ff charts and calculations

[RingsOfReznor]

I'm looking to write a guide of sorts for the steam page that includes power synergies and game mechanics. For instance, testing the damage range of powers has shown that the distribution is heavily skewed, rather than being a centered bell curve. Or that there is a boosted knockback minuteman can endow upon the ant sufficient to shove timemaster's twins, radically extend the energizing buffs and cause stuns to put enemies to sleep for a very, very long time.

This testing process is pretty slow and I don't have great amounts of time. I've seen references here to charts detailing how damage is calculated, but only on the yahoo group. If anyone has a copy I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks

[RingsOfReznor]

Updated: the calculation was confirmed through environment variables.

All non-special powers have a damage number. At 5/5 upgrade level that number is 2x the unupgraded level. Overpowering an ability 2 stages doubles the damage of that attack and increases the success chance and duration of applied effects.

All damage dealt is subject to a variation of 50% to 150% (minus 1) of the base damage. This includes thrown objects, special types like Rally the Troops, and the duration of effects like blank and stun, but not the success chance of those effects. Additionally, for melee attacks your strength level is considered - 4 strength is the zero-point and each point of strength above/below that affects damage by 20%. This is why Minuteman's Smash and Order's Hammer Crush both exceed their listed High magnitude, and by different amounts.

Rally the Troops and 300 are the same damage type. They both multiply the damage, stun duration, effect duration and knockback of the next instance of damage you deal. The only difference is that due to being a special, 300 percenter is unaffected by overpowering and damage fluctuation.

After testing, I have concluded the formula for damage multiplication is:
mult = (rally damage / 25), with a minimum of 1.

300-Percenter therefore applies a base 75 Rally damage to the user. It's coded to always be a 3x multiplier with no fluctuation.

Note the multiplier is applied after other damage calculations. Hitting a target with Empathy active won't result in a boosted damage return to the attacker, and a weak but boosted attack won't guarantee damage against a Highly Resistant target. (for instance, minute missile occasionally rolls '0' damage against a streetlight)

For a campaign example - Minuteman's Rally base damage clocks in at 15 and peaks at 30 with 5/5 points. With overpowering that's 60 points applied to closeby allies, so a nominal multiplier of 2.4x that can swing from a low of 1.2x to a peak of 3.6x

So when Minuteman uses 300-Percenter and follows up with overpowered Rally the Troops, he will boost allied damage from 3.6x to 10.8x with a most likely of 7.2x damage, provided you're close enough to avoid area damage falloff. That's how you slap good in the campaign.

Consider storm bolt which comes with man o' war at 1/5 = 10 damage. When overpowered, the damage spread is 10-20-29 damage. With Minuteman's boost that's 36-144-313 before considering Mr. Mechanical's 4x vulnerability to electric attacks. Those are some good odds of one-shotting Mr Mechanical without any investment beyond recruiting the hero.

This kind of boost applies to most power types. Although it won't increase the odds of applying a state (only base damage, overpowering and resistances influence that), it will absolutely boost the effect duration, stun duration and knockback strength. Irradiate and Acid Burn are capped at 5 damage by an internal variable so they don't appear to benefit at all.

Closing note: You cannot snowball the effect alone. This is because only one instance of the effect can be on your character at once, and the initial rally is 'consumed' immediately after the updated rally is applied, so you get nothing.

If you use a second hero with rally however, you absolutely can stack the multiplier exponentially.


FFvTTR differences:
The effect is not consumed instantly, and imposes a minimum damage dealt of 2 - irrespective of the magnitude and resistance. When Rally the Troops is active Liberty Lad's firecrackers (0 crush damage) will now deal 2 damage in an area, with no friendly fire, including to Highly Resistant metal targets. The Bard can be more helpful in this situation as his Rally deploys faster and he regenerates energy more quickly than the Minuteman.

Minuteman and The Bard both have access to Rally the Troops. Minuteman also has 300-Percenter, which will triple the rally magnitude. The following numbers show the potential damage multiplier in campaign with 5/5 in these skills and Overpowering in use:

Hero           Mult (Min)   Mult (Avg)   Mult (Max)
Minuteman   3.6                   7.2                   10.5
The Bard           1.2                   2.4                   3.5

So even with overpowering Crispin's Cry, The Bard can still give weak rallies (as low as 20% bonus damage), and there's a good chance of getting no damage multiplier when you're not overpowering. Minuteman's 300-percenter + overpowering Rally the Troops guarantees 6x the rally magnitude, which in turn guarantees a sizeable multiplier for your allies. If using both these heroes, always cast 300-Percenter > Overpower Rally the Troops > Overpower Crispin's Cry on your whole team to combine all the multipliers.

[WyldFyre]

Very interesting. Thanks for doing this.

[Epimethee]

Nice work, RingsOfReznor! (And nice avatar!)

[RingsOfReznor]

Thanks all for your kind words.

This writeup has been published as a guide on the steam community page: How to slap real good

Nice work, RingsOfReznor! (And nice avatar!)

I had fun making that picture! Here's the full version...

[DoctorRuina]

It's interesting to learn about the mechanics of the game. Thanks for your research.