Math Souls: A Deep Dive into the Math Behind Dark Souls Weapon Scaling
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- čas přidán 5. 09. 2024
- Ever wonder how your damage was calculated in Dark Souls? This video attempts to explain the math behind the damage!
Here is a link to the spreadsheet I have set up for this video. docs.google.co...
Please leave any comments down below, and I will do my best to answer them!
Looks like I forgot a hidden multiplier for Black Knight weapons! They have a 20% multiplier against "Demon" enemies. For bosses, this includes:
- Asylum Demon
- Stray Demon
- Demon Firesage
- Ceaseless Discharge
- Centipede Demon
For whatever reason, Quelaag is not actually classified as a Demon in the games files. For lore purposes I suppose this is because she existing before the creation of the Bed of Chaos, so she wasn't born of the flame. Similarly the Bed of Chaos isn't a demon (not like it really matters though for damage purposes).
Another correction: the bleed auxiliary effect is the total amount of HP that an enemy will lose upon application of the bleed effect. Most weapons are roughly 30 per hit, and the number of hits depends on how high the enemies bleed resist is. Obviously this video focuses more on the scaling aspect (and bleed damage does not increase with weapon level of stats) but did want to correct that!
What about batwing demons and titanite demons?
@@raswartz Looks like Batwing Demons are, titanite demons are not.
The demon statues are not either. Oddly enough doesn't look like Chaos Eators are classified as demons either nor the wall-hugger that 'guards' power within. So for non-bosses, lesser Capra Demons, lesser Taurus Demons, and Batwing Demons appear to be the only non-bosses weak to Black Knight weapons.
@@trevthedev6134 Thanks, interesting.
Me ayudaste mucho a planear mi siguiente run,muchas gracias
2-hour long video about weapon scaling in a 13 year-old game, just what my autism was craving
Literally was about to make a similar comment... I LOVE USELESS NUMBERS AND DATA!!!!
ALL THE MATH LETS GOOO
Trev slowly transforming into the same kind of beast as illusory wall and zulie
And limit break
@DaRoachDoggJr you're right I shouldn't forget old man
Yes... Time to act like I'm going to remember any of this before I pump dex to 42 and run the baller swag sword the entire game for the 600th run
When it drops on your run, the gods have blessed you with a BSS run
I love bss but I feel like I could beat the game in the time it takes to farm it most of my runs
@ziodice6166 It naturally drops only when doi g challenge runs. And then I'm just like fuck it its now a swag sword run
@@ziodice6166 I just did a BSS run 2 days ago and I gotta say DAMN lmao.
Also Ricard's Rapier with Sunlight Blade heavy attack doing constant 2k+ damage is also nice.
It's MY sleepover and I get to choose the movie
Yeah, that's right, we're so hopelessly addicted to Dark Souls content that we're listening to two hours of damage multiplier formulas while doing housework. So what? And what are you doing with your life that's so great, huh?
Not enough of this kind of practical and quantitative content is out there for even the most popular games. Glad that you mention MV's, something that is often overlooked in favor of "stat caps".
i’ve always wondered how the heck these numbers work. it can be so confusing to understand why and how your damage works. great video!
You mentioned the Artorias Greatsword as the only special hidden damage modifier weapon
Forever it's been considered a truth that black knight weapons have a 20% damage boost to demon type enemies (queelag, minotaur, Capra, centipede, asylum, etc)
Does that not actually exist?
Oh yeah you’re right. They do more damage to demon enemies, must’ve glossed over that one, sorry. Although interestingly enough, I’m pretty sure Quelaag isn’t classified as a demon in the games files, for whatever reason. I’ll pin it in a comment!
I think queelag isn't a demon, just a transformed sister of Izaleth right? ( Not certain)
@@jackreid6763indeed
Dont call my girl quelaag a demon again
I enjoy youre in depth content and am happy to find more dark souls.content for me to enjoy
I think the bleed value has to do with how much bleed damage it does and not the buildup. priscilla's dagger has 500, its bleed status builds slower and has bigger proc damage. 500 is 50% of the targets max hp and 300 is 30%
I’ll throw a correction in the pinned comment. Idk why I thought it was the per hit buildup, maybe that stems from a comment I read somewhere? Obviously the stats screen wasn’t the real point of the video but always good to get correct information!
Looks like bleed is built up 30, 33, or 36 per hit depending on the weapon (and 20 or 50 for Priscilla’s dagger / scythe). There is data for 39, 42, and 45 in the Params but as best I can tell those aren’t used anywhere. Poison and toxic hits are always 30 per hit, interestingly enough.
@@trevthedev6134In at least some of the later games (DS3 on?) this number is definitely just the bleed buildup per hit. DS1 stats are horribly messy and confusing, no wonder you're mixing them up. Like who uses 300 to mean 30%? 30 or 0.3, sure, but 300?
Do need more than 3 int to view this?
This video is like dialogue with logan, you need at least 11 int
what a treat! thanks for the video
This video is perfect. Everything I ever could’ve wanted, a bunch of numbers and dark souls. Thank you
Havent even finished the ad yet and i know this gon bang hard
Bloc ads
I would speculate that one reason the club upgrades are less effective than other weapons may have to do with it being the starting weapon for the Deprived class. Since the plank shield is also one of the worst in the game, and either for lore reasons or otherwise, the developers may have intended for players to switch off of the club once they find better loot, as the Deprived start with "nothing but" these items.
There is also the case of the Occult infused club found in Anor Londo, which would hypothetically be better against the bosses in the area, but with its reduced upgrade scaling, it seems an odd choice to place a club there specifically instead of a normally scaling weapon, if the developers were intending you to try using it against Ornstein and Smough, for instance. Maybe since it's no cost to the player, they didn't want the weapon to be immediately optimal by default.
Interesting theory! I want to see how it scales in Demons Souls to see if it’s different in that way or not. I know there are only 10 upgrade tiers so for normal weapons, they must have built the upgrade system from the ground up.
They might have made it a low scaling weapon, so that you can give decent damage on new game, but you'll have to find a better weapon on a second journey.
That's true too! I've never played Demon's Souls, so I can't contribute much on that front.
@@trevthedev6134I believe scaling values were totally reworked in an early patch to follow the uniform model you have here. I think it used to be that they were a bit more "random", not sure how exactly. I wonder if they just literally forgot to fix the club somehow and that it just follows values from an old patch (from when lightning and fire outdamaged standard upgrade paths).
It's actually a very solid STR weapon for the very early part of the game, and I always liked using it more than the reinforced club, mace, morning star, etc. Great against shields. Unfortunate that it's so useless, lol.
In Demon Souls the club had C scaling but could not be upgraded at all.
It was also the starting weapon for the"deprived" class the Barbarian.
So maybe there is some carryover scaling with the"club" being a starter weapon.
Do two two-handling str scaling bonuses can go above 99 str like in ER or it is only the motion modifier+poise dmg.
If you backstab, riposte with weapon buff or resin on.
Do they also get increased dmg or do they stay flat+dmg regardless of the weapon's motion value.
Does the hornet ring apply dmg+ for backstabbing? Or it does sometimes case by case.
Unrelated but I think in Souls games(maybe not 2 use different engines).
Often dmg % hitboxes eg. hitting the weak spot eg. head and heel also increase status build up and pose dmg by that same+%.
And hitting a strong spot reduces it.
You can poison Silver Knight with 1 poison arrow if hit in the head.
Otherwise, it is two shots.
So maybe counterattack also applies boosted build-up and or poise dmg.
Interesting note about the club. I do plan on covering critical hits soon, as it requires its own section and didn’t think it fit in this one.
For them, weapon buffs just apply the ‘regular’ amount of damage, so they are not boosted by critical hits, although for bigger weapons that do the 2-hit critical, you do get that damage applied twice! For whatever it’s worth based on the numbers I have in my updated calculator, I’m pretty sure a crystal infused weapon with a buff still wins out over a higher AR infused weapon. I’ll have to double check on build up, I don’t think it gets extra build up on crits.
For strength, there is a hard cap of 66 when 2-handing. No bonus for going over unfortunately.
I did also want to go through and do a weak spot video!
@@trevthedev6134 I never tested divine name but I think it has 110-150 values depending on the weapon.)
Afaik it means 10-50% extra dmg(after defence calculations) to foes weak to divine+it prevents revive.
Also, bleed "300" or"500" means 30% or 50% of total health will be lost once bleed status fully builds up.
Afaik bosses lose 9% or 15% of their total health.
The weapon's bleed build-up is invisible on the stat screen but is 20-50 depending on the weapon.
SIF has 240 bleed resistance so likely takes 7 hits at least to proc by usual Katana but likely he will recover some bleed status like the player.
I do not know how player or monster status recovery works.
But players likely lose 4-5 status build-ups per second if he did not get that status for like a second or so.
But that is just an estimate likely can be matched out.
Maybe can be tested by Lifehunt Sychte self bleed build up then timing recovery.
Thanks I’ll correct it in the pinned comment and maybe mention it in my next video. I think I had it in mind from a comment I must’ve read somewhere? Obviously that screen wasn’t really the overall point of the video but should’ve had correct information.
It’s pretty close to the stat screen amusingly enough, with all weapons dealing 30, 33, or 36 bleed per hit (outside of Priscilla’s which do 20 and 50). There are special effects in the params that have build ups of 39, 42, and 45, but doesn’t look like they are applied anywhere. Poison and toxic build up per hit are 30 for all weapons so maybe that’s what I was thinking of?
Amazing work, immediately subbed.
I see, I understand (doesn't get it at all)
Haha well if nothing else, just hit 27 strength or 40 dex/int/faith when rocking a regular weapon and 50 if going with an infusion
Excellent as always. Thanks for all you do!
Thank you for another classic
Don't know why I got this video in my feed but I'm not complaining
the only stat i need is str and a big stick
In regards to the critical, the critical hit has 2 multipliers, 1 depending on the weapon class, so whether its a dagger, katana, great hammer etc...
The other is the number you see such as 130 for a dagger. Best way to think about the number you see is that among its weapon class it deals an additional 30% critical dmg thanks to the 130 multiplier.
Do not compare the critical number on a dagger to say the critical number on a rapier, because daggers and rapiers have different weapon class multipliers when it comes to critical hits.
Usually the highest crits are on daggers and rapiers to my knowledge, for the rest of the weapons a crit is basicly equal to 2 or 2.5 regular hits.
So for example say you have 2 daggers both dealing 200 physical dmg. But one has a 100 critical and the other 130. Say the critical on the 100 critical dagger does 500 dmg. The dagger with 130 critical will deal 650 dmg, so 30% more or an added multiplier of x1.3.
You're mistaken about critical rating. You're right that the critical rating doesn't reflect the motion value of the critical hit - that depends solely on the weapon's type. But the critical rating acts as an additional multiplier. If you perform a backstab or riposte with two weapons of the same type and AR with different critical ratings, the weapon with the higher critical rating will deal more damage.
Same goes for the divine auxiliary effect. The number matters; it multiplies your damage against enemies that are weak to divine, including those skeletons you mentioned.
Yeah you’re not technically wrong, but I still thinks it’s a bit misleading if nothing else. I’m actually doing a follow up on it to provide more clarification (and because I got around to throwing a calculator together)
Helpful video as always, appreciate the deep dives into these mechanics and calculations!
I'm interested in a further exploration of the Critical stat, if you're willing. Could the "Critical" be instead referring to the counter damage mechanic? I believe the Critical stat in DS2 refers to that, if memory serves correctly.
Additionally, is there any alternative way to math out the displayed Critical stat numbers to align with in-game damage calculations? The damage of a backstab nor riposte with a Dagger is clearly not merely 131% the damage of any other attack, but could it be 100% + 131% for a total of 231% the damage of a normal attack? Alternatively, perhaps there's a general formula to correlate the Critical stat to damage number output -- something that would still allow the number to make sense in the context of comparing between weapons?
Love your videos, thanks for your hard work!
Honestly, I wish I could tell you where the number came from, but I really have 0 idea. Here's a breakdown of the Dagger Motion Values (I think, the names are machine translated from Japanese so the names are a little odd (from this spreadsheet, column AA on the "PC Attacks" tab: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KukblWL61We64-gNIyaAShga9h8RTXYmyFs98eQhY4E/edit?gid=1372377116#gid=1372377116))
Dagger Regular 1H (row 166): 100
Dagger Backstab (row 189): 250
Dagger Riposte (row 191): 300
The rows named "Strengthening" are the Motion Values used when you have the Hornet Ring equipped. So for a backstab it still sues 250, but for a riposte it uses 2 different motion values, 60 and 290. This means the game runs 2 different damage calcs and adds them up, even though the dagger only does a single hit on a critical attack.
I thought maybe it was related to what a normal weapon (i.e., those with a critical rating of 100) has for MVs, but a shortsword has 200 and 250 for backstabs and ripostes. 250 / 200 = 1.25, and 300 / 250 = 1.2, so nothing with that 131 anywhere.
I guess I haven't done enough testing to know. It may be just some random number that they put down for every weapon? Maybe it's a damage multiplier?
Maybe if I figure it out I'll do a short video with some example numbers!
@@trevthedev6134 Interesting on the two different damage calculations added together for the Hornet Ring riposte... Wonder if that was a half-implemented idea similar to DS2's dagger criticals having two hits.
Looking at the 131 under "Hit0_DmyPoly1" in the "Dagger, parry" row (187) got me excited for a bit, but I spot checked a few other weapons and didn't see anything else that has an above-100 Critical stat displayed in game line up with the data. Bummer. I suppose it wouldn't be the first time FromSoft has written some random hardcoded informational text that has no real basis on game mechanics/calcs, but that's such an unfulfilling answer! Still holding out hope that the number is actually used somehow, ahah.
Side note, the translations are pretty funny to look at; the "shark" and "tortoise" ones especially, though it's likely a strange mistranslation considering the Japanese text is the same aside from the numbers. Thanks again for putting this together!
@@Rx_MOON Well you're in luck as I'm in the crucible now cooking up another video! I think I've got it all figured out, need to complete my calculator and check values, but I hope to have a video on that (and the Hornet Ring because why not) in the next few days. FWIW I *think* those have something to do with the position of the player character in some way. What that is I couldn't tell you for sure, but the Hti0 Radius column is very close to that which i believe tells the game how 'big' the active hitbox is (if you've ever seen a video on hitboxes, it's the cylindrical shape. They're really cool to look at!).
@@trevthedev6134 Oh, excellent -- very exciting! Looking forward to it!
Interesting that the player position might factor into it...!
The hitboxes are interesting, I like that they went with the cylindrical shape over the rectangular ones typically seen in games; seems like the cylindrical ones fit the models and player expectations better.
Super in-depth, very cool
Nice video trev
I love these videos!
Is totally obsessed with minor rounding issues.
Reveals, is engineer irl.
Ah, now i get it.
If you did this for elden ring i bet that video would pop off since people are struggling with shadow of the erd tree rihht now
Funny I just started DS1 this week and was trying to figure out the formulas this video came out at the perfect time.
My only question is are the other darksouls games also calculated like this? Would save me a lot of trouble with the research lol
I am like 99% sure the same math applies, but stuff like upgrade and stat scaling tables being different across different games. E.g. soft caps, upgrade levels, etc. I do know Ds2 is different but to my knowledge Demons Souls, de3, and Elden Ring basically follow the same formulas.
could you make one video about armor defense values and the math behind them?
Wonder what the history of the critical value number is, maybe it was a manually-entered number that used to correspond to something, like the middle point between backstab and riposte damage, or maybe the backstab damage with base damage substracted from it, but then as they balanced and modified some of the weapons they didnt update these numbers, so in the final release theyre mostly misleading?
Not sure if its really worth the busy work of checking considering how niche a question it is, but I wonder if these crit value numbers were updated in any way since release, that could maybe give a clue to what they are actually based on, if anything at all.
I’m actually doing some testing right now. Think I’ve got it down. It’s just really weird all things considered. Should have a video at some point in the next few days as I also work towards getting set for some more Elden Ring stuff
Quick question isn't the number on "Critical" a %, like normally it does 100%, with the dagger 131% of the damage?
I wish! But no it’s quite a bit higher than that. Test it out on a hollow and you’ll clear at lest double damage if not more
@@trevthedev6134I think @hever is correct. A 131 critical value will deal 31% more than a standard 100 critical hit. (Both already deal significantly more than a standard r1 swing)
I love me some meth! I mean math
Also if you dont mind explaining the difference between truncating and rounding that'd be sick.
My stats prof used the term but when I talked to my parents (accounting folks) they said truncation was different from rounding or grouping/seperating values but I never really got a plain definition 😅.
Yeah no worries. Rounding is taking a value with a decimal and either increasing it or decreasing based on how close it is to the 2 numbers it falls between. So 2.3 is less than 2 and a half, you would generally round ‘down’ to 2. For a number like 2.7, you would round ‘up’ to 3. Basically you’re looking at the closest whole number to whatever your value is (at least for the context of this video, which deals with rounding numbers with decimals).
Truncation is just taking a number with a decimal point and just removing the value after the decimal point. Using the 2.3 and 2.7 again, you would just remove the 0.3 and 0.7 entirely, and truncating those would result in 2 for both.
@@david21216rounding is more gradual iirc. Truncating is more extreme. I belive
@@david21216 when you set up a budget, it become clear :
I have 10 dollars, this cost 2.3, theses 7.5, and that 1.4
If you round all my numbers UP, i can by this for 3 and that for 2, i'll keep 5 and wont by theses for 8.
If i truncate all my number, i can buy this for 2, that for 1 and theses for 7, but i'll be in debt of 1.2
basically, truncating is rounding down
1 more video before bed.
Awesome video
I think you mispike during upgrades explanation, you said the base value is multiplied by 1.01 per upgrade level but its just 1.1
Would not be surprised haha
Yeah I was a bit confused too like "what?", it's a long video and he worked pretty hard on it
The perils of not having an editor for a video like this is it’s tough to catch that stuff when listening back. You kinda if start to tune various things out lol
@@trevthedev6134 we all make mistakes, this one is pretty irrelevant I'd say because the rest of the video shows it correctly
@@sunbleachedangel not to mention other than that, it's reflected correctly from that point
2 hours of maths 😻
7:05 if its divided by 10 why didnt they just write down 30 instead of 300. Probably a weird programming thing
Yeah idk honestly. I think it’s probably a percentage that is shown, but you’re right it’s weird. They did change it in later games to the actual build up
@@trevthedev6134 Both DeS and DS1 drew a lot of inspiration from the Monster Hunter series, which does the same thing. In some titles (but frustratingly not all), different weapon classes and innate elemental/status will have multipliers added, some of which are base 10.
any plans to do a similar video for elden ring? i'd watch it
Not sure. Maybe? I know Rusty has a pretty good video on the generalization of this type of stuff but didn’t go quite as deep into stuff like stat scaling tables.
Bro 2 hours let's go
Comment for the algorithm
I wonder how much of this is still true in Elden ring ?
Well I haven’t done a huge deep dive into it, it looks like it a pretty similar system but with different soft cap ranges and the ability to go ‘above’ 99 strength when 2-handed. It does seem like AR calculators are right on, although I do suspect that the actual numbers in game still carry decimals.
Wait what… how am I… enjoying this..? I hate math! Stop making it enjoyable! I mean don’t because it’s awesome! I’m confused!
If this is boring I swear I'm going to be so disappointed
Haha well it is me yapping about math for 2 hours so not sure how exciting that is lol
It's a Dark Souls math video, I'm not sure what you expect
Its called an autism stimulant
16 veiws in 11 minutes... Bro fell off
Hey, what time is it where you are? It's nearly midnight for me
yea run up that interaction
@@glogour_404 lol but really. Because, if I'm early enough, it's satisfying to watch the numbers go up at random intervals. But it was late when I watched this
0 veiws bc that’s not a thing.
Very original 👏💯
No reason this needed to be 2 hours.
Yah probably, but I wanted to cover examples for everything.
Fairly sure the Club having reduced overall scaling is a part of the Deprived difficulty kit lol