Archer Ranged Thac0/Damage Improvements Not Correct

[morpheus562]

Greetings,

Possibly another bug, but the description for the Archer kit states: "– +1 to hit and damage rolls with any missile weapon every 3 levels."

However, after level 18 the Archer receives this bonus every 5 levels instead of every 3 levels as per the description. I would suggest this gets corrected to provide +1 to hit and damage rolls every 3 levels to align with the description.

[subtledoctor]

4 hours ago, morpheus562 said:

However, after level 18 the Archer receives this bonus every 5 levels instead of every 3 levels as per the description. I would suggest this gets corrected to provide +1 to hit and damage rolls every 3 levels to align with the description.

Would seem wiser to improve the description, rather than change the way the game works when the way it works seems to be a clear design choice.

(If I was designing this game, all kit abilities would stop at level 20, along with level-dependent spell effects. HLAs are there to provide further development after that. The way the game treats spells and abilities at epic levels is fairly haphazard. But, not necessarily a bug.)

[morpheus562]

15 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

Would seem wiser to improve the description, rather than change the way the game works when the way it works seems to be a clear design choice.

(If I was designing this game, all kit abilities would stop at level 20, along with level-dependent spell effects. HLAs are there to provide further development after that. The way the game treats spells and abilities at epic levels is fairly haphazard. But, not necessarily a bug.)

That's the odd thing, after level 18 it goes to an increase once every 5 levels but stops at level 33 and simply stops progressing. So it doesn't even seem to follow that pattern. Looking at the Kensai as a similar example, that class continues to progress per the description every 3 levels without fail.

If the desire is to change the description it would have to read something like: "+1 to hit and damage rolls with any missile weapon every 3 levels until level 18, then it will progress every 5 levels until level 33."

Current Archer description: "+1 to hit and damage rolls with any missile weapon every 3 levels."

Current Kensai description: "+1 to hit and damage rolls every 3 levels."

Edited January 19, 2023 by morpheus562

[subtledoctor]

I do agree that making the description accurate would also make the description terrible. 

[morpheus562]

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

I do agree that making the description accurate would also make the description terrible. 

Hahaha, I agree with that. The clab file for the Archer is also off and the rows where the archer bonus occur extends out by one extra "****" than it should. This isn't hurting anything, but it also isn't accurate signalling something is off.

Edited January 19, 2023 by morpheus562

[Dan_P]

Note that the current EE fixpack (from the repo) updates the archer clab in BG2EE to also gain the bonus at level 38.

Beamdog probably just left it unchanged from the original ToB, which also stops at 33 (and also changes to every 5 levels at level 18). It even has the extra **** in the line. Considering rangers cap level 34, probably no one cared enough to change it.

[morpheus562]

Is the description changed in the fix pack? I just have difficulty reconciling it considering kensai basically has the exact same description and actually follows it unlike the Archer.

[polytope]

15 hours ago, Dan_P said:

Considering rangers cap level 34, probably no one cared enough to change it.

Yes, this seems much more likely than a typo or misalignment in the CLAB file (which would have to have been repeated thrice), note that pre-EE there were other undocumented but nevertheless deliberate kit ability scaling like Jesters song gaining new effects/save penalties with level.

As for why, it may have to do with the general trend of nerfing missile weapons in BG2 compared to the prequel, they were probably worried archers in ToB with HLAs would be too powerful.

Anyway, bonuses at lvls 23, 28 and 33 short the archer by 2 points of damage per hit compared to a progression of 21, 24, 27, 30 and 33, it's a difference between a +9 and +11 bonus in total. THAC0 hardly matters for archers at lvl 20+, they have no problems with accuracy, and the difference in how the kit plays isn't noticeable until 3.9m xp, a minor issue imo whether changed or left as is.

[a.greene]

On 1/19/2023 at 10:45 AM, subtledoctor said:

Would seem wiser to improve the description, rather than change the way the game works when the way it works seems to be a clear design choice.

(If I was designing this game, all kit abilities would stop at level 20, along with level-dependent spell effects. HLAs are there to provide further development after that. The way the game treats spells and abilities at epic levels is fairly haphazard. But, not necessarily a bug.)

Playing devils advocate, are we sure that the the description is not actually correct and the CLAB file is incorrect?

[subtledoctor]

3 hours ago, a.greene said:

Playing devils advocate, are we sure that the the description is not actually correct and the CLAB file is incorrect?

Just, it’s been that way forever, and nobody has ever treated like it’s a bug that needed fixing. You get so many bonuses, and then the bonuses slow down at epic levels because you’re getting HLAs by that point. HLAs are the extra bonuses you get at epic levels. 

I’m not saying it makes much sense, and I’m not saying it’s good. I certainly would not have designed it quite like that. I’m just saying I don’t see any evidence that it’s an oversight of some sort. Like, can anyone make a case for how the CLAB table might end up that way accidentally? “Every 3 levels until x, then every 5 levels thereafter” seems like an intentional thing to me. (Even if, again, it is a bad intentional thing.)

[morpheus562]

4 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

Just, it’s been that way forever, and nobody has ever treated like it’s a bug that needed fixing. You get so many bonuses, and then the bonuses slow down at epic levels because you’re getting HLAs by that point. HLAs are the extra bonuses you get at epic levels. 

I’m not saying it makes much sense, and I’m not saying it’s good. I certainly would not have designed it quite like that. I’m just saying I don’t see any evidence that it’s an oversight of some sort. Like, can anyone make a case for how the CLAB table might end up that way accidentally? “Every 3 levels until x, then every 5 levels thereafter” seems like an intentional thing to me. (Even if, again, it is a bad intentional thing.)

Either way a change needs to be made: either the clab is updated to match the description or the description and clab are updated to reflect the every 5 levels. I suspect most players, and I'm included in that group, had no idea the Archer kit clab didn't match the description.

[polytope]

4 hours ago, a.greene said:

are we sure that the the description is not actually correct and the CLAB file is incorrect?

The kit description ofc was written for Shadows of Amn, the table expanded with probably deliberate revision in the expansion.

I don't see how this kind of bug could happen, the CLAB is a two dimensional array, now if archers gained their bonuses at levels:

3,6,9,12,15,18,23,24,27,30,33

or, for instance

3,6,9,12,15,18,23,26,29,32

I'd say, yes, that's an obvious bug with either an entry in the wrong column or insertion of columns skipping the appropriate level, now even if it was something weirder, like the archer instead gaining a swashbuckler's hit & damage bonuses (SPCL141 vs SPCL122, by default) and at the rate of 1/5 levels (as the swashbuckler) from 18th, that would also be a clear bug. I just don't see how the archer's CLAB file as it is could be an error rather than a design choice.