Some Insight into the CR Differential Adjustment

Discussion in 'Oracle’s Database (Guides)' started by shiny mackerel, Jul 19, 2015.

  1. shiny mackerel Committed Player

    These are the results of all the testing I've done on the CR Differential Adjustment since GU47 dropped. It's an incomplete picture with incomplete data, but it should still be quite helpful. What I did was exhaustively test damage on different NPCs at a wide range of CRs to find out how it worked and if there were any patterns. While I can't explain everything about it, I can at least show you what it looks like.

    First, some disclaimers:
    1) It looks very buggy right now. There are CR points where your damage just suddenly drops or resets. The devs are supposedly aware of the issue. This bug likely explains some of the inconsistencies in NPC difficulty people have been reporting.

    2) It could change at any time. I already noticed a couple of changes while it was on test and when it hit live. And hopefully they'll fix the bug. Also this tweet from Loche.


    What is the CR Differential Adjustment?
    That's basically it. It's just an independent multiplier to your damage. When your equipped CR is higher, it's a damage buff. And when your CR is lower, it's a damage debuff. When your CR is equal to the NPC's, there is no change in damage. The same goes for an NPC's damage against you, but their scaling is a bit different. The last part about a greater effect with a larger difference in CR is generally true, though there are exceptions that probably have to do with the bug I mentioned.

    The scaling is done by tiers. The CR Differential Adjustment will look roughly the same for all NPCs in the same tier, and each tier has a different scaling. The only differences I've found between NPCs of the same tier happens coincidentally at around the buggy CRs. And while I haven't tested every NPC in the game, I think I've gone through enough NPCs of different ranks and levels to be fairly sure. Loche also kind of hints at this in FNL 83.

    All my raw data can be found here, which you can refer to for exact numbers:
    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...xEHaaDVulmT4HulaPyRbH3oZZk/edit#gid=923320606


    Index
    1. First look at the Sparring Target
    2. Damage Inflicted
    3. Damage Taken
    4. How defense works after GU47
    5. Stats vs. CR - which matters more on gear?
    • Like x 22
  2. shiny mackerel Committed Player

    The Sparring Target

    Here's what the CR Differential Adjustment looks like when you attack a Sparring Target. Starting from CR 126, there's a steep, linear penalty of -10% damage per CR. At CR 123, you're already only hitting for 70% of normal damage. Then it slows down a bit until CR 119, where your damage starts decaying exponentially at a rate of 10% damage per CR. At CR 100, something odd happens. When you drop to CR 99, your damage suddenly jumps up and sort of "resets", before again decreasing at the same rate of 10% damage per CR. This happens again at CR 84. Then at CR 70, your damage stops changing and bottoms out at around 6% of normal damage.

    [IMG]

    Here's a closer look at the adjustment near the CR of the Sparring Target. The x-axis here is CR differential, which is just your CR relative to the target's CR. See the spreadsheet if you want exact numbers at each CR for damage testing or comparisons.

    [IMG]
    • Like x 12
  3. shiny mackerel Committed Player

    Damage Inflicted - Tier 7

    This is what the adjustment looks like on a CR 121 NPC in New Genesis. I've highlighted the CR relevancy window/min CR and also the suggested CR. Below the CR of these NPCs, your damage improves significantly with each additional CR gained. But above CR 121, the effect is barely noticeable and your damage is only buffed by about 0.7% at CR 126.

    [IMG]

    Looking at CR differential, you can see that this is the same exact curve as that of the Sparring Target, which is also a Tier 7 NPC. Within this range of CR differentials, I think it's fairly safe to assume that the CR scaling for all T7 NPCs looks like this. It's only around those buggy CR points where you start to see differences.

    [IMG]
    • Like x 12
  4. shiny mackerel Committed Player

    Damage Inflicted - Tier 6

    T6 looks pretty similar to T7. From 111 to 100 CR, for this CR 111 NPC at least, the CR differential curve looks exactly like a T7 NPC's. And it does the same buggy thing of resetting at CR 100 and CR 84. But it also appears to bug out and drop damage slightly at CR 117 as well.

    [IMG]

    A closer look with the CR relevancy window for the Spark of Parallax solo shown. The drop happens just outside of the relevant CRs for this instance. And still just a very slight benefit for being a few CRs above the target.

    [IMG]

    With the CR differential. I didn't test T6 NPCs outside of the solo but I'm pretty sure that the scaling for other T6 NPCs looks roughly like this outside of the discontinuity at 117 CR.

    [IMG]
    • Like x 12
  5. shiny mackerel Committed Player

    Damage Inflicted - Tier 5

    T5 looks a lot different. You see the same drops in damage at CR 70, 84, 100, and 117, but now you also see what happens when your CR gets much, much higher than your target's. At 30 CR above this CR 95 NPC, your damage is buffed by 100%. But then move up 1 CR and suddenly your damage buff spikes up to just over 400%.

    [IMG]

    Here's a closer look at two different T5 NPCs, one CR 93 and one CR 95. You'll see that the curves are the same except around the buggy looking CRs 84 and 100. Now the damage drop is well inside the CR relevancy window, which might explain some of the inconsistent difficulty reports.

    [IMG]

    [IMG]

    Here are the two NPCs plotted together. Shift the CR 93 NPC right 2 CRs and you get the same curve, except around CR 84 and 100.

    [IMG]
    • Like x 11
  6. shiny mackerel Committed Player

    Damage Inflicted - Tier 4

    T4 looks sort of like T5. The same thing happens at CR 70, 84, 100, and 117, but the massive damage spikes happen earlier, and at 116 and 123 CR for these Prime/Gates NPCs in particular. It's just bizarre.

    [IMG]

    A closer look at the scaling for the CR 92 raid NPCs. Again, there's a discontinuity at CR 84 which falls within the CR relevancy window.

    [IMG]

    And what it looks like for a CR 89 NPC. It was only recently when I realized there might be more fishy things going on with the CR differential. In the content rebalancing thread, someone posted about the T4 CR 89 Oolong Siege Robot. Loche said about the CR 108 player:
    Maybe he read something wrong since getting only a 4% damage buff for being 19 CR higher seems a bit low. But this was nowhere close to what I found when I tested it. I saw your damage being increased by around 33% instead. This plot is for CR 89 NPCs in the T4 duos, but I also did go and test the Oolong Siege Robot to double check, and found the same thing.

    [IMG]

    The two NPCs plotted together. Also pretty much the same scaling outside of the buggy CRs.

    [IMG]
    • Like x 12
  7. shiny mackerel Committed Player

    Damage Inflicted - Tier 3

    And T3 looks kind of like T4. After the giant damage spike, it continues to scale as usual.

    [IMG]

    Like T4, there are multiple points within the relevancy window where CR makes no difference. This kind of makes sense, given that the CR relevancy window is 53-79 for CR 80 NPCs in the T3 duos.

    [IMG]

    It's probably not a coincidence that there's always a discontinuity right at the min CR. Most of the buggy CR points - 53, 84, 100, have been the min CR for some instance. CR 117 isn't a min CR for any instance, but it does fall just right outside the 116 CR tail for some T6 windows. I'm sure the bug has something to do with relevancy windows and the scaling from different tiers interacting unintentionally.
    • Like x 11
  8. shiny mackerel Committed Player

    Damage Inflicted - Tier 1

    I didn't test T2, so I can't say if it looks the same as T1. At 83 CR, damage seems to hit a cap of 900% normal damage (800% damage buff), which I also found for low level <T1 NPCs in open world.

    [IMG]

    The discontinuity at CR 53 happens just barely within the relevancy window for T1 solos.

    [IMG]
    • Like x 12
  9. shiny mackerel Committed Player

    Damage Taken - Tier 7

    Damage taken is much harder to test, so I don't have much data here. I can say that it seems to correlate with damage inflicted though. This is what the scaling looks like for the same CR 121 New Genesis NPC, which you could probably generalize to other T7 NPCs for the CR differential range shown. At 10 CR below, you're taking twice the normal damage and dealing half the normal damage. And again there's barely a difference in the few CRs above.

    [IMG]


    Damage Taken - Tier 5

    You still see the same issues at 70, 84, 100, and 117 CR. The sudden drops in your damage out come with sudden increases in damage taken.

    [IMG]

    NPCs from the same tier, again, have roughly the same curve outside of the bugged CRs.

    [IMG]

    Another example of damage taken/inflicted being correlated. And actually if you plotted the reciprocal of one of these curves, they would practically overlap. But damage taken is definitely not as simple as just (1 / Damage Inflicted).

    [IMG]
    • Like x 11
  10. shiny mackerel Committed Player

    The New Defense Conversion

    After GU47, defense now scales with max CR instead of level, which shows up as "Combat Rating" in your stats window. But under level 30, it actually uses level instead of max CR. I tested mitigation at a bunch of different max CRs and found the new defense needed for 1% mitigation to be approximately: Def = Max CR * 3.5 + 46

    I'm not sure if this is it exactly but it should be pretty close. You need about 487 defense for 1% mitigation at 126 CR, and about 151 defense for 1% mitigation at 30 CR.

    [IMG]
    • Like x 13
  11. shiny mackerel Committed Player

    Stats vs. CR

    There's not much real point in looking at this since stats and CR go hand in hand, but it might be interesting to see how much of your progression comes from a somewhat hidden mechanic (CR Differential is not explained in game) and how much comes from stats.

    Here's an example of how your stats might scale with CR using a combination of iLvl 101 and 110 roleless gear. Everything looks linear, as expected after stat flattening. The first bump in the DPS stat was from equipping a weapon, but prec gains are linear as well. Maybe of note is that mitigation stays roughly flat since the defense-to-mitigation conversion scales linearly with CR as well.

    [IMG]


    This graph shows how your damage scales with stats vs. the CR Differential on a CR 126 Tier 7 NPC, using 126 CR as the reference point. At 116 CR, the loss in Might only represents a 7% drop in power damage from 126 CR. The loss in DPS stat also represents about a 7% drop in weapon damage from 126 CR. But the CR Differential causes a drop of 50% in all damage. In this example, CR Differential feels much more significant than stats overall, though the relative improvements in damage are about the same from 119 to 123 CR.

    [IMG]

    Health scaling looks very similar. At 116 CR, the loss in Defense and Health drops your effective health by 7% from 126 CR as well. And the doubled NPC damage at 116 CR translates to a 50% drop in your effective health.

    [IMG]


    This is the same comparison but for a CR 121 NPC instead, using 121 CR as the reference point. Below the CR of the NPC, the CR Differential still matters more. But in the few CRs above, the CR Differential barely has an effect so stats become more important. Whether stats or CR Differential matters more when you go up 1 CR probably depends on the tier and CR of the NPCs you fight. But you can tell that CR Differential seems to matter more in general, especially when you're under the CR of your target.

    [IMG]

    [IMG]


    Here's an example of where stats might matter more below the CR of a target, for a hypothetical CR 88 Tier 4 NPC using 88 CR as the reference point. Obviously stats are going to contribute more when the CR Differential Adjustment doesn't change.

    [IMG]
    • Like x 14
  12. E Clip Dedicated Player

    Not sure if you're getting the recognition from the Devs about all your hard work man, but know that you certainly get ours! Another masterpiece, well done!
    • Like x 8
  13. chaotic3430 Committed Player

    Wow, just wow. You put in a lot of work on this. Nice and easily readable for a quick look at the difference. Maybe now the 120cr and below people will shut up about how OP they are when in a group of 126cr DPS' that are fully modded with over 200sp wondering why they are getting annihilated in damage. While they continue to say that they don't need mods, skill points are pointless, and are too lazy to spend two minutes to get tactical mods atleast.
    • Like x 3
  14. BipolarDiva Loyal Player

    This.
    • Like x 1
  15. undrline Issue Tracker Volunteer

    A lot of work and, as usual, very much needed.

    Myself, and people who have been modding and going for skill points as usual, though, still seem faced with a question that's difficult to answer, even with all this data. That is whether it's worth equipping a piece that's only going to give them a tiny bit of stats. The questions I keep facing are these:
    • If I should buy a 108 piece that's not going to give me a style (off role) or CR over my 102 piece, or wait for the 110 drop.
    • Same thing for a 110 over a 108 ... should I put it on my support role or my damage role. (If the support role is tank, it makes it even tougher choice, since this only really applies to damage inflicted/afflicted).
    • As a healer, how much should I worry about that low CR guy? Anecdotally, they take spike damage with less leeway for reaction time, because they tend to be more careful overall.
    It'd be nice for a short if...then rubric that doesn't require understanding what you've written.
  16. shiny mackerel Committed Player

    That's kind of hard to answer. It'll depend on what CR you're at now, what CR NPCs you're fighting, how much you can afford to buy new gear, etc. I can't say what you should do exactly. But I can say that stats still make an impact, so there's still a point in trying to boost them. For deciding to buy gear at the T6-T7 level, I think the most important thing is that you try and get your CR up to the same as the NPCs as soon as possible. Starting from 3 CR below a T7 npc, each additional CR gained until equal CR is an enormous improvement in damage and survivability. Once you're over the NPC's CR though there's barely any improvement and you can save up your marks unless you want the minor upgrades in stats.

    You should probably use a CR calculator to see how buying a piece changes your CR. And then figure out where your CR is relative to the NPCs you're gonna fight. Then refer to the T7 pics to see where your CR differential's at, and if the improvement in damage out or survivability for moving up 1 CR is worth it to you. Between -3 and +0 CR differential, it should be. Also below -7 CR differential it should be. The improvement slows down between -7 and -4 CR so that's up to you.

    If you're a support role though, CR probably matters less as you really only care about survivability. At 7 CR below a T7 npc you're only taking 25% more damage. I don't know what damage looks like in T7 raids but it doesn't sound like it'd be too bad. As long as it doesn't turn hits into one shots you can heal it? :) Past -7 CR the penalty does get quite steep though. Someone that's 10 CR below will be taking double damage. Whether CR matters in surviving for low CR guys depends on how much damage they take, how often that is, the healer, etc. You can probably feel how much you need to worry about him from just watching health bars and playing as usual.
    • Like x 1
  17. CrazyArtBrown Dedicated Player

    For healer and troll roles, that seems right. Plus or minus a CR point isn't going to make a big difference. You will still be killed or not by one-shot mechanics. And for all other types of damage, you're mainly changing the load you put onto the support chain to heal you. For 0 to -3 relative to enemy CR, it looks like roughly 6% extra per CR point, and then it flattens out to eventually hit that 25% more damage in at -7.

    Your average incoming damage/sec number is so small relative to the tank that as long as you survive the one-shot style spikes, your 6% difference is trivial. As a practical example, I've seen and been recommending that people in healer and troll roles who have the OP items should take a 1 point CR hit for the higher stats.

    The situation is a little different for tanks though. The raids are balanced correctly when the tank plus healer(s) just barely survives the rate of incoming damage/sec. Let's make up totally fake numbers and say the incoming damage is 1,000 per second after Defense. It's an ice tank where their own absorption via shields covers an average of 800 per second. The healer has to cover the remaining 200/sec.

    Now drop the tank 1 CR and the damage rises about 6% to 1,060/second incoming. Tank absorption will still be 800/sec. The healer now needs to cover 260/sec. That's a 20% increase to healing needed for just 6% more damage to the tank. That's how it feels, too. My subjective experience fighting the 1st boss in NGN, Ingrid @ 120CR, is that a CR119 tank requires noticeably more healing than one who is 120. Go above 120 and it's only a little easier.

    Kristyana's old fire tank guide pounded this concept into my brain. An example there was the tactical mod to go from 75% to 80% absorption. It's not a 5% reduction in difficulty; it's way more. You have to consider the size of the gap between incoming damage and how much you can heal yourself for. The underlying Restoration needed changes by more than 5%.
    • Like x 3
  18. Unida Dedicated Player

    *waits for a green name to come in and say you're testing it wrong*

    j/k

    love your posts SM - always a clear and concise data dump of great and relevant information.

    always appreciated!
    • Like x 1
  19. Remander Steadfast Player

    Great work and analysis, as usual, shiny! Thanks for this! Hope the Dev team can iron out the obvious kinks.
  20. Maximus Hunter Well-Known Player

    Very cool and vastly appreciated in the explaination of the new defense conversion. It used to keep me awake at night wondering about what exactly the meaning of defense scales with CR actually meant.