor but does extra damage after armor reduction is applied. Technically more useful to be considered an armor-reduction system if aimed at the body for weapons with non-'armor ignore' functionality.

Edited May 4, 2013 by matrixEXO

[Halad]

Wow made this mistake by allowing players to make severely suboptimal choices in talents, leading to teir new extremely simplified trees. Crit/critdmg follow in this category. Crit rates are not high enough for your to benefit enough from these mods, and a player hellbent on maxing those mods invariably cripples their own effectiveness.

I love the bonus to weakpoint idea but the percents would need a drastic nerf. For crit chance i think either that mod needs to go or has to be given a drastic buff that wont make high crit weapons ridiculously op.

[Fredlicious]

Wow made this mistake by allowing players to make severely suboptimal choices in talents, leading to teir new extremely simplified trees. Crit/critdmg follow in this category. Crit rates are not high enough for your to benefit enough from these mods, and a player hellbent on maxing those mods invariably cripples their own effectiveness.

I love the bonus to weakpoint idea but the percents would need a drastic nerf. For crit chance i think either that mod needs to go or has to be given a drastic buff that wont make high crit weapons ridiculously op.

Yeah, this is basically the premise of the suggestion. Crit doesn't provide an interesting choice when it turns out it's just plain the wrong choice for maximizing effectiveness.

 

And yeah, I'm sure that numbers would have to be tweaked to make it all work, but that's a comparatively easy task.

[Xrylene]

Yeah, this is basically the premise of the suggestion. Crit doesn't provide an interesting choice when it turns out it's just plain the wrong choice for maximizing effectiveness.

 

And yeah, I'm sure that numbers would have to be tweaked to make it all work, but that's a comparatively easy task.

 

I'd argue crit doesn't make an interesting choice period, since it's largely out of the player's hands. You either get lucky when you need it, or you don't, you could burst a few shots on an enemy with two hitting his head and one hitting his body and have the body shot crit, dealing minimal extra damage. You could get lucky instead and have both headshots crit and drop the enemy instantly. Or of course, none of the three could crit at all, which is more likely with most weapons.

 

What makes interesting choices, are trade offs. Fire rate, for example, is sort of an example of a choice, in the sense that it is one of the few DPS increasing mods that does not increase your bullet efficiency at all, meaning while it is very effective at making you do more damage, it also forces you to use more ammunition. I saw a suggestion for a mod once that would reduce spread and recoil in exchange for reducing fire rate a bit, that's an interesting choice. Stuff like that is what the game needs, not crit.

[Argoms]

Completely agreed.

 

While we're removing randomness, adding a rollover-mechanic (additive chances- you will proc every 4 shots with 25% etc.) to "random" effects would be nice. No, multishot does NOT work this way, I've tested it (yesterday, latest version of the game as of this post) and there's no pattern to it.

[Mewtiger]

I agree with this thread.

 

I just got done messing around with crit-mods and found them to have little impact on gameplay and overall be pretty underwhelming.

 

I really liked the reasoning behind crit's and it's origin lol, this isn't a tabletop rpg... we can actually critically hit weakpoints now! With our aim!

 

I sort of KNEW that, but never really thought about it :p

[Xrylene]

Completely agreed.

 

While we're removing randomness, adding a rollover-mechanic (additive chances- you will proc every 4 shots with 25% etc.) to "random" effects would be nice. No, multishot does NOT work this way, I've tested it (yesterday, latest version of the game as of this post) and there's no pattern to it.

 

This could work for a temporary fix, but an ideal fix would be one that could be relied on for every shot, rather than every x shots.