Did you know that DA has diminishing returns? (lolalla)

[Cadsuane]

Allakhazam.com: Final Fantasy XI

Allakhazam.com: Final Fantasy XI

Alla's logic:

the increase in number of attacks from 0 to 5% DA is 1.05/1=1.05 or 5% more. The increase from 5% to 10% DA is 1.10/1.05=1.048 or about 4.8% more. Therefore, DA has diminishing returns.

My logic: Adding 5% DA gives you 5 more attacks out of 100 swings, regardless of how much DA you already have. Therefore, DA has constant returns.

I'm fucking baffled that this is so complicated to some people, and now I'm doubting my own sanity. What do you think BG?

[Gergall]

Let me put it this way.

(BTW I am using totally bogus numbers to make a very simple point here)

Lets say a SAM WS does 1000 damage.
He merits Overwhelm once and now it does 1050 damage. 5% increase (50 out of 1000 is 0.05)
He merits Overwhelm a second time and now it does 1100 damage. This is only a 4.7% increase from the previous merit (50/1050 is approx 0.047)

So as you can see, a constant DAMAGE increase translates into a diminishing % increase.

Similarly, if there was some magical thing you could do that added 1 DMG to your favorite weapon, at first this would have a very large effect, but eventually you would get to the point where it doesnt matter if your weapon is 917 dmg or 918 dmg, the % difference is negligible even though the amount of dmg increase is constant.


EDIT: My conclusion is that you are both correct, depending on what you want to measure: the actual increase in number of attack rounds or the percentage increase.
Personally, I cannot imagine why anyone would care about the % increase in this context, so I would say your viewpoint is more useful even though both are correct in that they measure different things.

[Raen Ryong]

Semantics issue.

DA does add less damage RELATIVE TO OTHER OFFENSIVE STATS as you add more (0 => 2 > 2 => 4) so ... depends how you see it.

[Suiram]

BG thinks this is a stupid semantics debate that it's already had three times in the last year.

[Liquidedust]

Allakhazam.com: Final Fantasy XI

Allakhazam.com: Final Fantasy XI

Alla's logic:

the increase in number of attacks from 0 to 5% DA is 1.05/1=1.05 or 5% more. The increase from 5% to 10% DA is 1.10/1.05=1.048 or about 4.8% more. Therefore, DA has diminishing returns.

My logic: Adding 5% DA gives you 5 more attacks out of 100 swings, regardless of how much DA you already have. Therefore, DA has constant returns.

I'm fucking baffled that this is so complicated to some people, and now I'm doubting my own sanity. What do you think BG?

To be completely speaking math, anything that adds to a sum gets diminishing returns (such as DA) and something that subtracts from a sum has increasing returns (such as Haste).

For something not to have diminishing nor increasing returns the gain must be linear (which it actually isn't in the case of DA). The more base DA you have, the less benefit you will gain from adding more DA which pretty much is a textbook example of what diminishing returns are.

[Cadsuane]

I don't think it's a semantics issue if the point you draw from it is that increasing values of a stat become progressively less valuable. The constant increase is a universal value that actually has a use, whereas the percentage increase of a total is a trivial value that changes depending on what increments you choose to use.

The important thing to note is this logic isn't used to evaluate any other stat in the game.

How do you graph the returns of haste? 1/(1-x)=y, where x is the haste value and y is the attack rate per base delay.It's not find the attack rate at 5% haste and then compare it to 10% haste. It's that stupid exponential function.

Similarly DA's effect is 1+x=y, where x is the DA and y would be your average number of swings per delay. WHOMG IT'S A LINEAR EQUATION.

[Suiram]

It's semantics. Total damage output as a function of increasing total DA is linear. Percent damage increase from adding fixed DA as a function of increasing base DA is diminishing. People pick one of those to be what is meant by "returns" and then argue with people who picked the other one, as you are doing now.

Like I said before, we've been through this enough here already, most recently in February in the "What's Better" thread. If you really want to argue this, I hear there's a thread on Alla.

[el_tio]

Uhh lolAlla has ppl who think DA = constant and DA = diminishing returns, just like here. Me and a couple other ppl were arguing for DA being constant returns in that WAR forum thread you linked.

You lose an argument and hope that BG would lick your wounds?

It really doesn't matter tho, since it's all pseudo-economics as far as I'm concerned. Unless there's actually some useful insight to be drawn from the terminology (tho I haven't really seen it). I don't know why the argument matters to people so much.

I will say one thing tho, a large part of the confusion is that people mistake increasing DA as being less valuable, when in actuality what's going on is that increasing DA is making other stats more valuable. If you view things solely as % increases you miss this.

[Cadsuane]

I'm cognizant of the fact I'm more likely to get trolled here than on alla. I think the idea was to either get a confirmation or for someone to prove me wrong.

[Deadgye]

BG thinks this is a stupid semantics debate that it's already had three times in the last year.

Just like alla does and has. ~.~

[VZX]

Need BG semantics card.
"I know what you're talking about, but I just don't like you call it 'A', while my version ,'B', is a more appropriate term."

[FailureMidgard]

I don't think it's a semantics issue if the point you draw from it is that increasing values of a stat become progressively less valuable. The constant increase is a universal value that actually has a use, whereas the percentage increase of a total is a trivial value that changes depending on what increments you choose to use.

The important thing to note is this logic isn't used to evaluate any other stat in the game.

How do you graph the returns of haste? 1/(1-x)=y, where x is the haste value and y is the attack rate per base delay.It's not find the attack rate at 5% haste and then compare it to 10% haste. It's that stupid exponential function.

Similarly DA's effect is 1+x=y, where x is the DA and y would be your average number of swings per delay. WHOMG IT'S A LINEAR EQUATION.

That logic is used to evaluate every stat in the game if you want a quick comparison of what is better...oh ya, go check out the what is better thread. Whether 2% DA or 3 accuracy is better for you is dependent upon your current accuracy and your current DA.

It is semantics, and whether or not is diminishing is based on what you are valuing. If you value "Damage per 1% DA", then sure, it's constant. That's a pretty useless stat though.

While yes, DA on it's own is a linear function, the damage function is multidimensional, because its actually accuracy*attack*DA*haste. The more DA you add, the more important non-DA stats become.

Also, if you want to look at it from another perspective, instead of the Dmg: DA ratio, look at the Dmg: "possible dmg" ratio. Possible dmg being the amount of damage you get from a different stat. That ratio will change based on your current DA.

In the end, it doesn't matter if you call it diminishing or not, as long as you understand what it means. Your posts make it seem like you have little to no concept as to what it means and how various stats interact.

[Cadsuane]

That logic is used to evaluate every stat in the game if you want a quick comparison of what is better...oh ya, go check out the what is better thread. Whether 2% DA or 3 accuracy is better for you is dependent upon your current accuracy and your current DA.

It is semantics, and whether or not is diminishing is based on what you are valuing. If you value "Damage per 1% DA", then sure, it's constant. That's a pretty useless stat though.

While yes, DA on it's own is a linear function, the damage function is multidimensional, because its actually accuracy*attack*DA*haste. The more DA you add, the more important non-DA stats become.

Also, if you want to look at it from another perspective, instead of the Dmg: DA ratio, look at the Dmg: "possible dmg" ratio. Possible dmg being the amount of damage you get from a different stat. That ratio will change based on your current DA.

In the end, it doesn't matter if you call it diminishing or not, as long as you understand what it means. Your posts make it seem like you have little to no concept as to what it means and how various stats interact.

In the end, it doesn't matter if you posit that DA has an interaction with other stats that should be considered if it wasn't the original question. If you want to prove that, do so, and not by saying when you add the same number to a total a bunch of times, each subsequent addition comprises a smaller portion of the total than the last one. Because hay, that'd be a totally trivial statement and not a revelation about game mechanics.

[Cream Soda]

It works like this. adding more DA will give you more attacks.
100 attack 5 DA = 105 attacks
100 attacks 10 DA = 110 attacks
100 attack 15 DA = 115 attacks

The increase in number of attacks is linear

The total amount of dmg% increase you gain going from 100 to 105 is going to be more than going from 105 to 110 which will be a larger increase than going from 110 to 115

[Cadsuane]

It works like this. adding more DA will give you more attacks.
100 attack 5 DA = 105 attacks
100 attacks 10 DA = 110 attacks
100 attack 15 DA = 115 attacks

The increase in number of attacks is linear

The total amount of dmg% increase you gain going from 100 to 105 is going to be more than going from 105 to 110 which will be a larger increase than going from 110 to 115

The damage increase is also linear, actually, If damage = number of attacks x damage per attack. 100 x 1.15 DA x 10 damage per attack = 1150 damage, which means each 1% DA gives you 10 more damage. Still the same constant difference.

Or a diminishing portion of your previous increase. Whatever.

[Ferien]

But you're not going from 100 to 115, you're going from 110 to 115. All stats, gear, etc is evaluated in regards to the percentage increase relative to everything except that one stat. You have to evaluate it as (Swings added)/(Current number of swings) to get the actual increase. Nobody cares how many extra swings you're getting, they care what the increase in damage output from piece x will be.

Simply put:
from 100 to 105 = 5% increase
from 100 to 110 = 10% increase
from 105 to 110 = 4.76% increase

The fact that the difference is constant is completely irrelevant to my total damage output. I get 5 more swings, woohoo. What's important is that now you know that if you currently average 10000 damage over a period of time with +5% DA, adding another 5% DA will bring your average up to 10476.

[Shinryuu]

Double attack gives linear returns to scale and the higher your base DA rate is, the less your damage will percentually increase.

In FFXI, we measure scale returns for damage dealers in the time t a fight takes, and not in a percentual increase in damage in a vacuum. If t decreases linearly the more a stat gets added (DA, TA) it's linear returns to scale. If t decreases upward sloping the more a stat gets added it's decreasing returns to scale. If t decreases downward sloping it's increasing returns (haste, DW).

[Ferien]

We'll make this real simple. Here's a parse.
http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u...sevKakeshi.jpg

Let's say I'm at 18% DA. How much damage would I have done if I had 20% instead? Does my total damage increase by 2%?

[Redshift]

(1.18-1.20)/(1.18 ) x ACC% = damage increase. ~1.6% in your case.

[Cadsuane]

Hah, okay. I sincerely apologize for making this thread.