The AC bug and how you can play without it affecting you

[Lisboa]

I've talked about the AC stacking bug a few times and most people are like "a-huh?"
Well, I did some testing with Ponzican tonight and here are the findings. This bug originated in the 1.23 patch, hopefully it will be gone in 1.25, but this probably won't be out for two weeks, and if you want, you can level to 20 in 2 weeks.

Basically Deflection and Natural armor modifiers are doubling. This means if you wear an amulet of natural armor +4 and a cloak of protection +3, instead of having an AC bonus of 4+3, you are actually getting one of (4+3)x2 or 14. In Lis's case she wears an amulet of natural armor +5 and a cloak of protection +5--so she is getting 20 AC from these two items instead of 10.

When you get this kind of bonus AC (or a lower one at lower levels), you can easily reach a point where only a roll of a 20 regardless of the attack bonus modifier (natural 20) will hit you, and you can wade through your enemies like it's the kiddie pool.

Since these items are exactly doubling, and you probably will have about the same AC modifier on both items, you can experience the game like it should be by simply removing one of two protection/natural armor items you wear. Just take it off. Pretend that you are still wearing your amulet. And the game will act just like you are.

It's going to be a tougher game, but if you want to experience the game like it's supposed to be, you should take it off until this bug is fixed.

[EZ_Pepperino]

For non server vault games you can use the debug mode to level to whatever you want anyway and still have a legal character, so unless youre talking about the VS (I dont know how prevalent +5 items are there but chances are low levels wouldnt have access to them) the point is moot.

[Elerion]

How is the point moot? She is simply giving people information on how they can get the "correct" results from their gear, instead of overpowered ones, for those of us that like to play games the way they should be, instead of breezing through with zero challenge.

Hint: Those people don't use debug mode to level up.

[Ponzi]

Well, on the VSH right now, amulets of natural armor +5 can be bought from the magic vendor, and there are plenty of +4 and +5 AC cloaks that can be bought. I suppose it isn't quite as noticiable in PvE combat, but it causes serious problems with PvP combat. When you can only hit someone on a natural 20 when you have an unbuffed attack bonus of +27, the proposed 'gotcha' game wouldn't work out very well.

[EZ_Sneakster Shenanigans]

I wasn't aware there was a problem. I for one am very aganst intentional exploiting of any kind, and will take off my ac ring I guess, but you can be sure that until its fixed, there will be people who will use it to the last drop = (

[Nimmbull]

Is there any proof that this is a bug in PvE? Have you bug reported it to Bioware and is it being worked on? I haven't been able to follow it.

If it's a PvP only bug and doesn't affect NPC attacks, then I don't see it as a big deal. It's not like there is any PvP action on the server at the moment anyways. I do hope they fix it though.

Nimm I played a hardcore old-school badass rogue for 3and a half years and all I got was this lousy sig

[Lisboa]

No, it is definitely a bug in P v E as well. All you have to do is look at the streaming logs of the battle. When you have an AC of 37 (+1 with racial bonus and no dodge or anything else), and a monster does not hit you on a roll of 40 or above, then you are bugged. It's like wearing +15 armor, very cheap. I'm yet to try this out on items that add dodge bonus though, this may be stacking as well.

The AC bug is one of the reasons people found the giants were easy (dwarves get +4 dodge on top of other bonuses against giants), because they rely completely on melee attacks but only hit people 5% of the time. Really though, if you don't have much in the way of jewelry, the giants hit very hard, and the rock throwers don't miss everything.

In the crypt, you have a lot of elemental/magic attacks so you do get hit, and the crypt knights attack well enough to hit anyone. But when this does get patched, and you will find the game a lot harder.

Myself and others have reported the bug and Bioware is aware of it. I'm not sure they have their priorities right if they didn't fix it in 1.24. In fact, players during the beta testing of 1.23 noticed the bug and pointed it out on the forums, but it still went live. Some players claim to have stopped playing completely, waiting for this bug to be fixed. Edited by: Lisboa at: 9/16/02 3:03:28 pm