Author Topic: Call me picky but...(correct/add to the Encyclopedia)  (Read 1021 times)

BFG

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Call me picky but...(correct/add to the Encyclopedia)
« on: November 18, 2005, 08:19:02 pm »
(heavily re-edited)

In the 10+ years CT's been out we've learned a great deal about its inner workings.  A lot of that material is available here in the Compendium, which is great.  But for the perfectionists out there (myself included) there's still room for improvement.

Case in point: I've recently started working on the exact relationships between some of the weapon stats.  And not all of them line up with the established "knowledge" about CT.
Here's an example.  According to what we know, damage is determined by the following formula:
4/3 * (character's PWR stat) + 5/9 * (weapon strength) *2
for an enemy with normal defense.  This is also twice the character's attack power statistic--i.e. a maxed out Crono with 99 PWR and Rainbow (220 weapon strength) has an attack power of 254.  This formula would dictate Crono should do around 508 points of damage with each attack.

It turns out that the true number is 517, slightly higher.  Why?  No idea; it's not caused by equipment or the other stats.  Several hundred tests prove it though.  In every single case the true damage done is higher than this older formula predicts.  Here's the true formula if anyone cares to know it:
((11/8) * PWR + (5/9) * WPN) *2, +- 1%
(And to add in the effect of an enemy's defense, multiply by (255 - DEF) / 128.)

Okay, so 9 damage points isn't that big a deal.  But I think the Encyclopedia could benefit from a "average damage per hit" statistic, taking into account true HP damage, critical rate, and special bonuses, which to my knowledge has never been calculated.  When you do this, which weapons are the best end up changing.  For example, Crono's weapons listed in order of Attack Power:
57 Mop
62 Wood Sword
72 Iron Blade
91 SteelSaber
103 Lode Sword
116 Bolt Sword
128 Red Katana
152 Flint Edge
160 Slasher
177 Dark Saber
226 Aeon Blade
274 Demon Edge
323 AlloyBlade
360 Star Sword
384 VedicBlade
582 Swallow
509 Kali Blade
540 Slasher 2
571 Shiva Edge
1212 Rainbow

According to this list, the Swallow, not the Shiva Edge, is the second-best sword, due to its high critical rate.


Anyway, to make a long story short: If the Powers That Be desire this kind of information, I'll be happy to provide it.  Right now I'm trying to:
--Calculate true average damage per weapon
--Produce in-game screenshots of each weapon in action
--Verify critical rates and special effects of each weapon
And I'll move to other parts of the game as time allows.

I'm posting here to get any feedback.  Waste of time? Already been done? Please let me know.

ZeaLitY

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Call me picky but...(correct/add to the Encyclopedia)
« Reply #1 on: November 19, 2005, 01:45:39 am »
If you'd like, would you do the editing? I have enough on my plate as it is. While encyclopedia registration is closed (simply because this isn't big enough to work as a real entry), the registration system itself still exists, and an accomodation could be made.

Mystik3eb

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Call me picky but...(correct/add to the Encyclopedia)
« Reply #2 on: November 19, 2005, 10:09:55 am »
Would you like me to help? BFG reminds me of me, except he/she took the intiative and actually asked and took notes, but I realized while reading the collected errors and such that I had seen most of those, too.

Anonymous

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Call me picky but...(correct/add to the Encyclopedia)
« Reply #3 on: November 19, 2005, 12:43:27 pm »
Hey, the more the merrier!  I'll try to finish the info on the weapons this weekend, but it'd be great if someone else joined in on the effort...if you do want to join in, how would you like to approach this?

BFG

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Call me picky but...(correct/add to the Encyclopedia)
« Reply #4 on: November 20, 2005, 07:28:32 pm »
Sorry about the guest post there...(remind me to set auto-login).

Anyway, I've finally determined what appears to be the EXACT formula for weapons damage by Crono/Frog/Robo/Magus:

Hit Point loss = (Weapon Strength * 20/9 + PWR * 16/3) / 255 * (255 - Enemy Defense) + (0 to PWR/3) + 0.5

It's 1 HP off or spot-on every time.  As an example, let's say you've got Crono maxed out (Rainbow w/ weapon strength of 220, PWR of 99, and attack strength of 254).  On a normal enemy, you would expect this damage:
(220 * 20/9 + 99 * 16/3) / 255 * (255 - 127) + (0 to 99/3) + 0.5, or
(488.9 + 528.0) * 0.502 + (0 to 33) + 0.5, or somewhere between 511 and 544 with an average of 528.  This is precisely what you do get in-game.

For simplicity's sake, it's probably better just to calculate off attack power (254 in the above example).  It's not as exact but it's pretty close.

Hit Point Loss = Attack Power / 64 * (255 - Enemy Defense) + 1 + (0 to PWR/3)
For a normal enemy:
Hit Point Loss = Attack Power * 2 + 1 + (0 to PWR/3)
For a 0 defense enemy:
Hit Point Loss = Attack Power * 4 + 1 + (0 to PWR/3)
For a very high defense enemy:
Hit Point Loss = Attack Power / 32 + 1 + (0 to PWR/3)