Player Count Conclusions

[Kenji]

The player count mentions 10% of the character counts are Weapon Masters, meaning 90% are something other than a Weapon Master.

Approximately 20% of Loremasters are WM meaning 2% of all players are Loremaster/WM.

98% of characters in the recent counts are not Loremaster/WM.

I don't think that's how it works

[Joe46]

I feel people are really having a panic about Fighter/wm/LM as of late. I'm all in for removing the ability for Loremaster to basically gain any Epic spell focus, that seems like a good nerf.

I also agree that maybe level 9 (even 8) spells shouldn't be able to be read with a scroll through lore alone. This would not only stop martials reading such spells, but also other classes that REALLY benefit from it like cough defiler cough. A nerf like this would be enough in my eyes, anything else would be an overreaction

[Second Breakfast]

That’s hardly fair to bards, a fair few of whom are Loremasters. Most bards I have played have also been Loremasters because of the synergy that exists between the classes, both for utility, and yet I am being told here that something like the ESF Illusion feat that Loremasters get, that doesn’t even have the full functionality of the wizard one, is overpowered?

If you’re going to lock out martials from the Loremaster epic spell feats, don’t lock out bards; bards ARE casters, after all. Same goes for warlocks too, honestly. I detest the idea of being pigeonholed into a certain class combination, even when my goal has never been and will never be, to be optimal.

[Joe46]

Big agree with second breakfast, I should've mentioned the "Epic spell abilities" should only be barred from non casters

[stoneheart-]

The only thing that would really do is prevent people from playing a "sword sage" type character, which only Loremaster really enables. There's truly nothing wrong with a "mundane" character being able to send an image or whatever.

[Kythana]

The player count mentions 10% of the character counts are Weapon Masters, meaning 90% are something other than a Weapon Master.

Approximately 20% of Loremasters are WM meaning 2% of all players are Loremaster/WM.

98% of characters in the recent counts are not Loremaster/WM.

I don't think that's how it works

Their math is correct. According to the player counts. Every 1 in 5 players you can expect to have LM in their build. Of those players, every 1 in 10(approximately) you can also expect to have WM in their build.

1/5 * 1/10 = 1/50 or .02 = 2%.

That's at least for those who had it at 30 in the last player count, this doesn't include levelers as far as I'm aware.

Even still, you could always compare the total amount of fighter/wm/lm 30 builds(29 players) to the overall level 30 population. The total amount of unique logins was 2119, but I believe that includes sub 30 characters as 29/2119 is around 1.4%.

[MissEvelyn]

As was stated before, when the common denominator in all the issues has been Weaponmaster alongside another class, a nerf to Weaponmaster - not the other classes - is needed.

Make their increased crit range and modifier an active ability on a timer with a cooldown.

Even that would be a mild nerf, honestly. But it would be something. Anything to get the nerf gun off of the other poor, innocent bystander classes, when the real culprit is, and has always been, weaponmaster.

[Joe46]

Weapon-master like it or not has its place in the system. Meta will shift to things like shaman, FS, cleric... As well as the classical bards.

Leave WM out and martials for the most start start to struggle to keep up with other classes. Fighter alone as a class is a joke and you are the punchline for the most part. Deep fighters without WM are... For the most part not good

[Security_Blanket]

I think we should change 18-20 crit range weapons to 19-20, then see how Weapon Masters are.

[Kenji]

The player count mentions 10% of the character counts are Weapon Masters, meaning 90% are something other than a Weapon Master.

Approximately 20% of Loremasters are WM meaning 2% of all players are Loremaster/WM.

98% of characters in the recent counts are not Loremaster/WM.

I don't think that's how it works

Their math is correct. According to the player counts. Every 1 in 5 players you can expect to have LM in their build. Of those players, every 1 in 10(approximately) you can also expect to have WM in their build.

1/5 * 1/10 = 1/50 or .02 = 2%.

That's at least for those who had it at 30 in the last player count, this doesn't include levelers as far as I'm aware.

Even still, you could always compare the total amount of fighter/wm/lm 30 builds(29 players) to the overall level 30 population. The total amount of unique logins was 2119, but I believe that includes sub 30 characters as 29/2119 is around 1.4%.

Incorrect in both analysis of the percentage error as well as the hypothetical statements given.

Let's go through the statements carefully:

We start with Aellowyn's statements -

The player count mentions 10% of the character counts are Weapon Masters

Quote 1: This is given as a hypothetical value

, meaning 90% are something other than a Weapon Master.

Quote 2: This is correct from the above hypothetical value

Approximately 20% of Loremasters are WM

Quote 3: Another set of hypothetical value

meaning 2% of all players are Loremaster/WM.

Quote 4: This is incorrect

My objective here is to disprove the 4th Quote statement using logic, observe:

Example Assumption: Total player counts are 100
From Quote 1: Among the 100, 10 are WM, which is 10%
From Quote 3: Among the LM, 20% are WM
Note: No hypothetical values of LM in the total of 100 is given

Scenario 1: If all 100 are LM, then 20 of them are WM, this fails the condition from Quote 1, because there should be no more than 10 WM total
Scenario 2: If all 50 are LM, then 10 of them are WM, then that satisfies both the hypothetical statements from Quote 1 and Quote 3

But for #2 to be true, it is also assuming ALL WM builds are also LM, which is unlikely, but, again, possible

Irregardless, we do some number crunching specific for Scenario 2:
Both conditions are met for 10% of total population is WM, and 20% of LM is WM
However, the relationship of LM/WM builds to Total would amount to it being 20% of the server population instead of the hypothetical 2%, which is off

And so, we come up with possible combinations, given we do not have the counts of LM out of total:
For the 2% of Total to be LM/WM, then it would mean 2 out of 100 have both WM and LM, and that would mean there are a total of 10 LM with which 20% of the 10 are WM.

The statement 2% of the total population is LM/WM would imply that 10% of the Total population is LM, which in our case...

We compare this to every single player/class count since March of 2024, Loremaster dips have been consistently 20% of the total population. WM has been consistently 10% of the total population.

20% of the level 30 population is LM.

This would mean that for the hypothetical statement to be true, out of the 100 count 20 is LM, and among the 20, 4 are WM.

This would suggest that 4% of the total population instead of the 2% is LM WM.

Which would mean the hypothetical statements are incorrect one way or the other.

---

Onto Kythana's agreement with the mathing

The actual statistics of 1.4%, if compared to the hypothetical percentage, which is 2%, is 0.6% off, which meant
|0.02 - 0.014|/0.014 = 43%
The percentage error at that margin is 43%, it is not close by any means.
If we're talking about 55% and 50%, then that's around 10% margin of error which is then more acceptable.
|0.55-0.5|/0.5 = 10%

The smaller the percentile each class is represented, the larger the margin of error because of how granular each class becomes in the overall scheme.

---

Moving on to the actual analysis at hand:
11.7% of the 20.8% of the total population is LM WM
That is 2.4336% of the total population is LM WM, this would make the following statement mostly correct, if not for the rounding.

There is so much focus on the 2% of all recent builds.

But my point was the mathing behind it wasn't quite right.

[Kenji]

I think we should change 18-20 crit range weapons to 19-20, then see how Weapon Masters are.

It'd still be pretty good, persistent increased multiplier and threat range always translates to increased damage output at all times, save for when target is immune to critical (looking at Palemasters and Undead, both PC and NPCs, and elementals and constructs).

I hypothesize that it'd shift most WMs to 20 x3 weapons because of the flat -2 threat range is just that much better for low threat range high crit multiplier weapons. I could be wrong, of course.

This is the way:
viewtopic.php?f=37&t=45721&p=339807#p339807

[Kythana]

I'll rephrase. The math is not correct, but the concluded value(after rounding) was.

The actual statistics of 1.4%, if compared to the hypothetical percentage, which is 2%, is 0.6% off, which meant
|0.02 - 0.014|/0.014 = 43%
The percentage error at that margin is 43%, it is not close by any means.
If we're talking about 55% and 50%, then that's around 10% margin of error which is then more acceptable.
|0.55-0.5|/0.5 = 10%

You're right. It's not close at all. Which is why I stated: "but I believe that includes sub 30 characters." Therefore that would imply one of two things:

• The 2119 total unique login count includes players = level 30 only, and my assumption was wrong, meaning the 2% value is incorrect.
  OR
• The 2119 total unique login count includes players <= level 30 meaning that we have an unknown now, and need more information.

The value was specifically posted to show how off it was, and that we would need more information to make the proper comparison.

That is 2.4336% of the total population is LM WM, this would make the following statement mostly correct, if not for the rounding.

The rounding was intentional. I think it's a bit easier dealing with whole numbers for a general audience. Whether it's 2%, 2.4% or 3%, the point is that not many are running this combination, even though we often see hyperbolic statements like, "Every WM running around is a LM too!"

[AstralUniverse]

Wm/lm is mechanically inferior to wm/lib, wm/bg, wm/ranger, wm/barb, wm/stealth-dip and I could go on and on. All of these are inferior to none-wm deep paladin. Play-rates do not represet balance, they represent popularity (they can sometimes raise red flags in regards to balance but they do not actually say anything about balance in any way).

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Burst damage is a necessity with corner stealthing being a thing. Removing weapons master is not a good idea for that alone. Besides, both Kenji and Astral are right when they say it will just open the door for divine builds now being the cream of the crop. And while I would argue that a 20 cot built for pure power is the current most powerful build (I'll let you sort out the rest, it's not that hard) it's also probably true that pure paladins are more powerful than most people think, perhaps even a little better than the best wm builds.

Edit add on-

Truth be told, chasing balance is a fool's errand. I've said it before, and now I'm saying it again. If you want to play a big bad, play a powerful build. Just know that nwns true balance comes through numbers thanks to the action economy, and ten jank builds are going to beat a smaller number of power builds every time. Hell, I think I know the numbers pretty well (I should, I have been playing this game for 20 years) and I play fun builds all the time, and I have never run into an issue. I just let the more powerful builds roleplay being more powerful, and things work out fine.

[Hincules]

---

Moving on to the actual analysis at hand:
11.7% of the 20.8% of the total population is LM WM
That is 2.4336% of the total population is LM WM, this would make the following statement mostly correct, if not for the rounding.

There is so much focus on the 2% of all recent builds.

But my point was the mathing behind it wasn't quite right.

The math is fine, you're being disingenuous by arguing over what digit they should round their math to. 2%, 2.4%, 2.43%, 2.434%, 2.4336%, 2.5%, these would all be equally correct because arguing that someone is wrong because they're off by less than half a percent is silly.

When it comes to percentages, no one cares about 0.4%, it doesn't meaningfully change the point they are making and suggesting it does is just distracting from what they are actually saying.

0.4% is four players out of every thousand, it is completely inconsequential to what she is saying.

[Kenji]

The math is fine

Let's go through the statements carefully:

We start with Aellowyn's statements -

The player count mentions 10% of the character counts are Weapon Masters

Quote 1: This is given as a hypothetical value

, meaning 90% are something other than a Weapon Master.

Quote 2: This is correct from the above hypothetical value

Approximately 20% of Loremasters are WM

Quote 3: Another set of hypothetical value

meaning 2% of all players are Loremaster/WM.

Quote 4: This is incorrect

My objective here is to disprove the 4th Quote statement using logic, observe:

Example Assumption: Total player counts are 100
From Quote 1: Among the 100, 10 are WM, which is 10%
From Quote 3: Among the LM, 20% are WM
Note: No hypothetical values of LM in the total of 100 is given

Scenario 1: If all 100 are LM, then 20 of them are WM, this fails the condition from Quote 1, because there should be no more than 10 WM total
Scenario 2: If all 50 are LM, then 10 of them are WM, then that satisfies both the hypothetical statements from Quote 1 and Quote 3

But for #2 to be true, it is also assuming ALL WM builds are also LM, which is unlikely, but, again, possible

Irregardless, we do some number crunching specific for Scenario 2:
Both conditions are met for 10% of total population is WM, and 20% of LM is WM
However, the relationship of LM/WM builds to Total would amount to it being 20% of the server population instead of the hypothetical 2%, which is off

And so, we come up with possible combinations, given we do not have the counts of LM out of total:
For the 2% of Total to be LM/WM, then it would mean 2 out of 100 have both WM and LM, and that would mean there are a total of 10 LM with which 20% of the 10 are WM.

The statement 2% of the total population is LM/WM would imply that 10% of the Total population is LM, which in our case...

We compare this to every single player/class count since March of 2024, Loremaster dips have been consistently 20% of the total population. WM has been consistently 10% of the total population.

20% of the level 30 population is LM.

This would mean that for the hypothetical statement to be true, out of the 100 count 20 is LM, and among the 20, 4 are WM.

This would suggest that 4% of the total population instead of the 2% is LM WM.

Which would mean the hypothetical statements are incorrect one way or the other.

[Hincules]

No, you mean 2.4336% versus 4%, you were very clear on that point. You're still deliberately distracting from her point by focusing on numbers that don't change her argument.

Also, you're exerting 17% more effort by typing irregardless rather than simply typing regardless.

[Scurvy Cur]

Okay, so "Scurvy makes a full throated defense of Kenji's fussiness" is probably a sign of the coming apocalypse, but I feel compelled to make it anyway.

What Kenji is arguing is that the logical premise is wrong, regardless of the actual LM/WM population fraction.

From the player statistics, we have two facts:

1) 10% of characters are WMs.

2) 20% of characters are loremasters.

The person who extrapolated that this indicates a 2% LM/WM population rate did so by the simple multiplication of these two variables together.

However, this misses the statistical concepts of dependent vs independent variables.

The OP's math is correct if you assume that "is lm" and "is wm" are independent variables (that is, each character has an unrelated 10% chance of having wm levels and a 20% chance of having loremaster levels). In such cases, the likelihood of both variables occurring is a simple 0.1 x 0.2 = 0.02 calculation. But this only happens if you assume that everyone just kind of picks their classes at random.

The trouble the OP runs into is that these variables are not independent. They are dependent -- Builds are not random. This means that the chance of a character having loremaster levels is influenced by the presence of WM levels, or vice versa. In this case, the two variables are probably positively related (that is, presence of one makes the presence of the other more likely). Why? LM/WM is a build that performs reasonably well. Loremaster fits comfortably into the preferred WM level spread, brings some decent comfort and utility to a WM build, etc. And similarly, LM builds have plenty of room for WM levels, they wanted to buy the int needed for WM anyway, and WM is a familiar, stable platform to bring melee dps performance (and LM doesn't do the damage thing so great on its own).

For a more extreme illustrative example, assume the OP had said "10% of characters are WM, 28.5% of characters are fighters. 28.5% of all WMs have fighter levels, therefore the server population is 2.85% WMs with fighter levels." Exact same logic. But it falls apart the moment you think about it for a minute. In fact, it's likely that the WM-Fighter overlap is almost 1:1. I would imagine at least 80% of WM characters currently in play have at least some fighter levels in the class spread, and that number is probably higher. Why? Because if you're building a WM, which requires a lot of feats and benefits from improvements to base damage, those fighter levels are such a natural way to get there that you almost need to have a compelling reason to pick some two other classes which aren't fighter. Put in statistics language, there is a strong positive correlation between WM levels and fighter levels. Presence of WM levels makes it far more likely you'll also find fighter levels, because the two classes tend to go together.

[Aellowyn]

I feel the scrutiny of all my math teachers from throughout school and all those times I failed to show my work.

The player count mentions 10% of the character counts are Weapon Masters, meaning 90% are something other than a Weapon Master.

Approximately 20% of Loremasters are WM meaning 2% of all players are Loremaster/WM.

98% of characters in the recent counts are not Loremaster/WM.

I don't think that's how it works

For a more extreme illustrative example, assume the OP had said "10% of characters are WM, 28.5% of characters are fighters. 28.5% of all WMs have fighter levels, therefore the server population is 2.85% WMs with fighter levels." Exact same logic. But it falls apart the moment you think about it for a minute. In fact, it's likely that the WM-Fighter overlap is almost 1:1. I would imagine at least 80% of WM characters currently in play have at least some fighter levels in the class spread, and that number is probably higher. Why? Because if you're building a WM, which requires a lot of feats and benefits from improvements to base damage, those fighter levels are such a natural way to get there that you almost need to have a compelling reason to pick some two other classes which aren't fighter. Put in statistics language, there is a strong positive correlation between WM levels and fighter levels. Presence of WM levels makes it far more likely you'll also find fighter levels, because the two classes tend to go together.

The above logic is different from my original equation that reached 2%.
(Unless the referred to "OP" wasn't me! Ignore this..)

1- 10% of characters are WM
2- 20% of characters are Loremaster
3- 10% of Loremasters are WM

For the quoted equation, I'd need to know what % of Fighter are WM, before doing the calculation I did with Loremaster.

I can see how the assumption was formed that would have led to incorrect answers, instead of an equation that would lead to my end answer of 2%. My brain does the equation and I skip points in retelling.

Kenji got the math to 2.4336%, whereas I threw the point-something-percent to the wind and rounded it for the 2% I got, based on information I didn't include in my post. Could it have been figured out based on my answer and presented points? .... No idea, I'm terrible at math.

However, throwing exact mathing aside~ and redirecting the focus from the .4336% I tossed out, and my math skills around "Show your work"...

Loremaster/Weapon Master are a popular focus for being a small amount in the overall player count of 2.4336%

[Scurvy Cur]

I think that's likely because, atm, there seems to be a confluence of public angst about:

1) Many players don't feel like their casters shine (personally, I think this is an entirely vibes-based opinion, and a lot of the "facts" I see advanced in support of the positions amount to "well, a friend of mine who's really good at the game promises me that every character has 40+ in all saves), so any class like LM that lets mundanes achieve a "caster feel" also feels like an unfair encroachment on what feels like a small niche that's left over for casters.

2) Player numbers show every fifth character is a loremaster. This feels like a large number, even if, when you step back and realize LM is a dip class (and thus, posts pick rates similar to the other big dip classes: fighter, rogue, and bard), the high pick rate makes sense. Again, 20% kind of feels like a lot, and people instinctively correlate pick rate with power (even if I don't think anyone thinks fighter and rogue are OP rn).

3) The combination of 1 and 2 puts a lot of crosshair attention on LM.

4) WM is always a favorite hate magnet, and you'll always find lots of people that want it nerfed, even when, as is presently the case, it shows up in neither of the two best melee builds on the server, and nobody who is calling for a WM nerf has a good answer to "so melee is div, gish, or nothing?" And what do you mean you can build a loremaster that crits in the triple digits with a scimitar???? That has just got to be busted.

Combine all of this, and the time is right for the flavor of WM for everyone to hate to be the one with LM in it.

I think it's a bit silly in a server where Paladin, Harbinger, AA, Defiler, and Warlock exist in their current state to be fretting about LM/WM, but to each their own priority.

[Joe46]

Loremaster weapon-master is a rather weak weapon-master if you compare it to other weaponmasters. That's the funny part to me. WM in of itself ain't even the most busted thing out there, and outta all WMs the Loremaster variant is just comfy.

People will hyper focus on one thing, as always. An overreaction may be done and the focus will go to the next random thing.

[chris a gogo]

Didn't think anyone was saying it was to powerful when linked to WM or maybe they were honestly I skipped most of the thread it just went on and on.
More a case of a fighter/WM shouldn't be throwing out epic spell feats without the ability to cast spells due to a dip class.
Same way a wizard shouldn't be hitting for 15d6 sneak damage or have improved evasion from a 3 level rogue dip.
Least that's the impression I got from the thread.

[Scurvy Cur]

Funny you should say that, actually.

The 15d6 sneak attack bit is a strawman, because no wizard will ever care about it.

But a typical wizard build that slaps on a dex buff gets 11 base + 3 or 4 dex mod + 20 capped magic bonus for saves vs spells (unisaves on gear plus spellcraft plus pfa gets you most, if not all of the way there, protection from spells tops you off if there's anything you're missing on the gear front). A trans focused wizard can gear and buff more dex, and reliably hit a +6 dex mod. That's 34-37 reflex saves. In most cases, that's enough to make evasion and improved evasion of roughly equal value: the only difference will be if they roll a 1. So, in fact, they unlock the most important part of improved evasion on that 3 level dip.

They also get full tumble, full umd, full ol/dt, full leadership (important for an enchantment wizard). If bard is selected instead of wizard, they get full discipline.

And it seems a little strange to me to have caster players rattlingly mad that a swordsman can pick up scry or teleport ward on a 4-5 level dip, while standing on a 3 level dip that moves their discipline from 16 cross classed ranks plus str plus gear to 33 ranks plus epic skill focus plus strength plus gear.

[-XXX-]

IMO the gripe with Loremaster's greater secrets is rooted in a flawed argument that comes from an emotional place.
I kinda addressed this back in june: viewtopic.php?f=91&t=45691&start=50#p340469

Let's delve into the greater secrets granitng epic caster cookies then:

Warding - can be replaced by existing IG items/features.
Summoning - super awsome QoL feature for not just the character, but everybody in the party.
Scrying - unique feature, but less useful than it seems on paper.
Domination - only useful in spellcaster builds that aleardy have it in other form and don't really want/need it.
Evocation - only useful in spellcaster builds that aleardy have it in other form and don't really want/need it.
Illusion - can be replaced by existing IG items/features.
Necromancy - only useful in spellcaster builds that aleardy have it in other form and don't really want/need it.
Teleportation - can be replaced by existing IG items/features.

So we're talking -scry and -yoink here, neither of which actually increase a character's mechanical power in any way whatsoever. If anything, this hints that the GSF feat tax for obtaining these might be too high mostly due to how undesirable spell focus feats have become thanks to Arelith's saves bloat.

[Peacewhisper]

And it seems a little strange to me to have caster players rattlingly mad that a swordsman can pick up scry or teleport ward on a 4-5 level dip, while standing on a 3 level dip that moves their discipline from 16 cross classed ranks plus str plus gear to 33 ranks plus epic skill focus plus strength plus gear.

Martials can also dip for tumble for an extra +3 AC, and/or dip for spellcraft to boost all their saves against spells. A better comparison would be letting casters get full AB and d10 hit dice on all their wizard levels, along with WM crits, for dipping 4 levels.

Didn't think anyone was saying it was to powerful when linked to WM or maybe they were honestly I skipped most of the thread it just went on and on.
More a case of a fighter/WM shouldn't be throwing out epic spell feats without the ability to cast spells due to a dip class.

Yeah it's mainly this. Not only is it imbalanced for PVP but it doesn't even make sense lore-wise, and you'd think people wanting to play LOREmasters would actually care about the LORE but they don't apparently. And I already gave you all the fix, just make lore master require spell focus: divination and 3 arcane spellcaster levels like it does in pen and paper. This would literally solve every problem and do away with any kind of double masters who aren't also bards.