Disquiet (Working Title) - Currently Assumed System Information

[AndrewRogue]

Hrm. So the scaling issues results for the same reason that multi-attacking in 4th Edition DnD is generally > single large attacks (repeatedly adding the additional damage), right?

How does the scaling stand up when thrown against higher defenses?

[Dark Holy Elf]

More hits suffer against higher magic defence, and this will be true at all levels. (Similarly, they do very well against poor magic defence.)

[Talaysen]

How about something like this?

[POW*(1+LV)/50 - MDef] * hits * (INT / VIT)

Then the effective power about doubles from L1 -> L50, similar to MDef.   [If you want it to actually double you can change the multiplier to 1 + (LV-1)/49 but whatever close enough.]

[Dark Holy Elf]

I assume the brackets are in the wrong place and it should be

[POW*(1 + LV/50) - MDef] * hits * INT / VIT

But yeah, that's certainly another decent idea. Chat discussion suggested that we wanted spell damage to grow slightly less well (hence, getting spell upgrades) but that could be accomplished by increasing the denominator on level, I think. Hmm, let's go with 60...

50-power spell: 20 per hit -> 32 per hit
60-power spell: 30 per hit -> 50 per hit
90-power spell: 60 per hit -> 105 per hit

This time, it seems like spells with -higher- powers scale better, though the difference isn't nearly as significant.


If we were extremely insistent that all spells scale equally well, but not as well as physicals accounting for weapon upgrades, one way to pull it off would be to take Tal's formula and then multiply it by something like "1 - Level/200" but the designer in me thinks that this is a really ugly formula (negative level is a factor in damage) even though it would technically work.

[AndrewRogue]

I don't think completely equal scaling is important (and can likely be accounted for with design), plus, working this way, we can compensate with number of hits.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Don't want to derail discussion here, but instead I will pose another question I want to get out of the way.

By default, RPG Maker's equip screen shows modifications to four different stats. With our different stat set we will be showing different ones. Which stats are important for us to show?

ATK, DEF, and MDEF are obviously essential since they are the main reason we equip things. Beyond that, possibilities include...

-Accuracy
-Evade
-Intelligence (-only- if we decide to have a lot of equips which boost this directly)
-Dexterity modifier, OR post-modification dexterity.

Every stat we add beyond the fourth (i.e. ATK/DEF/MDEF plus one from the above list) will shrink the window that shows the list of available weapons/etc. for the character to equip, so it's not just a matter of "eh no reason not to show everything". Stats that are only rarely modified can simply have those modifications listed in the equipment description (e.g. "+5 speed"). With that said, what stats do we want to display?


EDIT: The reason I am asking this now is that choosing which stats are shown this way actually takes a non-trivial amount of scripting so I'd rather only have to do it once.

[Random Consonant]

Accuracy is probably too important to not include, same with dexmod.  Evade I am less sure on, Intelligence can probably be left to the description box.

Of course this only really matters if we want to use the default equip screen.

[Grefter]

My understanding is that accuracy is the only one there that is primarily driven by equipment with what you are using.  Thinking on it from end user perspective though, ideally I would like to see expected number of hits most when changing weapons if possible.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Projected swing count would vary by enemy too much, so we can't just do that. It is a question as to whether the raw dexterity modifier or the post-modification dexterity is a better number to show... leaning towards the latter?

[AndrewRogue]

Latter. Players shouldn't have to do math, even if it is simple.

Still debating what should be shown. Definitely should be:

-Attack
-Defense
-Magic Defense
-Dex

Accuracy and Evade should probably make it up there too, but that's a lot of space.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Since Accuracy is entirely dependent on the weapon and doesn't interact with PC stats, it would be much simpler to just write that in the Item description, right? Whatever the Weapon's Acc is, that's the Acc that character will have, so it doesn't need to be mathed out as much.

I'd say:
ATK
DEX (final)
DEF
MDF
EVA

Evade could also be put in the item description, but it seems like we'd have a lot of Equips that are designed around modifying Evade.

[AndrewRogue]

That probably works.

[Grefter]

Just be wary of space limitations on gear descriptions non?  If you don't have THIS IS FIRE ARMR +10 EV +5 MANG DEF and just stick to raw modifiers that is fine though.  Item descriptions about the supple leather cords and how nice the studs feel is definitely something I would consider a "Nice to have".

[AndrewRogue]

Appears to be a 100 character limit, off-hand. Not bad, so long as you're short and quippy.

[Hunter Sopko]

Alright, Gref. Enough room to fit COCKS 20 times!

[Grefter]

I think Andy can attest that I need to put cock in things more than 20 times to be satisfied.

[AndrewRogue]

I think I am officially happy with DJ's list of stats, unless someone can come up with some magical window tricks to complete reformat the shop window for all stats.

[Dark Holy Elf]

And now I appear to throw a wrench into things again.

So it was decided yesterday that armour could influence Dex. This is both realistic and neat mechanically. However, it means that, at this point, players really need to be aware of both offensive Dex and defensive Dex when equipping (it is important that they realise that equipping a dagger only affects the former, for instance). This pretty much necessitates the need for two listed stats.

What do we want to call them? ADEX and DDEX? Something else?


EDIT: To be clear, this is not a change of mechanics in any way. This is simply a change in how stats are displayed, which requires new names/abbreviations.


EDIT2: Also, I realised last night that the equip screen could show different stats depending on if the cursor is over weapons or armour. Armour will show DEF/MDEF/EVA/defensive DEX, while weapons will show ATK/attacking DEX... and we'd have space for two others which we haven't talked about yet. Maybe EVA (since staves affect that) and INT (since swords affect that) but if someone wants to argue me on showing HIT or CRIT there, feel free.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Are you just proposing that there be two different stats for DEX now? I'm confused. Isn't the idea that DEX is a single stat that works both offensively and defensively? Why does the abbr. need to change?

[Dark Holy Elf]

Again, this is not a mechanical change.

Dex is a single stat, but for attacking purposes it is modified by your weapon. This effectively means any given PC has two different Dex stats, one for offence and one for defence, although they're both based on the same core stat. However, now that we're going to have equipment which modifies both offensive dex (weapons) and base/defensive dex (light armour and perhaps some accessories?) it seems a bit misleading to only show one on the status screen.

[DjinnAndTonic]

That is still a mechanical change as I had understood DEX. I assumed that when a Weapon modified DEX, that modification still affected a PC's DEX when they were receiving damage.

Is that not possible or something?

[Dark Holy Elf]

It's possible but was never, at any point, how the system was agreed to function (see also: some weapons had 0 dex multipliers, which would obviously be an insanely stupid choice if it affected your defence).

[Random Consonant]

I'm honestly not sure where you got that from since I thought it was clear that DEX mod on weapons was something that pertained entirely to swing count, since it wouldn't necessarily make sense that someone who used a low DEX mod weapon would suddenly be susceptable to getting attacked by all the swings that ever were.  Elevates high dex mod weaponry to too high a place.

Aaaaand beaten by NEB who basically says the same thing but more succintly so this is useless

[DjinnAndTonic]

I can see how it makes high-DEX weapons really good, but I had just assumed that was a given and that's why we were always saying "have to be really careful with high-DEX". I keep conceptualizing DEX as FE AS, which does basically the same thing with Wt.

On a story level, too, high DEX makes sense on both weapons and armor. If you are wearing lighter armor or using a more maneuverable weapon, you are faster and more able to parry/dodge swings. I think it's more intuitive for the player if the stat isn't divided into aDEX and dDEX.

So -that- is "where I got that idea from".

[Grefter]

Oh wow.  How did I miss that part of the swing formula?  That makes defensive system even more obtuse (you have two division reduction stats against multiple swing count enemies).  Hmmmm

That does really make me favour using Vit in Magic formulas since otherwise your Magic system defense (without Spirit at least) is functionally a 2 stat system compared to the four you have interacting with in Physical. 

Still parsing how I feel about Dex impacting defense like that.  It sits a bit wonky with me, but I can see interesting things to do with it (like accessories that boost your effective Dex for defense).  I think it gives you weird scenarios at high levels of dex etc etc.