Losing soulbound when an enemy heals?

#21

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stkPMK3kUN0 This should answer it.

#22

You’re absolutely right, but my gut feeling is that Bilgewater healed a ludicrous amount of HP.

Purely anecdotal, but if you’ve ever solod a docks, those things take forever even on a warrior sitting there pressing space. And he heals fast; hence why low dps classes can’t solo him. (So I think he healed his full HP multiple times over)

I understand that GHZD did do a fair amount of damage and let’s say SB threshold is 10% but GHZD thought it was 20%.

If Bilgewater healed back his full HP (I. E damage dealt is 2 times of normal), GHZD would sill be within threshold.

Any ideas on how to test it more scientifically? I could replicate this but sit for a freaking hour letting the dude heal xD (and review footage to see how much he heals)

@Nevov senpai devise a strategy pretty please or this will make me anal for a while.

#23

Like you say, the healing of Bilgewater is SO massive in there, and took ages for the other player to kill, that the sb must be only 1 shot or something, so that any dmg will qualify the 2nd player.

You could repeat the activity with the 2nd player only doing literally 1 shot, then allowing the 2nd to solo, but I expect it will get the same result as in the vid.

The fact that in the vid both did still get the items very much proves that players don’t lose SB, the only danger as I mention is being off with your calculations because you miscalculate how much the healing is going to do, in a scenario where there isn’t guaranteed loot and you need to stay above the sb threshold.

It is scientific enough. The video provides the fundamental answer that SB isn’t removed by healing, everything else would just be testing to try and learn specific SB numbers/percentages for the enemy, which don’t really matter, it’s same old rule, “do as much damage as you can, and let the RNG roll”.

#24

Let’s see here…
We need a theory, a method to test said theory, and the conclusion. As of the moment I’m typing this, there are 2 major theories in this thread;

  1. SB qualification is based on % of damage done to an enemy.
  2. SB qualification is based on % of damage to enemy’s max HP.

The facts:
SB damage is attained by dealing a certain amount of unknown damage

The problem:
How will SB work with an enemy which can heal?

Why is this question important? Let’s look at Jon Bilgewater as reference:
Jon’s max HP: 90000 points.
If we assume that theory 2 is correct, doing 3000 damage to Jon will grant you 1/30 or 3.33% SB level.
If we assume that theory 1 is correct, doing 3000 damage to Jon out of the… say 150,000 damage required to kill Jon (90,000 base hp +60,000 hp generated from healing), then you only have 1/50 or 2% SB level.

As we can see, the SB levels that you attain differs from theory to theory. If the SB level required for SB loot is at 2.5%, then which theory is correct will dictate who shall get loot. If theory 1 is correct, Jon’s healing should qualify more people, especially the DPS challenged, to compete for fair loot. If theory 2 is correct, then characters which can deal far more damage than other classes would leave them at lower chances for qualification.

Tools and Materials:
2 lv 20 max att/dex Sorcerer.
1 clean Deadwater Docks
(optional):
1 warrior with permabuff.
1 pally with permabuff.

Proposed method:
Part 1:
I propose having both characters attack Jon simultaneously.
The first Sorcerer shall be called SorcA, and the second SorcB. They will both have recomp, and both should not use their abilities.

SorcA would constantly auto-fire at Jon.
SorcB would switch between autofiring for X seconds, then stopping for 10-X seconds, with X being less than 10.
This will be done by both characters attacking Jon at a safe distance, with the assistance of buffers to speed up the process.

This would mean that SorcB would always have less % of damage done to Jon than SorcA.
We would start with X value of 1, and then decreasing by half of its last value everytime SorcB gets loot.

X(1) would be 1 (10% of damage done)
X(2) would be 0.5 (5% of damage done)
X(3) would be 0.25 (2.5% of damage done)
etc.
The duration of each fight should also be recorded.

Part 2:
This should repeat until SorcB gets no more loot. When SorcB stops getting loot, the last percentage when SorcB gets loot would be noted as the Experimental Threshold (Y) and the last duration would be noted as Experimental Duration(Z).

After the Y has been found, change SorcA’s autofire rate to 5 seconds out of 10 seconds, and halve X as well. After doing this for the double the duration Z, SorcA should shoot Jon without SorcB.

If theory 1 is correct, then SorcB will not get loot on this stage, because SorcB would have done at most half of the SB level attained at part 1.

If theory 2 is correct, then SorcB will still qualify for loot because the SB level SorcB has attained stays the same.

Conclusion:
In order to do this experiment, we will require volunteers for the clean Deadwater Docks, 2 sorcerers, a pally, and a warrior, as well as some keyboard-input software which could alternate the autofire-states of both Sorcerers, as well as a recording software to record the experiment and publish it.

However, whichever theory is correct, the best course of action for any player stays the same; Just shoot the damn target, and not leech.

#25

That sounds like a plan. But how feasible is it?

Something easier we can do is try to falsify the premise “soulbound threshold is based on max hp” by assuming it is true and finding one counter-example. Do normal soulbound threshold testing (like this one, but with someone else to finish the boss instead of a pet) on Bilgewater to find a range where the soulbound threshold is and then reproduce it on various occasions with different classes.

If it is based on max hp, then we won’t be able to falsify it and that’s strong evidence that the premise is true, but more testing would be required (like the one BaraBlazer proposed) to have a final veridict. But if it isn’t based on max hp, we only need one example where someone didn’t get loot while dealing more damage than the max damage of the range established and the premise is falsified. Still, that wouldn’t prove that soulbound damage depends only on total damage dealt, but I don’t see any other way the loot system could work that would be consistent with what we observe in our daily RotMG lives.

I’m loving the theorycrafting guys, keep’em coming!

#26

A feasible example… I suppose since the SB threshold is so low, we can do this too;

Materials and tools:
Wizard lv 20 max dex/att
Sorc, prefferably lv 20
Optional: warr & pally w/permabuff

Method:
Part 1: Standard SB threshold test

  1. Sorc will shoot at Jon to X damage. Where X is < than wizard’s total damage at all times. Recommended starting value is ~3000 damage.
  2. Wizard attacks Jon until he dies, prefferably while buffed by a Pally and Warr
  3. If sorc does not acquire loot, increase X by 1000. If Sorc does acquire loot, X damage by 500.
  4. Repeat step 1-3 until temp. SB threshold is found.
    Temp. SB threshold is found when X needs to change from decreasing in value to increasing.
    Example: X was tested until 5000, which should decrease to 4500 on the next test. If X should increase further, the temp. SB threshold shall be 4500 to 5000. If not, the threshold shall be 4000 to 4500.

Part 2: The Theory Test

  1. The sorc shall attack until the sorc has passed our temp. SB threshold
  2. Wizard shall attack Jon until he is near death (visibly less than a quarter health left)
  3. Let Jon heal
  4. Wizard shall attack until Jon dies.

if SB is based off damage done, the Sorc should not get any loot.
if SB is based off max HP%, then further testing is required to confirm which theory is correct, as it could fall under the range of minimum SB threshold.

Part 3: Reconfirming
To confirm the theory even further the Sorc should deal 4/7 of X, before letting the wizard kill Jon.

If after killing Jon, the Sorc does not acquire loot, then the true theory is the % of HP required.

If after killing Jon, the Sorc still has acquired loot, then a new Minimum SB Treshold has been found, and part 1 should be redone.

How about that?
Edit: darnit, now I’m confused. Let me make some visual aids…
Edit2: I got the theories better wrapped around my head now. I’ll see if I can post my train of thoughts here.

#27

I know that’s only an example, but we can be much more precise than that. A range of 50 health doesn’t seem that hard to reach.

By the way, I’d love to see people volunteer for the job. You know, people with more free time to play the game than me.
#28

These are all just theories on what the sb needed to get loot is…

#29

Yeah, for general realm players, this shouldn’t matter too much, but theorycrafting is fun.

#30

Just curious, what other games do you play?

#31

healing doesnt negate sb, this can easily be observed in a manor. Do a decent amount of damage to ruthy, have him heal off damaging you to full and have a friend finish the fight.
(just because you didnt get anything doesn’t mean you did not qualify)

#32

No. A player’s soulbound record only goes in one direction, so to speak–or it can be zeroed out, like upon leaving the zone, dying, etc.

That’s not how the soulbound record works with the Pentaract. Here’s an brief explainer of the Pentaract’s mechanics. Let me know if you have any questions about it, because I did gloss over things a bit for brevity’s sake.

Because that’s how the loot tables are coded.

EDIT: Here’s an example line from a monster’s loot table:

<SoulboundLoot prob="0.01" threshold=".18">Potion of Attack</SoulboundLoot>

In English, this would read: if you damage this monster for 18% of its total health, you have a 1% chance at receiving a ATT pot.

EDIT 2: Clarified my initial “no” a little.

#33

<#off-topic>, I play Monster Hunter and the like. I watch a lot more though, especially something like 80% of Chuggaaconroy’s videos… Lately visual novels like Prof. layton’s, Phoenix Wright’s, just started 999 too!

#34

Do you have a source? I’m really curious how you know about all of these inner workings… I’d love to know too.
Also, in that Pentaract Link you provided, you said that heal doesn’t affect SB. May I know how you found that out as well?

#35

Other than my memory and what I have stored in my RotMG archives, no. So nothing that anyone would find satisfactory.

What I rely on are various sources that have been lost to the ravages of time (old forum posts from the original forums for example; a lot is preserved on the Internet Archive, but best of luck to you if you decide to try and navigate it), various sources that there aren’t records of (e.g., conversations with the old devs and others that worked on and wrote code for the game a long time ago (2011-ish)), what bits of the code itself that have found their way to me, and old decompilations of the flash client that I have.

Unfortunately, sometimes there’s no other choice but to use deductive reasoning based on my own knowledge, memory, and experience. To that end, it’s important to keep in mind that the original devs preferred straightforward mechanics and systems.

EDIT: minor rephrasing, small clarifying additions, and grammar corrections.
EDIT 2: big changes to the overall framing of my response

#36

Dammit, another information lost to time. Thanks for the response, though! I believe you, but it’s just hard to quote you in case I need to recite sources as well :sweat_smile:

#37

That line of code only gives a percentage threshold, but it says nothing about percentage of what it is referring to. So the question of wether soulbound thresholds are based on total health of the monster or total damage received by the monster remains.

I’m not saying it’s one or the other, all I’m saying is that, from what I’ve seen from the code (like the line you presented), I can’t know.

And that makes sense, no need to make things complicated. But still, I’m not satisfied with the answer, the facts that Mrunibro asserted that soulbound damage is based on total damage dealt to the enemy and that a recent video testing “showed” otherwise only makes thing more confusing.
#38

As an engineer and scientist, I don’t like not having or not providing sources when I say things like this. I just kinda of rely on my own reputation, which likely isn’t worth anything these days since I assume most players don’t know and rightly shouldn’t care who I am.

I don’t expect anyone to be. I can’t, and for some details, won’t, provide sources when it comes to this, which already makes me feel uncomfortable, but I feel that I’m obligated to at least share what I can (within reason) since I’ll soon be coming up my sixth year of involvement in this community and, as such, have built up quite a historical knowledge base of the game.

#39

Since the Pentaract itself never dies, though the towers respawn, your SB record would be maintained until the encounter dies.

Thanks for the detailed response about Pentaract and the towers. I was aware of some of that, but to my knowledge doing damage on one tower and then letting that tower respawn will never give you loot from that tower (at least, it never happened to me). I also know that you can’t get loot from pentaract tower corpse if you didn’t shoot the corresponding pentaract tower, so there is no point to check spots which you didn’t shoot at all. Do you have any video evidence of getting loot from the pentaract tower which respawned, without damaging the respawned one?

#40

No. GHZD made a video on it, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stkPMK3kUN0