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Kaelin -> RE: PSA: Dexterity (1/16/2019 17:36:04)
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I'm going to give my reactions here, which should come with the usual disclaimer I can't speak for the whole team. I can't hit everything, but I'm trying to address certain common themes.
* Having STR, DEX, and INT function as *the* Melee, Ranged, and Magic stats (not counting LUK's contribution) while the same stats also provide blocking is probably not going to happen. There will be little advantage in training both STR and DEX because training the second one doesn't add much value. For example, if you're already got STR for Melee, you can usually just stick with Melee attacks without needing Ranged, and Dexterity would only be offering blocking against one out of three attack types... which isn't very useful. My expectation is that most players would just choose their favorite of STR/DEX/INT and then probably pick CHA and LUK (or perhaps switching out CHA for END if you're using Dunamis/Thernda/Poelala), and that'll get boring/same-y pretty quickly.
* SP isn't likely to be math'd out to scale with END, because it already (indirectly) gives the player more SP regen by allowing the player to survive more turns.
* As for why Ranged stat damage is skewed towards STR, we're operating on a "20 turn standard" where warriors can do 1 Melee per turn with 20 Melee attacks, and mages do 4 Magic spells and 16 Magic weapon attacks. The Magic spells are considered 2 Melee in power, and weapon attacks are 0.75 Melee in power, so 4*2 (Spells) + 16*0.75 (Magic weapons) = 20 Melee damage. So, Mages and Warriors come out the same. What you see with Ranged weapons currently was a plan to have a Warrior using Ranged weapons (STR and DEX) be able to deliver the full 1 Melee per turn, but for conventional mages (INT and DEX, but no STR) be able to do 0.75 Melee per turn. Despite the STR component being so large on Ranged weapons, it only leaves 20 proc Ranged weapons doing a little less than the target of 75% (although the cap raise has changed this a little): about 27% of damage comes from "specials" that ignore stats, about about half of the rest (37%) comes from base/random and not stat, already putting a player at 64% Melee damage if the player had full accuracy -- it didn't take much more to put a 0 STR player up to their 75% limit.
Depending on other things we do, there will be some amount of wiggle room to increase DEX's stat damage component, but increasing DEX's role substantially (especially to a majority) means it can't do much on blocking without overpowering STR.
Does this mean "Rangers" need STR? I don't think so that's true. If you are training DEX but not STR, remember that you still have other stat points to train. If you train INT, you're already a mage with the ability to use Ranged weapons about as well as Magic ones (provided you're not using "buff" pets). If you train CHA and use guests, CHA will do more for your DPT than STR ever could. END and probably even LUK will probably be more efficient as well, but they're predicated on you being able to survive more turns (and keep in mind LUK's helping accuracy and damage as well), so it usually takes a slower playstyle. DEX + CHA + LUK already strikes a decent balance with pace and is frankly written off just because it's not a rush build with big numbers that uses FO armors and 0 proc weapons.
* We're not likely to have stats give special perks when maxed out -- most of them grow in value quadratically as it is, and that should be enough reward in of themselves.
With regard to Dexterity (and to a lesser extent other stats), here's what we're considering so far:
* Drastically reducing or eliminating secondary BtH (DEX*3/40) that all attack types get. This may be replaced to a degree by MainStat, although the BtH may be dropped altogether, with the appropriate changes to monster, weapon special, and/or blocking standards. Having DEX affect companion accuracy isn't very satisfying, and it's questionable whether it makes sense for Magic and huge Melee weapons. Light "Melee" weapons may instead be regarded as finesse weapons that (perhaps optionally) use Ranged weapon stats.
* Especially if we strike DEX's role on accuracy, we're considering changing Initiative rolls to look more like status rolls (Major: DEX v/ DEX; Minor: LUK v/ LUK).
* Dexterity will get a slight uptick on Ranged stat damage so 0 STR Ranged weapons can clock in closer to 75% Melee.
There are some things that inform how I'm looking at stats:
STR, INT, and CHA are offensive stats that can effectively SPEND SP. You ordinarily only need one outlet for your SP.
DEX is a defensive-leaning stat and END is a fully-defensive stat useful for generating SP through survival. While neither is required, both can help your SP, and they "stack" towards that end.
LUK's a decent all-around but doesn't have much of a role with SP.
While END is tops for taking hits, DEX and LUK usually help more with status resistance: DEX because it makes attacks miss (and most status effects auto-fail when that happens), and LUK moreso because of its consistent Minor roll effect.
DEX pitches in a little on offense for low/no-STR/INT builds, and DEX will help everyone on Initiative if we update it, but taking away its current role for BtH will turn it greatly towards a defensive stat. While preserving a small role on BtH could give it a little more offensive flavor, we already have an abundance of damage-centric stats (STR/INT/CHA), and allowing DEX to have a role with accuracy will keep it more similar to LUK.
Something we're taking a close look at is accuracy going each way. If we take DEX off of Melee/Magic/Companion accuracy, then the blocking needs to be formiddable enough to be worth the trouble. If an enemy has DEX + LUK, what sort of accuracy do we want players to expect if they come forwarding with MainStat + LUK? If it's around 75%, we know this may frustrating in some cases (even if enemy HP is scaled down to match), and it'll (justifiably) create more demand for 0 DEX monsters (which might make take 95% of hits)... and we've historically had trouble releasing enemies utilizing CHA or STR + INT builds (or whatever else keeps us from using either DEX or END so often). But if we make MainStat + LUK v/ DEX + LUK baseline hit around 85% accuracy, then you can expect monsters to do the same to DEX + LUK players, and we may not have made DEX all that rewarding on defense. There is some room for a little fudging: because monsters don't have a pet (like a player would), we can tweak monsters to get slightly lower accuracy (so if a pure build monster would get 85% weapon accuracy but only 65% pet accuracy, we might give such an enemy a weighted average accuracy of about 82% instead of 85%). We'll see what we can do to weigh the competing interests of wanting to be able to build characters who can hit often versus being able to build characters who can block often.
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