Attack, crit and intuitiveness

[yayswords]

The damage system isn't necessarily easy to understand. It is, however, very easy to explain. By this I mean I don't think most players will pick up how it works without checking some forum. The problem is I don't think the current tooltips explain it well enough.

If you look at the strength row on the character sheet. You have a strength score, whose purpose is clearly explained and then translated to an attack value next to it. You increase strength, this value goes up. You think, aha, this is where my damage comes from.

Then you look at accuracy, which says it calculates damage together with attack. But if you increase it, there's nothing on that screen telling you it helped. Many players will probably notice that it helps, but the strength vs. accuracy decision will come down to gut feeling for anyone not nerdy enough to figure out or look up the damage formula.

What's also relevant to note is that with the exception of two of Thalia's skills (Frenzy and Distracting Blows), there's no reason to give a damn what your attack value is - I'm happy to explain why Burning, Rampage, Rally etc don't matter here. For everything else, just the "raw damage" (attack times crit) stat would be much more informative.

Maybe it could work to find some magical rephrasing of the accuracy description, but what I think we really need is a "Damage" number somewhere on the stat screen. Perhaps a sword icon at the top (there's space), with a number over it? This would be your attack*crit value. I'm not sure it needs a tooltip, but if you want to use one it could say:

This is your base attack damage. This is divided by your target's defense and multiplied by any ability modifiers to determine the damage your attacks deal.

What say you? I think many non-nerds could figure out the damage formula by themselves like that, and even those who can't can still just increase the stat that ups their damage stat the most, with 99% your playerbase eventually realizing that the best method is to always increase the lowest one

[jack1974]

Thanks, that's a very good idea. That's why initially in first alpha version I wanted to go with just attack - defense = damage. But of course that didn't work well In Loren and SOTW especially, was quite hard to explain it, and people mostly relied on the "damage preview" directly on the battlefield. Having a sort of global number like that in the stats screen will be better indeed!

[Troyen]

You could probably simplify the combat UI that way too. Dunno if you need both attack and crit, could just show the damage icon. The individual stats themselves are mostly relevant only when assigning attributes or changing equipment, no?

[jack1974]

Well in that case not, since there are some skills that can lower one of the two parameters, or swap them, etc. I surely could always combine them, but... I think in the battle is better. Also, now I have symmetrical values (defense/speed on left, attack/critical hit on right) and removing one would look bad for the UI

[yayswords]

I'm scratching my head about this a little. Let's make this clear for starters, I don't think this attack*crit=damage is a bad system as far as combat balance goes. Yet, anyway

However, if we get to game design, it creates two stats that do almost the same thing, in a world where very few would assume them to have almost the same role. Most would think you need to up your attack to do more damage - possibly wondering if that works for spells too. Even if you perfectly convey that crit is as important as attack for your damage, that leaves them as two stats that do almost the same thing.

If you are Kira, crit has the slight advantage that it also gives a chance to score double damage. She has no ability that only uses her attack score (Rampage buffs it, but that's not the same thing). They are here extremely similar.

If you are Thalia, it's (like for anyone) most beneficial to keep attack and crit even, with again the tiny advantage of crit giving a chance of double damage. This is (like for anyone) not more relevant than that if attack and crit are at the same level and you have one stat point, increase crit. However, her Distracting Blows uses only her attack value. This I find to be good design: You can keep them even to maximize her damage, or you can favor attack to make her DB stronger.

If you are Joanne, they do... the exact same thing? Joanne has no ability that scales off her attack or crit value. More importantly, as far as I can tell, none of her abilities can crit.

And now just throwing out three ideas that popped in my head as I typed this up.

Idea 1) Instead of attack*crit/defense=damage, rather attack*attack/defense=damage, and crit could do something else entirely. Using this system it's a lot easier for the damage to race away however: 10 attack and 10 crit is worth 100 damage under the current system, 20 attack would be worth 400 under this.

Idea 2) Let crit be subtracted from the enemy's defense, so instead of attack*crit/defense=damage, do attack/(defense-crit)=damage, with a minimum defense of 1. This way, crit is more valuable against high defense targets, and attack more valuable against low ones. However this would probably require some redesigns such as 1 str=10 attack and much more defense and health across the board, else crit stacking becomes too powerful. I certainly see problems with this system too, but it does give attack and crit clearer roles.

Idea 3) Design more abilities like Distracting Blows, ones that use only attack or only crit, in order to make the choice between them more consequential. And allow Joanne's spells to crit. Her sisters have abilities with at least as obscene damage modifiers so I'm not sure why you're holding her back.

Opine or I'll cut you.

[Troyen]

I'm scratching my head about this a little. Let's make this clear for starters, I don't think this attack*crit=damage is a bad system as far as combat balance goes. Yet, anyway

However, if we get to game design, it creates two stats that do almost the same thing, in a world where very few would assume them to have almost the same role. Most would think you need to up your attack to do more damage - possibly wondering if that works for spells too. Even if you perfectly convey that crit is as important as attack for your damage, that leaves them as two stats that do almost the same thing.

Wouldn't be the first game to do so. Diablo 3 has both Crit Chance and Crit Damage, which technically do different things, but optimally you want to bring them up in the same proportions to maximize damage. Very similar to the Attack and Crit situation here.

I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. It's complicated coming up with interesting offensive stats that don't swing too wildly from underpowered to overpowered over the course of the game (or based on a string of luck).

[jack1974]

Designing new skills=out of question, not enough time/not worth it. This game WAS NOT SUPPOSED to be a RPG at best I could tweak existing ones, to make use of attack or critical. But this could be bad as well since would restrict the usage of some skills based on the character's stats.

Finding another use beside double damage for critical could be the best idea for me, but obviously I cannot also redesign all the 9 levels of the catacombs I have already done, so it needs to work with the current values.

Honestly, considering 99,99999999999999999999% of players just play my games for story/romances, I think current system is fine.

[jack1974]

A simple possibility that would work already with current implementation would be to have the possibility of missing target, and the critical hit stat influence the % chance. Though you know how much I dislike this system
Perhaps done this way, but if you miss you would still hurt the target by 1-2 dmg, so it's not completely wasted...(since the HP ranges are much lower than in Loren/SOTW) maybe this could be interesting?

[jack1974]

OK I've implemented it and it's not too bad. I'll leave it and then see during testing. But this way even if you miss, it's not painful as other system in which when you miss you do 0 damage

[jack1974]

This is an example, now in the attack preview you see the damage and the hit chance. Those bats have very high avoidance, normally it's always close to 90%.
In any case even if you miss, instead of 8 dmg you'll do half, so 4 dmg. Bad, but not something worth saving/reloading every attack (like happened in other games).
For now I'll keep like this, since as said against most enemies (which don't have high avoid as the bats) the percentage is always close to 90%, so it's rare to miss and do half damage. A small change but at least now accuracy gives an extra bonus beside the chance of double-damage (which is already interesting).
Also now Thalia's Dodge skill is not overpowered, but still nice. And magic attack always hit, so even if Joanne doesn't do big damage, will never do half damage, which makes it more interesting.

Anyway, in case I messed up, I can revert back to old system easily