Posted this on reddit but as some people don't read it there I'll post it here as well.
Introduction
This is something that me and /u/iDervyi been working on the past month. It started with Dervy noticing how weirdly the tooltip showed the GCD/Cast at 4 seconds and higher. Instead of how it works at the regular GCD of 2.5 which is 26,41 per GCD decrease, at 4 seconds it started to become an irregular amount for every decrease in GCD. For example at 8 seconds it was a pattern of 7,7,6,7,13 points per decrease. This made us wonder how the game actually handles SS as it would be impossible for it to follow the regular formula. The only possible way the game could accomplish this was if SS was tiered.
Tiers
To understand how the tiers in this game works. Let’s start with how the game find out what GCD you’re supposed to have. This is done using the formula, the latest formula by Dervy is this: 2.50256 * (1 - (Skillspeed-354)/6600). The game puts in the SS and then divides/multiplies it depending on the GCD/Cast time after that it rounds it down towards nearest 100th of a second. So for example 2.499 would mean a GCD of 2.49.
Now to find the tiers the formula is changed so that we can find out the SS required for each GCD decrease. For simplicities sake a 1 second GCD base will be used. At a GCD of 1 the SS required for a decrease in GCD is 66. As a drop of 0.01 at 1 second is also a 1% decrease we can then conclude that 66 points equals a 1% drop in GCD no matter what GCD/Cast time. This is correct even with the irregular patterns shown by GCD/Cast time over 4 seconds.
So what does these tiers actually mean in practice? It means that the GCD/Cast time will only be affected if the SS actually reaches a tier. Any points other than these are vastly reduced in value or stat weight (In MNKs case this would be a stat weight of about 0.035 str). What this means is that it’s possible to have up to 26 points of SS that is close to worthless, but what it also means is that one point of SS can be worth more than 2 points of a main stat.
So when gear planning it’s good to not only focus on the stat weight but also to try end up with as little extra SS as possible, just like with accuracy.
Delay
While testing this we also noticed that all abilities have a delay of 0.01s meaning that the calculated tier is always 0.01s behind what the tooltip shows. This is important to know if trying to get additional hits in during a buff.
GL/Huton
Another test performed was how the tiers were affected by GCD enhancing moves like GL and Huton, would also expect Ley Lines to be included here. What the tests showed was that these had individual tiers. But the issue with these were that while they were following the 66 = 1% it wasn’t complete accurate as for some odd reason it didn’t have any repeating pattern. While the longer GCD/Cast time while irregular still showed a pattern. This makes it impossible to adjust a formula to get the exact values and the only way is to find the tiers by looking at the tooltips. What this also means it that for BLM there’s multiple tiers to keep an eye on as both longer cast times and ley lines have their own tiers and need to be adjusted accordingly.
TL DR
Skillspeed is in tiers and any point not at the exact tier is worth a lot less.
GCD delayed by 0.01s.
GCD enhancing abilities have their own tiers.
Data
Credits to /u/iDervyi for the massive amount of data in this spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...#gid=898722325
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing
How SS is calculated and works
Printable View
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09-03-2016, 10:00 AMKrindorHow SS is calculated and works
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09-03-2016, 11:22 AMCanadane
I thought that it was already known it was tiered. Or at least, I have had that assumption for a while.
Good work either way! -
09-03-2016, 11:49 AMKrindorFrom the people I spoke with before this was done the common thoery was that while tooltip didn't show it, each point of SS still increased the GCD. There wasn't any data either. It is also quite illogical for it to only be useful only every 26.4 points.Quote:
Originally Posted by Canadane
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09-03-2016, 05:00 PMCookieMonstaI actually thought it made a lot of sense to be tiered even before Dervy's work. You can save a lot of number space and processing power server side if you implement numbers and math with less precision. FP32 and FP64 hardware isn't cheap so I'm sure YoshiP made this decision to help optimize the maximum possible players per server in combat. The tier-ing gives the illusion of continuous granularity so most players won't notice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Krindor
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09-03-2016, 09:41 PMKrindorThis was my thought as well, from a producers perspective it's quite resonable, but from a player perspective it's going to be quite the severe effect on gear planning, not so much now compared to ARR(Due to being worth completely 0) and early HW due to low amount of secondary stats. Of course the amount of player that will probably even think about this is low, probably even lower than the clear rate of savage content.Quote:
Originally Posted by CookieMonsta
But from what we've gathered, it isn't only due to servers, but from sloppy programming which causes performance issues. While I'm not in any way experienced in servers, I do have a self programmed simulator which is able to perform 1,500,000 of 1ms precision checks per second, so if it checks every 1ms that would be enough for 1500 players and I'm still a basic programmer so it would be a lot more efficient with some tricks. The reason I think it's caused by sloppy programming is that the formula used to calculate the GCD is inconsistant across different cast times/GCDs. If it's inconsistent in a way it means that something is not being done right or affecting the formula for some odd reason. An example of this can be seen in the 2nd google docs link comparing the formula and tooltip while under Huton. -
09-05-2016, 06:47 AMJudge_Xero
I'm not sure if anything has changed since you did your testing but taking averages from 60+ skill usages with varying amounts of SS is showing per point gains.
The only anomaly being Spells where the Cast is the same as Recast, there seems to be some sort of extra delay.
Bard: @ +462 SS (7%)(93)
Heavy Shot (2.32 in game)
Averaged 2.323
Calculated - 2.325
Bard: @ + 435 SS (6.59%)(93.401)
Heavy Shot (2.33 in game)
Averaged 2.333
Calcualted - 2.335025
Bard: @ + 423 SS (6.409)(93.59)
Heavy Shot (2.34 in game)
Averaged 2.3372
Calcualted - 2.33975
BRD @ + 426 SS (6.4545%)(93.5454)
Heavy Shot (2.34 in game)
Averaged 2.3369
Calcualted 2.338635
Bard: @ +0 SS
Heavy Shot (2.5 in game)
Averaged 2.506
Calculated 2.5
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Also wanted to mention as from above while the issue of a delay where cast/recast times match up is not an issue for most Jobs.
i.e. BLM,BRD,MCH - where Cast times are either longer or shorter than the Recast.
This issue is terrible for Summoner where all of their spells outside of Shadow Flare share a time with the recast. To highlight this I will show some of that data.
SMN - @+452 (6.85%)(93.152)
Ruin (in game 2.33)
Averaged - 2.4439
Calculated - 2.3288
Ruin II (in game 2.33)
Averaged - 2.335
Calcualted - 2.3288
Difference - 0.1089
SMN - @+0 SS
Ruin (in game 2.5)
Averaged - 2.616
Calculated - 2.5
Ruin II (in game 2.5)
Averaged - 2.5046
Calculated - 2.5
Difference - 0.01114
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SMN Comparison
Over 600s @ 2.5 GCD - shoud be 240 attacks
Actually 229.3577
4.5% less casts. Probably close to 2% DPS loss -
09-05-2016, 11:57 AMKrindorMost of the tests we did were done in the last 2 months, with the Huton/GL being tested a week ago.Quote:
Originally Posted by Judge_Xero
Tbh except for the tooltip, we have not tested how the delay affects casted spells as neither I nor Dervy have access to a 60 spellcaster and all our tests were performed on NIN/DRG/MNK. But do you by any chance have the raw data available? It would be interesting to take a look at is as we haven't been able to test it ourselves. Also what formula did you use to calculate the GCD?
And those SMN tests seems really horryfying, if a 100ms delay is actually a thing, that is longer on the level of how the game works but a really serious bug. -
09-05-2016, 07:31 PMJudge_XeroFor the Formula I just used 66 = 1% Reduction (I'm fairly adamant that the Tiers are simply used for the Visual Display of Cast/Recast and are a combination of the 776,776,7676 Pattern found on EA and rounding)Quote:
Originally Posted by Krindor
BLM
https://www.fflogs.com/reports/pGQPW...42&view=events
https://www.fflogs.com/reports/pGQPW...ne&view=events
https://www.fflogs.com/reports/pGQPW...ne&view=events
https://www.fflogs.com/reports/pGQPW...ne&view=events
https://www.fflogs.com/reports/pGQPW...ne&view=events
https://www.fflogs.com/reports/pGQPW...ne&view=events
BRD
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09-05-2016, 09:36 PMKrindorI'll have a look at them tomorrow as I'm just about to head off to bed so no need to rush it :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Judge_Xero
Compared to the formula I'm using, which is the current one Dervy is using our calculated results differ. Also to be noted is that while the 66 = 1% is something that can be used, changing it to fit the tiers of the desired speed is better. An easy way to do it is, as the 66 = 1% is derived from the amount of SS required for one tier for 1 second GCD, therefore for a 2.5s GCD that's 66/2.5 = 26.4. From that we can gather that we get a recurring pattern of 26,27,26,27,26. -
09-06-2016, 03:25 AMJudge_XeroQuote:
Originally Posted by Krindor
Updated the above post.
That's an interesting way to look at finding the tiers for the visual GCD/Casts. One thing to consider though is that it doesn't work for Empyreal Arrow (66/15 = 4.4).
The minimum recurring pattern being 7,7,6 7,7,6 7,6,7,6 tells us that there are a maximum of 10 rounding points per 66 points of SS. So you would still have that same pattern given a 10 second Cast.
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What I propose is that there are only Tiers for showing the visual representation of SS. But the actual effect of SS is valued per point.
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Take for example the 2 second cast time column.
SS value 467 (+113 SS)
This data point is special because you have a decrease in Recast Time but not a decrease in Cast time. It lands on the recurring 7 data point for EA @ 14.74 Recast.
Data Point = 1.96/2.45
Calculated value of that Data Point = 1.712% (113/66) (98.2879)
2s = 1.965758
2.5s = 2.4572
-----------------------------------
The previous Data Point @ 460 (+106SS)
1.96/2.46
Calculated value of that Data Point = 1.606% (106/66)(98.394)
2s = 1.96788
2.5s = 2.45985
-----------------------------------
For whatever reason SE seems to have chosen to do their rounding @ the 4th decimal. That is why 1.96788 is rounded to 1.968 but visually in game only shows to the second decimal 1.96. But 2.45985 goes to 2.46.
Same with looking at the very first rounding point @ 361 SS
1 second cast @ +7 SS (calculated 0.106%)(99.893)
In game 0.99s
Calculated 0.99893
Visually in game this gets rounded to 0.99 when really it's 0.999 but you only see to the 2nd decimal place, but also the reason "why" it simply doesn't show it still as a 1s cast.
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So I think there are two things going on here.
Visually in game for how the Cast/Recast/GCD is displayed goes off the 776 pattern at which point it does a rounding check to visually display the effects of the stat.
The actual effects of the stat on skills is given for every point of stat - but is really hard to pinpoint due to:
Attack Speed Swing (i.e. 2.5s GCD could be in the range of 2.45-2.55) so it takes a lot of averages to get accurate results.
Server Latency
System Latency
Perfect Testing - Requires perfect skill queuing for 100's of data points. -
09-06-2016, 03:48 AMDaemius
Is there a resource yet for listing SS tiers for each class? Concerned I may be wasting points on black mage in spellspeed. My old strat was just to stack as much as possible while maintaining accuracy caps.
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09-06-2016, 11:38 AMKrindorCurrently it's actually quite close to impossible to creat a tiered list for BLM, it's simple for most classes but when it comes to BLM, most of their attacks have different cast times and each individual cast time as well as the cast time has their own tiers making creating a specific tier almost impossible, I would say for BLM it isn't too much of a worry and you should just keep on stacking SS.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daemius
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09-06-2016, 11:46 AMKrindorAfter a significant amount of testing performed by both me and Dervy we've both seen the effect and it's impossible for it to not be tiered. No matter what tests we did, there was basically no difference between the first 25-26 points but as soon as that extra point was added the speed would be dropped by close to 0.01, this is too large of an effect to simply be something of a chancec. I noticed this about half a year ago when doing some tests, but at the time I thought it was just by chance, now that both me and Dervy have done extensive testing it shows that it's definitely a thing. Also as mentioned by CookieMonsta this is also something that is understandable due to its effect on the servers. Even if it was dropped from 0.01 to 0.001 it wouldn't be able to account for every single point of stats,Quote:
Originally Posted by Judge_Xero
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09-06-2016, 12:27 PMSunnyHirose
Okay, fought a headache long enough to take at least one look at it, sorry to hold back on ya brah
One thing about your empirically measured tiers I've noticed is that they closely correspond to the timing of "frames" (this makes a lot of sense if you understand a little about graphics programming / game development; it is possible but unusual to handle input at higher frequency than your display refresh rate, so obviously they're not keeping a running tally of how much frames have robbed us, but are instead rounding each time).
That is, you have:
354-360 at 2.511–2.513 → 151/60 = 2.517,
361-386 at 2.497–2.501 → 150/60 = 2.500,
387-439 at 2.482–2.485 → 149/60 = 2.483,
440-492 at 2.461–2.467 → 148/60 = 2.467,
and so forth. Two layers of rounding, yech! -
09-06-2016, 03:15 PMKrindorCorrect me if I'm understanding this wrong, a tad tired right now. But if I'm not wrong what I can gather from this is that you mean that either the system only calculates this based on the refresh rate, which I guess is set to 60 for all meaning that the tiering is even larger than what the tooltip shows. Or that due to being limited to a refresh rate of 60 we can only get data at these points. But with this rounding, I wonder if it isn't almost heavier calculations than just simply rounding once.Quote:
Originally Posted by SunnyHirose
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09-06-2016, 06:16 PMSunnyHirose
There is more than one possible explanation, but the the simplest hypothesis is that the engine waits till the first frame the skill is "off cooldown" to register the next GCD instead of prorating fractional time. So in that case, the rounding as a computation would only be once (and probably down, since that's just how this game rolls), but there would be effectively a second rounding enforced by the engine not rewinding time.
Lots of games (I'd conjecture the vast majority, considering how many games are for old-school hardware where this was the only way you could really do it) tie input registration to displayed frames; although I know such things because I've been an amateur game programmer most of my life, this can be observed if you play games on a potato like I do and have to wrestle through a few slideshows now and then.
If you lock FPS lower (higher!?) and observe the tiering changing accordingly, then I'd dare say this is the most probable explanation. -
09-06-2016, 07:58 PMKrindorI usually run the game on a 60hz monitor but I can test it out at 120hz and see if it changes anything.Quote:
Originally Posted by SunnyHirose
Though while I see the reason to do it, it still seems weird that they would implement such a system and then hide it by using a missinforming tooltip. Also from my very limited experience as a programmer(Basic image enhancing and recognition) counting 100 times per second and then display it when needed shouldn't be taxing at all. Tbh I'm feeling that this is caused because of the programmers being behind the western, modern standard.
Also do you have any theory as to why the stats shown by the tooltip is using really weird patterns instead of the logical 26/27 or 66 and instead like 8 sec for example which does it as something like 7,6,7,13. Still fits the 66=1% but in a bursts instead of a regular flow. -
09-06-2016, 08:27 PMJudge_Xero
Interesting about the frame rates. I tested @ 84hz but I also have my graphics on Standard for a constant 100 + FPS otherwise the game feels sluggish.
Testing just a 2.5s GCD I've had swings in the range of 2.455-2.536 which average out in the area of 2.506 (I estimate with enough data entries this would come out to 2.45-2.55)
So would that mean I have 4 frame swing? (4/84 = 0.047s)
If one attack comes out @ 80th frame the next is pushed to the 88th frame and so on.
Then if I was running 60 fps is should be in the range of 0.0667
30 FPS = 0.133 range?
Or will this be a straight up loss with lower hz?
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Edited:
Just wanted to mention too that while testing,
because I wanted my skills to go off as accurately as possible I first started by mashing my skill button as rapidly as possible hoping to get the GCD timing as tight as possible. Using that method actually created inconsistencies because if a skill was selected @ the point of being queued and then I mashed the action again as the GCD finished it would cause a delay due to thinking another skill was selected.
All the data I've posted has been of values where I only did a single click for a skill queued as it proved imo more accurate. -
09-07-2016, 06:48 AMWaliel
My wild guess would be that the servers are running at "60 fps" and that's their tick rate for handling skill usage.
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09-07-2016, 03:59 PMSunnyHiroseWell, I'm very much in the line of game design thinking where uninformed decisions are Not Fun. But I don't think SE means for this particular system to deceive anyone; it is likely they haven't been able to give this issue quite as much thought as the most dedicated of theorycrafters, and complicating the program to make a difference that can't really be noticed except by someone measuring carefully is a hard sell as a good use of development time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Krindor
Now, I have a tendency to ramble on, so I'm really trying not to make this post into Sunny's Heterodox School of Game Design (trust me, the first day of classes alone gets people angry), but it's gonna get close here.
For starters, there isn't really such a thing as "display it when needed" in modern graphics or game engines. But suffice it to say that if "frames per second" means anything in your system of graphics, you can't. Maybe a proper answer is a lot more complicated than this, but fundamentally, you're queuing up frames so that they show up in a coherent way and within a reliable time period.Quote:
Originally Posted by Krindor
I put it this way because it's analogous to how most systems in game engines are architected. Rather than taking every possible thing as it comes, it is far more efficient in terms of memory access patterns and rules of the game's logic for separate engine systems to run at a certain rate (independent yet in concert with other systems) and process its jobs on its own.
Your view of performance seems to be that it should be proportional to CPU processing speed? It's intuitive and it's true if things are loaded in (a very very small portion of) memory, but this view is increasingly discouraged in modern times. Memory access is just so much slower than CPU processing, and the problem has only gotten worse over the years. It affects issues like why load times are still a thing in games even though the hardware is so much better, it's at least two of the reasons why "globals are bad" in programming--and it's at this point I'm going to cut myself off instead of going overly technical but I hope you get the picture: games do things in batches for performance reasons, because they're trying to do millions of different things; but computers run fastest when you do millions of the same thing. Therefore, there must be compromises and shortcuts. You are looking at exactly such a situation here.
Now they could, for trivial processing time, add or subtract time to GCDs in order to match a theoretical time, but changing time components adds complexity to the game logic and may have unintended side effects, so it's not necessarily as trivial as it may sound. And it already appears as though they wanted to make the simplest possible implementation of input on their end, so take that as you will....
Sorry, I never managed to piece that together, or else this thread might've existed many months ago. I started looking into it shortly after figuring out the crit coefficients, but didn't get anywhere. Plus, the point by point testing is not a task I relish....Quote:
Originally Posted by Krindor
If my hypothesis is correct and the same method as the OP is used, I think that's what'll happen, yeah.Quote:
Originally Posted by Judge_Xero
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09-07-2016, 06:07 PMKrindorTotally would attend one of those classes.Quote:
Originally Posted by SunnyHirose
The only thing I heard could be the reason was floating number errors, though I don't really know if it could cause such a large difference and it also has some way of reducing the effect....Quote:
Originally Posted by SunnyHirose
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09-11-2016, 06:52 PMPFMIf I remember correctly there was a post several months back about a player who found that locking the game at 30fps produced very consistent results for trying to land a specifically difficult jump to get on a certain piece of terrain that was near impossible for them to land when running at higher framerates. I wonder if this carries over to the battle system as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by SunnyHirose
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09-11-2016, 11:58 PMjack891
So how does the +1ss that pushes you into the next tier compare to other secondaries? Are you guys saying that melding +1ss could be worth more than a +12 det or crit? Or am i misunderstanding lol
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09-12-2016, 03:33 AMKrindorYes, depending on class it has a different level of increase but even for NIN that 1 point is close to 2.5 str in value.Quote:
Originally Posted by jack891
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09-12-2016, 12:44 PMSunnyHiroseWell, it might be a little more complicated than just input in that case, since physics/movement is involved. Typically, physics is simulated at a separate (lower) frequency from the graphics, but that's not to say it can't be re-regulated by locking framerates. The tiniest fluctuations in time step can make those simulations behave differently; it's the nature of the beast, and (in real time) can only be reduced or engineered around, not eliminated.Quote:
Originally Posted by PFM
I myself had a very difficult time making the two hardest jumps on the Sightseeing Log because I play on a toaster. One of them required weather to be Rain, so I had to get there way ahead of time and potentially wait hours on RNG*, else GG no re.
* I did this when it was new. People have figured out the weather patterns since then. Also since then, SE has added skywatcher NPCs and relaxed the requirements for similar weather types. -
09-12-2016, 07:13 PMjack891oh thats really interested and definately something to consider when melding and/or customising anima weapons. will the value for each job be released once the new patch/stat weights are out?Quote:
Originally Posted by Krindor
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09-12-2016, 08:28 PMKrindorI'll be posting the thresholds for 2.5 and GL/Huton as these are easily tested by myself as I only have WAR/NIN/MNK leveled. Though it should mostly match for most classes as they have 2.5 as a GCD, it's mostly BLM that I won't be able to test and tbh it's a headache to even try as there's multiple thresholds, one for every speed and then one for each of them under leylines. So for that class it is probably still best to just stack huge amount of SS without caring for the thresholds.Quote:
Originally Posted by jack891
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09-12-2016, 09:23 PMjack891
do the tiers affect DoTs in anyway, ie damage output? or just the GCD
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09-12-2016, 09:50 PMKrindorAs far as I'm aware of there's no reason as to why it would be tiered, so my answer to this would be that it isn't tiered and each point is a gain, but the gain is quite low, at about 0.003 in comparison to SS being at 0.013 looking at it as stat weights.Quote:
Originally Posted by jack891
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09-13-2016, 12:25 AMSunnyHirose
BLMs stacking SS would happen even if it weren't their best secondary by weight. It's very simple: move your [... meat], lose your cast.