Changes to lootable magic modifier

[Pierrette]

Getting the affixes to better balance is certainly not the wrong thing to do.

Boni, I don't understand why you say this - I think it is the wrong thing to do, precisely because of the scenarios Lou mentions.  I also tested it out and it works exactly as he said, balance tipped in favor of defender when both decked out.

I usually love your ideas Eonwind, this one not so much, at least not without other adjustments.

[Bonifarzia]

Hi Pierrette
I don't say it is a good idea to nerf damage, I just second the effort to rework the affix system in its entirety, which is a chance to make the effects more consistent and intuitive.
If you take a closer look at my previous posts, you will notice that I try to analyze what different aspects contribute to the imbalance you and Lou observed, and to give a few suggestions what could be tweaked. Please note that I'm not contributor, and I have not played for a while, so I cannot judge the current or upcoming state of rule balance. I'm just writing as a player who has done some extensive testing a few years ago (before you could even read what the affixes do). And I still think the idea of multiplicative vs additive stacking could be interesting to discuss, maybe I'll open a separate topic for that later.

tldr: I think it will be important to repair the high-end combat balance at some point, but it's better to get the needed ingredients first. PvP with super rare items is broken anyway, also if you keep the current affix rules, right?

[Eonwind]

[...] up to a point where no damage is dealt at all ("fails"). I think exactly this is Lou's point. Chances to hit do not seem to be problematic.

the problem pointed out by louscroo can happen, this is related to defense and attack bonuses as much as it's related to stances (bloody, defensive, etc.). Like I pointed out before this is due to the mathematical structure of the damage calculation. This "problem" has always existed and IMO it was an early design fault (or maybe it was just a different conception but still can cause these problems).
To state it in a simple and plain way the solution is: completely insulating bonuses related to DODGE/HIT and bonuses related to DAMAGE.
That's something that should be definitely done but, quoting myself:

Such change has the potential to greatly improve the damage output balance but also will deeply affect the current damage setup with deep impact.
Therefore we plan NOT to change the current setup in the short-term because it would requires extensive tests on all range of power level and equipment and we are currently focused on tasks we deem more important.

However I also notice an imbalance on how the stance factors are currently used and setup. Therefore I fixed the formula and I also slightly tweaked the attacker's stance damage multiplier and the target's stance damage absorption multiplier. Instead of being equal the damage multiplier is slightly bigger for attacker, this should help avoiding the impasse where attacker is able to hit target but still deals no damage. Unfortunately while this this change can help does not guarantee a complete fix that could be only achieved by doing what I said above.