Math Souls: A Deep Dive into the Math Behind Dark Souls Weapon Scaling 

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

Literally was about to make a similar comment... I LOVE USELESS NUMBERS AND DATA!!!!

ALL THE MATH LETS GOOO

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.

And limit break

​@DaRoachDoggJr you're right I shouldn't forget old man

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

This video is like dialogue with logan, you need at least 11 int

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?

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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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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)

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

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)

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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 👏💯

Yah probably, but I wanted to cover examples for everything.