Archers misses a lot

cuneyt

Neophyte
I have 100 archery and tactics and 80 anatomy with my bard. The miss rate is incredibly high. Sometimes it's %10 it's hitting the target. In general I can say it's no more than 50%. With this rate, it's really impossible to get any fun with archers even if them very enjoying.

I'll make a video about it and post it here. If there is anybody else thinking the same (certainly there must be) please write down.
 

halygon

Grandmaster
Some things to think about.
  • The hit rate for any weapon vs another player is 50% however with archery, you can actually increase the hit rate percentage by having higher tactics (ie weapons with accuracy modifiers).
  • When fighting mobs, if the mob has a higher weapon skill than 100.0, then your hit rate will go down further.
With archery, the weapons are all slow, even regular bows, so the misses appear to happen more often than not, but its the same as any other weapon skill.
 

cuneyt

Neophyte
Some things to think about.
  • The hit rate for any weapon vs another player is 50% however with archery, you can actually increase the hit rate percentage by having higher tactics (ie weapons with accuracy modifiers).
  • When fighting mobs, if the mob has a higher weapon skill than 100.0, then your hit rate will go down further.
With archery, the weapons are all slow, even regular bows, so the misses appear to happen more often than not, but its the same as any other weapon skill.

If it's already %50, in average the rate might be normal. However, there is not a uniform distrubition among hits and misses. When it misses, it misses e.g 7-8 times and then starts hitting. Maybe a uniform distribution would be more reasonable.
 

halygon

Grandmaster
If it's already %50, in average the rate might be normal. However, there is not a uniform distrubition among hits and misses. When it misses, it misses e.g 7-8 times and then starts hitting. Maybe a uniform distribution would be more reasonable.
Well it is RNG - everyone's most favorite and hated thing in UO. Hit rate is a straight calc, roll die, 50% to hit or 50% to not hit (assuming both parties are at 100.0 skill otherwise the %s change).
 

cuneyt

Neophyte
Well I've been playing in Atlantic for 4 months and i see that there are many features that makes archery a viable option for fighting such as skill points that exceed 100, item properties that provides a more accurate shoot etc. These are all available only in the OSI servers and omitted in servers like UOF. This makes miss chance really high and I think this is the most extreme effect of removing OSI features from UO. I am not criticising it since it provides a simpler and clear way of playing UO but I think if the calculation of the miss chance were normalized to be work in the skill range 0 - 100 for tactics and weapon skill, the experience would be closer to OSI where you have almost no misses with the desired equipments.
 

halygon

Grandmaster
Well I've been playing in Atlantic for 4 months and i see that there are many features that makes archery a viable option for fighting such as skill points that exceed 100, item properties that provides a more accurate shoot etc. These are all available only in the OSI servers and omitted in servers like UOF. This makes miss chance really high and I think this is the most extreme effect of removing OSI features from UO. I am not criticising it since it provides a simpler and clear way of playing UO but I think if the calculation of the miss chance were normalized to be work in the skill range 0 - 100 for tactics and weapon skill, the experience would be closer to OSI where you have almost no misses with the desired equipments.
I guess first I'd have to say is that UOF is not OSI with parts removed, UOF is more like a snapshot of OSI from the 2001-2003 time frame -- it never had all of the other mechanics that OSI has.

Item properties are limited on UOF and not just for Archery but for all items because they are modeled after that '01-'03 mechanics. While we could include Scrolls to allow greater than 100 skill, I am not sure it would be very balanced. See as explained above, archery doesn't miss anymore than other weapon skills-- in fact it misses less! -- but you feel it more because it is a slow weapon.
 

Zog'orium

Grandmaster
It still seems crazy slow and less dangerous than any of the other wep skills out there. I rarely use my archer unless we have a ton of us on.
 

Cerebellum

Grandmaster
Some things to think about.
  • The hit rate for any weapon vs another player is 50% however with archery, you can actually increase the hit rate percentage by having higher tactics (ie weapons with accuracy modifiers).
  • When fighting mobs, if the mob has a higher weapon skill than 100.0, then your hit rate will go down further.
With archery, the weapons are all slow, even regular bows, so the misses appear to happen more often than not, but its the same as any other weapon skill.

FYI, "weapons with accuracy modifiers" don't add tactics for Archers, they add to the archery skill. Years ago, someone actually posted the math that goes into hit chance the way it is here on UOF, and a few of us pointed out the math didn't work on archery, but we were never able to get a response on it.
 

Cerebellum

Grandmaster
FYI, "weapons with accuracy modifiers" don't add tactics for Archers, they add to the archery skill. Years ago, someone actually posted the math that goes into hit chance the way it is here on UOF, and a few of us pointed out the math didn't work on archery, but we were never able to get a response on it.

If this is the correct formula for hit chance, then Archers gain an advantage that no one else does.
Hit Chance = ( Attacker's Weapon Skill + 50 ) ÷ ( [Defender's Weapon Skill + 50] x 2 )

With a +25 bow, this would calculate out to:

(125+50) / ([100+50]x2)
(175) / ([150]x2)
(175) / (300) = .58 or 58% hit chance.

So the fact that accuracy modifiers add to tactics for every other weapon skill doesn't seem to affect hit chance at all.

I have a very rudimentary understanding of all of this, and I'm sure that UOF has some special formula for this, but if this formula is correct, I don't see how tactics helps anyone EXCEPT archers with accuracy.

Based on this formula, Tactics will certainly affect DPS, but not accuracy on melee weapons.

Some insight from staff would be nice.
 

Decoy

Grandmaster
If you use the combat gem you can see that it will affect accuracy for bows... and also make it harder for you to be hit by mobs and players. It reveals the "chance to hit" and "chance to be hit" percents.
 

halygon

Grandmaster
FYI, "weapons with accuracy modifiers" don't add tactics for Archers, they add to the archery skill. Years ago, someone actually posted the math that goes into hit chance the way it is here on UOF, and a few of us pointed out the math didn't work on archery, but we were never able to get a response on it.
You are absolutely right, it was a typo in my note.
 

halygon

Grandmaster
I figured it was just a typo. Any thoughts on the math though? If that is indeed the correct formula, I can't see how accuracy modifiers actually work for melee weapons.
I am pretty sure the formula is more complex than what you have there, but at a basic level you are expressing what happens... just the example percentage is probably off.
 
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