Walker7311
Buccaneer
INTRODUCTION
Hi, I know this post is probably quite late, and I'm still relatively new to TLOPO (maybe a month and a half of experience at the most?). I also was not a POTC player, but I've heard plenty of stories and I've put in quite a bit of time on my "Walker" character (level 37 as of right now). I know nothing of the PVP community so I'll just label all of this as a PVE discussion just to get that out of the way. And as a side note I kinda feel like PVP and PVE stats should be altered depending on which you are about to attend (e.g. when entering PVP stats change until the fight ends). It seems like the easiest way for PVP and PVE communities to both get what they want, though with extra work for the developers, sorry. To get down to my point, I haven't searched too hard on this site, but I get the feeling that people have kinda stopped caring about balancing the game's mechanics and weapons etc, and mostly just hope for good drops, new events and better PVP. In the end, I have my own concerns which I fear I am the only one seeing:
SUBJECT: Attack Power
Call me crazy, but from what I've seen of "Attack Power" (you know, that great looking little number that apparently describes whether or not your weapon is any good or not?) seems to be relatively useless. I've ran only a good 100 tests (not much) but from what I've seen, Attack Power hardly affects a thing. This makes that number above your weapon a total joke. Attack Power BARELY affects Variation Range of Damage, Max Damage and Accuracy. Now, before you ask if my "tests" were on enemies of varying levels, believe me they were not. Speaking of levels, it also appears that Attack Power does NOT increase your effectiveness (damage, accuracy, variation) against enemies or bosses of higher levels. I've even heard stories of people beating El Patron with a Rusty Cutlass!!! The reality is, your only hope as a level 37 such as myself, would be to level up to max level. SOMEHOW, this increases your overall damage and accuracy in ways that are not shown to the player in characteristics or statistics pages. Even so, as a max level, higher Attack Power is entirely irrelevant the way I see it. Here's a few examples of current Attack Power standards:
GUNS
Single Barrels, Triple Barrels and Muskets
The reality is that with current Attack Power settings, the damage difference between a Triple Barrel Pistol with 30 Attack, vs a Single Barrel Pistol or Musket with 70 Attack, has no clear difference in strength. The ONLY thing you MIGHT see different is Max Damage, and that isn't even consistent, OR relevant, considering that Triple Barrels don't necessarily NEED to charge each shot to max damage using Take Aim. They have the option to fire constantly without the Take Aim Ability, letting 3 of their shots (that never miss anyone of appropriate difficulty) do the same damage as 1 Single shot. You could also opt to charging the Take Aim bar HALFWAY on each shot, thereby still gaining good accuracy and significant damage increase while saving on time.
In short, the Triple Barrel Pistol would have the POTENTIAL to do more damage than 1 shot from a Single Barrel Pistol, only if it successfully landed all 3 shots in a clip. With lowered Attack Power, the Triple Barrel would have less ACCURACY, meaning that the chance to miss is ACTUALLY RELEVANT. It would also have MORE Variation Damage and LESS Max Damage. This is all completely fair, considering how easy it is for 3 shots to outweigh a single one. This provides the ability of OPTION to players, giving them two clear choices; the inaccurate pistol that COULD do more DPS..?... or the more accurate pistol that gives no TRUE GUARANTEE of doing Max Damage? This way, it's a choice.
On the subject of Muskets, I kinda hate it but it's true from what I see; muskets' only purpose in the current Attack Power system (PVE) is the Hex Breaker family for their unique anti-voodoo abilities that Pistols and Blunderbusses don't have. Other than that exact variant of musket, I fear that a weapon I would LOVE to use, is sadly useless. Muskets DO have a higher Max Damage than Single Barrel and Triple Barrel Pistols, true. What is ALSO true, is they have the same Minimum Damage as Pistols do. Due to their shot & load time, this makes them very easily outgunned by Single Barrel and Triple Barrel Pistols from a DPS standpoint. Yet Another issue caused by ineffective Attack Power. If Attack Power had more affect, then a Musket at 90 Attack Power would have more Minimum Damage AND less variation range between Minimum and Max damage. This would allow the Musket to still possibly be outgunned, but with one overwhelming factor that makes it all worth it; ACCURACY. With more effective Attack Power, Pistols would have much more of a chance to miss a shot than a Musket, EVEN WITH TAKE AIM. Frankly, guns only miss when fighting a VERY high level opponent compared to your own level. With more effective Attack Power, that would all change, and accuracy would be taken into affect. Thereby making Muskets viable in PVE while simultaneously pushing Triple Barrel Pistols off the throne and down to equal ground.
MELEE
Swords and Daggers
So I HAVE had a lot of practice with Swords and Daggers alike, but in the end I think it's almost self explanatory on what Attack Power has affected here; nothing. If it's possible to fight matched enemies while using lower level weapons (ranged or melee), without taking on any serious risk, then what's the point of higher Attack Power weapons? I mean for instance: Where's the downside in using a Drain Health Dagger that has 40 Attack, when an 80 Attack Cutlass only gets a Maximum of 10% More Damage on each hit? That may SOUND like a fair trade; 10% more damage per hit versus Drain Health, but that's out of hundreds of damage per hit. If the Drain Health ability were at its highest rank then that damage difference in the Cutlass would mean nothing. Which begs the question: How many swords do you see that AREN'T legendary/cursed and yet have more than 80 Attack Power? Not many. In the end, Attack Power needs to count for something, and higher ranking weapons need to be added to accompany it. Of course that IS just my opinion but, I'd love to hear if anyone agrees/disagrees.
CONCLUSION
I REALLY want to thank anyone who read this far into my post here. I may not be too advanced of a player yet, but I surely understand a lot and know decently what I'm talking about. I'm completely open to controversy and opposing opinions, not to mention any corrections or notifications of if my information may be a little inaccurate. Either way, my main goal is to know whether or not Attack Power is a problem, and if so, is anything being done about it? In my opinion, it would be GREAT if Attack Power mattered more, and if some effects on lower weapons were added to higher Attack Power weapons. Thanks, and please comment.
Hi, I know this post is probably quite late, and I'm still relatively new to TLOPO (maybe a month and a half of experience at the most?). I also was not a POTC player, but I've heard plenty of stories and I've put in quite a bit of time on my "Walker" character (level 37 as of right now). I know nothing of the PVP community so I'll just label all of this as a PVE discussion just to get that out of the way. And as a side note I kinda feel like PVP and PVE stats should be altered depending on which you are about to attend (e.g. when entering PVP stats change until the fight ends). It seems like the easiest way for PVP and PVE communities to both get what they want, though with extra work for the developers, sorry. To get down to my point, I haven't searched too hard on this site, but I get the feeling that people have kinda stopped caring about balancing the game's mechanics and weapons etc, and mostly just hope for good drops, new events and better PVP. In the end, I have my own concerns which I fear I am the only one seeing:
SUBJECT: Attack Power
Call me crazy, but from what I've seen of "Attack Power" (you know, that great looking little number that apparently describes whether or not your weapon is any good or not?) seems to be relatively useless. I've ran only a good 100 tests (not much) but from what I've seen, Attack Power hardly affects a thing. This makes that number above your weapon a total joke. Attack Power BARELY affects Variation Range of Damage, Max Damage and Accuracy. Now, before you ask if my "tests" were on enemies of varying levels, believe me they were not. Speaking of levels, it also appears that Attack Power does NOT increase your effectiveness (damage, accuracy, variation) against enemies or bosses of higher levels. I've even heard stories of people beating El Patron with a Rusty Cutlass!!! The reality is, your only hope as a level 37 such as myself, would be to level up to max level. SOMEHOW, this increases your overall damage and accuracy in ways that are not shown to the player in characteristics or statistics pages. Even so, as a max level, higher Attack Power is entirely irrelevant the way I see it. Here's a few examples of current Attack Power standards:
GUNS
Single Barrels, Triple Barrels and Muskets
The reality is that with current Attack Power settings, the damage difference between a Triple Barrel Pistol with 30 Attack, vs a Single Barrel Pistol or Musket with 70 Attack, has no clear difference in strength. The ONLY thing you MIGHT see different is Max Damage, and that isn't even consistent, OR relevant, considering that Triple Barrels don't necessarily NEED to charge each shot to max damage using Take Aim. They have the option to fire constantly without the Take Aim Ability, letting 3 of their shots (that never miss anyone of appropriate difficulty) do the same damage as 1 Single shot. You could also opt to charging the Take Aim bar HALFWAY on each shot, thereby still gaining good accuracy and significant damage increase while saving on time.
In short, the Triple Barrel Pistol would have the POTENTIAL to do more damage than 1 shot from a Single Barrel Pistol, only if it successfully landed all 3 shots in a clip. With lowered Attack Power, the Triple Barrel would have less ACCURACY, meaning that the chance to miss is ACTUALLY RELEVANT. It would also have MORE Variation Damage and LESS Max Damage. This is all completely fair, considering how easy it is for 3 shots to outweigh a single one. This provides the ability of OPTION to players, giving them two clear choices; the inaccurate pistol that COULD do more DPS..?... or the more accurate pistol that gives no TRUE GUARANTEE of doing Max Damage? This way, it's a choice.
On the subject of Muskets, I kinda hate it but it's true from what I see; muskets' only purpose in the current Attack Power system (PVE) is the Hex Breaker family for their unique anti-voodoo abilities that Pistols and Blunderbusses don't have. Other than that exact variant of musket, I fear that a weapon I would LOVE to use, is sadly useless. Muskets DO have a higher Max Damage than Single Barrel and Triple Barrel Pistols, true. What is ALSO true, is they have the same Minimum Damage as Pistols do. Due to their shot & load time, this makes them very easily outgunned by Single Barrel and Triple Barrel Pistols from a DPS standpoint. Yet Another issue caused by ineffective Attack Power. If Attack Power had more affect, then a Musket at 90 Attack Power would have more Minimum Damage AND less variation range between Minimum and Max damage. This would allow the Musket to still possibly be outgunned, but with one overwhelming factor that makes it all worth it; ACCURACY. With more effective Attack Power, Pistols would have much more of a chance to miss a shot than a Musket, EVEN WITH TAKE AIM. Frankly, guns only miss when fighting a VERY high level opponent compared to your own level. With more effective Attack Power, that would all change, and accuracy would be taken into affect. Thereby making Muskets viable in PVE while simultaneously pushing Triple Barrel Pistols off the throne and down to equal ground.
MELEE
Swords and Daggers
So I HAVE had a lot of practice with Swords and Daggers alike, but in the end I think it's almost self explanatory on what Attack Power has affected here; nothing. If it's possible to fight matched enemies while using lower level weapons (ranged or melee), without taking on any serious risk, then what's the point of higher Attack Power weapons? I mean for instance: Where's the downside in using a Drain Health Dagger that has 40 Attack, when an 80 Attack Cutlass only gets a Maximum of 10% More Damage on each hit? That may SOUND like a fair trade; 10% more damage per hit versus Drain Health, but that's out of hundreds of damage per hit. If the Drain Health ability were at its highest rank then that damage difference in the Cutlass would mean nothing. Which begs the question: How many swords do you see that AREN'T legendary/cursed and yet have more than 80 Attack Power? Not many. In the end, Attack Power needs to count for something, and higher ranking weapons need to be added to accompany it. Of course that IS just my opinion but, I'd love to hear if anyone agrees/disagrees.
CONCLUSION
I REALLY want to thank anyone who read this far into my post here. I may not be too advanced of a player yet, but I surely understand a lot and know decently what I'm talking about. I'm completely open to controversy and opposing opinions, not to mention any corrections or notifications of if my information may be a little inaccurate. Either way, my main goal is to know whether or not Attack Power is a problem, and if so, is anything being done about it? In my opinion, it would be GREAT if Attack Power mattered more, and if some effects on lower weapons were added to higher Attack Power weapons. Thanks, and please comment.
