Here is some feedback about thralls mechanics

[Alex02]

Your thread make me curious about thrall damage, it seems that they only use the damage of the bow, but not the damage of the arrows. On the other hand they benefit from armor penetration bonuses and statut effect (poison) of arrow. That why you needed 52 shots without any arrows and 50 shots with dragonbone arrows on Elk king, thrall has +9% armor pen according to the arrows.

I tested something with Devkit help. I checked the NpcStatTable and picked up a monster with low HP :

• hyena spotted : 96 hp, armor 22

If I use bossonian bow with blunted arrow, damage 17+1 (I used blunted arrow to have something like no arrow damage bonus), I should theoretically shoot 96/18 = 5.3 arrows, but I have 7+8 = 15% armor pen, so I should need less than 5 arrows.

In game I need 4 shots to kill hyena.

From there I tried with thralls equipped with a 18 damage bow, without arrows and then with dragonbone arrows on the same hyena.

• Black hands archer lvl 1:
  -No arrows : 10 arrows : 96/10 = 9.6 damage
  -dragonbone arrows : 9 arrows

-1 arrow due to + 9% armor pen bonus, but archer lvl 1 still does less than half of the damage than a player with same bow damage stat.

• Black hand archer lvl 2
  -No arrows : 9 arrows : 96/9 = 10.7 damage
  -dragonbone arrows : 9 arrows

archer lvl 2 still does half of the damage than a player with same bow damage stat.

• Black hand archer lvl 3
  -No arrows : 7 arrows : 96/9 = 13.7 damage
  -dragonbone arrows : 7 arrows

archer lvl 3 still does less damage than a player with same bow damage stat.

• Black hand archer lvl 4
  -No arrows : 6 arrows : 96/6 = 16 damage
  -dragonbone arrows : 6 arrows

archer lvl 4 still does little bit less damage than a player with same bow damage stat.

Now lets try with Forgotten Tribe archers :

• Forgotten Tribe archer lvl 1:
  -No arrows : 8 arrows : 96/8 = 12 damage
  -dragonbone arrows : 8 arrows

This guy is stronger than an Black hand archer lvl 2

• Forgotten Tribe archer lvl 2:
  -No arrows : 7 arrows : 96/7 = 13.7 damage
  -dragonbone arrows : 7 arrows

This guy is equivalent to Black hand archer lvl 3.

• Forgotten Tribe archer lvl 3:
  -No arrows : 6 arrows : 96/6 = 16 damage
  -dragonbone arrows : 5 arrows

-1 arrow due to + 9% armor pen bonus

This guy is equivalent to Black hand archer lvl 4.

• Forgotten Tribe archer lvl 4:
  -No arrows : 5 arrows : 96/5 = 19.2 damage
  -dragonbone arrows : 5 arrows

Finaly, this guy is stronger than Black hand archer lvl 4, but still do less damage as player with same bow with “no arrow”.

Let’s try best archers of the game, Votaries :

• Votarie archer lvl 1:
  -No arrows : 7 arrows : 96/7 = 13.7 damage
  -dragonbone arrows : 7 arrows

This guy is equivalent to Forgotten archer lvl 2 and Black hand archer lvl 3.

• Votarie archer lvl 2:
  -No arrows : 6 arrows : 96/6 = 16 damage
  -dragonbone arrows : 6 arrows

This guy is equivalent to Forgotten archer lvl 3 and Black hand archer lvl 4.

• Votarie archer lvl 3:
  -No arrows : 5 arrows : 96/5 = 19.2 damage
  -dragonbone arrows : 5 arrows

This guy is equivalent to Forgotten archer lvl 4.

• Votarie archer lvl 4:
  -No arrows : 4 arrows : 96/5 = 24 damage
  -dragonbone arrows : 4 arrows

Finaly this guy do same damage as player with same bow without any arrow damage bonus.

Conclusion :
Player will always deal more damage than thralls even with 0 accuracy. Arrows are pretty useless on thrall, cause they ignore additional arrow damage and only bonuses are effective, so snake arrow is the ONLY interesting thrall ammunition choice because of the poison stack effect AND the +8% armor pen.

I also tried full stygian raider armor and Eye of the khan bow (+14 accuracy) on Votarie archer lvl 4, he still need 4 arrows to kill the hyena. Accuracy is useless on thrall, the only interesting armor bonus for thrall is vitality, others do nothing.

[roro4066]

very interesting and constructive post alex.
I had never figured out the fact that armor pen was considered / handled as a bonus and i was simply assuming that if the dmg of the arrow was not taken into consideration, so was the armor pen as well.

last time i had noticed these little differences in terms of shots needed to get a specific ennemy down with dragon bone arrows compared to default / blank arrows, i was just thinking that all the shots that i was counting were simply not ALL counted as effective landed shots since sometimes it’s hard to be sure if the engine DID register the shot or not.

So if i understand correctly what you are saying here : half of the item (a non blank arrow like the dragon bone arrow for ex) is bugged (not effective), that is to say the base damage of this item is not working, whereas all other bonuses like armor pen or even the poison effect from the snake arrows do work.
Well that would make sense with the result we’ve got then.

i bet you’re already wondering how you could make this part of the item work so i wish you good luck with the devkit system then. it can’t be that easy, right? otherwise, the dev team would have fixed this issue long ago.
In case you manage to fix this problem, please don’t forget us and let us know the main lines of the fixing process. And i bet you’ll make a lot of players happy with implementing it in one of your great mods…like “exile lands improved” by any chance ?

Again thanks for the great feedback mate !

[Zayzane]

KO damage from blunt arrows also applies; a thrall with an advanced-blunt-fitting hunting bow and blunt arrows flattens other thralls with quite minimal lethal damage.

[LoneWolf]

Forgive me if I have missed it, but I tested how reactive the thralls were to an opponent with different weapons.

To smaller or shorter enemies, such as crocodiles, the thralls reacted way slower and spent a lot of time positioning around with one hand weapons or daggers.

With long reach weapons or slow weapons that can be delayed, like Spear, Two handed sword or warhammer the thrall dispatched opponents very quick as it did not waste time positioning itself around.

To humanoids its less noticeable but still noticeable. They seem to spazz out less with Spear, warhammer and two handed weapons against real players as well and more effective too as they dont have to be glued to the human player to start swinging.

just throwing it out if anyone wants to know, I love this thread btw @roro4066 thank you very much for this thread.

[roro4066]

I love this thread btw @roro4066 thank you very much for this thread.

Thank you LoneWolf i do remember your thread about “thralls are a lot of fun when they work” so i do know how you love the thralls game mechanic exactly the same way as i am loving them myself too. And we both know how buggy thralls can be and how well they were working at some point. But it doesn’t change the fact that when they DO WORK it’s just pure FUN and that’s why we are trying to understand every single little aspect of them we can.

To smaller or shorter enemies, such as crocodiles, the thralls reacted way slower and spent a lot of time positioning around with one hand weapons or daggers .

With long reach weapons or slow weapons that can be delayed, like Spear, Two handed sword or warhammer the thrall dispatched opponents very quick as it did not waste time positioning itself around.

To humanoids its less noticeable but still noticeable. They seem to spazz out less with Spear, warhammer and two handed weapons against real players as well and more effective too as they dont have to be glued to the human player to start swinging.

It’s very difficult to generalize i think, like for 5 hours my thralls fight every mob like a charm and 10 min later they got stuck in every single battle they are involved.
the size of the mob DOES matter in their buggyness, i’m convinced by that but only once this size has reached a certain proportion. for exemple 1 category of animals has hitboxes which are beyond the reach of fighters thralls. it will be extremely rare that you see them landing a hit to these ennemies

1. the undead dragon and other dragons in general as well
2. mammoths. here you may see 1-2 hits landed sometimes, definitely not as bad as dragons but still very bad
3. elephants. With elephants i have seen a lot of different things, but thralls do struggle to find the hitbox of these ennemies.

To be honnest i don’t think the type of melee weapon you give them will have an impact on their buggyness. I have put thralls in fighting situtions with maces, 1 H sword, 2 H hammers 2 H swords and spears of course. And i can say they are not doing too bad with any of these. They have favourite weapons though, or what i like to call their “favourite weapons” (mostly 2 handers weapons) they seem to be doing better with these but the difference is def not huge and and lies mostly in the reach and the “Area Of Effect” potential of these weapons.

i may not have understood all of what you wrote correctly though, so don’t hesitate too correct me or to enlighten me if you feel i’m totally off topic and not answering your question.

Anyway have fun in your PVP adventures mate !

[roro4066]

Armor attributes and thralls

My question is, do the attribute bonuses from armors ever affect thralls? Should I give my archer thralls accuracy armor? Should I give my fighter thralls strength armor or grit armor?

As i saw your question in the “players helping other players” section and as i remembered never having truly answered to Nuria 's request :

Also. Is it correct, that armor makes a difference on damage if it comes with stats?

i decided to give it a proper testing session.

if you’re not interested in the process and results analyse, you can directly skip my whole paragraph to the conclusion that i will write at the end of this post.

Do bonus statistics coming from special weapons and armors sets have an impact on your thralls damage output?

First if we want to answer this question, we have to make sure that these bonus stats are trully taken into consideration when equiped and overall when fighting ennemies.

So i decided to test it first on my character (she has 40 points into strenght)

• naked with an obsidian 1 H sword (50 base dmg + 6% armor pen)… i need 15 light attacks FULL COMBO hits to kill the elk king and only 10 heavy attacks FULL COMBO hits.
  note that if you don’t use a full combo chain, you will do less dmg.

• geared with a full dafari set and the legendary 1 H sword Khostal Khel scourge (sorry for the wonky translation into english) (50 base dmg + 9% armor pen and total strenght bonus 14, meaning theorically 28% damage bonus)… i need 13 light attacks full combo hits and only 9 heavy attacks full combo hits .

the difference is more noticeable if you only use random regular attacks (without combo chain)

So conclusion: although the impact is not as strong as i was expecting it really seems to be working. Bonus stats do affect your character’s damage output.

Now let’s apply this to a thrall:

• A naked berserker with an obsidian 1H sword will need either 12 or 13 hits to kill the elk king

• a fully equiped berserker with dafari armors pieces and the legendary 1 H sword Khostal Khel scourge will need either 12 or 13 swings to kill the dame ennemy.

For me these results were enough to not test the accuracy bonus since i assume it works exactly the same way. If someone has the opportunity to test it please come and share your results but i am 99% sure the conclusion will be the same : Stats bonus from special equipement have NO EFFECT on the thralls damage output

note by the way that a berserker cimmerian is about as strong as my character with 40 in strenght especially considering that thralls are regulary switching from heavy to light combos moves and they often times do not even finish their combo moves

Other Side note: This test also helped me realize that thralls can make more or less dmg depending on the moves they make with their weapons (light attacks / heavy attacks / combo chain). I didn’t test it in depth yet but i really think it’s the case right now.

[LoneWolf]

Thank you for the feedback roro4066 and thank you again for the kind words, I will let you know if i find more things out and will definitely make good use of the information you share here.

As for the thralls, yes they are very fun. You should have seen what my axe hurling thrall did to some baddies yesterday on the PvP server, the thrall felt like a real threat and I loved every moment of it.

Next thing we will try is, if a BiS and buffed opponent can survive 3 axe hurling thralls. This will be interesting to watch.

Goodluck in the harsh exiled lands.

[roro4066]

You should have seen what my axe hurling thrall did to some baddies yesterday on the PvP server, the thrall felt like a real threat and I loved every moment of it

great i can definitely imagine !!!

Next thing we will try is, if a BiS and buffed opponent can survive 3 axe hurling thralls. This will be interesting to watch.

excuse my ignorance but what is “a BIS and buffed opponent”

love your way of calling them “axe hurling thralls” BTW, it’s really accurate
i admit i’m also curious about the pvp aspect of such things…

[LoneWolf]

BiS is best in slot, as in, the best possible gear a player would equip himself/herself with in order to have a significant advantage in a PvP combat scenario.

Axe hurling would be less accurate now, as I was boss hunting with my friend and I saw the thrall hurl like 5 axes in one go, we are now calling our axe hurling thralls Flash it works better haha.

Some NPC’s have a certain voice and dialogues that makes them sound funny too, and for some reason, when they hurl axes they repeat dialogues very frequently.

"I don’t want to hurt you but I will " --> proceeds to wipe(massacre) out an entire NPC camp in seconds

[RiverTwain]

I greatly appreciate the information in this thread.

Sorry if I missed it, but have there been any combat tests with dancers? Do they fight like fighters, or archers, or something unique? Any bonuses to daggers?

[roro4066]

BiS is best in slot, as in, the best possible gear a player would equip himself/herself with in order to have a significant advantage in a PvP combat scenario.

Great i see now, thanks.

Axe hurling would be less accurate now, as I was boss hunting with my friend and I saw the thrall hurl like 5 axes in one go, we are now calling our axe hurling thralls Flash it works better haha.

yeah, or “hurling rifles”. It’s true they are VERY good DPS wise as ranged thralls but they can sometimes struggle against small sized ennemies or moving targets like snakes for example. Moreover it’s a bit sad they often go in “Fist Fighting” mode when they’re hit in melee.

Some NPC’s have a certain voice and dialogues that makes them sound funny too, and for some reason, when they hurl axes they repeat dialogues very frequently.

Yep this my favourite and most fun part of the thing. Archers are ranged soldiers and they NEVER speak while figting whereas axes throwers speak as much as they are throwing axes quickly…??? This is kinda unique and so much fun !

“You don’t want to cause trouble here…”

[roro4066]

Sorry if I missed it, but have there been any combat tests with dancers? Do they fight like fighters, or archers, or something unique? Any bonuses to daggers?

Thanks RiverTwain , it is something i have wondered as well and that probably other players have wondered too, so it’s good you’re asking this question.
I will try to check it at the end of the day if i have time.

And i will try to make a quick summary of this thread , so players won’t have to read through the whole things to get the main ideas discussed here.

[Arkradon]

elephants. With elephants i have seen a lot of different things, but thralls do struggle to find the hitbox of these ennemies.

Even i as a player have a problem of HITTING said hitbox, if i use the aim-assist (Q). I use axe-shield or daggers usually. And if i’m fighting against a croc - oh boy - that’s another problem. I can’t hit them, because the hitbox is way too low. On a dagger combo, i can only hit them twice, when he’s spinning around.

[roro4066]

Even i as a player have a problem of HITTING said hitbox, if i use the aim-assist (Q). I use axe-shield or daggers usually. And if i’m fighting against a croc - oh boy - that’s another problem. I can’t hit them, because the hitbox is way too low. On a dagger combo, i can only hit them twice, when he’s spinning around.

yeah this is true, especially with daggers on small ennemies. I know it can happen a little on elephant too but not as much as against small ennemies if i remember correctly. personnally i don’t use the auto aim system so i cannot speak of it.

On a dagger combo, i can only hit them twice, when he’s spinning around

Yeah i know exactly what you mean and you can be sure you’re not alone experiencing this frustrating issue, only 1 hit out of my full heavy combo chain is touching the crocs when i’m fighting them with daggers and when my char is at the same ground height as the croc. Always try to get below the ground level compared to your ennemy in case you haven’t tried yet, that way almost all your hits will connect.

This is a problem of the character “aiming height”, either stuck in “high aiming mode” or not rightly adapting to the hit boxes of special sized ennemies. This is annoying me too when it happens and i think the devs team already knows about the issue, so they must be looking into it, hopefully…

[roro4066]

Now what would be nice, similar tests for armors, and the upgrades for them

First it’s good to know that the best armor plating upgrade will only give you 3 extra points of armor rating whereever you attach it, that is to say it doesn’t matter if you apply it to a very heavy or light armor set it will only give you 3 pts to each armor piece, no matter what.
In total this makes a maximum bonus of 15 armor rating points assuming you’re using 5 armor pieces (i mean helmet included).

So for this test i took “cruaidh the crusher” a t4 fighter from the black hand faction equiped with a full epic flawless dafari set (160 total armor rating without any armor plating upgrade) and i spawned a dragon hatchling to deal the damage.

• when he is hit by the “claws attack” of the dragon he loses EXACTLY 100 health points
• and with the thick armor plating upgrade applied on his armor, he loses exactly 97 health points.

A difference of ONLY 3 hit points, yes that’s almost NOTHING.

Note: these numbers were very accurate and i ddin’t have any single difference while repeating the test several times.

So, as conclusion it’s good to note that ARMOR PLATING UPGRADES ARE WORKING ON THRALLS but the difference is so tiny that it SHOULD NOT be one of your highest priorities when equiping thralls, you’d better give them better armors / weapons tiers or even prioritize weapons damage kits over plating armor kits IMO

[roro4066]

SUMMERIZE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT POINTS SEEN IN THIS THREAD:

• the class / job (archer or fighter) of your thrall has definitely an impact (twice as strong) on the weapon you give him / her

• Only sepcial effects like poison are working on your thralls arrows, in short, pretty much every other arrow than the snake arrows are useless on thralls

• different tiers of archers / fighters DO matter in the damage output potential of your thralls the higher lvl the more damage they will dish out

• Throwing weapons are indeed considered as ranged weapons, that is to say you’d better give a throwing axe to an archer than to a fighter for ex if you want to optimize your defenses.

• Armors do work on the thralls, and pretty effectively BTW

• Factions have an effect on your thralls damage output as well

• This point is vey tricky to explain for me The type of the weapon your thrall will acquire by default when he comes out of the wheel of pain will not make him specialized in this very type of weapon. You can give him whatever you like as long as it is a melee weapon for a fighter or a ranged weapon for an archer

• Different tiers of weapons do matter in the damage output of your thralls

• Stats bonus from special equipement (like + 9 in strenght with a dafari set) have NO EFFECT on the thralls damage output

• ARMOR PLATING UPGRADES ARE WORKING ON THRALLS but the difference is so tiny that it SHOULD NOT be one of your highest priorities when equiping thralls

• Dancers are considered as “NON SKILLED” combat thralls, meaning they do only half the damage a fighter does with a melee weapon and only half the damage an archer can do with a ranged weapon. In short you can give them any type of weapon you like, it won’t matter but keep in mind they won’t be as effective as true combat thralls like fighters and archers.

From the strongest to the weakest, here is a list of all factions of the game:

• voltaries (vocano)
• forgotten tribe (cimmerians)
• heirs of the north
• relic hunters
• dogs of dersert
• black hand = lemurians
• dafaris
• exiles

So it’s important to say that most of the thralls combat mechanics are working as intended by the developpers, but as i took the time to make it clear for me and for others as well, i hope it can help some of us when we will be wondering how we should prepare our thralls defenses next time a purge or anything else is susceptible to happen.

have a great game everyone, and i wish you a lot of FUN.

If a moderator can manage to place this post at the very begining of this thread, it would be great ! THANKS in advance and don’t hesitate to delete this sentence if you have managed to move it to the start of the thread.

[BrysonMcRock]

great summery… maybe you edit better your first post and put it there I can say by experience that view people read the last post but many the first

[roro4066]

great summery

thanks bryson

maybe you edit better your first post and put it there I can say by experience that view people read the last post but many the first

yes exactly, that’s why… Good idea, thanks for the advice mate, i will definitely try it tomorrow in case a moderator couldn’t do what i was asking.

See ya !

[StarKnight]

En effet, super boulot, et on apprend beaucoup de choses ! Merci !
J’ai pas encore tout lu mais, corrige-moi si je me trompe :

1. Les fighters font plus de dégâts avec une arme de mélée (logique, rien d’anormal donc). Et les dégâts de l’arme influe sur le DPS du thrall. C’est bien ça ?

2. Les archers font plus de dégâts avec un arc qu’avec une arme de mélée, logique aussi. Mais bizarrement, les équiper de flèches supérieures ne change pas grand chose à leur DPS, vrai ?

3. Moi la question que je me posais c’est, en termes de DPS, si un fighter T3 hyborien de la main noire est aussi efficace qu’un fighter T3 stygien des chasseurs de reliques ou de la faction du Nord, ou d’ailleurs, [J’ai donné des noms de races au hasard].

• Autrement dit, les deux étant de même niveau (T3) et équipés avec la même arme font-ils autant de dégâts l’un comme l’autre ? Oui, je suppose, vrai ?

4. Une autre question que je me posais : un thrall (un fighter) peut-il utiliser tous les types d’armes avec la même efficacité ? Si j’ai bien compris, oui, on peut donner tout type d’arme à un combattant. Vrai ?

5. Pour le reste de tes découvertes, je lirai un peu chaque jour, lol
   C’est en anglais alors soit je copie-colle dans Google Translate soit je lis par moi-même et là j’ai du mal, je comprends pas forcément tout.

Edit : Petites corrections après re-lecture un peu plus approfondie…lol

[roro4066]

En effet, super boulot, et on apprend beaucoup de choses ! Merci !
J’ai pas encore tout lu mais, corrige-moi si je me trompe :

Avec plaisir

Les fighters font plus de dégâts avec une arme de mélée (logique, rien d’anormal donc). Et les dégâts de l’arme influe sur le DPS du thrall. C’est bien ça ?

EXACT

Les archers font plus de dégâts avec un arc qu’avec une arme de mélée, logique aussi. Mais bizarrement, les équiper de flèches supérieures ne change pas grand chose à leur DPS, vrai ?

Disons que tes archers seront plus efficaces avec une arme à distance que tes fighters et vice versa… après étant donné que les dégâts de l’arc sont très faibles, il n’est pas impossible qu’un archer ait un plus gros DPS avec avec une bonne arme de CAC (corps à corps) plutôt qu’avec un arc. Si tu veux être sûr de pas de planter, donne leur des haches de lancer et “enjoy le show” !!!

Moi la question que je me posais c’est, en termes de DPS, si un fighter T3 hyborien de la main noire est aussi efficace qu’un fighter T3 stygien des chasseurs de reliques ou de la faction du Nord, ou d’ailleurs, [J’ai donné des noms de races au hasard].

la faction influe sur les dégâts et les HP du thrall, donc oui un fighter 3 des relic hunters fera un peu plus mal qu’un fighter 3 de la black hand (la différence est pas énorme ds ce cas précis, du fait que ces 2 factions sont très proches en terme de dangerosité (les relic hunters sont le cran juste au dessus des black hand, et les “heirs of the north”, sont le cran encore au dessus)
la race elle même: zammorien, stygian, dafari, hyborien etc… n’a aucun effet mise à part le look du thrall et les recettes spéciales qu’il peut t’apporter si c’est un thrall de crafting.

Une autre question que je me posais : un thrall (un fighter) peut-il utiliser tous les types d’armes avec la même efficacité ? Si j’ai bien compris, oui, on peut donner tout type d’arme à un combattant. Vrai ?

oui et non . je m’explique tu peux donner n’importe quelle arme de corps à corps à un fighter, et n’importe arme à distance pour un archer. Ceci dit, certaines armes de corps à corps sont un tantinet + efficace pour tes fighters que d’autres (épées à 2 mains / marteau à 2 mains / lances) et pour les archers c’est plus les haches de lancer qui cassent la baraque (faut absolument que t’essaies)

sur ce, hésites pas si il y a encore certains points obscures pour toi mais envoie moi plutôt un message personnel si c’est en français ou bien continues à poster ici si tu décides de switcher vers l’anglais, car la majorité des lecteurs de ce forum ne comprennent pas bien le français.