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Jaeger wrote:I think in general, there could be some clarity on how damage is calculated.

I strongly agree. This is my first time through playing the game (and I haven't dug through the forums for an answer) but the "attack" and "damage" stats are confusing me. Damage is supposed to be calculated by subtracting the opponent's defense value from an attackers attack value (if I'm reading things right) but equipment supply both an "attack" and "damage" stat. What does this mean? The attack value of the weapon is added onto a users base attack value, and then once the damage is calculated the weapon's damage stat is added on top?

It's a little confusing.

Jaeger wrote: Thematically, I think of stagger moves of hunters as physical attacks with an element attached to them, rather than magic spells.

It's a little bit weird, "Ice Flask" and "Flaming Torch" could logically be a magical attack. "Backstab" and "Choke" seem to be physical skills though, "Choke's" icon is a picture of an arm strangling a dude, and the "Backstab" icon has a picture of a dagger sticking in someone's back. Intuitively the player would expect these skills to be affected (partially or wholly) by their character's strength attribute. So some description informing the player otherwise would be very much appreciated. Maybe you can have a little tag on each skill which says if it's a physical or magical attack?

Jaeger wrote:I think in general, there could be some clarity on how damage is calculated. Is it determined by magical or physical damage? Is the attack using a melee or missile weapons?

On next games I'm going to simplify this system a lot, since is indeed confusing. I can however simply display the damage in the skill description taking the parameter from the skill code itself, will try to do that (this way is automatic and I don't need to change the text).

Jaeger wrote: Thematically, I think of stagger moves of hunters as physical attacks with an element attached to them, rather than magic spells. Functionally, it's a bad idea to have both strength and arcane based skills in one class, since attribute points are limited. Personally, I'd go with just the strength route, since only mages have a magic-based normal attack.

I'm not sure I can change that now, but will try

rooke30 wrote:Maybe you can have a little tag on each skill which says if it's a physical or magical attack?

Yes I think can do that automatically, will try to add it today!

I've added a way to automatically append text to the skill description saying if it's a magical or physical damage (couldn't find the space to add a tag or icon) and those Hunter skills were indeed Physical attacks, but simply Elemental based (so damage would change based on the target resistance on a specific element!). So what Jaeger said was actually how it already worked

Will be live on next update

Now we have five lines again for some skill descriptions.
(You couldn't add a box next to Area saying "Type: Physical"?)

Also, "physical melee elemental" is really confusing.

No because some skills are long, so the box could overwrite the skill text itself which is even worse
Which are the "too long" skill descriptions? is easier to fix the texts I think. If physical melee elemental is confusing what should I write then ?

Melee is not needed because the "Range" says that.

Presumably something is either physical or elemental. If it's both, then the mechanic is completely confusing and listing all this stuff out will just make it worse. (I think most people assume "physical attack" means a "non-elemental" attack, as in "physical damage"?)

Range only determines what targets are viable for that particular skill, not what type of weapon is used to calculate damage. Also, considering you can get weapons imbued with elemental attributes, they can count as physical attacks. Where it could get confusing though is what if it's a water-based skill, but your character is using a fire weapon...though I assume that the the skill element (if it has one) will override the weapons.

Instead of "physical melee elemental" it could be "physical melee fire".

So basically, damage boils done to these things.

Physical (strength)/Magic(arcane)

Melee (swords, spears, axes, etc) /Ranged (bows, crossbows)

Fire/Water/Earth/Air/Dark/Normal (no element)

Yes as Jaeger says there's a difference between Range and which weapon is used to calculate the damage. There are only a few cases, but people were confused/asking about that too in the past (some Chalassa's skills in particular). I can put the element like you suggested with the various elements names indeed.

I'm still of the opinion it makes the game more confusing.