[Bug report with Video] AoE attacks that regularly miss on all targets

There is a bug where multiple-targets or AoE attacks miss on all targets. I've been aware of it for a long time, seeing it happen regularly in my games. I've made reports over time on individual skills doing this in the appropriate forums, unable to pinpoint what was going on, and read other people report similar things.

First of all, I made this video showcasing this with a few skills so it'd be clear what I'm talking about:
http://youtu.be/ezd032C2nPA
(non-public link-only youtube video)

Through regular gameplay, you can often see these "all miss" occuring. They are more obvious when it's your first attacks on targets, but it can happen mid-fight too. They should really almost never happen because hits are rolled individually, so if you jump a large group of critters with an AoE attack, and you have over 85% chance to hit, the chance that you miss on all on them is very very low.

I don't believe it's caused by desync. Desyncs are obvious, they cause all sort of jerkyness, monsters become out of sync, stand still and eventually teleport around to some last location. And my internet connection is solid so I don't consider it a factor.

Also, in trying to replicate this and doing tons of testing, three thing became obvious:
1) One of my characters has resolute technique and I did not notice this with him through hours of gameplay (while I notice it every 5 minute with my other characters)
2) If I try to replicate this bug in an easy zone (that I outlevel by like 30 levels), it's impossible. It's another clue that leads me to think that it's related to my chance to hit.
3) If I take off my accuracy giving items, I miss more of course, but this bug seems to happen more often. I still have maybe ~75% chance to hit, but missing on all 6-8 critters is not supposed to happen so regularly as I see it now. This is hard to test without real statistics, so it's just by observation.

So, my best guess is that that even though it shouldn't happen, there's a condition when resolving attacks where if you miss an attack roll, you don't hit anything. Or maybe it's not exactly that and it's something else. But there IS definitively something wrong going on here.

That's it, thank's for reading/watching, and if I'm somehow delusional, please let me know :-D
Last edited by Thalandor on Oct 10, 2012, 9:59:42 AM
I think the way it works is not exactly what you think. While your Accuracy check is done individually for each monster vs their Evasion, I think you still roll only once.

Let's say you have 85% to hit against most mobs, 95% against some and 70% against others. If your random rolls a a 0/100, you'll miss all of them. If you roll a 10, you'll only hit the 95%, but you'd need to roll over 30 to hit all of them.

This is how I assumed the system worked at least, same for critical hits. Your observations also fit this model perfectly.
Last edited by Pwere on Oct 7, 2012, 3:09:16 PM
Very interesting Pwere, I had not considered this way of rolling for chance to hit. Maybe that's it!

There's a kind of logic to it from the character's perspective, but it's a bit wierd if you consider it from the monster perspective. Monsters with the same evasion either all succeed at evasion, or don't. Hmmf.
As a long time player, I never assumed an AOE attack would either hit or miss all targets simultaneously.
IGN @dime
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Pwere wrote:
I think the way it works is not exactly what you think. While your Accuracy check is done individually for each monster vs their Evasion, I think you still roll only once.

Let's say you have 85% to hit against most mobs, 95% against some and 70% against others. If your random rolls a a 0/100, you'll miss all of them. If you roll a 10, you'll only hit the 95%, but you'd need to roll over 30 to hit all of them.

This is how I assumed the system worked at least, same for critical hits. Your observations also fit this model perfectly.
This is correct for critical strikes, but not for accuracy/evasion.
I would just like to add that yesterday I started playing with Whirling Blades for the first time, and lo and behold, same thing as I shown in my original post video is happening.

Game says I have about 95% to hit with my shadow. I line up 5+ monsters before Whirling, and usually hit them all. But about 20% of the time, I just pass through and hit nothing. The chances of not hitting 5 monsters with 95% to hit is 0.0000325%.

How other players not see and report this is beyond me...
Last edited by Thalandor on Oct 12, 2012, 9:52:25 AM
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Thalandor wrote:
How other players not see and report this is beyond me...

I have experienced this issue for a long time now. I think, like myself, most people who experience it assume that because it is so obvious, it must be intended.

I guess I should go ahead and add that not only is it possible to miss entire mobs with AOE attacks, but I occasionally manage to miss barrels and such. On top of that, even with Resolute Technique I can still occasionally miss entire mobs. I suppose these two occurrences could be the result of desync, but I think it's worth mentioning.
Last edited by D623932883 on Oct 12, 2012, 1:54:18 PM
I regularly experience such a thing and I always assumed it was the desync thingy behind this (see Thalandor, that is why I didn't report it).

Edit: as always
✠ ✠
Last edited by wiggin on Oct 12, 2012, 4:17:50 PM
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D623932883 wrote:
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Thalandor wrote:
How other players not see and report this is beyond me...

I have experienced this issue for a long time now. I think, like myself, most people who experience it assume that because it is so obvious, it must be intended.

I guess I should go ahead and add that not only is it possible to miss entire mobs with AOE attacks, but I occasionally manage to miss barrels and such. On top of that, even with Resolute Technique I can still occasionally miss entire mobs. I suppose these two occurrences could be the result of desync, but I think it's worth mentioning.


I dunno.. going from a cleave (with HP on hit + Life leech support) marauder, to now a witch in the new default.. Freezing pulse and ice spear (as well as most other spells) NEVER MISS. Not nearly as often as cleave did. With that said though, I also thought it was intended that - if you miss the first monster with the cleave attack, the rest are also treated as missed.. it's just not possible for the monsters to each have an individual evade roll because of how often it occurred to miss the entire group. Like Thalandor said, the odds are remarkably low of this occurring.

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