Helping Others is Screwing Yourself

While the idea of having only one server is certainly great from the social standpoint (and damn impressive technologically), there's a huge downside. Consider this post I found:

Lvl 4 Mission Agents in safe .5 sec Systems
Gitaru, 2011.05.24 16:00:00

I've compiled a list of all the mission running stations that I beleive will work best with the new changes to missioning. I'd like to share this with the community so we can have a complete list of all the best places to mission.

I've created a list for each of the major factions using these parameters:

• Must be in lowest security hi-sec space possible (preferred .5)
• Must be accessible to rest of hi-sec empire (no hi-sec island)
• No low-sec system within 3 jumps.
• Must contain an agent in the Security department

Amarr Empire
Aband IV - Moon 12 - Ministry of War Archives

Ammatar Mandate
Alkez VII - Moon 3 - Ammatar Fleet Testing Facilities

Caldari State
Irjunen II - Corporate Police Force Assembly Plant
Torrinos V - Moon 16 - Home Guard Logistic Support
Barmalie VI - Moon 4 - Modern Finances Vault
Hampinen VII - Moon 11 - Poksu Mineral Group Refinery
Torrinos V - Moon 15 - Spacelane Patrol Logistic Support

Gallente Federation
Aclan VI - Garoun Investment Bank Vault

Khanid Kingdom
Palas II - Royal Khanid Navy Assembly Plant

Minmatar Republic
Nakugard V - Moon 12 - Krusual tribe Bureau

The Interbus
Mabnen IV - Moon 1 - Emperor Family Bureau

Thukker Tribe
Altrinur XI - Moon 3 - Thukker Mix Factory
Freatlidur VII - Moon 3 - Thukker Mix Factory

That's it. You may notice some of the smaller factions, like Interbus, Ammatar and Thukker are in .6 or higher, but that is due to the fact that nothing in .5 was available for that faction.

If anybody notices any problems or additions to my list, please let me know and I will edit it if appropriate.

A very handy list. Granted I can't use it for a while but it does give me an idea of what I can look forward to. Scrolling down I found this response:

Lady Aja: wow this is a double edged sword aint it? now the gank squads know where to look now lol.

Excellent point! *sigh* It's a cold, angry universe out there.

EVE Client-Side

So far I've been impressed with the EVE client. Even with Steam hooking in it hasn't crashed yet. In full-screen, full-GFX mode it looks and works well. In windowed, low-GFX mode it runs on the side monitor fine while I'm doing other things. At first I was a little annoyed that the sounds continue to play even when the client doesn't have focus. Nor is there any way to prevent it from doing that in the options. Yet when I'm doing something else, it's a nice cue. Like not hearing the mining lasers going means the asteroid is depleted or the cargo hold is full.

Happened to notice an EVE folder in My Documents that I didn't create. Turns out the client is placing all of it's screenshots and pilot captures there. Plus it's logging all of my chat! There's going to be a ton of stuff in there but being able to peruse Rookie Help at my leisure will be nice. There's a lot of fluff but occasionally helpful tidbits in there.

The windowing system is also pretty solid. Most everything can be moved around. Windows snap to edges smoothly. Each can be pinned or minimized, some even rolled up. The tabs and context menus work fine. Color is used infrequently so it works very well as emphasis. The short-cut keys are really odd (Alt-A for the character screen? Ctrl-S for auto-pilot?! Language translation I'm guessing) but all configurable.

Only real disappointing aspect I've found so far is switching characters. The client allows you to either exit completely or return to the login screen. It's not a big deal but the process takes a while. While the client was shutting down I started another only to find I had two logins going after a minute.

Looks like Incarna was announced yesterday—at least there was a big splash screen for it. Funny how they're big on addressing the lack-of-flesh issue right off with Captain's Quarters:



It's obvious that Zulu's first language isn't English but the video is well done. I'm surprised CCP decided to take this on because it is quite a departure, adding the characters as well as all the streaming interaction. I wonder if it will make the client too heavy. And what the users will want next? Will be interesting. And glad these content and tech updates are free.

Still Not Up to Speed, Warp or Otherwise

Still having difficult finding information. Ten-Ton Hammer had a dated ship overview ( with some copy/paste errors but it helped a little with the progression. Missed a nice factioning bug by two days:

Booty

Centus Commander: I got 7.0+ Standing's with Gallente, Minmatar and SOE within 2 hours. Do all the tutorials for each of the faction ally's. So Caldari and Amarr, Gallente and Minmatar. Don't do opposing factions tho as it'll bring both down instead of going up.
http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Tutorial_Agents

DeODokktor: CCP changed it, they were bugg'd.. Your gains are a lot lower now. For the BASIC l1 agents (not counting circle agents) you could get just over 83% faction gain (day1) for ONE faction. Using cross standing gains and cross standing penaltys you could be 5+ with every faction in a few hours. It's fixed now, You missed the boat, come back next patch

That's disappointing. Found other things that sounded interesting but were hard to comprehend. Like a lot of chatter about LP/ISK conversion. Finally found out that LP is Loyalty Points earned with upper-level missions for corporations. On and on and on…

Got the Exploration Career quest chain completed. Scanning was definitely hard to figure out but I feel okay with it now. Seems pretty tedious. The CEO was online with a newly acquired massive ore mining ship so I went out to guard him. I'm still too small to help mine or ferry ore, but after the Military training missions I had a ship that could handle what little troubles that cropped up. Said I might be more into killing shiz than mining for the Corp and he said that was fine.

Still need to do Advanced and Business but decided to warp out to another Bloodline's starting area for their Career Missions. I'm marking time while skills train anyway so there's easy money and faction. Left all my "good stuff" in Couster to make the 10 Jump trip *yawn* to Clellinon:

Notice my hold is filled with quest-completion goodies from the Exploration missions I completed. *snicker* Read somewhere that you can grab multiples and complete the other Bloodline series with ease.

Found another dated blog with readable, helpful starter information. Haven't died or lost a ship (yet) so it was very interesting learning about how clones work. Yet there was a great babble example at the end:

First off, there is generally much confusion about the mechanics of jump clones. For starters, to install a jump clone, you must have either a personal or corporate standing over 8.0 in the station you are trying to install the clone in. The station must also have medical facilities. Jump Clones require learning the 1M ISK skill 'Infomorph Psychology'.

Once a jump clone is installed in that station, think of it as a destination. The best way to understand how jump clones work is to completely separate the ideas of your medical clones and your jump clones. What happens to one does not affect the other.

For example: You install a Jump Clone in station 'Alpha', and then leave the station and fly to another station we'll call 'Bravo'. Once you get to Bravo, you can choose to jump to Alpha, regardless of your standings with the owner of Bravo station, and regardless of whether or not it has a medical facility. When you jump, you become the clone and are instantly moved to station Alpha, and your previous clone (at origin) is left behind as a new jump clone in station Bravo, thus becoming a new destination.

You can only clone jump once every 24 hours, and it requires you to pause your skill training. You will only get the effect of implants installed in your current clone. When you are pod-killed, you will always go back to your Medical clone station, and any implants in your current clone will be destroyed. Being pod-killed does not, in any way, affect your jump clones!

Simply awful. That can all be said in half the words and twice the clarity. At least I think. *lol* Still too new and this didn't really crystallize.

What will happen tomorrow?

No Work... but Clever!

Site down… arrrrgh! Wonder how often this happens.

Onward in the Black

Despite being dated I read through the first section of Halada's Mining Guide and understood most of it. As it progressed I started to get less and less familiar with what he was talking about. It still confirmed my worst min/max fear, that starting Caldari might have been better. Which is fine. I love alts and figured I knew enough now to get Aenara started. At least she could get a jump on basic skill training while I still learn things about the game on Merrick. Sadly, my plans were quickly shattered when I got this error message:

Horrible horrible horrible! The time investment for this game is astounding with simple mechanics like this. Still having fun learning things yet with that one limitation it's unlikely I'll subscribe. I am not going to continue the awful, multiple account habit I got into with WoW.

So I got back on Merrick to see what the Corp was up to. They were in the middle of a big mining run so I let them continue while I got back into career missions. While their focus is mining I want to see what the rest of the game is about. The Military Career quest chain was a lot easier. That might be because I'm more familiar with the game, but then it is easier to run out, kill shit, run back.

One thing I'm noticing already is the eye strain. The micro font in the game is pretty taxing. I play it more on the side monitor that runs at a higher resolution. That helps some but I'm already needing a break. Going to do some more research armed with my ever-increasing EVE vocabulary and understanding.

Know More About How Little I Know

So I got up early and managed to get the rather large bonus for building that ship. Naturally I found out during the day that I could have done it 10x easier. Basically I could have flown the blueprint and materials to the next system where queue times were reasonable. Once it was completed I could have assembled it and flown it back to the quest giver's station. Once there, I would simply "repackage" it then complete the quest. Could have bought a shuttle to fly back and pick up my main ship. *sigh*

WHERE CAN I FIND SIMPLE, EXTREMELY HELPFUL TIPS AND INFORMATION LIKE THIS?!!?

Anyway. I really do enjoy the granularity of the information in this game. Like the Wallet has an accounting system built-in! Pulled up the journal entries for the day and noticed that the corporation gets to tax me on any mission rewards over 100kISK! They've been really helpful so I don't mind, but I certainly wouldn't have known that happens.

Unlike most fantasy MMO there's not one "magical bank" that can store your stuff and have it all available from any town you visit. Each station has a hangar and whatever goods you store there are only available there. Figured I'd better get a spreadsheet going but I found there's a searchable Asset tracker that will list everything you have and allow you to set warp destinations to get there easily. There are even accessories! When not playing windowed, it is nice having a calculator and notebook to pop-up.

Got out and involved with the Corp a little more. Being so new I'm not much use. I can't mine as fast, ship as much, nor effectively fight. I really wanted to get more of the Career Missions done but I felt it was good to see what people were up to. They were mining out in a 0.7 space six jumps away but it wasn't too difficult getting out there. For whatever reason it never dawned on my that I could outfit two mining lasers so thankfully I didn't look like a total fool when I showed up.

Even though my contribution was minimal the CEO still gave me $1mISK, nearly doubling the amount of money I had. When I got back to the scrub asteroid belts I also took screenshots of whomever was out there mining. I eMailed 31 recruitment notes out and the CEO gave me another $2mISK! Did get one person to join that way, and he's a little chatter-box.

After spending time with the more accomplished players I realize who little I can effectively do. And I have at least four more days before I have enough skills trained to get a respectable mining craft. That's damn frustrating. The CEO said he'll get a big miner for me to use once I have the skills. Need to get back to doing some missions that I can do while the skills crawl by.

Neural Overload

So Mining is the foundation of the EVE economy and I decided to start there, taking the Industry Career series given by Timestre Facent in the Federal Navy Academy School that orbits Moon 1 of Couster II. While I found the hand-holding quests invaluable they were gaps and some missing information. I'm very analytical and literal when in uncharted waters so I was greatly frustrated for an hour or so. Thankfully I joined a new corporation that turned out to be quite helpful.

The tutorial mentioned joining a corporation as soon as possible but I was wary. Since there aren't multiple servers I didn't want to make a bad name for myself on Day One. It seems that the training times are the prime barrier to playing so I don't want to have to restart a character if I don't have to. Yet there were only four people around and the CEO was incredibly knowledgeable and approachable. Let them be my knowledge base and got some mining done. I didn't feel competent enough to join them wherever they were but it was good to monitor and pick things up.

I was near the end of the quest chain when I ran into a major hurdle. Quests have a bonus for being completed with a certain amount of time. There was a really big bonus for getting a ship built yet the facilities you start at are incredibly busy. I had six hours to get an afterburner built yet the shortest queue available was seven hours. The corp people reminded me I could buy things off the Market. Yet this was a quest, nub item that wasn't even searchable.

The game did say any port with Science and Industry could build things so I tried warping to an adjacent system, Algogille, in hopes of finding one. There was one assembly line with a 22min queue… win! Unforunately this didn't help for the biggest build and biggest bonus mission. The ship I was constructing was too big to be transported so I had to find an assembly line where the quest giver was. Thankfully it was pretty late so there was a five hour queue available meaning I have to wake up early to turn it in before the bonus period ends.

There were other small things. Like on a mining mission, you have to mine from the exact spot you warp in at. I saw a mine field in front of me so I moved up, grabbed ore, and headed back. No good. The object wouldn't complete and the Rookie channel wouldn't respond. Turns out if you look to your left, there's an asteroid right when you warp in that completes your objective. This asteroid doesn't appear in the Overview, there's no flashing, no prompts, nothing. You just have to see it. *sigh*

At another point you're required to have Industry 1 trained to continue. Yet that skill wasn't in my list to train. Thankfully the Corp told me I could just buy it off the market and they were right. Was a little more tweaked when the reward was an Iteron-class ship that requires Gallente Industrial Level 1 to use. That skill costs 280kISK on the market! Being a Gallente myself there should be some way of getting that without taking a quarter of my money.

Even after hours of playing there are still a myriad of questions I have with no clear way of getting them answered. The Rookie Help channel has been 3000-5000 people in it, which was a start. But questions get lost. It is fun to watch while bored since helpful tidbits sometimes scroll by. The online manual is actually a Wiki that is mostly player-edited. Zam's site is rather barren. Will stick it out with the career quests then see what turns up as I play. The corporation my also help. Whew!

Into the Vasty Deep

Let Steam download EVE well into the night. Was annoyed when I tried to log in I immediately get a message saying there's a 1.5 Incursion patch to download. It was only about 750mb but I thought one of the Steam advantages was keeping things current. Was a little nervous since all of the application data is hidden under the Steam folder archeticture so I hoped the installer from the game-maker would know where to put things ([Steam Root]\steamapps\common\eve online). Thankfully it didn't take long and went in without incident. Was into character creation in short order.

There were an amazing array of options so naturally I wanted to make my first character as flaming as possible. Came up with this:

Hell yeah! *lol* Unfortunately the game requires a "Top" selected before moving on so I ended up with this. After moving on it had me take snap shots in a little series that looked like those strips of photo that come out of mall machines. Was wondering how this was all going to be used. To be honest I was rather disappointed to find all my effort end up as this:

Now I understand what people were complaining about. Yet in the grand scheme it really shouldn't matter. This game is all about space and shouldn't be about how sex your flesh looks. And the next step made that point fast. The game kicked me out into space right away. I was in a starter ship and faced with learning controls. The tutorial was pretty good. The interface uses right-click for about everything, which I'd already gathered from reviews and videos. Killed a little test target then got into a nearby station, were skill training was introduced. Then it was recommended I go find the Career Mission givers. Lots to do!

Tomorrow Will Be the First Day Instead

Well damn! Did pick up EVE while Steam had it on sale for $5. Had planned on activating it today but wasn't ready. This game is not for the faint of heart. Sure the game has been around forever so there's going to be a lot there, but I have the feeling there was always confusion surrounding this game.

Was surprised to find most of the material that Google returns is dated. Since the game has been out eight years ago there was bound to be a lot of internet sifting to do. Yet it seems like sometime around mid-2009 was when most of the updating fell off. Seems odd since there have been expansions since then.

Did sit through a number of YouTube videos, like this one where the poster covered his first day's experience. Yet he only posted two more videos. Some of the capital ship space battles looked huge and involved yet very slow and non-interactive.

While GameSpot's review wasn't very positive, the first truly negative review I found was from The Escapist. Was very fun to watch and he made a number of excellent points. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea? *lol* Too late!

Unfortunately I didn't find any good guides out there. There's no simple, easy "Hey do these five things your first day" or "This race has good miners" or anything. So I guess I'll just blunder in tomorrow. See what it's all about.

Fourth 85

Having gotten a little bored with RIFT myself I decided to head back into WoW some yesterday. The shaman was only a few bubbles from 85 so I decided to get that done. Whoa. They changed the valor point rewards to work like RIFT, allowing you do up to X each week instead of making you log in every day.

While that is a most welcome change I was amazed at the DPS queue times. The longest I got was twelve minutes for the regular 85s. Took a few runs to get the iLevel up for heroics. And then my longest wait was eighteen minutes! Was a bit nervous about the DPS meter watchers because I knew I was sucking it, but I didn't a single complaint. Good times.

Steam Powered!

Decided to join Steam a few days ago when I found some RIFT friends had lost interest. They were using the Steam client so I figured I would use it to stay in touch. Pretty smart marketing tool. It tracks when you're playing, what you've bought, and helps post screen-shots—all to entice your friends. They have a variety of sales they remind you about at every opportunity. There are even group purchases you can make then share licenses with friends. Damn smart.

Looks like they're giving Dark Spore a shot. I played for a couple of hours in beta. Was very polished and it seemed to have a lot of addictive elements. In the end if felt like it was going to share the Diablo niche. Not going to get into that mess again until Diablo 3 is actually out. *giggle*

Steam does have EVE on sale this weekend for $5. While there is a free 14-day trial I feel like going for the whole thing when it's such a reasonable price. I've meant to try EVE out for year but never gotten around to it. Thinking Monday will be my first warp into EVE-space. Going to do some research first to maximize my free month.

Disturbances in the Coding Force

Trying to update my system specs on the SW:TOR site for beta testing eligibility but being denied...

Almost worked in FireFox but it requires Flash, which I won't allow. FireFox is my speedy, clean, ad-free browsing experience.

Price Check on Aisle One Point Two

Minor Relics (Tier 1)

Helm: 40 -> 45
Shoulders: 40 -> 45
Chest: 50 -> 56
Gloves: 30 -> 34
Belt: 20 -> 28
Legs: 50 -> 56
Boots: 30 -> 34

Weapons: 20
 2h Sword: 19
 1h Mace: 14
 1h Sword: 14
 Staff: 19
Minor Catalyst: 5 -> 17

Elder Relics (Tier 2)

Helm: 160 -> 188
Shoulders: 160 -> 188
Chest: 200 -> 235
Gloves: 120 -> 141
Belt: 100 -> 118
Legs: 200 -> 235
Boots: 120 -> 141

It's Too Easy to Right-Click and Save

Shamelessly stole this image for a RIFT forum icon. *sigh* I wish I had artistic talent.

Leather Tanking

All stuff I've known or deduced, but nice to see clearly. Going to have the fifth spec be tanking for sure:

Any Raid Riftstalker Tanks?
Artemis, Today 02:56 PM

Yes I am my guilds "Main Tank", and currently I main tank Greenscale Blight every weekend. And I am also able to main tank Raid Rifts with ease. Here is my build/breakdown.

Finisher's To Rotate
Rift Guard (Most Important)
Guarded Steel
False Blade

Abilities & Buffs/DeBuffs To Keep On
Phantom Blow (x3)
Rift Disturbance
Planebound Resilience
Combat Pose
Predatory Instincts

Taunt Abilities
Instigate (Single Target - 3 Seconds)
Planar Attraction (Multiple Targets - 3 Seconds)
Planar Strike (Single Target High Threat Ability)

AOE Abilities
Shadow Blitz (Begin fights with this ability.)
Rift Disturbance (Great follow up ability for additional threat, and damage.)

Tank Abilities
Side Steps
Planar Refuge

Simple Guide to Pulling

1. Blink in using your AOE ability: Shadow Blitz.
2. Force taunt, and warp in all enemies using: Planar Attraction.
3. Follow up with an AOE damage ability, which also reduces enemy damage: Rift Disturbance.
4. Immediately activate tanking ability: Side Steps to compensate for low armor / damage reduction.
5. Acquire 5 combo points using three Phantom Blows, and 2 Planar Strikes.
6. Immediately finish with Rift Guard.
7. Activate Planar Refuge if necessary.

Further comments mention using Blade Dancer's Twin Strike to spread more threat around, which I need to try.

The only thing that surprises me about his spec is that he didn't put the final point in Rift Stalker for Scatter the Shadows. Clearing all cleanseable debuffs and going damage immune for three seconds seems ridiculously good, even in a raid setting. Is the 2% damage reduction from the Ranger's Bolster really worth the trade? Going to post a reply.

That's a Lot of Math

This is something I would have done were I younger and motivated:

Conclusive Proof Nature's Touch Heals 62.5% too Much. Also Over 20 Bugged Soul Talent
Ferney, 04-25-2011 04:24 PM

For those with a short attention span the big conclusions are:

1. Nature's Touch heals 62.5% too much

2. Any soul talent that increases total damage or healing by a certain percent, it actually does around half of what it says for all cleric and mage dots and hots except for volcanic bomb. For example, flesh rot says 60% increased damage for necrosis, but it is really 33%.

I can’t remember which bugs I submitted already or not so I will post the final version of all the bug reports here, also other players may be interested in this for optimizing their gameplay currently on live. This will be a compilation of everything I found and is more thoroughly researched since my initial reports. I am hopeful that I worked out all the errors from my previous reports. I would edit my old post and bump it up but posts can’t be edited after so 5 minutes so I made a new thread.

Nature’s Touch is massively bugged. If one reads the tooltip it clearly states the bonus healing is done to the synthesis target for 100% of the damage done. This bonus healing is not done by lifegiving veil, there is no reason to add in the synthesis 225% multiplier to it. The bonus healing is should be done to the synthesis target and nothing more. This is obviously a bug since it causes the healing to be tremendous and out of line with all other healing spells in the game. The healing for this spell is done in two parts and is shown as two heals in the combat log and in the display over a person’s head. Now for what it should look like.

D = damage done by nature’s touch
V = healing done by the lifegiving veil part of nature’s touch on the person with synthesis
B = total bonus healing of nature’s touch on the person with synthesis
Ms = multiplier of synthesis
Mv = multiplier of lifegiving veil
Mn = multiplier of nature’s touch bonus healing
T = total healing

Mn = 0
Mv = -20 (this is including the chloro talent improving it)
Ms = 225 (this includes the improved talent)
V = D * ( 1 + Mv / 100 ) * ( 1 + Ms/100) = D ( 1 – 20 / 100 ) * ( 1 + 225 / 100 ) = 2.6 D
B = D * ( 1 + Mn / 100) = D * ( 1 + 0 / 100) = D
T = B + V = D + 2.6 D = 3.6 D

Now this is what it actually is

Mn = 0
Mv = -20 (this is including the chloro talent improving it)
Ms = 225 (this includes the improved talent)
V = D * ( 1 + Mv / 100 ) * ( 1 + Ms/100) = D ( 1 – 20 / 100 ) * ( 1 + 225 / 100 ) = 2.6 D
B = D * ( 1 + Ms / 100) = D * ( 1 + 225 / 100) = 3.25 D (note Ms is used instead of Mn by error)
T = B + V = 3.25 D + 2.6 D = 5.85 D

The difference of T is 5.85 / 3.6 which is 1.625 % or 62.5 % more than it should be.


Now I will give details on the formula for spell combat equations and show a bug that affects the large majority but not all damage over time and heal over time spells. This causes over 20 soul talents to do around half of what they should for dots and hots. First it should be noted the game truncates, or rounds down the decimal places in many of the formula. Also the base damage value on many tooltips is wrong.


B = base damage of a spell
S = spell power
M = multiplier for a spell (60% damage increase is listed with a value of 60 here)
C = cast time of a spell
G = grand total damage or healing of a spell
T = tick value of a dot or hot
N = number of times a dot or hot ticks
D = duration of the dot or hot

G = (B + S * (C / 5)) * (1 + M/100)
T = G / N

The person coding this for some reason wanted to have the multiplier to somehow be applied on each tick. What they did was assume all dots will behave the same and have the equal number of ticks based on the duration, they don’t, furthermore it was wrongly applied to those that do function that way. They assumed each did an initial amount and a tick for every two seconds of the duration. The actual equation used will be as follows. Note a variable was used that did not allow decimal places so part of it will be rounded up.

G = (B + S * ( C / 5 ) ) * (1 + ( ( D / 2) + 1) / D * M / 100) The part ( ( D / 2 ) + 1 ) / D is rounded up
T = G / N

The ( D / 2 +1 ) / D is extraneous. What this means for the dots and hots that use this formula, which is most of them, is that multipliers are doing around half of what they should be doing. This applies to every heal over time and damage over time that a cleric or mage has except for volcanic bomb and possibly spells in the mage trees of elementalist, stormcaller or dominatior.

I will now show how to test this with life leach and the improved life leach talent as an example. First respec and have no points spent in any tree. Next go hit a target dummy with life leach. Note the damage and number of ticks. Multiply the damage per tick by number of ticks for the total. Now put 5 points into improved life leach and nothing else and do the same. Now divide the damage total with improved life leach by the damage without it. The tooltip of improved life leach says it increases damage by 15%, however if you look at the number you just found it is not 1.15% or even close to it.

Dark water discussion is next.

Bi = base damage of initial hit
Bd = base damage of the dot
Di = damage of initial hit
Dd = damage of the dot per tick
S = spell power
C = cast time which is 1.5 seconds
T = number of ticks of the dot
Di = Bi + ( S * C / 5 ) / 2
Dd = ( Bd + ( S * C / 5 ) / 2 ) / T

Now what it is on live
Di = Bi + S / 5
Dd = ( Bd + ( S * ( C *0.1 ) / 5) / T

Now on the test server
Di = Bi + S / 4
Dd = ( Bd + ( S * C / 5 ) /2 ) / T

The four bugs on live are:
1. The spell power scaling of each part is not divided by two so it is “double dipping” since it is like two spells at once so they should receive half the typical scaling per individual part.
2. The cast time used is 0.15 second instead of 1.5 seconds. I can think of another reason for this but it is not likely give how else the formula was made.
3. The cast time was of the spell was calculated as one second in the initial damage part of the spell. I don’t know what is going on there, all I know that is what it ended up being.
4. The base damage of the spell was calculated as if it were a standard attack. In other words a standard attack, like say bolt of judgment, has a gimmick from soul talents to proc extra abilities or damage or some such. Damage over time abilities have higher raw damage with minimal gimmicks beyond maintaining the uptime as much as possible with casting it as infrequently as possible. There is nothing to be gained from dark water beyond the raw damage of it, there is no reason it should not have been given the formula for higher base damage. I haven’t spent the time to figure out what that would be, it is a great deal higher is all I can say.

This is what your QA team or whoever was fixing it did:
1. Fixed the double dipping on the damage over time part
2. Fixed a cast time to 1.5 seconds from 0.15 seconds
3. Changed a spell scaling coefficient to 0.25. This makes no sense at all. It should be
( 1.5 / 5 ) / 2= 0.15
4.Changed the damage over time part to account for the rounding that can significantly effect the outcome. Best I can tell it the way it is rounded is proportional to how close it is to being rounding up or down.
5. Ignored the lower than normal base damage for a damage over time spell.

The next thing I want to talk about is sanction heretic. To be brief about it the initial damage and the dot are treated as two different spells. They each get a spell power bonus as if each part were an individual spell, meaning it scales twice as much as it should. It should do the normal formula for adding damage from spell power for the initial part and divide that by half and do the same for the dot portion. This is probably the same thing that was going on with spirit rupture that allowed it to hit quite hard.

The next thing I want to go into is ritual of judgment. Each tick of sanction heretic and vex round decimal places down so it is easy to find this error. The tooltip seems pretty clear to me to say it is 5% damage plus 4% per extra point giving us 5+4*15= 65%. One could perhaps read it as the two are separate and it is 1.05*1.6=1.68. Sanction heretic uses 65% and vex uses 68%.

Volcanic bomb has three bugs.
First is of almost no practical use, the damage over time portion of the spell can be canceled by removing the buff volcanic bomb applies on yourself. Dots are something you are not supposed to be able to be removed once applied, it can break crowd control or things of that nature.
The second is the spell power scaling. It is almost right with splitting the scaling by half between the initial hit and dot, however there is approximately 10% reduction of the damage added from spell power. I am clueless why that is there. If it is a penalty for the spell having a buff then earthen barrage should have that penalty and it doesn’t.
The third is that compared to other dots the spell was made to account for the rounding variability, it was not done correctly. It should either round up or down with a chance of which depending on how close it is to each value, or it could also do a running total of the decimal places truncated and when that total reaches one or more then add it into the damage done, the former was likely done. This would only give two possible results, however they can have three possible results. My best guess is this rounding factor was used twice giving skewed results.

Next is inferno. The tooltip does not say it is not affected the global cooldown. I can’t say for certain if it is only a tooltip omission, I am strongly leaning to that conclusion and that it is only a cosmetic error.

Next one is ignition. It is supposed to reduce all fire spell cast times. Fireball base cast time is two seconds. Looking at the tooltip of rank 1 fireball in the soul menu it says 1.6 seconds with 5 points in ignition taken. Rank 10 (the maximum) is two second cast time. This is not a tooltip error, fireball is clearly taking much longer to cast than 1.6 seconds. The conclusion is ignition is not being applied to all ranks of fireball.

Lifegiving veil is what I am going to talk about next. It says the healing is based on damage done. The actual healing is based on a theoretical formula that is not reflected by the real damage, synthesis is also affected as it is based on lifegiving veil’s healing number. The formula used does not include debuffs on the target that increase magical damage taken. I know of at least two magical debuffs that stack and each are for 7%. So if this worked properly the mage should be doing at least 14% more healing when debuffs are present.

Healing current mana cast at the maximum rank is 21, the same as rank one. Some other ranks in-between are correct and cost more. The proper mana cost should be much higher.

On to the next bug to report. The necromancer pet skeletal zealot’s ability blood spike should have 100% crit chance when necrosis is on the target, this does not work. The duration of the dot is 12 seconds. With the flesh rot soul ability increases necrosis to 18 seconds. The pet only will have the extra crit for 12 seconds, the last 6 seconds of the dot ticking will not get the crit chance.
My best guess is what the coder did is put a hidden debuff on the target that increases the pet’s crit chance by 100% that lasts for 12 second and they did not have this hidden debuff increase its duration when points are added into flesh rot.

This is not a combat ability bug but I will put it here anyways. Flamelord Ereetu is the second to last boss in latern hook. The crystals he spawns grow in damage and radius. The graphic of the spell does not grow to match the actual size of it. Another bug is that the crystal can despawn as immediately, this may be caused or have an increased chance of happening by pulling the boss at range and waiting for him to come to you.

The interpretation of the totality of the number of soul talents that do not do what they say they do, and are easily tested, might lead one to a conclusion. When out of curiosity over a month ago I tested a few soul talents to see if it worked as they claimed and I found out within minutes of testing they did much less than they said. Dark water on the test server was not fixed properly. Draw your own conclusion about whoever in quality assurance is responsible for combat abilities and whoever else is fixing them.

I will not read or respond to this post, I have been trolled too much on forums to do so.

The caveat at the end was perfect. Still, it's pretty impressive someone took the time to do all of this. It does make me wonder what sort of modeling and QC the spell and combat engines have. With Trion's aggressive content generation I'd assume most of the testing is automated. It could be there's some disparity between the test cases and the real world.

Naturally this post spawned numerous, wide-ranging responses that I don't have the patience for—thirty-seven pages as of this morning. Now… will it affect anything…