Perception vs Resolve, musings on crits and hit resolution

[GordonHalfman]

Probably late to the party on this discussion, we haven't discussed the attribute system for a while, but I hope there is still scope for small changes here. This discussion could be relevant for the modding community in any case.

 

Like many I'm finding that the perception stat is essential on many classes, and I wouldn't consider dumping it on any of them except possibly the Priest. I don't know if people agree but I'm also finding the Resolve stat underwhelming. Part of this is down to the general pace of the combat, things are fast and furious right now and I'm finding the base duration of many spells pretty adequate for the job. Priest buffs for example can last long enough for the decisive phase of the combat, and disable spells last long enough to burst someone down etc.

 

So the duration buff is not that great in it's own right, but it's seems particularly weak when compared to the accuracy buff from perception. The reason being that the average duration of most effects increases with your accuracy. Someone might have to correct my maths here, but if we consider a spell of duration X, with an accuracy advantage of (-20, 0, 20) the average duration of the spell will be (0.475, 0.75, 0.95) * X.

 

Now if we consider investing ten stat points in resolve for a 50% increase in duration. The new average duration in the three accuracy regimes listed above will be  (0.7125, 1.125, 1.425) * X.

 

Apologies if this is old news but as you can see when the enemy defenses are high you can potentially get better returns from average duration from perception than from resolve. Now this case won't be generally true, however I think it's problematic anyway because from the players perspective I would rather than my effects be applied more reliably even if it means the average duration is smaller. It's also a problem obviously because accuracy is so important for a bunch of things that resolve has no effect on. (I realize I'm underrating resolve by not considering the concentration bonus but the influence of this is a bit hard to gauge so I'll pass over it.)

 

This is particularly true because of the crit resolution system. Increasing your accuracy doesn't just make your actions more reliable it also increases your crit chance, this means high perception characters are not any less "swingy" than low perception characters. Although crits are only a 50% damage bonus in this game in practice it's often more like double the effective damage because of the interaction with DR. I think high incidence of crits in this game contribute to the general feeling of "burstiness", the high general damage and to the fast pace of combat. Crits on spells in particular are also very impactful and can give encounters a sensitive dependence on the resolution of the opening salvo of spells. (This may or may not remind people of the IE games but I don't really care about that side of the debate.)

 

I also think effects that increase the crit range, like Minor Threat and Dirty Fighting are a little strong. Minor Threat in particular seems a lot better than many of the other subrace bonuses. I believe these effects stack with each other and can buff the crit range to the point of being a bit daft. The BB rogue seems to record more crits than hits sometimes.

 

Anyway I have some small suggestions to adjust this:

 

-Just buff resolve a bit, to make it more attractive in it's own right. Even just 6% per point would be a little better.

 

-Modify the crit resolution system so that rather than scaling linearly with positive accuracy advantage the crit chance has a fall off function of some kind. There are probably many options for how to do this, one suggestion would be something like: 

 

Crit Chance(%) = 5 + x/(1 + x/20)

 

where x = Acc - Def. This looks like:

 

 

 

Obviously this could easily be tweaked to fall off faster or slower.

 

Also with this change stuff like Minor Threat or Merciless Gaze would need to change. Instead of applying an additive bonus to the crit chance make them apply an "effective accuracy advantage" bonus, i.e your crit chance is worked out as if your accuracy advantage is 10 points higher than it actually is, but still subject to the fall off function described above.

 

 

 

 

[Doppelschwert]

I totally agree with you, that's basically what I was saying in the other thread today.

However, with the aim of having easily understandable rules, I don't think an asymptotic function is up for debate, although I see the mathematical advantages. A more macho way to break down the chance would be to use the square root of the crit range as it is now, although that is also too mathematical.

I think linearly downscaling the crit chance would be a sufficient change, for example just divide the crit range by 5 for every point over 5.

 

The problem is not only in the crit chance but also how I assume crits are computed:

I guess its

 

Total_Damage = [(Damage+Bonus_Damage)*Critmultiplier - DR],

 

where Damage is the base damage of an action modified by might and Bonus_Damage comes from buffs, although it would be nice if someone could confirm that. A better way would be either

 

Total_Damage = [Damage*Critmultiplier+Bonus_Damage- DR]

or

Total_Damage = [ Damage+Bonus_Damage - DR]*Critmultiplier,

 

the difference between the two being (Critmultiplier-1)*[bonus_Damage-DR].

 

I don't want to be able to have rogue with 400 dmg crits in the final game.

Edited January 3, 2015 by Doppelschwert

[Sensuki]

essential on many classes

All classes.

 

I also agree that criticals contribute to the burstiness of encounters. The unified attack resolution system is pretty hilarious on high damage and AoE spells in particular, but the most hilarious on Rogues with their damage multiplier stacking. They have like 3-4 things that can increase damage by x1.2 or whatever that can make even a Stiletto attack ridiculously damaging at fast intervals.

 

A while ago I requested that crits be changed back to the roll of the dice, as I don't like how they affect the gameplay now. That's not going to happen, but I'm interested in trying it in a mod anyway.

 

I think the Rogue 400 damage crit is a bug.

Edited January 3, 2015 by Sensuki

[archangel979]

Critical chance need to be removed from accuracy and Perception. Some other less useful stat needs to increase crit chance while Perception only increases hit chance. If any spells or effect get a duration bonus or penalty from critical hits or grazes that should not work, duration should be only controlled by its own dedicated stat so it is worth taking that one.

 

Let critical hits or grazes only decide upon the strength of effect.

Edited January 3, 2015 by archangel979

[Shevek]

As far as crit damage, maybe just leave the system the same and reduce crit to a 25% bonus or, you know, bring back the old armor system that had dr.

Edited January 3, 2015 by Shevek

[Luckmann]

Critical chance need to be removed from accuracy and Perception. Some other less useful stat needs to increase crit chance while Perception only increases hit chance. If any spells or effect get a duration bonus or penalty from critical hits or grazes that should not work, duration should be only controlled by its own dedicated stat so it is worth taking that one.

 

Let critical hits or grazes only decide upon the strength of effect.

 

While I've tested the Backer Beta extremely little (on account of actually not being a Backer), it seems to me that Perception right now is incredibly powerful compared to most other Characteristics, and Accuracy very valuable from a combat perspective.

 

So my knee-jerk reaction is yeah.