I Solved Starfield's Damage Calcs and Found a Hidden Difficulty

[@VashCowaii]

The pinned comment will be broken up into 3(EDIT: 4, a correction was added as the last section) sections: General Notes, Things I Forgot To Mention, "Wow Vash You're Really Rude", and Enemy Difficulty DR Distinction(This is new) GENERAL NOTES: I spent, FAR too much time on all this shit lmfao. I honestly challenge you all to find anything wrong with what I present in this video. Not because I think I'm wrong, and I don't mind if I am, but more so because I want to make sure there is more than 1 person on this godforsaken planet that does the bare minimum testing to back up their claims. THINGS I FORGOT TO MENTION: -When it comes to MenuDMG some people are gonna notice a weird bug: varuun weapons count as both particle AND laser weapons. And yes, that does mean that they benefit from both dmg type perks and it's not a UI bug, it actually benefits. -OH, ALSO. EM weapons can only benefit from the EM perk. Even if it is an EM rifle, the EM dmg will not be boosted by rifle cert, or even Isolation. EM dmg is ONLY scaled by EM specific perks/bonuses. WOW VASH YOU'RE REALLY RUDE: I don't think I'm being rude enough in this video. Unlike the outposts vids where there were specific people I was annoyed with, when it comes to this I'm annoyed with just about everyone who has ever made a video on any of this shit. It seems like most peeps don't even understand the very words coming from their mouths before they hit publish, and they deserve every bit of flak I can give them. Otherwise, we're just encouraging more low-effort content and I weep if that is what everyone is ok with. ENEMY DIFFICULTY DR DISTINCTION(This is a long section, everything after this point in the comment is all related to it. It doesn't change our calculations, but it is an important distinction): So when I talk about how switching difficulty doesn't change the amount of dmg an enemy receives early in the video, some of you came up with the argument that it's possible that a UI error was occurring and basically the two sides of that argument were 1) Enemy dmg received does get modified, it just doesn't show, OR 2) Enemy dmg received is unchanged, and enemy health is instead buffed. These two arguments are both the exact same end result when it comes to how much %HP dmg the enemy takes, because it's the same end result if you deal 1/2 dmg or if the enemy has 2x health, if that makes sense. In the video I went with the HP buff route due to how we can see self damage function(outgoing dmg isn't modified), and that made the most sense between these two choices because we didn't have a way to extract enemy health values ~ but now we do. Gavril down in the comments brought up a console command that can do just that so here are the results and explanation of what exactly is happening here because it doesn't actually change anything I've said in the video, but it is still important to understand everything going on: Spawning in a quick terrormorph at lvl 94 extracts a health value of 13,390, dealing dmg with the same weapon between difficulties does VH: 20.65, VE: 82.58 meaning that if the console command can be trusted, the dmg is what is changed instead of the HP. Now that we know that, I need to clarify two things that I'll list below~ 1) How does that even make sense, then? What is happening in the game for this to be a thing? Basically, the game is going through the entire damage calculation as it should as if it were normal difficulty, then it gets multiplied against the hidden modifiers we discuss in the video. BUT, then, instead of being multiplied against the base diff modifier, for whatever reason it is coded to display the UI dmg popup BEFORE proceeding to multiply the remainder against the diff mod. True spaghetti really, and it's actually really funny it works this way, but now lets talk about the next point- 2) Why doesn't this change anything? This may sound weird at first but hear me out and it'll make sense. Lets say we're on normal difficulty and we do 10 dmg to an enemy with 100 HP so now they have 90 HP yeah? Now lets say we switch to Very Hard and shoot them again, there are two possible outcomes~ - If HP is modified like I stated in the video, then their HP would be doubled, and they have 200 HP, they take 10 dmg still, and have 190 HP left which is 95% HP remaining - If DMG is modified like we can now confirm, then they still have 100 HP, but instead now take 5 dmg bc of 1/2 multi, and have 95 HP left, which is... yes 95% HP remaining. I say nothing has changed bc the end result IS actually the same. Everything stated in the video is still correct because it is done on the premise of expecting enemies to have 2x health in Very Hard, the only thing that changes is that now we know that the UI dmg popup is displaying dmg as if it were normal difficulty so all you have to do to figure out exactly the HP the enemy is losing is add one more modifier to the equation(2/1.5/1/.75/.5) which you would still do anyways to factor in enemy %HP differences, but that's it.

[@MrDagobert666]

I have one thing that is strange. You say: The difficulty level does not increase the player's damage. But reduces enemy HP. That cant be true. The value that determines the level of difficulty is a multiplier. his name is setgs fDiffMultHPByPCVE 2.00 setgs fDiffMultHPByPCE 1.50 setgs fDiffMultHPByPCN 1.00 setgs fDiffMultHPByPCH 0.75 setgs fDiffMultHPByPCVH 0.50 Test it yourself with the console. SET it to: setgs fDiffMultHPByPCVE 100.00 setgs fDiffMultHPByPCE 100.00 setgs fDiffMultHPByPCN 100.00 setgs fDiffMultHPByPCH 100.00 setgs fDiffMultHPByPCVH 100.00 So you should “one hit” everything at every level of difficulty. But if the number increases so that the player kills an enemy with fewer shots, then that must be a hidden damage multiplier that is simply not shown in the UI.

[@WAF74]

At 8:35 you're showing the formula to be Effective = 1- (armor * coefficients/permille) Wouldn't a sane, non-rude person show that as (1-(coefficients/permille)) * armor? Since multiplication is commutive does it really matter? After just a cursory glance it looks like the result is going to be off by an order of magnitude because you don't want 1,000th of the base armor value; you want the normalized percentage times the armor value. I'm sure it'd take me an equal amount of time to just put the two formulas into a spreadsheet and find out as to write this, but this is a youtube comment so "hur hur hur WTAF U R DUM." Hooray for Cunningham's law. You posted something wrong on the internet to trick engagement for the algorithm so you make more money damn capitalism orange gun bad spurging of worldview inserted here.

[@VashCowaii]

@@MrDagobert666 you’re somewhat misunderstanding what I said, but I do get what you’re saying because I’ve had this exact same argument before already with a friend of mine. If the standard difficulty modifiers worked how you think they do, the grenade test wouldn’t work how it does. I said it’s functionally equivalent because it is: it doesn’t matter if enemies have 2x or health or if you do 1/2 dmg because the result is the same in relation to %hp dealt to enemies, but the distinguishing factor is how we can see dmg done to ourselves. All it would take is for enemy HP to be divided by the multipliers you show for it to add up, it’s not impossible for my argument to hold true just as it’s not impossible for you to be right either, but unless we can actually extract HP values we have no concrete way to prove either case. I lean towards what I said in the video due to what I mentioned before with how self dmg works because we have nothing else to base it off of. I’ve beaten this argument to death already so I’m not particularly interested in repeating it, but I do understand where you are coming from, I just don’t see any proof that beats mine.

[@VashCowaii]

@@WAF74 the only person baiting for engagement here is you so congrats you got 5 seconds of my time. If anything is off by orders of magnitude it is how you comprehend this, because everything I described aligns with in game results.

[@ripvanwinkle6940]

to address point 3, being a hater owns actually keep it up

[@midichlorianice]

Imagine doing actual math and not just saying anecdotal things about how a game works? Really glad I found your channel from the remnant stuff, the research accompanied by the roasts is far too fun. Can't wait for the new spreadsheet!

[@reinleighashworth]

What a madlad, I can't believe he actually does math

[@VashCowaii]

Heartwarming to see you’re still around after I left Warframe(just woke up and am getting back to comments now that I’ve actually slept lmfao)

[@reinleighashworth]

@@VashCowaii of course, I've been around since 2019 my dude ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[@VashCowaii]

@@reinleighashworth but my first video was in the middle of 2020 ಠ_ಠ

[@reinleighashworth]

@@VashCowaii I'm talking about the ikeaframe discord ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[@VicA147]

@@reinleighashworth Bro is the *adoring fan

[@jackflash6377]

The roasting alone deserves a sub, not to mention the copious amount of pure data. Great outpost vid too. Thanks!

[@Xenomorphd]

Your guides are the most well researched! Keep it up

[@MinecraftManL]

This is a super informative and interesting video, as always Vash! Others may have mentioned this but one thing I want to point out is you absolutely do not need to have points in stealth to proc sneak attacks. As long as I'm crouched I can sneak attack enemies that haven't noticed me for 2.0x dmg. This has been my experience for about 75+ hours of the game. Thanks again for your hard work to bring truth and hard math to the SF community!!

[@VashCowaii]

Interesting. Yeah I saw one other comment like this and I will admit I was far more focused on the dmg multis and resulting outcomes than I was the conditions to trigger so I may very well be wrong on that. I'll have to look into it more later, ty for the heads up!

[@elimgarak1127]

You can imagine my disappointment when I started out as a sneaky/melee character.

[@thant0s]

You and me both, only I’ve made the mistake of *also* minoring.. in EM Weapons… 💀 Time for another reroll.

[@VashCowaii]

LMFAO I THOUGHT OF YOU WHEN I DID THE MELEE BIT

[@michaelwolejszo6445]

I did the same but quickly switched to sneak ranged. Can't use it in all situations and the companion needs to be left behind to not get noticed, but you can clear out a building in stealth with head shots and not be noticed.

[@AIRGEDOK]

Something that is important to remember about NG+ is that it doesn't preclude your ability to enjoy the story. You don't lose the ability to experience the story in any way. All stories but the main story are given the same way and with the main story you get an option to play the normal story or the abridged story. So you don't lose out by rushing to NG+(++++). Also the game knows when you have done a faction quest or not. So if you rush NG+ you don't get hidden knowledge options aka starborn options when you do a faction quests until you have actually chosen to repeat said story. So nothing gets spoiled by rushing NG+ you don't miss out. Don't grind mindlessly but a few quick runs doing nothing but the main mission then taking your time can get you NG+ gameplay without giving up the standard taking your time to explore. You simple take your time and explore after you have a few NG++ runs in your belt. I wouldn't recommend rushing NG++ 10 times doing nothing but the abridge main quest as that would be boring but if you rushed it a couple of times then took a break and did a faction quest line or two before going back to the main quests you'll find the experience less of a grind. Another important factor is that the hidden difficulty really doesn't make the game hard at all even on very hard. Part of the reason is you have space magic the you can level up and partly because you retain your skills and level so you are doing a lot of damage and there are level caps for enemies based on system level. So at lvl 129 I wasn't running into level 100+ creatures at the start of the game. You also get the best equipment in vendors and your payout for missions is level based. I was getting 8000 credits for New Atlantis side missions so I could buy high level weapons very quickly. This scaling works very well in practice so much so that after around 20 NG+ games i never felt I was getting weaker. In fact I never notice enemies ever getting more difficult because all through the process of unlocking these hidden difficulty levels I was unlocking weapon upgrades, skill bonuses, mods for said weapons, space powers and gameplay knowledge like Terramorphs melt so particle/energy weapons work great. So I was always getting more powerful as the enemies did so that tension between my power vs enemy power worked well. It is because of this i don't think it was "wrong" bethesda never told you about NG+ making enemies stronger. I think that was a good design choice based on the fact i was playing the game not creating content for the game. As a player it was NOT a problem.

[@GremlinSciences]

NG+ can prevent you from enjoying the story though. Every time you enter NG+ it rolls a randomizer and has a chance of giving you one of about 50 or so forcibly abridged stories. You can still enjoy the side stories, so far as we can tell (there might b alternate versions I haven't seen where some side stories are blocked), but speed through that first playthrough and there is a chance that you might never get to play that complete story ever again on that character even if you wanted to.

[@AIRGEDOK]

@@GremlinSciences I have never seen a single quest get forcibly abridge in fact I have found POSSIBLE abridged stories that I choose to abridge by picking the [Starborn] dialogue option but using a save if go back and pick a non [Starborn] option the quest plays out normally. I would love to see evidence of this forcibly abridged system, because in practice I have only seen options. What side quests? Are these activities or Faction quests? Or over heard conversation quests? I have played the factions quests multiple times except the crimson fleet one i did that one once and the starliner quests was so badly written I never want to do it again. With the factions quests i repeated, I never was forced to skip but i was given the option to skip parts. I was also never given a [Starborn] for a faction quest in a NG+ when I played that quest for the first time. I can confirm this for Crimson fleet, Free Rangers and Vanguard. The Ryugin faction I did in in my first universe so I only ever repeated that quest line and I never skipped a quest. What is your source for FORCIBLY abridge random quest?

[@Starcat5]

​@@GremlinSciences 10, not 50. On NG+2 and above, the game rolls a 1 in 100 chance of getting 1 of 10 alternate universes. Getting any of them to pop is rare. You have just been abnormally (un)lucky. Of note, 9 of those 10 are gag universes that remove your core Constellation members. The last one is basically the same as skipping the story, but you gain "yourself" as a follower.

[@TheDs227]

Gained a sub from me for the effort to actually do the work yourself. Calling out the ignorance and subjectivity of others CCs was a definite bonus. This vid did help me figure out some of the issues with my own testing. Thank you.

[@Infidelitas]

I came here for the maths

[@VashCowaii]

I came here for you O_O

[@Infidelitas]

After your remnant stuff I suppose many of us are missing those abrasive and direct “tips” - I don’t even play this game 😂

[@LeTtRrZ]

2+2 is 4, -1 that’s 3.

[@Infidelitas]

AAA endorsements should start coming in any moment...I was thinking Texas Instruments

[@EbbCubed]

Genuinely glad I follow your content. As soneone who has played through to ng+10 on very hard it makes so much more sense.

[@Chandalah]

It really is incredible how much low effort garbage is put out there for Starfield. The hype was so big before/at launch and the aftermath has everyone and their granny making “Starfield BIG news” and “Skilltree explained” vids without any actual substance (things you would easily determine once you’ve just put some hours into the game or googled “Starfield news”). Your content (and presentation) is a real breath of fresh air. Continue to set yourself apart from all the cc vultures out there…

[@vheypreexa]

holy cow. that explains why the terrormorphs were so much harder at lvl 60 NG+4 than the first time I encountered them

[@AdmiralKarelia]

You just needed a laser rifle lol

[@MarkoBotsaris]

I’m ordering you to go take a nap while we work through all of this. 😂 Seriously, good job. Now sleep!

[@VashCowaii]

Lmfao it'll be about another hour or two before I'm tired enough to sleep, but I am definitely gonna go lay down and watch some shows. I was editing this for 8 hours straight

[@thomasdbrown2]

Keep on doing you, man -- your videos are my go-to for actually understanding mechanics.

[@bajsamedvargar]

Your presentation is great! When you get all the math at once in a video it can feel like mumbo jumbo but your clear explination and pace in showing stuff in order makes it comprehensible and easy to understand. Likewise with your advanced outpost guide it's complex but if you follow it step by step it's not hard. Thank you very much for your content and entertainment!

[@Super__Goliath]

Excellent stuff. And I love the blatant callouts of other content creators who do not follow either the scientific method or understand how to produce airtight testing results across fields

[@LeFisheboi]

Do I play starfield? No Will i ever? Probably not Yet here i am, Vash what have you done to me this shouldnt be as entertaining as it id

[@VashCowaii]

It's actually really new to me, or at least it's new to see people mention, that people are watching videos because I made them. Like yeah sure that's obviously why people subscribe right? And that's a super obvious thing you should expect as a content creator, but I just didn't expect it. I remember specific creators I'd find in the past and sub and immediately start looking through their older videos for literally anything I might like simply bc I found them entertaining, and it's just super fuckin weird to imagine that people are doing that to ME now ya know? Probably better off not saying anything about it, but man channel growth is WEIRD. I'm glad to have you man.

[@workfortheweekend3970]

Cant do math if you can't read. Damn epileptic mercenaries, falling asleep in the middle of a firefight.

[@Larandar]

That does make a lot of sense for NG+, I didn't understand why the rebalancing mods did not work as indented in the first weeks... But I did rush to NG+ 10 in the first 2 days so I was getting one shot by everything :)

[@3CityRide]

Yeah. I did exactly same thing and was wondering why everything is so hard. Had same ship on NG0 and blast everything and at NG10 is a drama. Now I know why. Guess need to start again and play without powers and reborn.

[@SM26]

Came for the Starfield content Stayed because of the math, loved your video. Thank you for you hard work and testing

[@soiltek2015]

Thanks for taking the time to do the calculations on this, Vash. This is very helpful.

[@octavianpegasus6681]

Fantastic Breakdown. I have a save where I only play on ng+10 with no perks/levels on very hard, and it's the only time where i feel like combat is actually fun. now it all makes sense.

[@georgprime4665]

I was just thinking about generalized KZbinr descriptions earlier today. It's annoying when 'tips and tricks' videos say things like increases damage a lot or you'll be melting them with this perk etc. And anyone with a working set of eyes can tell without testing themselves from the clips in that video it's exaggerated and inaccurate. I mention that because I've never seen your channel before, but I'm glad the algorithm finally put you in my feed because I'm definitely subscribing!

[@Akatharie]

Absolutely beautiful - 40+ years ago I would have loved crunching numbers with you. I was playing around with some numbers myself but now I can enjoy the benefits of your wonderful work. Thank you.

[@s3ct0rxf0ur9]

wtf i found ur starter + best outposts last night and checked ur channel to 2 weeks ago and this morning bang

[@VashCowaii]

Bang just like that lmfao

[@mistermoonlite]

when i watch your videos, I feel like I'm actually learning

[@VashCowaii]

Man I would hope so lol

[@TheBouregard]

another problem besides Todd not telling basic stuff is the randomness of encounters. Lets say you're lvl 200 on a lvl 75 planet and kill some spacers. Half of them might as well be window dressing because they are low level and will practically not even scratch you. Except for a couple high level one - then there is the weapon distribution - high level spacer with a bridger? Thats noghtmare fuel because he can one clip you, especially when he got lucky and his friends are high level too. So you kill the first few spacers who pose no challenge to you and then get instagibbed by the next pack - oh and then the boss shows up, whos 30something and again a pushover. Same with space encounters - there is a huge difference in spawns because the game has the same chance of spawning a large group of low level ships ( that is surprisingly lethal and will prevent your shields from regenerating) This results in the player overpreparing, min maxing or just setting the difficulty to easy because combat is just bad. Seriously Bethesda - you've got FO4 and FO76 to learn all those frikking lessons but each new game they start failing at the basics - and I think the problem is simply, they don't play their own game and nobody is talking to each other. Can't explain it otherwise.

[@Gottaculat]

I guess this is why NG+0 is so dang easy right now, as my character is level 70-something (haven't been glitching/grinding, just playing). Now let's see the breakdown on ship to ship combat, lol! Ship combat gets pretty hairy on very hard, while very hard on foot isn't really hard, it's just annoying when enemies are bullet sponges. Guns are supposed to be very deadly. Wouldn't mind a hardcore mode where damage to both player and enemy is highly lethal, and weapon damage output is calculated by ammo type and barrel length, rather than nonsensical arbitrary "balanced" numbers. Like, two identical rifles, one full-auto, and one semi-auto, do the same damage like real life. Would make for some seriously intense combat.

[@kanegarrett7501]

I am a games designer and do code these things in my games I design. In the code, it is also multiplied by all the damage/skill modifiers to get the end result. So well done bud, u hit the nai on the head and explained this well for all those noobs out there

[@pdraggy]

Dude you ARE Starfield royalty, thanks so much for all your research! (I didn't know there was a difference between C Fleet and Pirates :/ yeah I hadn't even started that storyline yet so)

[@ProneOyster]

I feel like I've already squeezed all I could out of (unmodded) starfield, so at this point I'm just watching and commenting on this video to do my little bit to help the one starfield youtuber who puts in the work

[@almightyk11]

This is extremely useful, thanks so much. The Spacer scaling may be assuming they are increasing health by various stages for each category of enemy. Imagine if RPGs stopped having hidden information, and just told us stuff like how armor ratings work, or what bonus effects items had. Stop hiding mechanics gosh darn it

[@Vontiri]

I appreciate the necessary rude commentary. The word necessary is used because all of the low-effort, and casualty content, leads to shit opinions that players will argue as factual. Bad information is just wet garbage being dumped all over the players.

[@VashCowaii]

Glad I'm not the only one to see it that way. Def gonna be comments later telling me what a horrible person I am lmfao, but I will take solace in that people like you exist.

[@cassieudy5718]

I would love a version of Starfield where everything was standardized. Most sources of weapon, enemy, and level scaling outright removed, or simplified and minimized. Categorize enemies into archetypes with varying power levels. Humans are this tough, robots are that tough. Likewise for guns. No more weapon tiers or combat levels. A clever designer can figure out what values actually feel appropriate for each item and enemy, and apply it permanently across the board. No more weird hidden multipliers and random exceptions.

[@CapitanoAraym]

I came here expecting the n-th video proposing the n-th consolle command to get "an hidden difficoulty setting..." (or something alike).... ... and stayed the whole video amazed by the maths, tests and effort shown in an impeccable exposition. Immediately subscribed to binge, later, any knowledge I could find in other topics about Starfield.

[@VashCowaii]

Hell yeah man. Fuck the bait vids, happy to have you

[@CaptionDozla]

Really appreciating your amazing quality Starfield videos; way too many videos out there with completely wrong information. Subbed for the starfield content stayed for the sass.

[@Prof.GoodFeels88]

You are the data 🐐. I have had no idea how DR works in this game and been wondering, but when it comes to this game people by in large are only providing basic info or just patently and obviously false info.

[@rebkahibasdeys]

Liked and Subbed for all the math. In Fallout 4, there is a mod called True Damage, where the physical damage of all guns is reduced by 90%, BUT, all the damage is attached to bullet type. So if you are using a 50 BMG pistol or 50 BMG rifle, it would do roughly the same damage (provided you are not out of optimal range for both weapons). And player and NPC health were capped to realistic numbers. combination of those two mods made fallout 4 soooo much enjoyable. Cant wait for CK and StarfieldEdit to come out so we can fix BGS fuck ups...

[@allenli3908]

This is hands down the best video I've watched about the game's damage calculation. Very nice work. There is one thing, however, that I'm still not able to figure out: is there such a thing as "explosive resistance"? Because I've seen people claim that armor penetration only applies to ballistic weapons and damage done by explosive weapons/explosive rounds ignore armor just like energy weapons. Also, since there are skills and spacesuit mods that specifically reduce damage taken from explosives. it does seem to me that explosive resistance could be a stat separate from damage and energy resistance. Do you think you can do some testings on that?

[@mattCap42]

THANK YOU for this! You have cleared up some things that didn't make sense in my testing. is there a link to the calc sheet somewhere? not sure if I am just missing it or if you are so burnt out on this game that you moved on. A potential CHALLENGE for anyone reading this who is interested in (and better than me at) game mechanic analyses: Does giving companions magazines give them the stat perks. I have searched extensively, and it seems no one has posted anything that I was able to find on this. Maybe I'm just reaching here, or maybe others just haven't thought of trying it. Also, your endgame outpost vid much like this one is THE SOURCE OF TRUTH!

[@HokeyBugle]

You make by far the best SF content on this site. Only tuber I trust. I had a video idea/request for an outpost layout for gathering all resources and (ideally) getting them into one place. Essentially a "craft anything in the game here" outpost ready for whatever future content comes.

[@sidzero]

From the absolute mad lad who gave the internet the single best location to build an outpost in the entire settled systems.

[@MyAramil]

I actually do not mind the increased difficulty like how frost did it, Yes it was frustrating, but its fair. It taught you to play smart, to plan ahead, lay ambushes, utilize cover more and more.

[@Jacmac1]

I have an Instigating Advanced Magsniper, I was wondering why it was so incredible at long range shots with critical hits. In an instigating hit, the critical hit damage is at least 2000*5. With the perk modifiers it is probably upwards of 30K damage.

[@solidstehl9546]

Seriously this is why a person should never mess with a math nerd. It's just easy and way too much fun to thoroughly roast someone's bullshit with evidence based facts. Great video, saved, subscribed, absolutely a fan. Please keep the content coming... P.s can't wait for NG plus 😅

[@nickj7332]

Follow up after the video. Good stuff. Way more math than I was ready for. But, nature of the beast and whatnot. The skills that were literally just wrong descriptions/no effect were interesting. I wonder if they will end up fixed at some point.

[@High_Key]

Alright alright, after going through your beginner outpost video and seeing the sheer organized chaos that is your end game outpost video, you won my sub. I’m just enjoying everything else now. love the humor 😂

[@bright7522]

You all come here for Starfield, I come here to learn new words, this time: “Bumblefuck”

[@marcpeukert6078]

0:23 I love this channel :) funny, sympathetic and the best, most accurate data and help. Thank you KZbin for recommending me your channel

[@WolfyWetFurr]

This is exactly the sort of breakdowns of information that I've been looking for. Thanks for your time and effort!

[@mortache]

The virgin "heyyyyy guyyys, in this video I will show you how to get the besssst possible armor and a gazillion xp in 0.2 picoseconds" vs the chad "get in losers, we're gonna do math"

[@kmoov90]

I don't think the other KZbinrs were lying about how damage works, they just didn't know the math. It's probably the same situation with the developers when creating the game.

[@drunkenmoken]

Well, all of these wacky calculations might explain the micro stutters every time the game registers damage to and from the player. I will keep this in mind whenever I play since now I know it's strange spaghetti code that's making me lag in gunfights and ONLY gunfights. Also, you my friend have earned a subscriber with how you ended this video.

[@stephenriggs8177]

Sounds like it would be helpful to create a UI mod that alters perk and armor descriptions to better match their actual effects.

[@VashCowaii]

Likely yeah, not a terrible idea. Would require even more work than I've already done, but if someone gets around to it at least they have the groundwork done for them.

[@GremlinSciences]

The perk descriptions in this case are spot-on except for the few bits where the numbers themselves are wrong. The only actual issue with the perks is that people are treating the percentage as a unit and just adding the numbers before slapping the percent sign back on. I wish I could cover for them and say that it's only because they're used to things working that way from previous games, but after double checking the math in previous games they've always used multiplicative stacking for percentages except when multiple instances of an effect are applied in the same section (eg, stacking the same armor enchantment on several items) "Adds" is still a correct wording for multiplicative stacking of percentages, you just aren't thinking about the math the right way for it. x+30%+30% is the same as x*1.3*i.3, either way you end up with 169%x or 1.69x.

[@VashCowaii]

@@GremlinSciences that... is straight up wrong? I get what you're saying and sure if we pretend math works like that then sure we can argue your point, but nobody doing actual math is gonna look at x+30%+30% and get anything but x+60%. You can't just change how math works because you believe it could be structured differently

[@GremlinSciences]

That _is_ how math works though.@@VashCowaii Order of operations is a thing, don't just ignore it, but even if you ignore it, you should still be doing your math left to right, one operation at a time, not jumping thorough the equation at your own convenience. The only time that doesn't work out is in Google Sheets, because Google Sheets handles percentages as just moving the decimal two places to the left; tell Google Sheets to do =100+30% and it spits out 100.3 instead of the 130 you'd expect, but pull out the old TI-84 or any other calculator and punch in 100+30%+30% and it spits out 169. What you're thinking of is x+(30%+30%), which is a completely different equation from x+30%+30%

[@VashCowaii]

You are some major crack good sir. I hope you can work it out eventually.

[@rohanmeilor]

Awesome work. It really does make sense. Thank you for putting it into words.

[@VivaLaPigotry]

This wouldn't be a problem if Bethesda simply provided accurate descriptors for the various perks. Fucking ridiculous that the descriptors in-game are either head-scratchingly vague or completely misleading. The fact this video is necessary in the first place, should have Todd "it just works!" Howard shaking his head.

[@Smurffies]

Hey hey hey... Math is hard.. And that's why I'm here and we got you for that 😁👍 Love the videos dude they're extremely informative and extremely useful. I've been saying that since the remnant 2 videos. Probably the most useful videos

[@rotj4587]

Number go up - why can't it just be this simple? Probably make for a more boring game but I prefer this to this alternate D4-mental-breakdown stats. Thank you for all your hard work here mate, you're a legend.

[@BrJPGameplay]

This should be called "Skyrim, Once Again", it's exactly how the damage is calculated in that game, up to the damage reduction being 430 max

[@VashCowaii]

I'm gonna go ahead and say no, given that at no point in this entire video did I say that anything at all capped at "430" so idk wtf you're talkin about

[@FaonPage]

How can we have those types of videos with calculations, testing and reverse engineering of the code, and at the same time guys that makes entire videos to inform you of basic shit like sleeping gives you an xp buff. Pretty crazy range tbh

[@BipolarBearWithAHat]

Probably the best channel for how starfield works and how to apply all that knowledge in game. Great guide I thought that the enemies took less damage when I started rushing ng+

[@kukipett]

The problem is that Bethesd doesn't understand this and they probably never have done any such calculations. It was the same with Fallout 76 where some builds could lead to ridiculous results because they never understood what they did. They just test it and if the result seems ok it's good for them, then in game some players discover the weakness of the system and take advantage.

[@TheGamedMind]

Me coming back here what feels like a year later tho only is 8 months because I forgot how all the formulas worked. Thank god for your work xD

[@VashCowaii]

Surprised anyone even remembers this vid lol

[@murkythreat]

Bro! Never stop these autistic in-depth guides! They are the best.

[@VashCowaii]

Wheezed while scrolling comments and seeing this

[@WizeOldWizard]

7:00 I used to be an adventurer like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee. Thank you for this informative breakdown!

[@xtmtmxhut]

Yes, this is what I want to see. Subbed, and im goanna go find that outpost video everyone else is talking about.

[@TheMorteReport]

Does Pain Tolerance reduce damage done to your companions if it is an enemy debuff? Does it reduce the damage done by your companions or just enemies? If two groups of enemies are shooting each other does having pain tolerance mean the fight will last longer? so many questions this opens up.

[@Schwanzboxa]

Wow what a video... So much testing. Instant sub. Also "ecliptic, not epileptic you fucks" 😂

[@mightypancake2211]

Okay... so this is even worse... Star born armor doesn't become the best armor, yet you take more damage per NG+... yet I got idiots talking that its not suppose to be engame armor... Add on that armor doesn't get better than the 300-500 that you can cap off at... But you end up taking more damage per play through? Add on difficulty which just turns enemies into bulletsponges for small increase to potential epic and legendary gear... but they hit at x2 power already... then add in additional damage modification per NG+ So that makes what they did with Star born armor sucks... why not scale it to the NG+ and add in additional power or something... no wonder I felt that Star born armor was so underpowered even for what it was... Not to mention what you end up with likely at each end of the game entering the unity...

[@kcdodger]

Hey Vash... Did you ever get that calculator up? Also! Melee weapons scale and can be modified now!

[@ormrinn]

Remnant and that damn savior weapon. I've never lost so many weeks to a cube before in my life.

[@2complex43]

Old video and not sure if someone already mentioned it but I think maybe the distribution for Spacers make no obvious sense because they're not considered a faction maybe? Lore wise, the term Spacer is used a an umbrella term for all kinds of "criminal scum" (or similar)

[@brandonbarton6786]

I'm sooooo happy to hear this! I figured NG+ would get harder understandably like any game does but I've been cruising my first playthrough on very hard since day one with zero issues. VERY happy to hear that I'll be able to be challenged soon.

[@Weeji_420]

You definitely have a problem. 🤣🤣 Much appreciated video though sir. That amount of maths, on top of that amount of fucking tedium would end me! 😂

[@mylesanthony8672]

Nice - I’m working on functions in maths, this video successfully combines both that are of most concern to my existence. Thanks

[@preechr]

The first character I got into the level 80 range was the one I decided to try out NG+ with. I really did not expect to lose literally everything, which of course was just me being dumb, but I was still pissed. I had been building the iconic Skyrim stealth archer, after having tried out several other builds only to be disappointed. My whole thing was built around my legendary advanced Hard Target that got poofed. That's when I went to Nexus and started cheating to make things fair again. My opinion. I consoled in a new Hard Target, made it legendary, and re-applied the modifications, then I set out to acquire the levels I needed to finish my character build. Sneak, Concealment, Sniper Cert, Marksman... all the good stuff. I was shooting beasties out on some level 75 BFN planet to get XP and noticed that, from stealth of course, my rifle that was already showing over 1000 base damage was hitting for well over 6000 on crits, 4-5000 base. When shooting through a scope that number disappears when you let go of the button, so I guess I wasn't used to seeing actual damage numbers. It was a real Bethesda moment. I thought about doing math but quickly realized I didn't want to do that, so thank you for this video and the future spreadsheet. I doubt there's another skill build that can be that powerful, but I would like to try to find something that would be like maybe half of that? One-shotting everything sounds great but its boring in practice, and sniping everything from stealth is fun for a while but I'm sure there's other ways to play the game that can be fun too. One thing the game has taught me is that Creation Kit can't come soon enough. The skills in this game need a serious rework. I don't know if this idea would be interesting to you, but theorizing a real skill tree where every skill choice matters and works would be the foundation of any future skill rework mod. You seem to have the head and patience for that sort of thing.

[@TheBaken]

I’m impressed about this, but also why on earth is this convoluted? Transparency on what your weapons and skills do would be so, so nice; then again, it is Bethesda, so broken melee isn’t exactly surprising. Props to you, man, excellent research.

[@gdn86]

Third video I've seen of this game from you, and I want to say I appreciate the content. Luckily, I have not heard any other breakdown of the damage yet, so I only understand it through this lens. The outpost video though helped clarify a few things, and made the experience much better. I ended up breaking down my original bases and moving everything for more efficiency. I have yet to build the container base, but could be an interesting project in NG+. I'm near the end of the main quest now, so hopefully I'll move on tonight into NG+1 and see some difficulty increases.

[@VashCowaii]

I'm happy to hear you didn't go through what I did, looking into it and finding nothing. I shit you not one of the videos I pulled up had a timestamp for resistances so I clicked to it and the youtuber literally just said, "physical resistance is your resistances to physical damage!" didn't expound on it, left it at that, and had the balls to ask me to subscribe at the end. GL on NG+ grinding, glad I could help with your outpost endeavors as well.

[@kevincarpenter5691]

Subscribed and joined but not sure where to post this, so: Lovethis and both your Intro and Advanced outpost videos. I mean "Love" as in, "Perhaps this KZbin thing does have some value". Thanks. Curious if you might consider posting an intermediate outpost video with things like best planets to get key ores form, etc. Please let me know if there is a better place to post/discuss such suggestions - I know they take a lot of time to do.

[@TheBouregard]

regarding the resistance cap. If 850 is max shouldn't space suits be worthless if you use the starborn power + one of the more powerful chems.

[@nomadicvice]

been a verrrrry long time since ive seen this level of math go into a video, well done!

[@Samurai-xm2yn]

I finished the first playthough with 0 combat or resistance skills, and felt the decreased outgoing damage and increased 15% damage received, especially since I no longer had any of my good items; this video explains why it felt that way! Thanks!

[@Peyton1218]

You are a beacon of hope in the sea of garbage starfield content

[@BigZBeatZ503]

And then he stopped making starfield videos

[@TruFalco]

At ng+8 on very hard, With a 387 physical, 347 EM, and 343 energy, I was suddenly getting 1 hit on those 2 terrormorphs in the container searching area in Londinion. Never had that issue. Maybe that scaling is the reason? Either way I basically had to do some like safespotting tactics to get those 2 down.

[@nerdoutreachprogram5358]

I’m so glad I found this channel.

[@petefinnegan6329]

Thank you very much for the effort you put into this. Clarity of the rules of play actually makes a game more fun , not less… who knew? 😂

[@XoRandomGuyoX]

Damage sliders are not a satisfying form of difficulty selection, which is doubly apparent with ship combat where things feel like a gear check. Bethesda went with some Dark Souls NG+ shenanigans but I'd rather see higher difficulties add more enemies to fights, or give them better gear. I remember one time, through sheer dumb luck(for the AI) an enemy spawned with a legendary Beowulf and had the ammo to use it(instead of its Grendel), killed me with like 3 bullets in 0.4 seconds.

[@DuxGalt]

I did my first NG+ after like 40 hours, then did 2 or 3 more after over the next 100 hours. I then one day realized that there was a console command that does not disable achievements that allows you to do a thing(Skip next to very end for minor spoil if you understand NG+ or major if you you do not)** So I started rushing rushing NG+ but I thought because I was rushing it was getting harder because I was "less kitted out" however I started repeating just getting the Advanced Big Bang and stomping with it. When I saw this video I had to click it because I knew there was something changing but it was not obvious. I thought it might have to do with my leveling but I'm only level 69. ****** Minor Spoiler ********** the commander I am refering to allows you to change the chance of, and or the specific alternate universe start. There are 10 and some are pretty cool others a sorta dumb. but all are so rare I did not know they existed after 4 runs and I already knew there was not much point to more than 10 runs, for other spoiled reasons. Once the knowledge of alternate starts were spoiled I only knew of one of them so I started the 10 game rush to see them all. It does not disabled achievements which I actually don't care about but I know many people do. below is a run down on how to do this, with no explanation of the content you will see. when the credits roll, wait for the "tab to skip" icon comes up (but don't skip). Bring up the console" ` " and type: set 17E727 to 100 What that does is set the % chance for a unique universe to 100. Then enter one more command set 1801B9 to The below are the universe ID's for the unique universes: set 1801B9 to -1 [Default NG+ universe] set 1801B9 to 0 - 9 for all the different variants

[@jhondidfool]

You earned yourself a sub. Also... Bethesda flailing around nonsensically with damage formulas?! Obscuring the actual game balance so they don't *have* to balance the game!? No! Say it ain't so! /S

[@sha0linshawn]

best Starfield youtuber, hands down. so glad I stumbled across previous video, thank you for this!

[@exile_the_13th]

"Fuckyness" is now my favorite way to describe things. That is all.

[@wrije]

minute 1: they make it vague by saying “damage.” this makes it seem like your “damage output” (what’s affected by yours and enemy’s weapon and armor dmg/modifiers, etc.) is what’s being tweaked. it isn’t. all they really need to do to clear up some of this confusion is change it to “damage resistance” or “damage received/produced.” minute 5: nvm i’m completely lost. they made it 100x more confusing than it should have been and there’s no way to make this clear in a line, let alone a paragraph. i know indie games that do their math and calculations more clear than this.

[@VashCowaii]

KEKW ye I promise I wouldn’t have made the video if it were that simple

[@ChrisCaseboldt]

I just now watched this and finally understand so much. I'm in NG+ 10 and the horrible damage now makes sense. Guess it's time to start a new character.

[@Romni314]

Great info. Awesome attitude. Love it!

[@driskoll127]

I'm the same way in that I had to turn the difficulty up to Very Hard for it to be fun. It's pretty rare that I've had to turn the difficulty down for an encounter. The difficulty is way too difficult in the beginning of the game in my opinion and I don't believe it felt that way just because I wasn't used to the mechanics of the game. I remember having to reload a quick save for literally over an hour and a half to survive my first encounter with enemy ships on Very Easy. It was absolutely infuriating. Ship combat is needlessly difficult in the early game and the mechanics you need to survive and be effective aren't well explained. It's nearly impossible until you have at least the ability to Lock (ship VATS). After level 20 or maybe slightly higher the game became so easy it got boring to me on Normal and I permanently switched to Very Hard.

[@cynic5581]

We don’t need to do the math, many of the fallout 76 calculators (pre 2019 debuff where multiplicative stacking became additive) work. I wonder, is it like Fallout 76 where a lot of the weapon buffs from guns you have in your hand apply to grenades ex grenade doing 2x damage when holding an instigating weapon? 🤔

[@thant0s]

I forgot to mention in my first post that, while it very much is unlikely to drag Melee up from the pit it's currently hardlocked in, you are able to "spam" power attacks by going into third person view and holding block while hammering the power attack hotkey. This helps grinding the bugged Disarm progress of Martial Arts and the DPS bump is noticeable.. but it's still Melee.

[@josephfrisk1765]

One thing that many people, including yourself, have brought up is the fact that player skills are either not doing what the description says or outright doing something entirely different from what the description actually says. This is concerning; and, should you choose to accept the task, I feel like the player-base could use someone to test and confirm which skills actually do what. I believe you would be up to the task, as you present and show your work; given how much math was required to do just damage.

[@geoffreystraw5268]

Love how I am already subbed and am thoroughly enjoying what I am calling now... Starfield school lol. Thanks for explaining the math so well.