Ability Stacking and Diminishing Returns - Damage

[Katastrphik]

EDIT: Don't like reading? Come get a basic understanding of Damage and Defence here.

I decided to start testing exactly how much equipment affects your character's performance. Starting off with the damage increasing abilities. I recorded a few other abilities as well, but they will take a little more time to crunch the numbers.

All this testing was done in the Test Area, since it gives exact damage numbers. I decided to use the Roller (Krak-On) to test, since it does consistent damage while rolling.

Here are my initial findings. I will try and expand upon this once I unlock gear with the right abilities.

Some things of note:

• Headgear, Shirts, and Shoes are all treated equally. Using 1 main damage increase netted the same numbers in each slot.
• All equipment benefits for damage increases. Tested the rolling attack, paint flinging attack, the kraken, splat bombs, and the N-ZAp '85. They all netted a similar increase.
• Main slots are way more effective than sub slots. I would assume that 3 sub dmg would still be less than 1 main.
• I've yet to see gear with both a main and sub damage ability, however I have seen it with super jump time, so it should be possible to get it with any ability that is available to be a sub.

EDIT: This Doc has my most up-to-date findings. As I made an invalid assumption again. 3 Main Def vs 3 Main Dmg will yield your base damage, however 2 Main Def vs 3 Main Dmg is not the same as 0 Main Def vs 1 Main Dmg. The table is fixed for now, and may be updated in the future with precise data on how Subs Interact.



For the future:

• Super Jump Times / Stealth Jump Penalty
• Ink Refill Times
• Ink Saver Amount
• Special Fill Amount
• Special Save Amount
• Special Use Time
• Run Speed
• Roller Speed
• Swim Speed / Stealth Swim Penalty
• Grenade Ink Usage
• Defense
• Respawn Times
• Bomb Range
• Last-Ditch Effort Increases
• Cold Blooded Time Shortening

 

[ThatsSo]

Fascinating stuff, I wouldn't have assumed they worked like this.

 

[Kaliafornia]

Thanks! This is really helpful!

 

[Howl]

Thank you for your testing. Do you know what is the health of an Inkling? Is it 140?

 

[Seleir]

ty for testing it, so nice :D

 

[Katastrphik]

Thank you for your testing. Do you know what is the health of an Inkling? Is it 140?

I would assume the health of a standard Inkling is 100. Judging from the balloons in the test area popping at 100. Also I've never seen somebody survive being rolled over, which might happen if the roller did only the damage required to kill a standard Inkling.

I think the high number is to compensate for defense increases.

All this being the case, I still think extra damage can't hurt on a roller, especially the dynamo. The "paint flinging attack" gets way more mileage than trying to roll over people.


tl;dr
100 is probably base.
Too hard to test solo.

 

[Howl]

I would assume the health of a standard Inkling is 100. Judging from the balloons in the test area popping at 100. Also I've never seen somebody survive being rolled over, which might happen if the roller did only the damage required to kill a standard Inkling.

I think the high number is to compensate for defense increases.

All this being the case, I still think extra damage can't hurt on a roller, especially the dynamo. The "paint flinging attack" gets way more mileage than trying to roll over people.


tl;dr
100 is probably base.
Too hard to test solo.

Okay, based on that assumption... now we should discuss about how game changing can increased damage be. As in, damage increase will be useless if you splat in the same number of shots/bombs, either way. This is the next thing we should test -- having the percentages is nice, but we need to translate it into actual in game knowledge. As far as I know, stacking damage hardly ever makes you kill in less shots (I haven't tested it myself though so I could be wrong, of course).

 

[Katastrphik]

Okay, based on that assumption... now we should discuss about how game changing can increased damage be. As in, damage increase will be useless if you splat in the same number of shots/bombs, either way. This is the next thing we should test -- having the percentages is nice, but we need to translate it into actual in game knowledge. As far as I know, stacking damage hardly ever makes you kill in less shots (I haven't tested it myself though so I could be wrong, of course).

Exactly. This props up a thresholding issue.
Let's do some quick math with a few assumptions.

Say 1 shot of a Jr. does 20 points of damage, and an Inkling has 100 points of health.

Firing 5 shots will kill. Trying to reduce the amount of shots required down to 4 would take a 25% dmg increase. 20 x 1.25 = 25
In which case adding damage without breaking that threshold is pointless.

Also there is the issue of defense. Defense could work in multiple ways, since it is unique in its defensive abilities.
It could:

1. Add to your base health pool. Eg. 120 Hp, instead of 100 Hp
2. Increase an existing defense stat, making each shot do less. Eg, taking 15 dmg from the Jr., instead of 20 dmg

Gonna need to organize a turf war friend lobby, where people show up with different amounts of damage and defense with one weapon at a time.

 

[iTwAsLucK]

Also there is the issue of defense. Defense could work in multiple ways, since it is unique in its defensive abilities.
It could:

1. Add to your base health pool. Eg. 120 Hp, instead of 100 Hp
2. Increase an existing defense stat, making each shot do less. Eg, taking 15 dmg from the Jr., instead of 20 dmg

Gonna need to organize a turf war friend lobby, where people show up with different amounts of damage and defense with one weapon at a time.

Based on the Testing Zone I believe it is a % reduction of the damage.

 

[Howl]

Exactly. This props up a thresholding issue.
Let's do some quick math with a few assumptions.

Say 1 shot of a Jr. does 20 points of damage, and an Inkling has 100 points of health.

Firing 5 shots will kill. Trying to reduce the amount of shots required down to 4 would take a 25% dmg increase. 20 x 1.25 = 25
In which case adding damage without breaking that threshold is pointless.

Also there is the issue of defense. Defense could work in multiple ways, since it is unique in its defensive abilities.
It could:

1. Add to your base health pool. Eg. 120 Hp, instead of 100 Hp
2. Increase an existing defense stat, making each shot do less. Eg, taking 15 dmg from the Jr., instead of 20 dmg

Gonna need to organize a turf war friend lobby, where people show up with different amounts of damage and defense with one weapon at a time.

Exactly my point. We need to test that damage increase not in % increase but in number of shots you need to kill someone (for now we're better off testing it in the no-defense-increase punching bag, but we can actually translate it into the other punching bags too -- not knowing if 3 defense is 3 main or anything else, though).

Based on the Testing Zone I believe it is a % reduction of the damage.

I agree on that. That would be another question, though -- Does stacking defense mean you'll be able to endure an extra shot of a weapon?

Either way, I think both stats are sort of useless. 1 shot more or less doesn't do that much (specially in high fire rate weapons such as Aerospray), or that's the idea I get from those abilities. Further testing needs to be done, abilities surely will expand the game strategies a lot.

 

[Katastrphik]

Based on the Testing Zone I believe it is a % reduction of the damage.

I had been testing in the bottom the whole time. Didn't even realize that the top guys have defense ups. Thanks for the reminder.

 

[iTwAsLucK]

Either way, I think both stats are sort of useless. 1 shot more or less doesn't do that much (specially in high fire rate weapons such as Aerospray), or that's the idea I get from those abilities. Further testing needs to be done, abilities surely will expand the game strategies a lot.

I have to disagree that the stats are useless.
I've personally noticed a decrease in deaths since equipping 2 defense items.

And winning a 1v1 firefight by one shot is still winning it... which is a significant advantage for modes which have a heavy(/heavier) emphasis on splatting, such as ranked splatzones.

 

[Howl]

I have to disagree that the stats are useless.
I've personally noticed a decrease in deaths since equipping 2 defense items.

And winning a 1v1 firefight by one shot is still winning it... which is a significant advantage for modes which have a heavy(/heavier) emphasis on splatting, such as ranked splatzones.

I didn't mean it like that. Usually lag will end up making you trade kills for the most parts, which renders that stat pretty useless. That's that I've seen in my games, of course. I could be wrong.

 

[iTwAsLucK]

I didn't mean it like that. Usually lag will end up making you trade kills for the most parts, which renders that stat pretty useless. That's that I've seen in my games, of course. I could be wrong.

Ahh... you're not wrong :P
I get that a lot too. Usually with enemies using rapid fire guns.

 

[Katastrphik]

Went back in with the Splattershot Jr. and started playing around with the balloon dummies. Seems like Howl has the right idea here.

A few things to take into consideration.

• Your damage is consistent as long as you are in range (Have the little X on your reticle), moving beyond that range lowers your damage.
• The attack/defense bonuses seem to be identical. A base Jr. deals 28.0. Adding 1 attack and defense keeps that value at 28.0. They perfectly negate each other.
• It may be possible that since it is tiered like this, that sub abilities are on their own diminishing return scale, in which case the math is much easier.

Probably wouldn't take too long to go through with each weapon and determine which +/- of dmg/def results in a worthwhile investment. However, for now I'd say you are better off focusing on other abilities.

 

[Howl]

Exactly what I thought. My bet is that utility abilities (saving ink, faster super jumps/respawns) will be the way to go for now. :)

 

[Katastrphik]

Went back in with the Splattershot Jr. and started playing around with the balloon dummies. Seems like Howl has the right idea here.

A few things to take into consideration.

• Your damage is consistent as long as you are in range (Have the little X on your reticle), moving beyond that range lowers your damage.
• The attack/defense bonuses seem to be identical. A base Jr. deals 28.0. Adding 1 attack and defense keeps that value at 28.0. They perfectly negate each other.
• It may be possible that since it is tiered like this, that sub abilities are on their own diminishing return scale, in which case the math is much easier.

Probably wouldn't take too long to go through with each weapon and determine which +/- of dmg/def results in a worthwhile investment. However, for now I'd say you are better off focusing on other abilities.

Just went through quickly with the other weapons and got similar results. Most fall in a position where they can only fluctuate by 1 shot. And it is a major commitment to either defend and extra shot, or kill in 1 less.

Even weapons like the rapid blaster seem to be pointless. With all 3 mains it still doesn't get up to 1 shot kill.

In conclusion, not entirely useless, but very situational on both sides.

 

[swifT]

This thread is very useful. Thank you for taking the time to test these out and share it with the community.

 

[Katastrphik]

One last update on this. I went through every weapon to see exactly how many Hits to Splat each takes, and if it can be reduced.

Here is the data table.

The (A/D) determines the difference between your Attack increases and your opponents Defense increases.
This should fluctuate with minor ability slots. However, I stuck with just Major slots.

A few oddities occur here. For one, there seems to be a damage cap in place. Noticeable on the Jet Squelcher (Probably applies to more weapons if you stack minor abilities as well). This leads into the fact that no weapon can kill quicker with damage ups, only less against armored foes.

Think this really drives the point home. Damage increases are of very little value. Maybe helping in situations where you are trying to push the range of your weapon, or with AoEs.

 

[Blatikin]

I don't know if you want to do this. Or maybe you already have the answer. But could you test if the inkling run speed perk also applies to win your firing your weapon? I always thought that perk is the most useless as everyone uses squid from to get around fast any way rather than just plain running. But if it increases your movement speed while firing your weapon it could be a little more useful.