Reposting this because the previous post has been locked after the dev appears to not have checked the correct issue. April 19 update https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/game-update-notes-april-19-2023.290134/ Previous bug post https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...weapon-damage-to-apply-full-damage-if.290222/ Ratalthor: Ratalthor appears to have tested whether any elemental damage was being applied. That isn't the issue. Some elemental damage has always applied but there would be partial resists. However, with the new change the wording suggests that elemental damage will always apply for full damage if a mob isn't immune (assumed to mean over 200 resist). Detailed parsing is required in order to test this and isolate the partial resists like the original bug report, it can't be isolated simply by adding elemental damage to a weapon and looking to see if the max hit changes. The previous post on this topic identified clearly that partial resists for archery were still happening. Relevant dev post about elemental damage (post #15 by niente) https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...tio-calculation-with-elemental-damage.274525/ 1. In order to test this, the same elemental bow and arrow could be used against enemies of several resist values (e.g. 50, 150, and 250). Resists at 50 and 150 should result in identical DPS because partial resists are no longer being rolled and both will allow elemental damage to always hit for max values, while the 250 resist should show a measurable drop in DPS as all elemental damage is fully resisted above 200. 2. Or if you had very high elemental damage, you could step the resist values much smaller like 100, 120, 140, 160, 180, 200, and see the max hit value change as you approach 200 resist (immune). 3. Or you could take a 500 physical damage arrow and compare it to one with 1 physical and 499 elemental damage. They should both have the same max hit after the update if the enemy isn't immune to that element. Although, testing may not even be required. A search in the archery damage calculation (for something similar to the elemental damage calculation posted by niente, that was changed for melee) may reveal that the resist rolls are still taking place for archery. To Summarize What was tested - does elemental damage do something for archery? Yes, it adds non-zero damage with partial resists to archery currently, just like it always has prior to this patch. What needs to be tested/corrected - elemental damage for archery should either apply full weapon damage as if it was physical, or be fully resisted depending on the enemy's resists. Partial resists of elemental bow and arrow damage are still taking place after the patch - this is the bug.
I second this repost. The bug I raised was not concerned with whether elemental damage was applied at all or not. My testing and the development testing both agree it is being applied. The concern raised was that elemental archery damage from a bow or on an arrow was still being resisted. This is inconsistent with the change that occurred for basic melee in the patch notes and has been confirmed in my testing. The only point of contention that is subject to interpretation from the patch notes is with respect to if archery damage was intended to also be addressed or not with this change to “melee”.
I love all the effort that went to producing a quality bug report for the dev to not read it then lock the thread. Good job.
If I’m being honest, in my first few parses I looked at the same thing (max damage) and drew simplified conclusions similar to the results from the QA review. It was only when sharing my initial results with some peers and discussing what was (or was not) being observed that led me to evaluate the distribution of max damage outcomes (shared in bug OP). I’m hopeful that the team will also look at the distribution analytics a bit closer and hopefully query the archery damage code to see if similar resist logic exists and was overlooked in making this update for melee elemental damage.
I get where you're coming from, but it's a pretty big miss. Your post clearly claims that the issue is not binary. It further claims that the issue affects bows, not just arrows, in bold red text no less. Ratalthor's reply, taken at face value, misses all of this. Even being generous, I fail to see how someone could read your post and conclude that the testing strategy described by Ratalthor would be effective. Best case, Ratalthor wasn't actually involved in the testing and relevant information was lost in a game of telephone when closing the bug report.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m as befuddled as the next person regarding the response provided. Besides the obvious testing error in QA, the trite response dismissing the significance of arrows was particularly frustrating. Clearly an 8 elemental increment (4 from bow, 4 from arrow in LDON era) is insignificant when using a bow value test in the hundreds which may exist on Live, but that assumption does not hold true through the expansions. HOWEVER, missing 8 damage from 50 base damage between a bow and an arrow is a significant haircut to damage values used in the calculation of archery damage - besides fundamentally being wrong to ignore it as insignificant. Please don’t make me parse again to prove my point I’m also fairly frustrated that what I see as obvious and presented clearly wasn’t even mentioned in the response as a point that was tested. Given my goal is a solution and a fix to the disparate treatment present between archery and melee resists, I am trying to focus on working the team through the view versus jumping to potentially misplaced conclusions on why something was missed.
Transparency is extremely limited, so some assumptions are unavoidable. In my experience, the Netflix approach[1] has served me well, but its not without risk. Calling them out may put them on the defensive and entrench them in their position. If they're making a good faith effort, patience and understanding can certainly be effective; however, if laziness is the core issue, then it will only enable the behavior. Given the detached response and closure of communication, my gut is with laziness. We've strayed pretty far off topic. I don't want to last-word you, but maybe we should drop this. Cheers. 1: https://jobs.netflix.com/culture
Your original testing was excellent and well laid out. It looks like they may have just quickly skimmed over it and missed or misunderstood the actual issue. While it would be fair and consistent to treat archery and melee the same for elemental damage, I think there are other reasons for this change. It will elevate elemental damage out of "junk" status when people are looking at items without making any massive balance changes, but more importantly, this appears to be consistent with their attempts to reduce lag by removing unnecessary calculations.
The lag reduction view is plausible. I expect archery damage calculations are a very small subset of damage calculations that contribute to lag so it’s possible this simply wasn’t on the radar in calculations that contribute to lag “on the daily”. In any case, thank you for the repost. Let’s hope it gets some traction again.
Thank you for revisiting this topic! I read your data in the previous post and am impressed by all of your efforts. This makes sense to re visit the elemental damage for archery given this revamp that has been demonstrated to work for melee. I agree that if the recent change / fix was working properly then archery elemental damage is either applied in full or resisted and as you have demonstrated the archery damage from bow or arrow is not applying full damage. Hope it can be addressed! Thanks again.
After some additional testing we were able to reproduce the issue and it is now being tracked internally. Thank you for your report!
