yayswords
Jan 28, 2016
Ehm, but I thought you prided yourself on the damage formula being easy to understand. Now it doesn't make sense unless a basic attack isn't 100% damage. She should be doing 16*12/11=17.454545... damage
I'm trying to multiply and divide the numbers involved to reach 8, with no success so far. Maybe if it uses double defense...
Second part - I'm not trying to make battles faster. Right now crit does everything attack does and more. It makes up your raw damage in the same way as attack does (or at least the way it worked in the version we got to test, but maybe not in that screenshot) with the added bonus of sometimes giving more through a crit and/or a non-glancing hit. So with the sole exception of pumping up Distracting Blows, there's no reason to get more attack than crit, which makes it a no-brainer of keep them almost even with crit a little higher or you're unambiguously gimping yourself. Unless you're Joanne, in which case it seems the stats still do the exact same thing.
The point of the defense piercing ability isn't to be the best attack in every situation. If it is, just nerf it till it's only good against high defense targets. As an alternative to wittling down their defense with Backstab and the likes.
jack1974
Jan 29, 2016
Ehm, but I thought you prided yourself on the damage formula being easy to understand. Now it doesn't make sense unless a basic attack isn't 100% damage. She should be doing 16*12/11=17.454545... damage I'm trying to multiply and divide the numbers involved to reach 8, with no success so far. Maybe if it uses double defense...
Lol I had to go check the code...
You're right, the formula works but I remembered now that I divided the resulting damage by 2. So indeed the result would be 17,5-something, divided by two, 8,75-something, rounded to 8.
I did other tests and they all return same formula. So well, at least works. I divided it by 2, because otherwise the fights would really be TOO fast, without the possibility to add any strategy
Second part - I'm not trying to make battles faster. Right now crit does everything attack does and more. It makes up your raw damage in the same way as attack does (or at least the way it worked in the version we got to test, but maybe not in that screenshot) with the added bonus of sometimes giving more through a crit and/or a non-glancing hit. So with the sole exception of pumping up Distracting Blows, there's no reason to get more attack than crit, which makes it a no-brainer of keep them almost even with crit a little higher or you're unambiguously gimping yourself. Unless you're Joanne, in which case it seems the stats still do the exact same thing.
The point of the defense piercing ability isn't to be the best attack in every situation. If it is, just nerf it till it's only good against high defense targets. As an alternative to wittling down their defense with Backstab and the likes.
OK I see your point. I guess I could come up with some other formula, where the attack ignores armor more? it would probably be more complex but could increase the base damage done based on attack, while the critical would still give more accuracy and double attack chance.
As long as the damase outcome ranges remains the same (so I don't need to redesign all the enemies/encounters which at this point would be too much work!) I'm fine with experimenting
jack1974
Jan 29, 2016
What about this test example:
Target: DEF 10
Attacker: ATK 10 ACC 15
Current formula: ATK x ACC / DEF = DMG / 2 = DMG
10 x 15 / 10 = 15 / 2 = 7,5 (rounded to 7)
Idea: ATK / (DEF/2) + ACC / DEF = DMG * 2 = DMG
10 / 5 + 15 / 10 = 2 + 1,5 = 3,5 * 2 = 7 DMG
So what if Attacker was: ATK 15 ACC 10 instead? It would be:
15 / 5 + 10 / 10 = 3 + 1 = 4 * 2 = 8 DMG
this way, having more attack will result in higher damage, even if not by much
. Critical would still impact how easy you hit/miss the target and the double damage critical. I could increase the impact of the critical, increasing the ranges.
This though would have the side effect of making critical LESS important than attack, and more a gambling. So while it could work, I'm not sure if it's the "right solution"
I mean there's the risk of the player then completely ignoring critical and use all his points in attack instead.
yayswords
Jan 29, 2016
That could work out well, since you can also tinker with precision vs. evasion so that attack is better if you have a good hit chance, else accuracy is better.
BTW, I don't suppose any abilities actually buff/debuff precision and evasion right now?
jack1974
Jan 29, 2016
Thalia has "Dodge" which buffs evasion, for critical hit I'm not sure I should check
yayswords
Jan 29, 2016
Okay, maybe I misunderstood. Crit itself is what counters evasion, not some separate hit stat also derived from accuracy? 'cause I know there's a few crit buffs (Hide in Shadows, Lightning Reflexes) and one debuff (Poisoned). That's simple I guess, but it would be fitting to have a skill or two that only countered evasion without also causing you to deal more raw damage (since a buff to crit does that). Too late for that now, I suppose.
jack1974
Jan 29, 2016
Yes the critical hit value counters evasion.
About other skill, I think I could add something to Joanne. Like you remember that tornado spell which was randomly changing the stats, a bit pointless. Instead it could reduce evasion, or maybe reduce target's critical hit.
yayswords
Jan 29, 2016
Pretty much anything is better than keeping it as it is, but lowering evasion would be excellent. It would be so easy to motivate lore-wise. You try to dodge out of the way, but a gust of wind pushes you in the direction of the attacker's blade...
Of course you could as easily motivate it reducing crit, but Thalia can already do that. Eh, it seems Joanne can too, through Earthquake. I would have thought Shattered would reduce defense. Anyway, I'm all for evasion on the tornado.
On the topic of changing skills, Kira's Wide Slash and Strike Through do almost exactly the same thing. One needs to be changed to something else entirely.
jack1974
Jan 29, 2016
Pretty much anything is better than keeping it as it is, but lowering evasion would be excellent. It would be so easy to motivate lore-wise. You try to dodge out of the way, but a gust of wind pushes you in the direction of the attacker's blade...
Of course you could as easily motivate it reducing crit, but Thalia can already do that. Eh, it seems Joanne can too, through Earthquake. I would have thought Shattered would reduce defense. Anyway, I'm all for evasion on the tornado.
Good, I've changed it now
On the topic of changing skills, Kira's Wide Slash and Strike Through do almost exactly the same thing. One needs to be changed to something else entirely.
Strike Through should lower the target defenses? Maybe then wide slash could also lower the evasion (not by much since is AOE).
jack1974
Jan 29, 2016
Today was away most of the day but the few hours were productive. I did many tweaks but the most important is:
Now I show the evasion value in the battle. I thought otherwise wouldn't be possible to decide who to attack if was hidden. I replaced the speed value: since it was a bit pointless, players can always see the movement order on the right, and besides the impact of speed stat on the battle is small (otherwise could unbalance everything).
http://i.imgur.com/lkL8oXL.jpg" style="max-width:100%">
in the screenshot above, Kira is considering attacking a rival thief. The target has 30 evasion, Kira's Critical is 14, so the resulting value is 30-14=16. The hit to ratio always starts at 100%, so 100 - 16 = 84% chance.
I think this way will be quite "fun", in particular in Nightmare, since Joanne is the only one who can always hit (magic attack always hit targets) and this way while normally her damage sucks, in certain battles with very hard to hit enemies she has her chance to shine
yayswords
Jan 30, 2016
I ran some numbers on this. In this situation it looks like Kira could go as high as 30-or-so attack before crit would be better. We're talking very small differences though, for example with the stats in the screenshot +1 atk is only worth 0.1 more damage on average than +1 crt. And crits are double damage, right? Else these numbers are off.
Even if you give the thieves very high evasion this doesn't seem to change. You could probably do that though (give enemies significant evasion across the board), so that this tiny disadvantage crit has doesn't grow because you sometimes already have more crit than the enemy has evasion.
Another thing you could do is use atk/(def/1.5) or something in the formula, and increase the 2 multiplier after that if need be, to take some power out of attack.
Also there is no reason for Joanne to take crit now. Probably a greater concern than fine-tuning atk/crt for non-mages
I feel a little bad for starting this nerd orgy of numbers.
jack1974
Jan 30, 2016
Yes critical are double damage.
From what you write, well either I go back as it was before (so both attack and critical had same impact, but then why boost up attack? you only needed to boost up critical
) or right now attack has a slight advantage. I think is better now, at least it's more "even" ?
jack1974
Jan 30, 2016
Yes but was MAY LAST YEAR!! I don't even remember what I did last week
The new system attracted some complaints from an user in blog:
http://www.winterwolves.net/blog/2016/01/queen-of-thieves-gameplay-update/comment-page-1/#comment-860114
Quoting him/her:
One of the things I always liked about Loren and SoTW is that, in combat, when you attack you HIT. There isn’t always that constant fear and disgust that your battle strategy will fall apart because a random number generator (RNG) decided that it should. If I lost it was because I didn’t plan well, I made a mistake or I wasn’t strong enough.
Adding a system where it is possible to miss, or in this case have your damage halved, is a step backwards regardless. Now the threat of the bad RNG will be there once again, making random chance a factor in what would otherwise be a system where strategy and planning would thrive.
I’ll probably play Queen of Thieves anyway, but this stings a little.
I explained that won't happen very often and even half damage is not the end of the world, because the numbers I've used. But I can also probably turn this feature on/off completely based on difficulty level (maybe only in Hard+) or even in the options menu
I think this could also be part of strategic planning - if you want to never miss, pump up the critical hit stats of Kira/Thalia every time you gain a level up!
yayswords
Jan 30, 2016
Eh, the SotW I remember certainly had misses. Several flavors even. It also had crits, and your attacks had a damage range. QoT, even with this little miss system, is tame on the RNG compared to SotW.
I think this could also be part of strategic planning - if you want to never miss, pump up the critical hit stats of Kira/Thalia every time you gain a level up!
Yeah, if you could tune things so that crit is better until all evasion is countered and attack better after that, that would be great. Right now attack is better even against very high evasion (assuming the 18/14 stats Kira has).
jack1974
Jan 30, 2016
Yes true SOTW had misses, though I think depends at which level you played it. Also maybe since had bigger numbers (higher HP) and more common healing, even with a miss you could recover.
I think for now I'll leave the system as it is and then see during beta, since it's always the best way to see how those mechanics work! I also need to review all enemies now, since before they had all 0 evasion and it's a bit too easy right now
yayswords
Jan 30, 2016
An ability that dispels or bypasses Protect: possible/impossible/too much work?
jack1974
Jan 30, 2016
Yes is quite easy to do (the dispel, bypass is more complex). Joanne's Magic Sparks already reduce any enemy buff by 1 turn, so that exists
jack1974
Jan 30, 2016
By the way I did an "extreme test". Raised the party to level 10, and on each level up, I assigned to Kira always attack, and to Thalia always critical.
In the end Kira had AT 27 CR 12, Thalia AT 13 CR 28 (so basically a LOT of difference, as much as you can get by that level).
This is the result of a test battle (imgur gallery):
http://imgur.com/a/ZplpL
I honestly don't see attack being so much better. It does 2dmg more, that even in this game with smaller stats, it's nothing too much unbalancing. So I really think I'll keep as it is, and then see during testing if something breaks, but won't touch this again for now.
yayswords
Jan 30, 2016
No like I said it's a small difference, still it would be nice if that small difference was in favor of crit if you're not capped against the opponent's evasion
it's probably nearly always better to take attack over crit, but it's not a big mistake to take crit. Unless you're Joanne maybe.
