Nope, still working in some obscure voodoo magic ways…
I am posting just to bump it up again before the 21 days cycle closes the topic.
also if u use 50% gems, fireball and sticky bomb, both deal 30% dmg less ( on the elemental extra dmg )
They have made several balance passes on the gems.
Then best explanation i’ve gotten was from mixed.
You can either choose to have a mild damage increase from flawed on almost all creature types (depending on resistance)
Or you can have a much larger damage bonus on specific types by using higher percentage gems. IE Fire for some types, Ice for others ect.
The 20% gem at high stats gives a roughly 10-12% bonus to almost everything damage wise(Keeping it in line with other damage gems). And the 50% gem can give a huge bonus VS mobs that are weak against that type.
The issue here is that they give a damage bonus when they are not supposed too.
They are supposed to just convert the damage, like 50% gems do.
This damage bonus also has no downsides, there is no requirment to activate it (like other gems).
1 Like
ON1,
As for whether they are supposed to or not i can’t give that answer.
However mixed has a very good markup on the numbers and a few videos explaining the math, the conversion and what scaling factors they use. According to that, it’s working as intended when compared to all the notes in the patches and in performance.
That would suggest that they did intend for the lesser gems to be able to give a small boost. As they have done quite a few passes on them, and made adjustments several times.
Looking at the conversion on paper, it does look like they intended to have the cheapest gems provide a small damage increase. About equal in terms to other types in the 10-12% range against non specific targets.
The conversion changes as it gets higher, favoring specific creature types to make the more expensive gems worth it. As in particular Genesis you would use 50% fire conversion for the extra beefy fire damage.
I believe it was done this way to give options, instead of a flat treadmill of using only the 50% gem.
I honestly doubt that it was intended, because:
- Gems are separated by rarity, In very single RPG I have ever played, except for bugs or glitches, the rarer version is better.
- Against a target that is neutral to that type of damage, like PvP enemy, the lowest tier gem gives 12% bonus damage and the highest tier gives 0% bonus damage (as expected and intended).
No developer is answering this topic, so I can just deduct mechanics from in-game description and common sense.
If game devs intend them to work like this, they MUST specifiy it in in-game description.
Right now lowest tier gem gives 12% damage with no downsides in PvP and almost every PvE scenario (no enemy is weak to Arcane element).
Well to your first point, this is most definitely different than every other RPG you have ever played, or that has ever been for that matter. A lot of the things they did here were off the cuff and reinventing the wheel. That’s not always better, but in some cases it is, or isn’t.
In this case, my opinion is that it gives additional options.
Secondly, against a target that is neutral, such as PVP you are partially right that it does give a 12% overall increase to attack damage, however that is before physical and elemental defenses are considered.
This means that the 50% gem IS better in particular instances, and gives much more than a 12% increase given the correct circumstances.
IE PVP target is leaning heavily into physical resistance, such as a tank with 2400armor ect. Will be lacking in elemental resistance, which means that a 50% gem will do significantly more damage to that target. (Of any element) and considering most gem for onyx/physical and stack it, this would be the better option and is better than the lowest tier gem.
there are several instances where the 50% gem really shines. And there are also situations where it is a hinderance, where i think AGS does well in this department is that there is always a downside. There’s no 100% best end all be all. (except for Gaxe)
Speaking of PVP, as you can see in the videos I am mainly playing as mage.
So a 50% gem makes no difference for me (all damage is already elemental damage), but a 20% gem gives me 12% bonus damage with no condition or penalty.
If the gems are working as intended, the tooltip it’s at least confusing, to be kind.
I get the point of constant damage increase vs split increase to surpass certain mitigation (will it be physical or to certain elemental type). But the tooltip just states that it will change the scaling atribute to the one that it’s higher. It does not explain that the scaling it’s different from the main atribute, nor that the switch don’t happen when the damage it’s higher.
Due to the explanation that the game itself gives (and also, as it’s already said, some rpg progression logic), I still feel that it’s not working as intended. If the diference between T2 and T5 it’s the purpose and the hidden scaling, it should be stated in the tooltip and they should not have a diferent tier and rarity (isn’t it situational instead if an improvement?). Just make two separate kind of elemental gems: scaling ones with their tier (5, 10, 15, 20, 25%) and elemental damage switching ones (20, 30, 40, 50%). Or just erase the scaling ones, wich would really annoy me, since as main healer I bought the game for this unique feature, but at least be consistent. All the gems have the same progression trough tiers: same effect, progressive improvement if this effect.
If it’s really working as intended, whoever designed this does not have enough common sense nor logic.
I would really apreciate if anyone from AGS could clarify if it’s just a difficult bug to fix and later balance, or if it’s a poor design.
2 Likes
Up
Thank you, this is something we’re working on!
2 Likes
People aren’t understanding the design choice behind it. Without different scalings between teirs the difference between T2 and T5 would be insane.
I started an analysis sheet and haven’t finished but it’s not as simple as people make it seem. Also just because the tooltip doesn’t state it doesn’t mean it isn’t intended, they still are clearing up tooltips to match design choices, not the other way around.
Testing on the dummies though is not a good reflection of the extra damage that slotting a gem does to a mob that is weak to the damage type the gem increases.
If you did that test, it would show that the higher tier gems do indeed increase damage by a lot more than the lower tiered ones; certainly much more than the 3% extra u are seeing with flawed on a dummy that is not weak to the gem.
The difference in damage is even large when you are using a weapon type that is weak to a particular mob, e.g. Bow, Spear, Rapier vs Angry Earth, in such a case slotting a Ruby can give you up to 27% more damage.
Having said that, I do believe your testing does indeed show that the bonus damage for the lower tiered gems do provide slightly more damage than they should. Great catch!
Keep in mind that this would be a significant nerf to mages, as the current meta is to run flawed aquamarines in ie void gauntlets.
1 Like
@MixedNuts
The game was released 7 months ago. If the mistake was just the tooltip, they would have fixed it by now. Everyone agrees that that Flawed gem should NOT work like. The idea behind conversion gems is pretty simple, to me it seems a simple case of wrong damage/conversion formula.
It would not be the first case of NW having “bugged formulas”.
@eyo
I just wanted to point out that against a neutral target, the Flawed gem give bonus damage for no reason. You are right that against a target which is weak to that element, the 50% gem would be better. In PVP however, players are neutral targets so you are getting 12% bonus damage for free (no need to dodge, be on full health etc like other gems).
Yes, you are totally right, I didn’t even think of the PvP aspect.
It’s literally not a case of bugged formula; and no they are still correcting tooltips at this moment. The tooltip isn’t wrong either just doesn’t show the hidden scaling behind it.
It’s a topic I dived in more than anyone else, and honestly annoys me when people speculate what’s going on when they have no idea how it works.
Removing the different scalings would result massive damage deltas. They can adjust them, but not keep them all at 1.
Simply solution is to remove low tier conversion gems and only allow a 50/50 split gem. At no point would you want to run 10% conversion to 90% straight damage. Makes no sense in using elemental gems. Unless this calculation is correct and in fact 12% additional damage is the intended effect. Hard to believe it is.
1 Like
T2 GEMS are not BUGGED.
HERE THE 2 PICS WHICH EXPLAIN EVERYTHING.
- Mage: Van Karlosten . Brittia sources: web shared pictures and own analysis/ tests which cost me 16h in game. The 2 pictures are not mine, are shared on sites, but i ve done 16h tests for mage to make a full guide for my team. i ve discovered many more things, and the best gem for ice gauntlet aswell which is not Fire dmg or Malachite for example.
