Convent
08-03-2008, 02:15 PM
I just thought of something that makes me want to make a thread for people to argue about.
A lot of us remember back when the MEN stat was nerfed, making it pretty much useless for many classes. The main biggy was for apprentices who all of a sudden noticed that their stats in MEN did pretty much nothing. The main claim was that the animation speed lengths for long enough of a time that even with large enough men the animation time couldn't complete fast enough.
Then I read a post that pointed out about MEN being awesome for scouts and archers. When I thought about it, it was. Animation speed came across and I noticed something.
As a scout, your character pulls back the string. This is a very small movement and doesn't span much time. As an apprentice (male), you put your entire body into it, waving your arms across in a pull-restance-swing motion. This brought me back to something someone brought up earlier about how they thought female apprentices casted faster than males. If you look at the motions, females bring their arm back, then forth. Males do a lot more into their cast, and take more animation time.
Squires pull back their sword and stab forward. Men is a little bit of a factor for them, but having more than X amount doesn't work because it no longer takes effect.
Acolytes I'm not sure. Disciples I'm also not sure, being that they need the pow and sta more to make them harder tanks and I haven't seen many posts involving them and men. Neophytes have agi which also seems to increase casting time by a small amount (credit to archers who tried agi builds for finding this out).
Then I thought: what if animation speed is holding classes back? Scouts/archers have a split-second animation, allowing more room for the animation time of the skill to be crammed closer together. But apprentices, who have a 2-3 step process in their casting speed, have filled up their time between two casting intervals (with no extra MEN) with their animation speed. Squires have a shorter animation speed (pull back-stab) so they can have a little men but not much because any more than X amount hits the point when the animation start of the 2nd attack meets the animation end of the 1st attack.
It's like this:
|_____|_____|_____|
Every verticle line represents the next time a person with no extra men is allowed to attack.
Men decreases the time between each verticle line:
|____|____|____|
As each class our animation speeds take up a different amount of time:
Apprentice/Mage:
|lllllllllll|lllllllllll|llllllllllll|
Scout/Archer:
|lll___|lll___|lll___|
Squire:
|lllllllll_|llllllll_|llllllll_| ,etc.
Since the "llll"s take up the entire time of casting from one to the next, even if MEN is increased:
|____|____|____|
lllllllllllllll lllllllllllllll lllllllllllllll
The animation time ("lll") is slow enough to make men useless. Apprentices/mages seem to come into xen with skills crammed next to each other so there's no room between skills casted to be taken away by MEN.
Scouts/archers, on the other hand, look like:
|lll___|lll___|lll___|
And with more men/agi they look like
|lll__|lll__|lll__|
So their casting speed is increased because the animation speed has already finished by then.
Squires, who can have men but don't necessarily need it can decrease theirs only up until the skill animation times are crammed right next to each other:
|lllllllll|llllllll|llllllll|
Then it becomes something like apprentices:
|__|__|__|
llllllllllll lllllllllll llllllllllll
Assuming most of this is just theory, what do you think?
Also, before the men nerf, how do you think the skill speed was affected by men that makes it so different after the nerf?
Personally I think men sped up animations instead of decreased the time between them. I'm wondering, though (because I was an app before the nerf and never saw a scout shoot), what did the split-second scout shooting look like if it was extended over a period of time of extra-men-less casting?
It'd be funny to see an archer shoot really slowly. .__.
(...so...yeah, that's my thought of the day.)
A lot of us remember back when the MEN stat was nerfed, making it pretty much useless for many classes. The main biggy was for apprentices who all of a sudden noticed that their stats in MEN did pretty much nothing. The main claim was that the animation speed lengths for long enough of a time that even with large enough men the animation time couldn't complete fast enough.
Then I read a post that pointed out about MEN being awesome for scouts and archers. When I thought about it, it was. Animation speed came across and I noticed something.
As a scout, your character pulls back the string. This is a very small movement and doesn't span much time. As an apprentice (male), you put your entire body into it, waving your arms across in a pull-restance-swing motion. This brought me back to something someone brought up earlier about how they thought female apprentices casted faster than males. If you look at the motions, females bring their arm back, then forth. Males do a lot more into their cast, and take more animation time.
Squires pull back their sword and stab forward. Men is a little bit of a factor for them, but having more than X amount doesn't work because it no longer takes effect.
Acolytes I'm not sure. Disciples I'm also not sure, being that they need the pow and sta more to make them harder tanks and I haven't seen many posts involving them and men. Neophytes have agi which also seems to increase casting time by a small amount (credit to archers who tried agi builds for finding this out).
Then I thought: what if animation speed is holding classes back? Scouts/archers have a split-second animation, allowing more room for the animation time of the skill to be crammed closer together. But apprentices, who have a 2-3 step process in their casting speed, have filled up their time between two casting intervals (with no extra MEN) with their animation speed. Squires have a shorter animation speed (pull back-stab) so they can have a little men but not much because any more than X amount hits the point when the animation start of the 2nd attack meets the animation end of the 1st attack.
It's like this:
|_____|_____|_____|
Every verticle line represents the next time a person with no extra men is allowed to attack.
Men decreases the time between each verticle line:
|____|____|____|
As each class our animation speeds take up a different amount of time:
Apprentice/Mage:
|lllllllllll|lllllllllll|llllllllllll|
Scout/Archer:
|lll___|lll___|lll___|
Squire:
|lllllllll_|llllllll_|llllllll_| ,etc.
Since the "llll"s take up the entire time of casting from one to the next, even if MEN is increased:
|____|____|____|
lllllllllllllll lllllllllllllll lllllllllllllll
The animation time ("lll") is slow enough to make men useless. Apprentices/mages seem to come into xen with skills crammed next to each other so there's no room between skills casted to be taken away by MEN.
Scouts/archers, on the other hand, look like:
|lll___|lll___|lll___|
And with more men/agi they look like
|lll__|lll__|lll__|
So their casting speed is increased because the animation speed has already finished by then.
Squires, who can have men but don't necessarily need it can decrease theirs only up until the skill animation times are crammed right next to each other:
|lllllllll|llllllll|llllllll|
Then it becomes something like apprentices:
|__|__|__|
llllllllllll lllllllllll llllllllllll
Assuming most of this is just theory, what do you think?
Also, before the men nerf, how do you think the skill speed was affected by men that makes it so different after the nerf?
Personally I think men sped up animations instead of decreased the time between them. I'm wondering, though (because I was an app before the nerf and never saw a scout shoot), what did the split-second scout shooting look like if it was extended over a period of time of extra-men-less casting?
It'd be funny to see an archer shoot really slowly. .__.
(...so...yeah, that's my thought of the day.)