Healer Testing and the Search for "Underlying Changes"

[RuQu]

So Lileth and I sat down tonight and ran some basic tests he could do solo or with a small group on the Fleet.

 

This was originally posted here, but since the results are not Combat Medic specific I thought I't put it in its own thread.

 

Georg Zoeller claims that there were underlying math and mechanics changes that make these changes not as bad as they first appear. We were hoping that we could uncover some of these changes through testing. So far we have not.

 

Before getting into the tests, he confirmed that Medical Probe still costs 3 Ammo. Some of us had hoped that the base cost was reduced to 2 Ammo which would make AP/MP still be 3, and would make healing on a pre-Field Triage low-level Commando easier. This did not happen.

 

Test #1 Smart Healing

Test: He took off his armor, put it back on, and tossed a Kolto Bomb down in a group of 4 people near him. They were all at full health.

 

Result: He, the only one not at full health, did not get healed. The 4 in a cluster at full health, did.

 

Verdict: No smart-healing on KB.

 

Test #2: Stat Curve Changes

Sithwarrior.com looked at the client files and reported that only the values for Expertise changed. We did some testing to confirm.

 

Test: We recorded his stats and derived values (ie stat: crit rating, derived value: crit chance), both on Live and PTS, naked and fully geared. We also used his ratings and the current Live formulas from Sithwarrior.com to compute "calculated values" to compare to the "actual values."

 

Result: The Live calculated and actual matched for all values, as expected.

 

The PTS values all matched, except for two. His Ranged Crit Chance was short 3%. We suspect that this is a bug and that the Special Munitions skill was not applying correctly despite the tooltip still saying "Ranged and Tech Critical Chance." Tech Critical Chance matched perfectly. The other oddity was the Critical Multiplier. There was a phantom 1% buff that was present both naked and with gear on. It has been decided that this 1% came from Companion Affection, as all of his are maxed out.

 

We did not compare Expertise at this time.

 

Verdict: The only two values that appear changed also appear to be bugs. As far as we can tell, there were no changes to the stat curves.

 

Update: Additional tests seemed to at first show that there were changes to the curves server-side that were not reflected in the client. Additional review has shown that these discrepancies were caused by unaccounted for buffs and a lack of precision in the logs (integers only). Once these were taken into consideration, everything matches what it would on the Live servers and there are no stat changes currently on the PTS except Expertise.

 

Test #3: Psych Aid Heal

 

Update: I checked the client files directly and the values for the new Psych Aid skill heal are as follows:

 

Coefficient: 0.1

standardHealthPercentMin: 0.02

standardHealthPercentMax: 0.08

 

At level 50, standardHealthPercent = 7085, so the base heal range for this heal is 141.7 to 566.8. You can then add 0.1*(Your Bonus Healing) to see how much it would heal for. As an example, with 450 Bonus Healing this will heal for an average of 399.25. For context, a Hammer Shot cast with the same power heals for 450.

 

Old: He checked the heal attached to Psych Aid. The tooltip was very small, but that is due to the long-standing tooltip bug. Casting it, it healed for ~380 (We forgot to write it down, but it was in the high 300s). His Bonus Healing is 472.6, meaning that the heal on Psych Aid is weaker than Hammer Shot.

 

Test #4: Alacrity and Regen

 

Test: We had him burn all of his Ammo both naked and geared, and tracked the time to get to full Ammo again. We repeated this 10 times per gear setup, for a total of 20 tests. There is some error due to reflexes as he would say "Empty" and I would hit start, and the same at the end. There is also some error introduced by the UI and the lack of distinction between 0 Ammo and 0.9 Ammo.

 

Results: Geared(5.16% Alacrity) Naked

Average 28.75 28.98

Std Dev 1.04695325163593 0.968159766429683

 

Verdict: No difference. Given the simple nature of all of the other changes it was unlikely that they would modify a base mechanic, but we thought it was worth testing. It is perhaps worth repeating this test with someone with a much higher Alacrity rating, as 5.16% is quite low (and Lileth has neither of the two alacrity skills).

 

Test #5: Instant vs Cast Regen

This one might need a little background. Currently on Live, if you are at 100% and cast an instant ability, it deducts the cost and then triggers the 1.5s cooldown. If you are at 100% and then cast a 1.5s spell, it deducts the cost after the cast finishes, and there is no GCD, you can immediately cast the next ability.

 

This means that, for a Scoundrel, it takes longer to return to 100 Energy if they cast UWM/SRMP than it does to cast SRMP/UWM. This was never seen on Commandos due to all of our instants being free, but will become an issue with TP.

 

Test: We timed the regen time after casting 4xTP and after casting AP+3xTP. We repeated both 10 times each.

 

Results: 4xTP AP+3xTP

Average 8.74 11.51

Std Dev 0.673630297550347 1.34449494854634

 

Verdict: This mechanic remains unchanged.

 

New:Test #6: Coefficient Check

Test: I compared all of the coefficients and standardHealthPercent modifiers (the values that determine how much something heals for) between the Live 1.1.5 and PTS 1.2 data files.

 

Results: No changes except in Kolto Cloud / Recuperative Nanotech. Strangely, KC/RN does not show the 10% buff claimed in the Patch Notes, but is instead only a 3.4% buff.

 

newTest #7: Item Budget Changes

We compared the gear Lileth had equipped on PTS and Live to see what changed. The following changes are negative if his PTS stat was lower than Live, and positive if it was higher on PTS.

 

Presence: +30 (Likely from companion affection and Legacy)

Aim: -11

Endurance: +27

Expertise: +96 (note that his gear had none, this was a base change)

Alacrity: -102

Surge: +102

Critical: -107

Power: +90

 

Note that the stat trade-offs are Alacrity vs Surge and Power vs Crit. As we can see the item budget for Alacrity and Surge didn't change, simply the itemization allocation. What did change was the budget for Power/Crit and for Aim on the armorings. The item budget lost 11 Aim and lost 17 Power/Crit.

 

Verdict: Item budget took a stealth nerf.

 

Pending Tests

Lileth's guild was copied over with a Seer, Sawbones, and Combat Medic. They are going to have a tank and 2 dps run the same HM with each of the three healers and write up After Action Reports describing how it felt to heal, resource usage, average resource level, stress level, deaths, etc. Tank and DPS will report on anything of note running with each healer and compare how it felt to be healed by each, deaths, necessary cooldown usage, medpac usage, etc. They will also run the same HM FP on Live for comparison.

 

Logs will be collected from the PTS run, but sadly, of course, cannot be compared with any Live logs.

 

From the logs we will look at the usage rates of abilities which we can compare to experience from Live.

 

Their guild will also provide some After Action Reports from NMM Ops.

 

Call for Ideas

GZ claims there were underlying changes that can't be put in patch notes but that mitigate the damage of these nerfs. So far, we haven't seen any changes at all except for the curve on Expertise.

 

If you can think of any additional tests, please suggest them.

Edited April 9, 2012 by RuQu

[WNxAres]

Wow this is very good. Nice job, very nice job.

[SinisterSniper]

is that 1% crit buff from having a companion maxxed affection? (probably)

[Barrackk]

Awesome post.

 

Unfortunately GZ is more interested in being rude to people on the forums than acknowledging any of what you wrote here. Reading thru the developer tracker these days makes me cringe at all the zingers.

[ErnieVega]

subscribing.

[Xaearth]

You really need to stop letting the devs troll you RuQu. Edited March 20, 2012 by Xaearth

[furydogg]

Looks like good stuff here.

[Lileth]

is that 1% crit buff from having a companion maxxed affection? (probably)

 

That would make sense. All my companions are Max Affection

[XenonParsec]

Is there any testing like this going on for DPS classes? Can we assume that all there is is the Expertise adjustment?

[SkuzBukit]

I detect smoke being blown up rectums by developers, I suspected it & this is a first pass at proving it.

 

It's not conclusive but I can't think of a test that would be.

[Lileth]

They mentioned changing the diminishing returns caps however failed to tell us which ones besides expertise.

 

I'm not sure if Sithwarrior or anyone has looked or tried to push to the new "caps" for other stats.

[RuQu]

It was suggested that the client files may not have the new curves, but they may be active on the server side.

 

I know it will be mind-numbingly boring, but if we could get a log of 2+ minutes of non-stop Hammer Shot spam on a target dummy, that should give us a lot of casts to be able to get a good handle on crit rate. It hits 3 times with independent crit chance, so we should see the crit % converge on your ranged crit chance.

 

Better yet, have a companion attack the dummy and spam Hammer Shot heal on the pet. The heal has no range value (I seem to recall the DPS version does), so non-crits should always be X and crits should always be X*(1+surgeMult). Hammer Shot also heals for exactly your bonus healing, so we could check 3 things from that log: is the bonus healing the same as expected? Is the crit rate what we expect? and is the crit multiplier what we expect?

 

In short:

1. Yuun attacks dummy.
   
2. Hammer Shot Yuun until your brain falls out your ears.
   
3. Parse the log.
   
4. Compare non-crit Hammer Shot value to 1/3 * your Bonus Healing (3 shots per cast).
   
5. ACT shows your crit percent on the breakdown. Compare that to your crit %.
   
6. Divide Crit Heal amount by non-crit amount to compare to your surge. 100(1-Crit/noncrit) should match your display in game.
   

 

*edit* Get a Scoundrel to do the same with Diagnostic Scan. Fewer casts are needed as we aren't looking for the random. Just compare the time stamps in the log to the expected time with his Alacrity value. Only one cast is really needed.

Edited March 22, 2012 by RuQu

[Lileth]

Do heals get logged even if they don't umm heal health? lol

[RuQu]

Do heals get logged even if they don't umm heal health? lol

 

Yup.

 

In fact, they currently don't log over-healing, which is a bit of a problem.

[faustc]

Great so not only are they destroying sage/trooper classes all of the posts asaying there were silent changes to ease the nerfs was all LIES. Awesome way to alienate your player base bio.

 

So im guessing since all of the silent changes was BS that sages and troopers are really gimped (pvp and pve wise) in 1.2?

[Caille]

Thank you RuQu, as suspected it looks like we got some lies told to us, but comprehensive testing on the test server will be the ultimate judge.

 

I have unsubscribed, will resub if we see proof of the under the hood, or the changes get eased up a bit. I got tired with whack-a-mole class balance with the game that shall not be named.

 

 

Alexis

*smiles*

[Lileth]

ok. I'll get you 3x 5 minute parses before raid tonight of Yuun hitting dummy and me shooting laaaaasseers on Yuun and email them to you.

[Lugosi]

But...no...this can't be true. Bioware said they had special numbers only they could see and we should not worry.

 

 

Seriously though, nice work OP.

[RuQu]

Well, we don't know if they were lies yet. We also have absolutely no idea what they were referring to, and can only test those possibilities that occur to us.

 

Some Dev communication would sure clear this up....

 

One option, to be tested tonight, is that the changes are server side but not reflected in the client.

 

Another is that they were not included in this PTS push, but are scheduled pre-patch.

 

Just think of it is a little SWTOR mini-game. Here's how it goes.

 

• They nerf your class into the ground.
  
• They hide buffs around that might mitigate the damage.
  
• You search for the buffs with no guidance in the wackiest form of content testing ever.
  
• If you do find the buffs....don't let the Devs know where they are hiding!
  

 

It's more fun than it sounds.

[Seront]

Well, we don't know if they were lies yet. We also have absolutely no idea what they were referring to, and can only test those possibilities that occur to us.

 

Some Dev communication would sure clear this up....

 

One option, to be tested tonight, is that the changes are server side but not reflected in the client.

 

Another is that they were not included in this PTS push, but are scheduled pre-patch.

 

Just think of it is a little SWTOR mini-game. Here's how it goes.

 

• They nerf your class into the ground.
  
• They hide buffs around that might mitigate the damage.
  
• You search for the buffs with no guidance in the wackiest form of content testing ever.
  
• If you do find the buffs....don't let the Devs know where they are hiding!
  

 

It's more fun than it sounds.

 

 

Georg Zoeller was asked specifically about the softcaps in relation to the new tier of gear at the guild summit. He said that they were all rebalanced, and they have to be. Especially considering if you look at the black hole stats, they're putting more of the item budget into the secondary stats. With how low the current softcap is for crit and surge, there's barely a point adding more otherwise. The new tier of gear will end up being 1% better than the last one. I think the earlier poster is correct, either it's just not displaying correctly in the client (most likely, imo), or they forgot to make the changes.

 

EDIT: If it's true , Rakata should do better once on the PTS, since some stats (if you swapped mods) were already into softcaps.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Seront

[Zeita]

Another post with great info from Lileth and RuQu. Good work guys.

 

Subbed.

[RuQu]

Georg Zoeller was asked specifically about the softcaps in relation to the new tier of gear at the guild summit. He said that they were all rebalanced, and they have to be. Especially considering if you look at the black hole stats, they're putting more of the item budget into the secondary stats. With how low the current softcap is for crit and surge, there's barely a point adding more otherwise. The new tier of gear will end up being 1% better than the last one. I think the earlier poster is correct, either it's just not displaying correctly in the client (most likely, imo), or they forgot to make the changes.

 

That earlier posted was also me...the guy you quoted.

 

We know what GZ said. We are looking for evidence of it so we can account for it in assessments of post-patch performance. Currently the testing and evidence all says that there were no changes, despite his Guild Summit comment, which is why another poster said he was lying.

[Uncommonname]

Just a thought - and I have no evidence to support this other than the clear concept that they want slower and more sparse healing as opposed to spam healing (see medpack and healer changes).

 

 

Is it possible the changes are not to our characters but rather to the attack speed and damage output of mobs?

[oredith]

subbing

[Melacon]

Just a thought - and I have no evidence to support this other than the clear concept that they want slower and more sparse healing as opposed to spam healing (see medpack and healer changes).

 

 

Is it possible the changes are not to our characters but rather to the attack speed and damage output of mobs?

 

After watching some streams, I don't think that is the case but maybe.