Chants, Songs, and Spells with Recast Timers

[galimoth]

Just a quick question that I think I already know the answer to:
Is there any way to make "XX% Increased Casting Rate" apply to the pulse rate of chants/songs and also apply to the cooldown time of spells with recast timers?

I assume the answer would be "It's more trouble than it's worth" but I figured I would ask it anyway, just to make sure.

[Tolakram]

interesting idea.

[galimoth]

Hmmm. Are you saying that this solution hasn't been mentioned before? That seems odd since it's such a simple idea. I figured, the idea is so simple, the problem has to be in some type of massive ordeal in the implementation. I searched the forums to see if it had been posted before, but after 4-5 pages I got tired of looking and just decided to ask

A plus side to the increased pulse/recast times would be that you could (if you chose to) reset all the values to their default (whatever that would be) and rely on the player to improve their own abilities. Also, I think it would open up a lot of options for character development. Do you want your pally to swing super fast, or to have a healing aura that eliminates the need for health potions? If you want melee, get attack speed gear. If you want chants, get spell casting gear.

This brings up another question that I've had recently. How exactly does "Increased Attack Speed" work? I would assume it would be something like:

Final Swing Speed=(Weapon Delay*(1-(Quickness-60)/500)*(1-(Haste Buffs+Increased Attack Speed)

That is, to the best of my knowledge, a slightly modified version of what was on "live" way back in the day when I used to play it. Quickness was capped at an effective value of 250, and the final swing speed was capped at 1.5. Here on D2Sotrm, I have no idea of the caps or the equations used to reach the values. I think Dual Wield (and Celtic Duel) had a percentage chance to swing both weapons based on your modified spec in the line, but the delay was based on the average speed of the two weapons. Again, I'm not sure if it works that way here or not.

But, using the equation above, I don't think I get consistant results in-game. When you swing your starting weapon at 2.8 delay and then you get your first item that gives a 10% increase to attack speed, it SEEMS like you are swinging it much faster than a 2.2 delay. But sometimes perceptions are off, especially with me

So, I guess I'm just wondering how swing speed (and cast rate) are actually calculated for D2Storm.

[Tolakram]

There is a minimum swing speed and cast rate for D2 that's extremely fast. The faster you swing the lower the damage per swing in order to maintain the same DPS. There's a problem with this on D2, however. Fast weapons will cap the swing speed.

So, for example, let's say you are doing 100 damage per swing on a weapon with a 2.5 speed. You now increase your swing speed to 1, the cap, and are doing 75 per swing. You further increase swing speed but you are capped, so no change. The most damage you can do with this weapon is 75 per swing.


Now take a much slower weapon that does 150 per swing, say at speed 4.5. You boost your speed as far as you can to get 1.1 (for example) and are now doing 100 per swing. As you can see you have speed capped in both instances, but the slow weapon does more damage because it doesn't hit the swing speed cap.

This is why most players go two handed, since those are the slowest weapons and you can do the most damage with them. I have yet to solve the cap issue. I have an equation in game that will artificially increase the fast weapon damage per swing as you continue to try and go below the cap swing speed, but it does not compensate enough.

[galimoth]

I have no idea how much work this would be to code, but couldn't you modify the standard equation for damage to use the larger of the actual speed or the capped speed?

I'm assuming it would be difficult/impossible to do that, so could you modify your compensation equation to adjust the damage per swing to do something to the effect of comparing the uncapped swing speed to the capped swing speed and then increasing the damage per strike by that ratio?

For example:
4.0 Wpn Spd
20 DPS
(20 DPS*4.0 Wpn Spd)=80 Dmg per strike

becomes

2.0 Wpn Spd
20 DPS
(20 DPS*2.0 Wpn Spd)=40 Dmg per strike

and if capped (current game state):

0.125 Uncapped Wpn Spd
1.0 Capped Wpn Spd
20 DPS
(20 DPS*0.125 Uncapped Spd)=2.5 Dmg per strike
But Wpn Spd is capped at 1.0, so the actual DPS would be 2.5 Dmg per strike every 1.0 seconds, or 2.5 DPS


So why couldn't this be changed to:

(capped swing speed)
0.125 Uncapped Wpn Spd
1.0 Capped Wpn Spd
20 DPS
(20 DPS* [the greater of Uncapped Wpn Spd or Capped Spd] which would be 1.0 Capped Spd)=20 Dmg per strike

-or-

(20 DPS*0.125 Uncapped Spd)=2.5 Dmg per strike
(1.0 Capped Spd / 0.125 Uncapped Spd)=8 (we'll call this 'superfast damage compensation ratio' )
(8 'superfast damage compensation ratio' * 2.5 Dmg per strike)=20 (and we'll call this one 'capped damage per strike since you insist on wielding fast weapons even though you've already capped swing speed' )



NOTE: These are made up/generic numbers and shouldn't be taken for actual values.

[Dinberg]

I have yet to solve the cap issue. I have an equation in game that will artificially increase the fast weapon damage per swing as you continue to try and go below the cap swing speed, but it does not compensate enough.

I finish exams in just under two weeks. Could take a look then?

[galimoth]

Going back and reading over this again, I think I may have missed the mark on what Tola was saying. What I assumed was happening was weapons that capped speed were still being reduced in damage per strike, just like they would have been if they weren't speed capped, which would effectively reduce the dps of a fast weapon. In re-reading the thread, it seems Tola may have simply been saying "For fast weapons, there's no use in increases in attack speed after you reach the swing speed cap".

I am assuming the the intention is to make increased attack speed useful until you reach the maximum bonus (+75%?) of increased attack speed. And I'm also assuming that Tola's equation added/modified damage per strike in order to make fast weapons continue to improve with attack speed increases that pushed them over the cap.

So, here's the best "solution" I can come up with at the moment.

Damage per strike=weapon DPS*actual swing speed*the larger of (1+capped swing speed-modified swing speed, or 1)

So, gvinig an example to illustrate this, we start with the same scenario as above:

4.0 Wpn Spd
20 DPS
(20 DPS*4.0 Wpn Spd*1.0)=80 Dmg per strike

And when we reduce it below the swing speed cap of 1 we get:

0.125 Uncapped Wpn Spd
1.0 Capped Wpn Spd
20 DPS
(20 DPS*1.0 Capped Spd*(1+1.0 Capped Spd-0.125 Uncapped Spd)=20*1*(2-0.125)=37.5 Dmg per strike

Note that the above effectively turns "increased attack speed" in excess of the weapon swing speed cap into "increased DPS" on a 1 for 1 ratio. That means that if the swing speed cap is 1.0 and your uncapped swing speed is 0.9 (ten percent below the swing speed cap) then your weapon DPS would be 22 (ten percent over the original weapons DPS).

That's all fine and dandy until you add in the increases in damage from stats and from enchants like elemental damage and HP drain. Since the equation above only increases weapon damage and not total damage, you end up with a very small percentage of total damage being increased. An additional 2 damage on every swing isn't a lot compared to the 1000+ damage of a melee strike.

I'm assuming this is basically what Tola's equation to artificially inflate weapon damage once you pass the speed cap does. I also agree when he says that this is not enough.

I'm not sure if something can be coded to modify the total of (weapon damage per strike) and (increased damage from stat modifiers), but that would probably be a more reasonable way to go. Still though, I'm not sure that would be enough to keep faster weapons competitive with slower ones.

[Tolakram]

I tried to do that, but something is not working. Probably a cap or something else in the core that I missed.

If I ever have time I'll review it again.