Importance of Charisma?

I'm necroing this thread instead of posting in https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/official-cha-debate.267465/ just because this thread has a lot of good info.

I was thinking about this post yesterday, maybe I got my math wrong but if SPA 22 has a minimum 5% chance of breaking each tick, it would mean it has a 95%, or 0.95, chance of breaking of NOT breaking each tick. My charm on my 21 enchanter is somewhere around 5 minutes now, which corresponds to 50 ticks. That would mean there would be 50 chances to break early, which at 95% chance to succeed the check would mean that over the lifetime of the charm spell there would be a 0.95 ^ 50, or 0.0769, or about 7.69% chance to go the full duration. Yesterday I had some garbage blue frog charmed and I think he went the full duration 4 times in a row.

So what am I missing here? Because it feels like there is a much lower bottom on that minimum % chance to break. Am I misreading it and it's really a 5% MAXIMUM chance of breaking? Because that'd probably be closer to what I've experienced. Or maybe this info is outdated?

A resist doesn't mean a break. I keep telling people it works like Lull. For reference Lull works like

First Check resist
If Resisted make a second check based on CHA
If Cha check fails mob agro, If CHA check successful mob doesn't agro

Charm works the same way but instead of agro it's break or doesn't break

Two factors primarily affect charm landing or breaking:

1. The level of the mob relative to you.
2. The magic resistance of the mob.

Everything else is just noise and/or statistically insignificant.

I can appreciate your wanting to know the details, but you might not get anyone with authority to answer you.

Yep, see above. A blue con may very well go the duration several times in a row.

That might be the case, but I've never heard this theory before. Where did you hear it?

Sure, if we agree as players that the developer responsible for this part of EQ is wrong about how it works, that list you provided (level/MR) is how I'm treating the system (though I do keep my CHA buff up for good luck at the very least). I'm mostly just trying to confirm that I'm not the only person who looked at the 5% minimum chance to break as so far from the truth that nothing in Niente's post can be trusted.

Funny thought: What if the last few times the EQ devs considered nerfing charm on TLPs they asked what the minimum break chance was per tick, were told it was 5% and said that was risky enough because it'd mean that charm should, at best, only last around 13 ticks or a minute and change on average. When in fact 5% is the maximum break chance because of the ole'

float boundedChance = std::min<float>(0.05, calcChance);
vs
float boundedChance = std::max<float>(0.05, calcChance);

Also if next patch we get a line that says "Fixed bounding in SPA 3, 20, 22, 99 calculations" and now snare/charm/blindness/root is trash:

what the dev posted is completely bogus... snare doesnt break early neither does mez
and they never have.

however, charm used to last a minute or 2 in the original game.

Well, his post was ONLY about CHA; it wasn't a question about "how does charm work." So, it could be that CHA has the effect he posted (not sure why he would knowingly post wrong/incorrect information), but MR/level difference also have importance.

Also it could be that the fact that you had charm last 4 times in a row at full duration is just an improbable outcome that happened. Just because you noticed that doesn't mean his post is wrong ;p

Any developer responses in the past decade or so have been (paraphrased), "Charisma makes a difference but it's statistically insignificant."

Edit: I went back and read what niente posted. He said "CHA affects SPA 22." He didn't say to what extent.

What part don't you understand?

June 29, 2018

For reference:

3 Movement Rate (Snares)
20 Blindness
22 Charm
99 Root

http://everquest.fanra.info/wiki/SPA_list

The part you made up.

Yeah, sorry. I stealth edited my post after I went back and read what niente said.

Doesn't 1 charisma = .01 mod to charm break for chanters, .001 for others?

This is what happens when the devs revamp necro.

Again, his post was only in reference to cha, but it may be that lvl difference/MR impacts that percentage. It's an incomplete post so hard to get a full understanding of what he meant.

The post should have definitely been more along the lines of: "how does charm work"

I think Niente means that the chance of resisting every tick has a floor() of 5%. Meaning you can't reduce it to e.g. 4% by any means not withstanding charms that are specifically coded to last full duration (e.g. Dire Charm).

ps: There are many (most original) spells that have a minimum resist chance (floor) of 5%.
pps: There are modern spells that have resist chance MIN/MAX as part of their spdat.
ppps: There is also "243 - NoBreakCharmChance" which enables Dire Charm and Domination Mastery AA (enchanter, bard, druid).

Reason being, some of us have actually spent hours testing this, with and without buffs, with and without gear, and the end result is, it's doesn't break the margin of error.

This is very easy to test in the real game world.

On live, it's beyond a moot point, as everyone is overcapped without trying. On TLPs it makes no difference, because the variables you can attain don't amount to a sizable enough difference to register. The notion that 115 charisma vs 85 is going to turn you into super chanter is laughable.

Does CHA make a difference? Sure....having an extra bag of groceries in your car lowers your gas mileage....it's about the same here.

There are 2 things that matter in classic. 1. Hit points, 2. Str to carry loot.