Strengthens/Weakens Armor bug fix? [RESOLVED 0.10.24]

[Interkarma]

Daedric armour has -5 armour value. On paper doll: 100 - -5 = 105. Then 105 / 5 = 21.

Armour hit formulas don't use the paper doll values at all. These are just for display. The formula uses -5, which is the real internal armour value of Daedric.

[mikeprichard]

Are you saying Daedric only adds 5% to evade chance, or is the formula not calculating evade percentage directly? 5% only for Daedric can't be the case (it doesn't match either classic in-game testing or Allofich's reverse-engineering), so I'm yet again being dense about what you're saying!

(I do realize the paper doll values aren't used in the formula; rather, from Allofich's prior work, it was found that the armor's related evade % values actually used in the formula in classic are five times the paper doll values - i.e. 105 (100 + 5) rather than simply 5 for Daedric. If Daedric in fact only provides 5% to your character's chance to evade, it would make armor in general almost entirely irrelevant - e.g. wearing a full set of chain armor would similarly provide only a measly 1% to your chance to evade an attack - which is why I must still be misinterpreting your response.)

[Interkarma]

Unarmored body parts are 100 in formula, think of this as 0. The lower an armour value the better. Daedric is -5. 100 - -5 = 105 magnitude.

So -5 is actually a really high armour rating (relative to no armour at 100).

Backwards numbers are all kinds of confusing to me, and even though I knew this when writing the Strengthens/Weakens Armor effects, I still got it wrong at the time.

[mikeprichard]

Thanks for being so patient as always. I admit I still don't understand how exactly this "5" for Daedric or for these enchantments translate to factors within the percentage evasion chance calculation (I do know it's not merely 5% for Daedric armor there; in Allofich's linked example, Steel adds 45% to evade chance as used within the game formulas). However, I won't waste more of your time with this - I've totally derailed the bug topic by now in any case, per my usual MO!

[Interkarma]

No worries, happy to try and answer - you're very patient yourself. I'll try to expand on the formula a bit, then we can let that percolate and don't hesitate to ask more questions if you need to. I'll just focus on the formula, ignore the paper doll for a bit.

Just to simplify it all, let's say your chance to hit something with a weapon starts and ends with your skill value for that weapon. There are tons of other modifiers like swing direction, racial, backstab, etc. But let's pretend none of those exist and your chance to hit something is just your weapon skill, and let's say your weapon skill is currently 30%.

If you strike at someone with no armour at all, then your chance to hit is 30 + 100 (as 100=no armor) = 130%. Then there's a flat -50% applied at the end and the number is clamped between 3-97. This provides a little chance for success and little chance for failure on either side. If you can beat that final number on a D100 dice throw, you hit that target.

So attacking someone with no armour gives you 30 + 100 - 50 = 80% chance to hit. Pretty easy.

Then if you attack someone with head-to-toe steel armour, which has a 55 armour value (bear with me), then 30 + 55 - 50 = 35% chance to hit that steel-covered person. Note this is a 45% improvement relative to unarmoured.

If you attack someone with head-to-toe Daedric armour, which has a -5 armour value, then 30 + -5 - 50 = -25% chance to hit that target. Note this is a 105% improvement relative to unarmoured.

Finally, if you attack someone with head-to-toe Daedric armour with Strengthens Armor enchantment active, this becomes a -10 armour value. 30 + -10 - 50 = -30% chance to hit that target. That's a total of 110% improvement relative to unarmoured.

Now going back to paper doll display formula. What it's showing is the magnitude difference relative to unarmoured divided by 5. So Unarmoured is (100 - 100) / 5 = 0. Steel is (100 - 55) / 5 = 9. Daedric is (100 - -5) / 5 = 21.

I hope that helps.

[mikeprichard]

Omigosh, the thing I was missing was so simple in hindsight: Daedric's base armor value is -5 (i.e. negative 5) which is compared to default/unarmored's (positive) 100, which gives the 105% effective player evade chance difference I was looking for. You also cleared up my confusion where I was thinking the Strengthens Armor enchantment might somehow contribute an additional crazy-overpowered 105% to the final evade chance, when in fact it's only an additional 5%.

As I mentioned in an earlier post I edited, this means when you wear full Daedric armor, the "21" on the paper doll display indirectly represents a 105% effect on your evade chance, while if you add on top a Strengthens Armor enchantment, the resulting "26" on the display really only represents a 110% effect across all areas. This is therefore inconsistent, but I suppose any cosmetic "fix" (e.g. in this case to show "22" - i.e. a 110% contribution to evade chance - instead of "26" - which would be a 130% contribution) would further confuse at least veterans of classic. Just another quirk of our good friend Daggerfall.

I really appreciate the crystal-clear detailed explanation. Mighty nice of you to take the time you do to explain game mechanics to me and others when you have so many other things to do with development.

[Interkarma]

My pleasure Mike. I appreciate your calmness and patience.

The paper doll display bothers me a little also. Our good friend Daggerfall indeed.