The Real Numbers

vikoon · March 2013

I am curious what the damage numbers are from the point of view of any Beta Testers and anyone else who may have any insight on Neverwinter. I watched the video that was released today and it was showing numbers in excess of 15000+ damage on hits. I posted in another thread about my concern on what the numbers actually are but I was hoping to get some information from the community.

I personally hope that numbers over 10,000 per hit don't make it to live but I have a feeling that they will. What are other peoples thoughts on this?

Thanks for any replies,

Vik.

arythor · March 2013

I find how large the numbers are to be largely irrelevant. What matters is time-to-kill (TTK), and that is independent of how large HP pools are. In short, whether enemies take 10 hits of 10 damage to kill, or 10 hits of 10,000 damage to kill, I do not care. All I want is fun, balanced combat.

bedroomjesus · March 2013

In the class trailers, the level 50 characters are doing around 2000 damage if I remember correctly. To me though, they are just numbers. 20,000 or 2000. It really has no affect on gameplay anyways.

vikoon · March 2013

Number inflation is a dangerous game to play from my point of view. Even Blizzard has been quoted as saying that it is a bad idea for numbers to reach insane levels. If this game is to expand then the numbers will have to expand to insane levels to accomodate, and hitting for 100,000 damage is just ridiculous to me.

I want the same thing you want arythor, but I personally think that numbers like 10,000 have no place in a D&D based game. But that is me.

ranncore · March 2013

Number inflation is kind of a necessary evil for balancing content. If you are only working with a damage roll of a d10, you cannot alter the damage by any less than 10% intervals. Working with 10d20 adds a lot of ways to balance the roll.

kalvorak · March 2013

That's true, but you don't need numbers to be reaching the thousands to balance them effectively. I think Blizzard regret the insane amounts of number inflation they've got. A level 60 has several thousand health. a level 90 has several hundred thousand, maybe half a million.

You need to think long term really and if it's already a case of players hitting for 10k at a time then additional expansions and levels are just going to make things even worse. I prefer dealing with smaller numbers personally, I feel like a 1k crit should be a really big deal.

arythor · March 2013

I should clarify that while I feel large numbers are largely irrelevant, they can be cumbersome, and I certainly agree that the numbers do not need to be that high. As ranncore wisely points out, a larger scale does allow for more granular balancing, so it does make a fair bit of sense to have larger numbers for that purpose, but doing thousands of damage at 60 with an attack is not necessary to achieve that.

You could theoretically have a system where the defensive power of enemies scales perfectly with the offensive power of players, and vice versa, and keep damage quite static and in the 0-100 range. That would still provide enough granularity, but the problem is that it does not show any progress. Players like to see the numbers grow, so there must be some inflation for the sense of progression to exist.

Of course, dealing 5,000 damage at level 60, for example, only means that additional content that expands the offensive potential of characters down the road, whether from gear or some other advancement like levels, will need to see that number go to perhaps 6,000. And then it needs to go to 7,000. And then to 8,000. And one day to 10,000. This sort of inflation is inevitable but by inflating it more slowly early on, it does not need to grow so large, so fast.

Anyway, like I said, it is not the biggest deal but I can see why it would some sense to pull it back a bit. I'd be content doing 10 damage on average at level 1 and 500 damage on average at level 60, for example, which still is a massive increase but not so much that the game would need to crack the quadruple or even quintuple digits any time soon. It would take more than 7 increases of 10% to turn 500 into 1,000, so if each expansion of power stuck to an increase of 10%, it would be years until it got that high.

feuygar · March 2013

I'd be happy if they divided all the damage done by a factor of 10. (Before someone jumps on me, yes, the mobs hit points would also be reduced by the same factor).

I don't think anyone over a very young age enjoys hitting for 2000 rather than for 20 if it takes the same time to kill the beast.

It would also be truer to D&D's roots if I hit for 1d6+1 rather than for 45 or 450 or 4500.

lanessar13 · March 2013

True, as a trickster I was regularly doing 10K or so at level 12 with an opener. That's a bit high for "starting levels" (what I consider to be prior to level 20).

What I was really puzzled about is how little your STR made a difference in damage. Those stats might not have existed, for all the difference made in TTK.

korbanhod · March 2013

Damage should be lower, way lower.

It would be nice to see the numbers be more like actual 4th edition numbers. doing +100 dmg is quite insane even for late game characters in the books.

krubar · March 2013

If Str doesnt matter. My dwarf cleric, dual-wielding warhammers, will have a str of 12 so he can carry a decent amount of stuff. And I will try to max out dex, con, and wisdom on character generation. As I level, I will max out dex so I can get improved two weapon fighting and greater improved two weapon fighting. Also, the increase in saves from dex, con, and wis will be great.

krubar · March 2013

Would be nice to know if the str modifier increases damage by 100 or 500 or 1000. Say you have 14 str. You have a modifier of 2. So, would you do 1000 more damage compared to someone who has 10 str?

zagemogga · March 2013

lanessar13 wrote: »

True, as a trickster I was regularly doing 10K or so at level 12 with an opener. That's a bit high for "starting levels" (what I consider to be prior to level 20).

What I was really puzzled about is how little your STR made a difference in damage. Those stats might not have existed, for all the difference made in TTK.

Atributes like Str/Dex/Con/Int/Cha are quite unimportant in 4e.

Your overall hitpoints are calculated similar to: lvl*4+Con
So at level 60 with 16 Constitution you have 60*4+16 = 256 maximum hitpoints

Then you tell me you do 10k damage at level 12, please tell me I am wrong

p.s. I cannot remember the stats of my Guardian but he must have had ~20k hitpoints at level 20+ then, since an Ogre could not onehit me

elve · March 2013

Dunno if this will help but at lvl 30 some of my skills were hitting for about 1.5k damage, 3k for critical strikes. I was pretty well geared though.

krubar · March 2013

That sucks. Why even have the numbers if they mean nothing.

krubar · March 2013

So, as a spell caster will you still need 10 + the spell's level to cast a spell? 10+9 intelligence for a mage to cast 9th lvl spells.

elve · March 2013

krubar wrote: »

So, as a spell caster will you still need 10 + the spell's level to cast a spell? 10+9 intelligence for a mage to cast 9th lvl spells.

No. You need to be an adequate level, the damage is calculated based on a bunch of stats including your primary ability scores, the equipment damage, the attack power you've accumulated and so on. Cannot be complete. Neverwinter works very differently from what you would come to expect from D&D.

thrynsyst · March 2013

krubar wrote: »

If Str doesnt matter. My dwarf cleric, dual-wielding warhammers, will have a str of 12 so he can carry a decent amount of stuff. And I will try to max out dex, con, and wisdom on character generation. As I level, I will max out dex so I can get improved two weapon fighting and greater improved two weapon fighting. Also, the increase in saves from dex, con, and wis will be great.

Everything on your "wish list" is from 3rd Edition. This game doesn't even *use* 3rd Edition to start with, it uses 4th Edition as its basis. Not certain you could set your character up in this manner at all.

lanessar13 · March 2013

zagemogga wrote: »

Atributes like Str/Dex/Con/Int/Cha are quite unimportant in 4e.

Your overall hitpoints are calculated similar to: lvl*4+Con
So at level 60 with 16 Constitution you have 60*4+16 = 256 maximum hitpoints

Then you tell me you do 10k damage at level 12, please tell me I am wrong

p.s. I cannot remember the stats of my Guardian but he must have had ~20k hitpoints at level 20+ then, since an Ogre could not onehit me

I was definitely doing 10K damage out of stealth with a daily power on my trickster, on a crit. It was running at about 9,734 damage. I thought I saw an 11K in there, but I wasn't watching carefully.

I'm not entirely sure about the "stats are unimportant" in 4ED bit. Playing a swordmage, my powers damage, etc. relied on it. With a longsword, up to 8 damage from that. Then another 4 damage from high Int on certain powers. That's up to a 50% increase in DPS if you have a high statistic modifier, unless I'm mistaken.

I don't see that effect in game, at all.

vikinggamer · March 2013

Keep in mind that right now you are not complaining about an actual problem. You are complaining about something that only MIGHT be a problem. Don't waste too much effort on theoretical problems. Relax, wait for the weekend, play the beta, if there is a problem report it.

vikoon · March 2013

Well I am definitely disappointed with some of the numbers that seem to be obviously floating around and even at sub level 20. I will be playing in the Beta this weekend and I am interested to test some of the numbers for myself. Still hoping that they get scaled back a bit but I am doubtful.

devoneaux · March 2013

ranncore wrote: »

Number inflation is kind of a necessary evil for balancing content. If you are only working with a damage roll of a d10, you cannot alter the damage by any less than 10% intervals. Working with 10d20 adds a lot of ways to balance the roll.

While true, this is usually a result of a game being expanded over several cycles (Ala WoW) it's not usually a concern right out of the gate.

devoneaux · March 2013

arythor wrote: »

I should clarify that while I feel large numbers are largely irrelevant, they can be cumbersome, and I certainly agree that the numbers do not need to be that high. As ranncore wisely points out, a larger scale does allow for more granular balancing, so it does make a fair bit of sense to have larger numbers for that purpose, but doing thousands of damage at 60 with an attack is not necessary to achieve that.

You could theoretically have a system where the defensive power of enemies scales perfectly with the offensive power of players, and vice versa, and keep damage quite static and in the 0-100 range. That would still provide enough granularity, but the problem is that it does not show any progress. Players like to see the numbers grow, so there must be some inflation for the sense of progression to exist.

Of course, dealing 5,000 damage at level 60, for example, only means that additional content that expands the offensive potential of characters down the road, whether from gear or some other advancement like levels, will need to see that number go to perhaps 6,000. And then it needs to go to 7,000. And then to 8,000. And one day to 10,000. This sort of inflation is inevitable but by inflating it more slowly early on, it does not need to grow so large, so fast.

Anyway, like I said, it is not the biggest deal but I can see why it would some sense to pull it back a bit. I'd be content doing 10 damage on average at level 1 and 500 damage on average at level 60, for example, which still is a massive increase but not so much that the game would need to crack the quadruple or even quintuple digits any time soon. It would take more than 7 increases of 10% to turn 500 into 1,000, so if each expansion of power stuck to an increase of 10%, it would be years until it got that high.

Actually you can counteract this effect rather easily, the problem becomes however that you do not notice your character becoming stronger. Personally, i'd think it as worth it. *shrug*

zagemogga · March 2013

Maybe an option in the settings to display every value divided by 1000 or something to get back to normal?

dagger2thugtrap7 · March 2013

korbanhod wrote: »

Damage should be lower, way lower.

It would be nice to see the numbers be more like actual 4th edition numbers. doing +100 dmg is quite insane even for late game characters in the books.

That depends whether the enemies how much resistance been enhanced spring up against you. If I could see well in videos most attacks can be avoidable by dodging or while the slow enemy's interaction that would being done and being beamed on the ground you are possible without stint again pushing through raids with skills off the reel!

elve · March 2013

The numbers do not really matter IMO as long as the combat speed is decent. Bigger numbers give greater accuracy when calculating damage but that is about it.

salomar23 · March 2013

zagemogga wrote: »

Maybe an option in the settings to display every value divided by 1000 or something to get back to normal?

Then youd be hitting mobs for 3.247 or 0.325 damage :P

devoneaux · March 2013

salomar23 wrote: »

Then youd be hitting mobs for 3.247 or 0.325 damage :P

We could always just turn them off.

vikoon · March 2013

devoneaux wrote: »

We could always just turn them off.

I would assume that would be an option, and if the numbers to get insane then I will turn them off. There will still be a damage total up at the end of some instances that will have some massive totals I imagine.

ozium · March 2013

or could just use percent numbers of damage to total HP of mob, ie 1.5 for 1.5 percent damage done. course might be disheartening to face boss and see .001

elminban · March 2013

I remember at the keep siege in NwN II I had sand with a 2h sword (I think Kopesh) and he crit for 56 dmg and I was very taken back. It was a lot of damage for Sand to be doing in melee with 10 STR. If you add four zeros to that damage and also add four zeros to the monster it does not change anything. However, seeing three digits or more seems wrong for DnD, I am sure we will see it however. MMOs can't seem to keep small numbers easily. Players want instant gratification and doing 50 damage at lvl 1 and 50000 at max lvl is better for that.

The Real Numbers

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