Source: https://forums.station.sony.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/damage-splitting.198004/#post-2422058 This was how drenz explained damage splitting. I did some testing to see how this was working in reality. I used Vortex Cannon in DPS role in the first room of Monarch Playing Card Challenge without any damage modifier. My character has 3164 Might. When I was conducting these tests, I always made sure the J1N1 and Deranger were killed. I included the Raw Damage Data. You can skip over it to the final three sections. Raw Damage Data Attack 1 Enemy Test #1: 672 (crit) Test #2: 359 Test #3: 341 Test #4: 328 Test #5: 737 (crit) Attack 2 Enemies Test #1: 332, 724 Test #2: 326, 329 Test #3: 339, 339 Test #4: 352, 364 Test #5: 322, 687 Attack 3 Enemies Test #1: 462, 214, 237 Test #2: 225, 220, 240 Test #3: 222, 230, 236 Test #4: 490, 498, 216 Test #5: 474, 485, 217 Attack 4 Enemies Test #1: 173, 171, 172, 167 Test #2: 340, 181, 167, 164 Test #3: 345, 345, 177, 177 Test #4: 161, 168, 168, 180 Test #5: 172, 340, 168, 373 Attack 5 Enemies Test #1: 290, 138, 129, 273, 287 Test #2: 140, 138, 143, 138, 140 Attack 6 Enemies Test #1: 242, 234, 121, 111, 119, 112 Test #2: 235, 108, 117, 113, 111, 116 Attack 7 Enemies Test #1: 94, 208, 102, 102, 96, 102, 103 Test #2: 98, 101, 103, 103, 98, 100, 102 Attack 8 Enemies Test #1: 167, 80, 86, 88, 82, 87, 84, 186 Test #2: 90, 179, 89, 84, 90, 81, 87, 181 Average Attack Damage Let's see what the average damage is for each test. I excluded crits. Attack 1 Enemy: 342 damage to a single enemy. Attack 2 Enemies: 337 damage to each enemy Attack 3 Enemies: 225 damage to each enemy Attack 4 Enemies: 171 damage to each enemy Attack 5 Enemies: 138 damage to each enemy Attack 6 Enemies: 115 damage to each enemy Attack 7 Enemies: 100 damage to each enemy Attack 8 Enemies: 85 damage to each enemy Total Attack Damage If you multiply the average damage by the number of enemies, you get the following: Attack 1 Enemy: 342 total damage Attack 2 Enemies: 674 total damage Attack 3 Enemies: 675 total damage Attack 4 Enemies: 684 total damage Attack 5 Enemies: 690 total damage Attack 6 Enemies: 690 total damage Attack 7 Enemies: 700 total damage Attack 8 Enemies: 680 total damage If you do enough testing, the total damage for "Attack 2 to 8" should be the same. Conclusion Is this the way the system is supposed to work? Is the damage supposed to be divided equally among all the enemies? drenz's statement is a bit ambiguous. I was hoping two targets would always take "full damage" and any other mobs would take divided damage from a third pool. As you can see from the Raw Damage Data examples, the damage is being divided. "Attack 7 Enemies Test #2" is a good example. This verifies what I was seeing while I was raiding the other day. My AoE powers were doing terrible damage on a per-enemy basis. Since tanks can now round up to 8 enemies with a single pull, this could be considered a problem. Sure you're doing the same total damage, but it takes longer to kill any decent-sized group. Smart PvP players can use this system to their advantage by using pets to greatly reduce incoming damage. Now that most AoE powers are splitting after two attacks, this tactic will be very effective. I like that Control Effects are working on up to 8 enemies now. It gives Controllers and Tanks a much needed buff. The problem is the terrible per-enemy damage.
Your results is the same way I understood it. Truthfully it doesn't seem flawed, but it goes closer to the border of "Bland", which I think is where so much of the hostility of the update comes from. I'm not as worried about the damage aspect, but it seems that there isn't any benefit to AoEs compared to how much better they could work except for damage. If you go for a pure AoE build then essentially you just choose all bottom tier powers if possible. I did a small write up last night of a better system I think could be implemented while still maintaining the sense of order and future damage balance passes. When I get off work I might jot it down here later.
I think the system is working as intended, but I want to make sure. The way drenz described the system seems more interesting. I agree with the "bland" statement. Part of what keeps me interested in playing is knowing the nuances of the powersets. On Live, some powers do undivided damage. Others powers don't split and damage a specific number of enemies. I liked changing my loadout to suit the situation. I'm guessing that standardizing all of the AoE attacks was the dev team's easiest avenue for achieving balance. The side-effect is that it removes some of the distinctive flair that helped to distinguish the powersets. I'll make a note to keep an eye out for that post. It'll be an interesting read.
This is how Sytenia described it: 1 target - 100% damage. 2 targets - 100% damage on each (200% total). 3 targets - 66% damage on each (200% total). 4 targets - 50% damage on each (200%) total). 5 targets - 40% damage on each (200% total). 6 targets - 33% damage on each (200% total). 7 targets - 28.6% damage on each (200% total). 8 targets - 25% damage on each (200% total). That was confirmed by Shiny Mackerel and seems to fit fairly well with your numbers.
Following the discussion in the other thread that got locked I did some testing too (on the live server). My notes from testing: Sticky Bomb specifically is a bit of an odd story though, it hits up to 3 targets, does not split on 2 targets but when used on 3 targets the target I had locked took full damage and the other two targets each took half of that as in 100% + 50% + 50%, effective split after 2. This looks more like what drenz explained and that got me rather confused as I had never seen damage split like this. I tested this quite a lot to make sure I was not doing things wrong or misreading. I added Gauss Grenade to test the splitting of how I thought it worked and what they dismissed me with at first in the other thread, testing Gauss Grenade made it clear that I was not losing my mind or something. I remember Vortex Cannon which the OP tested used to split after 1 target, I've not used it recently for much else than controlling so have not paid much attention to the damage from it but I can go test it to verify. If it did split after 1 then atleast it got an upgrade now. Now I'm starting to think I am rather unaware of most powers that split after more than 2 on live currently. At first it was only Resonating Gale for ice I knew of which does not split at all and hits up to 18 targets or something, now Fear Gas is added even though it is rather impractical to make it hit more than 2 targets. I've always though pretty much all AoE powers already split after 2.
Yeah, so FG doesn't split, SB splits oddly, and GG splits as it should. Honestly, I think this is even more support for some kind of standardization. Now, that's not to say that an idea like Radium's, where splitting would differ from tier to tier, wouldn't be good. Personally, I like it. It's just that having abilities do all sorts of different things makes it extremely difficult to balance.
I did some testing with Vortex Cannon but on the live server, while it does split after 1 it also has some other things going on. When used on upto 3 targets it hits each of them once for 33% damage, making up for 100% damage, this is normal for an attack that splits after 1. When used on more than 3 targets things start to get odd. It then adds a second tick of damage shortly after the first that seems to hit 3 other enemies than the first 3 and also hits them for 33% even if there is less than 3. (I cannot guarantee that it did not hit any of the targets that were hit by the first tick other than the one I had targetted as they are all sent flying with the CC effect and it is very hard to see what goes on without use of the combat log). When used on a total of 4 targets this makes up for 33% + 33% + 33% + 33% and any targets over that each add another 33%. This totals up to 200% when it hits 6 targets which is equal to what a split after 2 power can do in damage. All this does not even happen all the time, there were times where I was facing a large group and all in range of the attack but only the first tick on 3 enemies happened, I have not found out what triggers it. Another thing to add is I've even had it hit 7 targets a few times, all for 33% for a total of 233%. I was unable to see if the last one was another tick or what happened. Testing this powers also adds a lot of messages to the combat log due to the CC it does to all the enemies it hits so it is rather hard to keep track of things with it. I do this testing all controlled and with targets that do not move from anything but the CC I apply to them.
@Sytenia I picked Vortex Cannon for testing because it has a large attack cone and I didn't have to worry about counting DoTs on it. Everything I've tested so far on Test seems to be following the standardized splitting model. I understand why the development team standardized all of the AoE powers. It'll make it easier to balance the game. I'm just hoping something can be done to make the AoE powers a little more interesting. The primary effect now is that slows down the burn on large groups of regular enemies.
I threw out the suggestion in Radium's thread that perhaps splitting could be scaled by AoE type (e.g., narrow cones split earlier than wide fields). As is, the smaller AoEs are less likely to hit more than a few regardless of how many are there, whereas the larger AoEs are likely to hit 8, as long as there are 8 or more to hit. Thus, the wide AoE fields will suffer more from splitting as implemented than the smaller ones.
