Dodge + Dodgelash (Full Version)

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CH4OT1C! -> Dodge + Dodgelash (1/2/2025 19:44:53)

This post has been a long time coming.

For quite a while now, veteran players have recognised just how overpowered dodging and dodgelash—the ability to deal damage or trigger other effects when the player dodges—strategies are. In this post, I want to break down why this mechanic is so powerful and share my proposed solution to the problem.



Why are Dodging and Dodgelash overpowered?
If you were to ask a group of veteran players why dodgelash is so powerful, the most common answer would likely be that bosses simply cannot counter it. However, this explanation doesn’t fully capture the core issue; after all, many balanced playstyles involve mechanics that bosses aren't able to defend themselves against. Neither is it purely a mathematical issue; it’s not as if the cost of boosting the player’s MRM is undervalued (unlike Lucky Strikes...). Instead, I believe that the core issue lies in the extreme potential a player can achieve with the dodgelash playstyle.

Under standard assumptions, both the player and monster are expected to have a base accuracy of around 85%. In practice, this varies slightly, as players can choose armours and shields that are optimised for either elemental defence or blocking, and both player and monster attacks can have inherent BTH leans. However, at present, AQ also features a variety of items that can significantly boost the player’s MRM defences. For example, one can use the Bun-Banneret pet and guest (+35.43 MRM), the Imanok Edoc spell/skill (+30.3 MRM), and the Hairmuffs misc (applies a -25.3 BTH lean to monster attacks) to effectively increase the player's MRM by +73.9 for 2 turns. This is enough to adjust the monster's base 85% hit rate down to just 11.1%. For this incredible power, you pay a total cost of 118 + 59 + (568/2) = 461 SP per turn. This cost is easily sustainable given the numerous ways to regenerate SP (e.g., Essence Orb), and Mages can even split the cost between SP and MP. This situation is also unlikely to change even after EO is inevitably nerfed. All of these items can be acquired for Gold; the hardest part of obtaining them is waiting for the Bun-Banneret void boss to appear and then defeating it. Under these circumstances, it's no wonder why bosses being unable to counter dodgelash playstyles is often cited as the key problem. Monsters are able to resist the Berserk provided by Hairmuffs, but the boosts from Imanok Edoc and the Bun-Bannerets target the player and have no save. That’s an easy +48.6 MRM, which can be further supplemented with defence boosts from other items. Dodge playstyles have basically already reached a point where any player can effectively reduce the monster’s accuracy such that it's rare for an attack to land...

Hits are so rare, in fact, that the player need not worry about elemental defences at all. Each turn, a monster is expected to output 140% Melee per turn (assuming 85% accuracy). According to the player turn model, the player has enough HP to survive for 20 turns as long as they wear an appropriate armour and shield—the average length of two 10-turn monster battles (i.e. 2800% melee worth of HP). The ultimate goal of a standard monster is therefore to reduce the player's HP by half of that (1400% Melee) during a battle (NB: I highlight this now because it is important for my proposed solution). Assuming the player's MRM was boosted via the item combination described above (+73.9 MRM, with the monster effectively having an 11.1% hit rate), the player would be expected to survive 10*0.85/0.111= 76.6 turns before losing half of their HP! This represents an incredible amount of defensive power—so much, in fact, that they can also survive attacks while wielding an inappropriate armour and shield combination. The following resistances were calculating by extrapolating the resistances of the Armour of Awe to PwrLvl 150: 
 Element:   Resistance:   Ratio:   
     Main           14%      1;1
     Ally           49%   1;3.50
  Neutral           74%   1;5.29
     Poor           92%   1;6.57
  Opposed           93%   1;6.64

The ratio column details how much extra damage the player would expect to receive relative to their main elemental defence. For example, if the player was defending against a Fire attack, their main elemental defence would be Fire, and their expected "opposed" resistance would be ice. They would be expected to take 6.64x as much damage defending against a Fire attacks using an Ice armour/shield combination than one defending against Fire.

Integrating the assumption of an inappropriate armour/shield combination into the above calculations we find that, even under these circumstances, it would still take the player 10*0.85/0.111/6.64 = 11.5 turns to lose half of their HP. NB: Some players might object at this point, stating that monsters deal more damage than this, and that it doesn't take this long for the player to lose half of their HP. This discrepancy is due to a combination of other factors, including the player often sacrificing their defences for additional damage (e.g., using the FO armour lean) and monster also having modifiers (e.g., Monster Leand and BTH leans. Many monsters have offensive monster leans, making them deal and take x1.5 damage).

My point with the above calculations is to demonstrate that it's perfectly possible for players to reduce monster accuracy to such an extent that the player can survive a large number of turns without an appropriate armour/shield equipped. This fact fundamentally undermines a core assumption made by AQ's balance standards: that the player should be carrying defensive equipment for each of the standard 8 elements. It removes the need for most armours and shields in the game for dodge players, as a single combination can be sufficient to defend them against almost every monster. It also negates the value of carrying using a variety of defensive effects, such as Elemental Shields. This is a major issue.

NB: Before going further, I want to provide a table showing the average % melee output of a monster over 10 turns at 11.1% accuracy based on the above resistances. Please note: the turn model assumes that the monster deals 140% Melee per turn, but that also needs to attach the assumption of 85% accuracy, as otherwise the 20-turn player turn model would in fact be the 20/0.85 turn model (this would be problematic for a variety of reasons, which I'll leave for another thread). Basically, to keep things consistent, monster attacks themselves need to deal 140/0.85% Melee so that their 85% accuracy rate brings them down to 140% Melee and balance things out. Hope that makes sense! 
 Element:  Output:     
     Main   13.06%   
     Ally   45.71%   
  Neutral   69.03%   
     Poor   85.82%   
  Opposed   86.75%

The 'output' column refers to the percentage of 1400% melee that the monster reached. For example, the 'main' resistance reached approx. 13% of that, which should be interpreted as 1400 * 0.13 = 182% melee.

So, dodging is too powerful because it allows players to survive for too long and invalidates the point of elemental resistances. But what about Dodgelash? Dodgelash items face a very similar problem to Lucky Strikes. I've already produced another GBI on that topic, but the relevant point for this discussion is that players can guarantee Lucky Strikes while taking advantage of the assumption that Lucky Strikes are inherently rare (and thus receive a significant compensatory modifier to cost/power). This same issue is prevalent with Dodging. Since the monster is assumed to hit 85% of the time, the player is only expected to dodge the other 15%. This means dodgelash items receive a /0.15 compensation modifier to their effects, making them extremely powerful. If a player can dodge most of the monster's attacks (and, as shown above, players can absolutely do this), they can take advantage of them. Below is another table, this time showing the %Melee the player needs to invest in damaging Dodgelash mechanics in order to deal 1400% melee over 10 turns (i.e. the amount needed over a standard battle to kill a monster). 
Accuracy	%Melee
      5%	26.01
     10%	27.45
   11.1%        27.79
     15%	29.07
     20%	30.88
     25%	32.94

As can be seen above, it takes as little as 26% Melee before other effects to kill a monster in 10 turns through dodgelash. This is increased to 27.79% Melee under the accuracy assumption I've been using throughout this post.

So, in a nutshell, the problem with the Dodging and Dodgelash playstyle is that players can easily stack Defence boosting mechanics to the point where monster damage becomes negligible, and one armour/shield combination can cover the defence of all 8 standard elements. At the same time, they can take advantage of extremely powerful mechanics that are heavily compensated because dodging is supposed to be a relatively rare event. Monsters can do little to stop this. And perhaps the most surprising part is that the above is just scratching the surface. For example, I haven't even discussed the effect of Dodge-lean armours like Ghost Costume, a Gold-costing armour with an armour lean that boosts player MRM by 17!



The Solution Part 1: The 'Dodge'
Before getting into the solution itself, it's important to place the Dodge and Dodgelash problems within the wider context of both the game and the team developing it. Perhaps most importantly, there are a lot of items that affect monster accuracy in AQ. I'm not going to give a detailed breakdown here, but I did briefly checked @Ward_Point's Misc Index and found 41 different items that directly boost player MRM. This alone demonstrates that it's completely unfeasible to implement a general item-based fix—AQ's small team simply wouldn't be able to handle modifying that many files. This significantly hampers the ability to control stacking interactions unless it's done server side.

I also feel it's important to highlight that when it comes to the 'main' elemental resistance, MRM boosting item combinations like the one described above should significantly extend the number of turns a player can survive. To reiterate, the issue is that the player can dodge so many attacks, that they can use item/shield combinations even when they have 'Neutral' or even 'Opposed' elemental resistances. This is the issue I want to tackle. My goal with this part of the fix is to ensure that the player takes significant damage from Neutral, Poorly, and Opposed elements, even when they're dodging.

My proposed solution involves the Accuracy Floor that was brought in during the stat revamp. At present, this floor is set to 5%. Given that my example above demonstrated the problems associated with an accuracy rate of 11.1%, it will come as no surprise that the 5% accuracy floor produces numbers that are even worse: 
 Element:  Output:     
     Main    5.88%   
     Ally   20.59%   
  Neutral   31.09%   
     Poor   38.66%   
  Opposed   39.08%

(NB: As before, the 'output' column refers to the percentage of 1400% melee that the monster reached).

As the table shows, this accuracy floor is too low to prevent MRM boosts from negating the value of elemental defences. However, what if we were to raise that floor?: 
Accuracy	   5%	  10%	   15%	   20%	   25%
    Main	 5.88	11.76	 17.65	 23.53	 29.41
    Ally	20.59	41.18	 61.76	 82.35	102.94
 Neutral	31.09	62.18	 93.28	124.37	155.46
    Poor	38.66	77.31	115.97	154.62	193.28
 Opposed	39.08	78.15	117.23	156.30	195.38

(NB: Same as above, interpret the values as percentage of 1400% melee that the monster reached).

As you can see, increasing the accuracy floor to between 20-25% increases the 'Neutral' output to >100%. This means that monsters will still on average deal than more than half of a player's HP bar in damage. I propose that this is exactly what the staff should do: Increase the accuracy floor to 25%. This suggestion is a little more interventionist than I would typically support, but it would allow Dodgelash players to continue benefitting from Defence boosters (the 'main' row never exceeds 30% of 1400% melee; they could still last approx. 30 turns) while also making it more punishing for them to use inappropriate armour/shield combinations. Additionally, it's a method avoids requiring a large investment of labour, as the accuracy floor has already been coded and would only need its base level to be adjusted. Most importantly, it also eliminates the need to modify large numbers of item files.



The Solution Part 2: The 'Lash'
Even if the staff were to raise the accuracy floor to 25%, it still wouldn't resolve how easily players can exploit the compensatory modifiers for Dodgelash mechanics. Unfortunately, due to the specificity of this compensatory modifier, the only viable solution is to implement an item-based one. I propose that the most effective fix, relative to the ease of implementation, would be to include an additional component in the compensatory modifier:
quote:

[Effect] / (0.15 + [Defence Boost]/100)

Put simply, the modifier would check if the player has the Defence Boost status effect and incorporate this component into the compensation modifier. For instance, since Imanok Edoc provides a +30 Defence Boost, the modifier would calculate as 0.15 + 30/100 = /0.45. This adjustment ensures that the compensatory modifier becomes significantly weaker without:
(i) fully negating the benefits of Dodging mechanics (i.e., Dodgelash users still gain some advantage!) and
(ii) introducing a complex fix that would be impractical for the staff to implement.

I fully recognise that this solution doesn't address every aspect of the issue, and in truth, I don't think a complete fix is possible without a large-scale project—which the staff likely don’t have the time to undertake. That said, for this solution to be effective, the staff would also need to commit to the following additional measures:
  • Retroactively adjusting old Dodgelash items as time allows.
  • Either adding Blind/Dazzle effects to Freedom or addressing its potency (though this is a problem for another day). They're already a part of boss boost, but that's not enough. Again, potency problems.
  • Restricting direct MRM boosters to relatively small values (e.g., +10) and limiting them to certain item types (like miscs, where they're common). Larger defence boosts need to be coded as Defence Boost statuses.

    With that, I open it to the floor.


    NB: For anyone that wants to copy the calculations I used:
    quote:

    (140/0.85*[Ratio])*[Accuracy%]/100*[#Turns]

    Used to calculate the raw %Melee, followed by
    quote:

    [AboveCalc]/1400*100

    To convert to a percentage of 1400% Melee.

    To get the % input for dodgelash:
    quote:

    (140*[#Turns]/0.85)*0.15/[#Turns]/(1-[Accuracy%]/100)


    I also link this thread for some previous ideas.



    • Ward_Point -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/2/2025 20:21:16)

    Again, a contentious subject.

    Simply put, there are very good reasons why Riftwalker does not have Elemental Clones.

    Now, Moderation Comments

    Firstly, do not pretend this is not a mathematical problem. Due to the current additive nature of Blocking/Dodging, each stack gains amplifying returns. It is known fact that double Bun-Bannarets get you to 50% dodge rate, which effectively doubles the Player's HP. This is despite only adding 35% dodge rate.

    Secondly, you are free to disagree with the thesis, once. Balance threads do not need multiple disagreements of 'I DON'T LIKE THIS'.

    That being said, you are free to propose an alternative mathematically sound solution and debate their Pros & Cons.



    NightofLight -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/2/2025 20:35:09)

    Tbh raising the accuracy floor seems like a solid change it forces dodge players to use same element gear and it helps new players vs annoying mobs in the early game although not really part of this conversation. As for the part about gear that gets benefits from dodging you could maybe have its effectiveness go down the more mrm you stack until you hit the soft cap so your less likely to take dmg but you take a small penalty as a compromise.



    Branl -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/2/2025 20:37:33)

    A few things I'd like to mention:

    1) I'd like to pen in my support for expediting balance discussions surrounding potency, whenever dodgelash gets reworked. Even Chaotic's solution here as acknowledged, can't fully fix the issue, and if implemented by itself, would only shift mechanic abuse from Def Boosting to Blind/Cold, so as to avoid the penalty def boost would have on dodgelash output. What I do like about the solution, is that dodgelash modified by defense boost (like the LS damage % modified by LS rate suggestion), incentivizes using dodgelean armor, since the MRM from that lean avoids the penalty.

    2) I'll hope the implementation of fixes for this (much like anything else that gets fixed), would expand the scope of related items. I've been dying for more dodgelean armors, but I don't exactly feel comfortable asking for them when dodge is such a huge mess. For people concerned about dodge changes (or any balance changes), I hope it can be understood that the adaptation of such changes are necessary if we want to see more items use the related mechanics.

    3) As far as Chaotic's specific solution, aside from my concern with blind/cold/berserk with dodgelash items, I don't have any major objections. I would be interested to see if the scope of changes is more lenient than they expect, and if it is, it would give us more wiggle room to suggest fixes.



    Aura Knight -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/2/2025 20:45:49)

    Just limit the damage. Passive hits like what's experienced here shouldn't outdo what we get from attacking.

    As someone who appreciates dodge this is the fairest change because messing with dodge itself ruins the strategy.

    Guess a limit for guaranteed dodges per turn can be considered. A change to monster accuracy might work too if done like how Dex does for player in which boosted accuracy lowers damage. This allows dodge to have a use but not be devastating when it fails.




    Dardiel -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/2/2025 20:54:19)

    I think the dodgelash scaling is reasonable although I'd add a note that (15 + Boosts) should be capped at (100 - Accuracy Floor) so as to avoid punishing the player for using this form of defense - other than that, I agree with nearly everything in the post (especially the 25% accuracy floor and the dodgelash scaling).

    My only sentiment approaching a disagreement is in regards to the comment about blind falling under the Freedom umbrella, and that's only due to my personal dislike of "your items don't do what you want them to do in any fight that matters" (I know stun windows exist but they're rare and still limit player options compared to a mechanic that just asks the player to invest more into applying statuses that disable a more powerful boss).



    Edit because I think maybe this is one of those "symptom of an issue" cases:

    There could also maybe be a debate about how much of the strength of dodging is just a side effect from players being able to deal too much damage while regenerating resources; a player turn is worth 140% melee and the example dodge setup requires just under 118% melee in resources per turn. That should mean the actual player output is (140-118)*0.85 = 18.7% melee per turn. Assuming a player also needs 1400% melee to defeat an enemy, the player goes from making 100% progress over 10 turns to making 13.3% progress over 10 turns - which is notably only 0.17% higher than what the monster should be doing if the player has assumed resistances.

    Assuming players are truly gaining 140% melee in value per turn (they typically aren't since players start with free SP and get 25% melee in SP per turn instead of the 20% that's assumed), the ability to invest massive amounts into defense at the cost of having very little left over for offense should be totally balanced.

    (Things do get funkier with valueless things such as Ghost Costume's dodge lean and monsters having the option for inaccurate leans though, so even with the caveat that I think the issue lies with player output in general I do still support a raised accuracy floor to handle edge cases. With balanced outputs I imagine that a floor closer to 15% would handle edge cases without undermining the cost of playing so defensively)



    Grace Xisthrith -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/2/2025 20:58:18)

    Dex BTH lean ramping "a lean ramping system similar to DEX BTH Ramping that does not have a penalty, and gives monsters the true output for the lean they'd receive (IE, a -30 BTH lean would give 85/50 damage and -30 BTH, no extra modifications)" given to monsters regardless of attack type is problem solved IMO

    -with a mechanic that already exists
    -has been explained already, and people know about
    -also rewards elemental dodging
    -rewards dodging as a defensive playstyle not an immortal playstyle

    In case it wasn't clear, proposal is to not do anything complicated, and give all monsters the base behavior of using DEX style BTH lean ramping. Numbers / change in BTH lean per hit would likely have to be adjusted very slightly

    Edit: edited first line (should be clear with strikethrough). Some solid criticisms have been put up, mainly how it turns dodge into an eleshield like mechanic after some time, and how it makes dodge not really dodge anymore. I hope to address those in a later post, if I still feel strongly about BTH lean ramping later on



    Sapphire -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/2/2025 22:50:06)

    I wouldn't mind raising the accuracy floor, but 25% IMO and the other proposal is aggressive. I think this issue is multi-faceted and I think several things all need minor changes. I would be on board with a 10% floor **at most**, but then taking a look at how stacking defboost works I wouldn't be completely against either, as long as it's not super aggressive. Instead of being additive, it should simply average like most things. A 1 turn 60 defboost + a 2 turn 30 deboost should be averaging, not adding together. This would make using multiple defboost items add turns and lower the total defboost in most cases.

    Also, We have more ways to get higher dodge rates than defboost, btw. I actually prefer blinds on my dodge char. You can combine defboost with blind with thecold with something that Sinister Protean does and can do these things in a single turn.

    Because this is more than about defboost specifically, I think the better solution is to be gentle, but also have the solution be included in the monster revamp. Essentially, what Gibby is alluding to. First, all monsters with Dex need something. I propose the ranged adaptation. This will cause the monster to eventually hit you. It can rise and fall a bit faster than the player to ensure the monster doesn't get dodgelashed prior to being able to adapt.

    We still also have auto-hit on monsters that can be employed, and I think with some minor tinkering on 3 or 4 fronts it might create a combined effort to nerf the dodge playstyle, but not so much that people abandon it completely. LK once said to not worry, staff will ensure the game remains fun despite staff knowing dodge is an issue. I think the things proposed are a tad bit much, but I am on board with making some adjustments like I mentioned.

    1. 10% Floor
    2. Re-configure how multiple defboost applications stack ( a nerf)
    3. Give monsters with dex ranged adaptation
    4. Employ some more auto-hit attacks during mob revamp

    To me this combination should be enough to reign dodge in but still let players have fun with the playstyle.



    CH4OT1C! -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/3/2025 7:33:32)

    I was initially quite open to @Grace Xisthrith's idea of BTH lean ramping for monsters. However, after taking a look in a bit more detail, I have a couple of important objections that I feel must be raised.

    First, I'll state what I like about the idea. Assuming that the monster received the same basic lean as the player, they would expect to deal: 
    BTH    Damage
+20	x0.81
+25	x0.76
+30	x0.72
+35	x0.67
+40	x0.62
+45	x0.58
+50	x0.53
+55	x0.49
+60	x0.44
+65	x0.39
+70	x0.35
+75	x0.30
+80	x0.26
+85	x0.21

    ...assuming that the " doubled downside" didn't come into effect beyond +20 BTH, or... 
    BTH     Damage
+20	 x0.58
+25	 x0.55
+30	 x0.52
+35	 x0.49
+40	 x0.46
+45	 x0.43
+50	 x0.40
+55	 x0.37
+60	 x0.33
+65	 x0.30
+70	 x0.27
+75	 x0.24
+80	 x0.21
+85	 x0.18

    ...assuming that it did. Applying this modifier to the values earlier, accounting for an 85% accuracy rate: 
    Damage Mod	 0.2	 0.25	 0.3	0.35	 0.4
      Main	 280	  350	 420	 490	 560
      Ally	 980	 1225	1470	1715	1960
   Neutral	1480	 1850	2220	2590	2960
      Poor	1840	 2300	2760	3220	3680
   Opposed	1860	 2325	2790	3255	3720

    ...then we see that the elemental resistance would be sufficient to overcome the damage modifier, fitting the goal of making elemental resistances relevant for the Dodge playstyle. Of course, it's not an 85% hit rate in reality, but I'm going to overlook this as the numbers for the 'Neutral', 'Poor', and 'Opposed' categories are large enough for this not to matter significantly.

    [NB: As the above are linear extrapolations, they're not absolutely correct and will be off by a little ways. However, this doesn't change the conclusion that the strategy would technically succeed, as non-linear extrapolations will produce higher multipliers on the extreme end. I've just redone the numbers based on the doubled cap with a more accurate interpolation formula: 
    BTH   Damage
 20	0.60
 25	0.55
 30	0.52
 35	0.49
 40	0.46
 45	0.44
 50	0.42
 55	0.40
 60	0.38
 65	0.37
 70	0.35
 75	0.34
 80	0.32
 85	0.31

    ...as you can see, the outcome still conforms to the table described above. This table is based on numbers available in-game, and uses the player DEX adaptation formula. ]


    However, there are a couple of problems I envisage, one of which (I believe) fundamentally undermines the goals of this thread. The first problem, by far the lesser issue, is that it takes time for the BTH lean to ramp. Assuming the staff implement the same BTH ramping system as the player: 
    # Misses	Bth Lean
       1           +5.67
       2	  +12.14
       3	  +19.62
       4	  +28.33
       5	  +38.64
       6          +51.00
       7 	  +66.11
       8	  +85.00

    ...it would take 8 misses (assuming 2 hits per turn, 4 turns) for the monster to catch up with the player's potential MRM bonuses. This means there are 1-2 turns where the player is in little real danger of being hit regardless of element, which isn't exactly ideal.

    However, and far more importantly, this solution would severely undermine all Dodgelash strategies beyond turn 3. Once the monster has adjusted its BTH, MRM boosting is no longer going to be effective for the player, and it takes much longer for the adaptation ability to reduce the BTH lean than it does to gain it from misses (because misses are meant to be rarer by design). After the first few turns, the player is going to have to spend several turns intentionally avoiding MRM boosters in order to reduce the monster's BTH lean down to a point where Dodgelash becomes effective again. I certainly wanted to nerf Dodge and Dodgelash builds with this post, but I never intended to fundamentally undermine the strategy itself. If I had wanted that, I would have suggested using the dynamic accuracy calculation to modify dodgelash power, rather than the basic 85% accuracy assumption. I want Dodgelash to be effective as a strategy, just not as effective as it is now, and this proposal would make it very difficult to effectively use beyond turn 3.

    My proposed solution is applicable from turn one, and still allows players to use Dodgelash, it just prevents them from becoming nigh invulnerable.

    Turning to @Sapphire's composite proposal:
  • A 10% accuracy floor is demonstrated to be insufficient through the numbers in my initial post, so I'd be curious as to your reasoning. My selection of the 25% accuracy floor was far from arbitrary; it was chosen so that players can't simply sit in 'Neutral', 'Poor', 'Opposed', or even 'Ally' element armours without a 'main' element shield in order to reduce incoming damage.
  • This is a composite proposal, and dealing with more mechanics means more work. What justifies that additional work?
  • See above regarding the issues with the BTH lean adjustment idea; do you find it ok to hamper Dodgelash builds beyond turn three, given your calls for a 'gentle' solution?



    • LUPUL LUNATIC -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/3/2025 8:15:22)

    quote:

    Increase the accuracy floor to 25%.


    We will have a seriously severe mathematical problem with tinkering with accuracy floor. If we increase it to 25% then obviously Dodge chance would not be 15% anymore,for example at 0% accuracy floor we "can" Dodge 100% of the time at a 15% chance,however at 25% accuracy floor we can no longer Dodge at 15% chance because at minimum we can only Dodge 75% of the time and among that 75% its only 15% Dodge chance we are actually Dodging so thats 15% * 75% chance => 11.25% effective Dodge chance. We are losing out on Lash part evaluations by increasing accuracy floor.

    quote:

    [Effect] / (0.15 + [Defence Boost]/100


    As stated this just shifts the problem to Blind/Cold/Direct MRM boosters, its a bandaid that ultimately ... doesnt accomplish anything in the long run.

    quote:

    Dex BTH lean ramping given to monsters regardless of attack type is problem solved IMO

    -with a mechanic that already exists
    -has been explained already, and people know about
    -also rewards elemental dodging
    -rewards dodging as a defensive playstyle not an immortal playstyle


    Probably the most i am inclined of solution, it does not feel like a bandaid and its not complicated since its already in-game for players, and Adaptation does have a monster theme as well.





    Sapphire -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/3/2025 8:44:35)

    @Chaotic

    My reasoning is based on trying not to be overly harsh when nerfing something down from current gameplay. While I recognize that dodgeing and dodgelash are very strong and causes the player to be near invincible vs the vast majority of the game, I would prefer we made this a more situational fix. Make it largely depend on what monster you fight. So, any monster with Dex will be an issue. Any monster with auto hit, and my proposal already is attempting to say that more monsters need auto-hit in their arsenal. I don't wish to kill off the style completely, I wish to make it less universally applicable.


    I also wonder if lash-hits need to not be auto-hit. This would remove the .85 penalty, but it would make higher MRM mobs be able to dodge all lash hits. (including backlash) This would not be subject to player BTH alterations, and would only really be helped with defloss or if they decided to make a Lash-specific BTH enhancer item. Since auto-hit these days only get a 15% penalty, I think making lash hits able to miss can allow staff to make higher MRM mobs dodge these, making lash hits less "problematic" on a case by case basis. Yeah this means lash hits would be stronger if they landed, but at least this gives staff a path to specifically target the mechanic to make it much less reliable.

    So I will add a new bulletpoint of making all Lash dodgeable, so removing it from auto hit and thus removing the .85x penalty. It gets a 85% hit rate at standard monster MRM assumptions, and it's accuracy can't be altered via player side BTH boosts. Only mob defloss will help here. One of the ways to counter super high MRM mobs is lashing, currently. So make it so high MRM mobs actually hurt dodge/back lash playstyles.

    Ultimately I think the fixes should be implemented in such a way that "it depends on the monster", and a softer increase to the accuracy floor is what I'd prefer.

    One of the things thats nice about the accuracy floor idea is it can start small (like it has) and can be gradually increased over time in order to fine tune. For player 'fun', I'd rather be gentle in this respect.



    Branl -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/3/2025 11:10:52)

    quote:

    We will have a seriously severe mathematical problem with tinkering with accuracy floor. If we increase it to 25% then obviously Dodge chance would not be 15% anymore,for example at 0% accuracy floor we "can" Dodge 100% of the time at a 15% chance,however at 25% accuracy floor we can no longer Dodge at 15% chance because at minimum we can only Dodge 75% of the time and among that 75% its only 15% Dodge chance we are actually Dodging so thats 15% * 75% chance => 11.25% effective Dodge chance. We are losing out on Lash part evaluations by increasing accuracy floor.


    The floor just reduces dodge rate to it if player dodge rate is such that [85 - (Def Boost + Blind+Cold+Berserk)] > Accuracy Floor. It's not a second roll you need to beat. Dodgelash currently, just accounts for monster base accuracy for calculations.
    It does touch on something else of note:
    The formula outlined by Chaotic needs to account for the floor so players aren't punished excessively beyond their "true" dodge rate just because they have more defense boost than could actually effect monster hit rate.

    quote:

    As stated this just shifts the problem to Blind/Cold/Direct MRM boosters, its a bandaid that ultimately ... doesnt accomplish anything in the long run.


    I agree that the problem shifts, I do not agree it "does not accomplish anything". It's definitely worth bringing up, but all that means is that those statuses (and statuses in general) have to seperately be addressed. This is fine, potency and statuses in general are in need of rebalancing anyway.

    quote:

    Probably the most i am inclined of solution, it does not feel like a bandaid and its not complicated since its already in-game for players, and Adaptation does have a monster theme as well.


    My issue with it, is that there's doesn't really exists a mathematical solution to "how should the lean adaptation formula be modified for monsters, such that consistently hitting a dodging player doesn't reduce their damage to the point where them hitting, doesn't actually matter. It's a solution that can only really be found by staff experimenting with different iterations of said formula. Unless there's a particular reason to, I'll tend to lean away from solutions that require an experimental phase to even find said solution, before we even find out if players are happy with said solution.



    Dardiel -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/3/2025 12:10:58)

    Regarding the lean idea, I think it sounds kind of nice on paper but to me the biggest issue is: if dodging is a problem, why is the solution to allow it to still be a problem for the first turns and then just become a weird eleshield for the rest of the battle? It's not like eleshields are underpowered, so having "this problem shifts to being normal" still means that the thing is a problem.

    That said, with my previous edit and supported by a few comments in here, I do think "players can dodge a lot" is a symptom that needs a larger systemic fix rather than a dodge-specific fix. It should be balanced for a player to spend 90% of their turn on boosting their survivability by 90%; the problem arises if resources are imbalanced. Defboost could be nerfed but then as mentioned above you'd also need to make sure blind, and dazzle, and Cold all fall under the umbrella, and then players would just shift to using their resource advantage for immortality via eleshield, and choke, and panic, and then those can get handled to then move players over to healing, and barriers, and chi shields, and mana shields, and siphons, and then those can get handled for players to switch to celerity, and pet/guest boosting, and any other form of "win because your turn is worth more" that they feel like.

    I do still agree that dodgelash should account for the actual odds of dodging the same way Lucky Strike modifiers should account for the actual odds of a Lucky Strike, but I would maintain that touching the dodge mechanic is indeed a Band-Aid (tm) that doesn't handle the reason why a player can negate a monster turn without much investment.



    Sapphire -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/3/2025 12:34:34)

    Yes. The more I think about this, the more I think a massive portion of this fix and other fixes are with Monster Design.

    Using different playstyles/ideas, etc should not be universally applicable across every single monster. And if dodge playstyle is mostly a universally strong approach, I don't think tackling it should be universally addressed in some massive sweeping implementation of an idea. What should be happening is certain ideas should work great versus some monsters but be terrible versus other monsters. ANd to me, dodge mechanics and dodge playstyles is no different. If we had a Ranger Style monster or Ranger-Hybrid type that started out with an auto-hit attack and then it's first turn started out at a +20 BTH lean, it would be able to hit most players at the outset. The BTH lean modifier is another way to make it so using dodge mechanics at the beginning to be troublesome for the player. We can also implement monsters, not just bosses, with specific status resistances such as blind resist 20 or thecold resist 20 or omni resists. These just don't have to be boss-only ideas. Monster design space needs expanded and this tackles a plethora of issues.

    In addition, I thought of a couple other things.

    First, what if "lash" damage became it's own type of damage? That way, you could have monsters that took -x% damage to "Lash". This could further accentuate my idea of allowing Lash damage to miss.
    Secondly, IMO, I dislike the dodge lean idea. IMO, leans are problematic and they're even worse if they dont have a cap. If my dodgelash effect is weakened based on my dodge rate, then what I pay should also be less. I dislike leans tbh.
    Lastly, dodge'lash' and dodge'self-buff' should not get the same /.015 value. Dodge self buff should be weaker by a lot. You've already taken 0 damage.



    Aura Knight -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/3/2025 13:47:10)

    Monster skill attacks could just get autohit to force us to swap equipment then a variation of dex bth ramping for them can deal with our high evasion. No need to match the player formula. An unnecessary complication to an almost effortless setup will only ruin the strategy. The main issue is the imbalance which comes from the damage. Limit that and problem solved. Maybe an elevuln against us can be added too which makes the guaranteed damage from this suggested autohit significant.



    CH4OT1C! -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/3/2025 16:54:32)

    Responding to a few comments:
    @LUPUL LUNATIC
    quote:

    We will have a seriously severe mathematical problem with tinkering with accuracy floor. If we increase it to 25% then obviously Dodge chance would not be 15% anymore,for example at 0% accuracy floor we "can" Dodge 100% of the time at a 15% chance,however at 25% accuracy floor we can no longer Dodge at 15% chance because at minimum we can only Dodge 75% of the time and among that 75% its only 15% Dodge chance we are actually Dodging so thats 15% * 75% chance => 11.25% effective Dodge chance. We are losing out on Lash part evaluations by increasing accuracy floor.

    I'm going to have to heavily disagree with you here. To be clear, I'm not arguing that this isn't a mathematical issue; due to the accuracy floor being effectively implemented as autohit, it's absolutely true that Dodge rates suffer from the compositional sum problem as you describe (i.e. if you're expected to Dodge 15% of the time on 75% of attacks, when the residual 25% of attacks are autohit, your actual dodge rate is closer to 11.25%). However:
  • This is already a factor of the 5% accuracy floor. Yes, it would be exacerbated with this fix but...
  • I suspect the accuracy floor was implemented in this way because the alternatives would have been extremely difficult to implement without rearranging all of AQ's accuracy formulae (i.e. changing player/monster BTH so it averages out at 85% over all attacks).
  • For similar reasons, it wouldn't exactly be practical to start assuming the player's dodge rate is 11.25% (substitute depending on your preferred accuracy floor. The current floor makes it 14.25%); while it it mathematically correct, the staff can't exactly go around changing every item in the game to account for this new accuracy assumption.
  • Additionally, a 3.75% difference in base accuracy rate is hardly a drop in the ocean for Dodgelash playstyles, who regularly boost their chances of dodging an attack by 50+%. If anything, it's more likely to affect players that aren't dedicating themselves to Dodgelash, who by definition won't be relying on these effects as much.
    EDIT: After some testing done by others, it's been found the accuracy floor doesn't work in this way. This isn't going to be a problem for my proposed solution.

    @Sapphire
    quote:

    My reasoning is based on trying not to be overly harsh when nerfing something down from current gameplay. While I recognize that dodgeing and dodgelash are very strong and causes the player to be near invincible vs the vast majority of the game, I would prefer we made this a more situational fix. Make it largely depend on what monster you fight. So, any monster with Dex will be an issue. Any monster with auto hit, and my proposal already is attempting to say that more monsters need auto-hit in their arsenal. I don't wish to kill off the style completely, I wish to make it less universally applicable.

  • So to clarify, your position is that monsters specifically with DEX should get some kind of BTH lean adjustment? If my reading is correct, then I fundamentally disagree with your approach as (i) it doesn't attempt to solve the goals I set out in my OP (the fix needs to be sufficiently broad to consider most monsters, not just a subset), (ii) you've provided neither mathematical nor mechanical justification for why the accuracy floor should be 10%, and (iii) it would introduce mechanics that fundamentally damage the Dodgelash playstyle itself (monster accuracy adaptation).
  • Going to skip "whether lash should be autohit" because it's not relevant to my goals of my OP.
  • I respectfully disagree that allowing the monster to gain a +70 BTH lean in approx. 3-4 turns, fundamentally restricting the ability of the player to dodge at +70 MRM to ~15%, is a "Gentle" approach.

    @Branl
    quote:

    The formula outlined by Chaotic needs to account for the floor so players aren't punished excessively beyond their "true" dodge rate just because they have more defense boost than could actually effect monster hit rate.

    I see you've noticed that. This is the flipside of not accounting for all accuracy altering mechanics; since some accuracy mechanics (e.g., blind) have been omitted to focus solely on Defence Boost, it becomes difficult to tell when the player overcaps their MRM. I can modify the original formula I provided to:
    quote:

    [Effect] / (0.15 + min([Defence Boost],60)/100)

    ...which would make it so Defence Boost can't overcap. However, the simplest way to account for all of the accuracy-modifying effects would be to use the dynamic accuracy calculation performed on each hit. As I said in my last post, I'm trying desperately to avoid having to advocate for that; this is me being "gentle".

    @Dardiel
    quote:

    That said, with my previous edit and supported by a few comments in here, I do think "players can dodge a lot" is a symptom that needs a larger systemic fix rather than a dodge-specific fix. It should be balanced for a player to spend 90% of their turn on boosting their survivability by 90%; the problem arises if resources are imbalanced. Defboost could be nerfed but then as mentioned above you'd also need to make sure blind, and dazzle, and Cold all fall under the umbrella, and then players would just shift to using their resource advantage for immortality via eleshield, and choke, and panic, and then those can get handled to then move players over to healing, and barriers, and chi shields, and mana shields, and siphons, and then those can get handled for players to switch to celerity, and pet/guest boosting, and any other form of "win because your turn is worth more" that they feel like.

    I think you're mostly right about this. Of course, there do need to be some limits (e.g., we can't just have an effect that essentially guarantees the player can take no damage every turn). With that said, I agree that resources are an important part of the puzzle too. Part of the reason the Dodging strategy in my OP works so well is because 461 SP is easily obtainable through items like EO. Resource regeneration definitely needs looking at, though I think that's best saved for another thread. You're absolutely right that this thread doesn't address why the player can negate a monster turn without much investment.

    @Sapphire (again)
    Monster design certainly does matter, but that doesn't excuse players being able to easily survive in inappropriate armour/shield combinations against a large portion of the monster database, and changing that on the monster side would be extremely difficult and time consuming (i.e. slow) to do on a selective basis. Not going to get into dodge being its own damage type as it isn't really relevant to my goals.

    @Aura Knight
  • Making monster skills autohit seems pretty terrible for the Dodgelash strategy without remotely addressing why it's so overpowered. Could you explain to me how this would address the problems raised in my OP?
  • No... problems stem from the 'Dodge' part as well, see my OP for details.



    • Aura Knight -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/3/2025 17:12:12)

    Dodging itself just extends fights. It's not the problem here. You're mixing things up. It is the damage from little setup that causes imbalance. Autohit wouldn't be terrible because my idea is to have it work situationally when a monster uses skills. This forces the player to be wary of elemental defenses not just defense boosts or high mrm. And bth manipulation will allow for this playstyle to have occasional weakness. Further changes will kill the strategy outright.

    A limit on defenses and damage is all that needs to be considered.




    NightofLight -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/3/2025 17:17:23)

    Problem is mrm boosting itself is op because with like 2 bunbits your estimated survivability becomes something absurd like 48 turns if I recall because of the 20 turn model. Even if your not using dodgelash gear that ammount of survivability kind of beats most fights without any other setup even if your only hitting attack.



    Ward_Point -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/3/2025 20:48:49)

    quote:

    Firstly, do not pretend this is not a mathematical problem. Due to the current additive nature of Blocking/Dodging, each stack gains amplifying returns. It is known fact that double Bun-Bannarets get you to 50% dodge rate, which effectively doubles the Player's HP. This is despite only adding 35% dodge rate.

    Secondly, you are free to disagree with the thesis, once. Balance threads do not need multiple disagreements of 'I DON'T LIKE THIS'.

    That being said, you are free to propose an alternative mathematically sound solution and debate their Pros & Cons.


    Last warning. Deal with the thesis, or do not post.



    Telcontar Arvedui I -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/4/2025 10:54:03)

    This post will be divided into 3 sections:
  • a tl;dr for devs to take away the key points in this post without having to (re)read the rest of the text wall,
  • an extended elaboration of my stance, including tables of data,
  • arguments I present for and against stances and solutions I agree or disagree with respectively, for debate.

    TL;DR
  • I agree with the problem statements outlined in the opening post (OP).
  • I particularly think that any viable solutions to Dodge should heavily encourage players to carry all 8 elemental armour/shields.
  • Thus, I agree with the OP's solution to rein in Dodging by raising the accuracy floor from 5% to 25%, without needing another solution in tandem. This is the lowest accuracy floor that encourages the player to run all 8 elemental setups even with Dodge gear - 20% acc-floor and lower allows for 3 or less elemental setups required to cover for Ally-and-beyond elements, which is IMO too much an advantage over other playstyles.
  • I am taking the premise of OP's Dodgelash solution further by modifying it to include all monster_accuracy/player_MRM modifiers, which theoretically should be possible by:
    quote:

    [Effect] / MAX( MIN(Dodge_Ceiling, (1-Chance_to_Hit)) , 0.15), where

  • Dodge_Ceiling is ideally equal to 0.75, given an accuracy floor of 25% per above bullet point, and
  • Chance_to_Hit is basically the probability of the attacker landing a hit, using terminology from Kaelin's (outdated but still useful) Master List of Formula thread, in decimal form - so (1 - Chance_to_Hit) naturally represents dodge-rate in decimal.
  • 0.15 is there to deter players from using Dodgelash items when their actual dodge-rate is less than the 15% assumed by the standard turn model.

    • * * * SECTION BREAK * * *


    Here is the table of values for
    quote:

    [Effect] / MAX( MIN(Dodge_Ceiling, (1-Chance_to_Hit)) , 0.15)

    Or specifically, the MAX( MIN(Dodge_Ceiling, (1-Chance_to_Hit)) , 0.15) denominator. As a refresher, currently (4th Jan 2025), Dodgelash effects simply have this value at 0.15, because the standard turn model assumes a 0.15 base dodge rate. The formula I propose shall:
  • Scale Dodgelash effects according to the actual dodge rate, instead of the assumed 0.15 base rate. (I'm using the decimal form in this section, not the percentage form)
  • Cap the denominator at the ceiling of dodge rate, to prevent unnecessary weakening of Dodgelash effects that could happen when players over-stack their dodge rate modifiers (eg. Blind, Dazzle, Berserk, Defense Boosts, etc. etc.) with the existence of the accuracy floor. (Again, it is my stance that ideally the accuracy floor should be 0.25, not the current 0.05.)
  • On the other end, still limit the denominator at a minimum of 0.15, following the base dodge rate assumed by standard turn model, in case the actual dodge rate is lower than 0.15. This should prevent, or at least curb, players turning Dodgelash into a gambler's mechanic, fishing for Dodgelash effects against monsters with absurdly accurate attacks (think 0.95 to 0.99 hit rate) against them.

    Back to some sample numbers, tabulated, assuming accuracy floor at 0.25: 
    Player_dodge_rate,uncapped	Adjusted denominator value
	0				0.15
	0.05				0.15
	0.1				0.15
	0.15				0.15
	0.2				0.2
	0.35				0.35
	0.5				0.5
	0.65				0.65
	0.7				0.7
	0.75				0.75
	0.8				0.75
	0.9				0.75
	1				0.75

    * * * SECTION BREAK * * *


    IMO Dodging is a playstyle distinct from Panic or Eleshield or other such mechanics/effects/playstyles in that it is intended to focus around the complete nullification, instead of mitigation, of the monster output. (If Panic and Eleshield or other such playstyles can effectively achieve nullification instead of mitigation, then IMO they deserve a separate GBI discussion.) Thus, I disagree that said nullification should be achievable throughout any given battle, particularly with a very minor part of the player's gear loadout. In other words, I believe it should not be possible for 2 Bun-Bannerets, Hairmuffs, Ghost Costume and Imanok Edoc to effectively carry a player through any fight without taking any damage. It stifles design space for devs (why and how to design and release equipment with other effects, when the above turns players immortal and undefeatable?) and players (if you now have like 25 item slots for utility, why would you want to switch to any other playstyle that offers you far less?) alike. It also devalues in-game experience (there's no tension if you know you can simply win the boss fight with the above) for many (even if not all) players.

    That said, I believe Dodge should still retain its distinct identity - nullification. Just not permanent, uncounterable nullification. Currently the 5% accuracy floor exists to serve as a counter- or balancing-mechanic, and @Chaotic's OP has argued about its effectiveness, which I agree with. Raising the accuracy floor seems to me to be one of the easiest way to retain Dodge's nullification identity, whilst serving as an effective counter-mechanic. By "retain", I mean that players who invest properly into Dodging will still achieve the result of much-higher-than-normal (~5x higher) rates of nullification. By "effective counter", I mean that even with optimal Dodge investment, players will still need to adhere to some the standard turn model's assumptions, namely equip the proper elementally-resistant armour and shield, in order to (statistically) survive fights.

    In the same vein, if I want Dodge to retain its distinct identity, then I cannot agree with proposals that adjusts the monster's BtH or BtH lean throughout the battle. It can be an effective counter/balance, sure - but it also reduces/removes Dodge's distinctiveness. Monster BtH lean adaptations will effectively turn Dodge into Panic-by-turn-4, where monster's missed attacks lower the output of the attacks that actually hit. I briefly considered the variation that is Monster BtH adaptation, i.e. increase/decrease the accuracy based on hits/misses, without reducing damage output. But while this variation will encourage players to carry proper elemental resistances, it also limits Dodge's distinct identity to the first few turns of the battle, facing the same drawbacks as monster BtH lean adaptation. @Branl has also pointed out that proponents of these solutions have yet to put forth a convincing set of numbers to serve as a ballpark and/or proof of concept.

    I think @Sapphire's ideas of monster-based, case-by-case counter-mechanics to Dodgelash has some merit - at Boss-level challenge fights. Otherwise, I think it may entail working through a lot of individual monster or item files, and only situationally resolve the problems. Also, I think Dodge(lash) deserves to be a playstyle with a full equipment loadout should players pursue it - that is, all 8 slots across all, if not multiple, item types, dedicated to Dodge(lash) - as long as some level of adherence to the standard model still applies. Case-by-case monster-based counter-mechanics beyond Boss-level fights (a.k.a. in regular or quest-specific mob encounters) would diminish the experience of such a pursuit, IMO - as it forces the player to swap to a non-Dodge loadout far more often, for eg. if the quest entails (a higher proportion of) monsters that specifically (hard-)counter Dodge, compared to a single Boss-level fight at the end of a quest. All in all, great ideas for Boss designs, not so much for overall game balance.

    I disagree with @Chaotic calling his solution to on-Dodge effects' scaling a "gentle" approach. I think it is simply incomplete, for reasons @Lupul Lunatic and @Branl outlined in post #10 and #12 respectively. Therefore, I put forth a variation that accounts for all modifiers to monster's accuracy and player's MRM, by taking the final BtH/MRM values of the attacker and the defender. Since these values are readily displayed (at least the defender's - the attacker's value has a d100 roll added onto it) in the Battle Log, I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to call them as components to calculate the scaling of on-Dodge effects.



    • Sapphire -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/4/2025 14:56:10)

    quote:

    So to clarify, your position is that monsters specifically with DEX should get some kind of BTH lean adjustment? If my reading is correct, then I fundamentally disagree with your approach as (i) it doesn't attempt to solve the goals I set out in my OP (the fix needs to be sufficiently broad to consider most monsters, not just a subset), (ii) you've provided neither mathematical nor mechanical justification for why the accuracy floor should be 10%, and (iii) it would introduce mechanics that fundamentally damage the Dodgelash playstyle itself (monster accuracy adaptation).
    Going to skip "whether lash should be autohit" because it's not relevant to my goals of my OP.
    I respectfully disagree that allowing the monster to gain a +70 BTH lean in approx. 3-4 turns, fundamentally restricting the ability of the player to dodge at +70 MRM to ~15%, is a "Gentle" approach.


    Posting to clarify my point since this isn't accurate.

    I was simply providing an example of a monster design. This wasn't meant to be a universal approach to all monsters. I was simply saying that a monster or monsters could be made such that first round is an auto-hit, and then their normal attack begins and this monster starts off with a +20 BTH lean. This would make it so the first two turns versus this monster would be impossible to dodge turn 1, and vastly more difficult turn 2. And if this monster also had Dex and was attacking for ranged damage, if it had ranged adaptation, it would gain accuracy the following hit everytime it missed. (Although more on that in a minute) Again, I was simply providing an example of a monster design that could make using dodge a problem. I don't understand where you're getting +70 BTH lean in 3-4 turns from. But I do think for monsters, adaptive lean should be based on whether or not they trained DEX and not whether or not they attacked with ranged damage. This would reduce a lot of the work in monster redesigns and they can keep much of them as 'hybrids'. This wouldn't alter just a few monsters, it would alter quite a bit. Also, the adaptive lean may need to ramp up and down differently than players.

    That's what I'm saying.



    Dardiel -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/4/2025 15:10:23)

    I'd like to support the idea of having the dodgelash effect truly be divided by the odds of dodging, I think it's miles better than dividing by assumed odds (0.15) and just generally covers more edge cases than dividing purely with certain accuracy modifiers in mind. Having bounds on the accuracy to stay within reasonable numbers is also likely just good practice.

    On the topic of the accuracy floor, I think the concept does exist as a form of balancing tool that could be tweaked but I have different logic behind what is even being balanced by it. Some premises that I find relevant to the discussion would be:
    - A player has 140% melee to spend on each of their turns.
    - A monster deals 140% melee damage on average on each of its turns.
    - If a player spends 140% melee to heal, they typically receive 140x0.85x0.9 = 107.1% melee in health
    - If a player spends 140% melee on an eleshield, they typically reduce damage by 140/1.1 = 127.3% melee
    - If a player spends 140% melee on a defboost, they typically reduce expected incoming damage by 140x0.6 = 84% melee

    As a side note I think those premises do a fair job highlighting that different forms of "take less damage" have different standards (heal is treated as damage with autohit penalty and x0.9 for being always useful, eleshield does properly lack an autohit penalty since the shield does nothing to a missed attack but also uses a /1.1 always useful penalty which is a slightly smaller penalty than the x0.9 version of the exact same penalty, and dodge gets x0.6 for being omni-elemental despite omni-eleshields not getting that penalty and healing also not getting that penalty despite health working to mitigate damage of any element)

    The conclusion of the premises is that in a balanced scenario a player can spend their entire turn on defboosting to get an end result of "you do no damage, you lose 56% melee HP, if this keeps up then you die in 50 turns without dealing any damage" which seems pretty far off from the image of "look how overwhelming it is to dodge".

    To my knowledge the only issue with surviving a long time, as with most issues, would be assumption abuse; in this case abusing permanent effects to get 5x output from surviving 5x as long. Raising the accuracy floor would make dodge unreliable at all stages of a battle, while also not touching any other form of defense that's able to do the exact same thing and can probably do it even better than a dodge build could.

    My own proposal would then be one intended to reign in the strategy of "apply a permanent status then play full defense": Every turn starting turn 10, the monster gains a permanent buff to damage and accuracy.
    - Buff amount can reflect Mastercraft bonus, at 5/[Monster Power Level] % melee (eg 2.5 for weak enemies, 5 for normal, up to 20 for the really big bosses). I'll just call the buff MMC (Monster Mastercraft) in the next line for simplicity
    - The damage buff is MMC*[hits/attempts], while the accuracy buff is MMC minus the damage buff. If the monster was immobilized, it instead gains a permanent 5/1.4% chance to break out of any immobilizing effect.
    This would be a mechanic that reins in the abuse of permanent effects alongside defboost, blind, dazzle, heals, barriers, mana shields, chi shields, eleshields, choke, panic, freeze, daze, fear, control, and any other defensive effect I'm forgetting. It wouldn't solve the issue of "the player gets too much free value every turn and that makes any strategy they could choose into an unbalanced dominating strategy", but that's a problem pretty far outside of the scope of "how do we stop players from getting 180% melee value in specifically defboost if they're being given 180% melee value each turn"



    Sapphire -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/4/2025 15:53:42)

    You know, we could instead of raising the accuracy floor to some value, we could have it be the reverse of ranged adaptation. We could have it start at 10% and for every hit you dodge, the floor goes up by 2% and caps at 20% or up by 3% and caps at 25%. A landed hit changes the floor the other way by 2 or 3%

    This way, players can't sit and dodge for 50 turns, but they can utilize dodge still at the outset.


    Also, if that /.15 is altered based on total hit rate (when all accuracy issues add up via defloss, blind, thecold,defboost, etc) then dodgelash effects cost also needs to change or it's not balanced on that front, either.

    For example, Xalkos Ward has a toggle that pays 20% Melee SP to triple the dodge-bleed to 66.66% melee. This formula assumes 85% accuracy. If defboost/blind, etc etc reduces 85% assumed accuracy down to 42.5%, or 50% of the assumption, then I shouldn't be paying 20% melee on that toggle anymore, but 10% instead. This isn't me agreeing to the idea as much as I am pointing out that any lean system needs to account for the cost.





    CH4OT1C! -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/4/2025 16:51:27)

    @Sapphire: Ah, I see, so your intention was even more specific than I had interpreted. In any case, my objections do not change. You haven't (i) solved the problems raised in my OP or provided a mechanics-based counterargument, (ii) provided no explanation for why the accuracy floor should be 10%, and (iii) propose introducing mechanics with a high risk of fundamentally damaging the Dodgelash playstyle.

    Regarding your confusion:
    quote:

    I don't understand where you're getting +70 BTH lean in 3-4 turns from.

    The player that originally the idea of BTH lean adaptation, @Grace Xisthrith, currently states:
    quote:

    In case it wasn't clear, proposal is to not do anything complicated, and give all monsters the base behavior of using DEX style BTH lean ramping. Numbers / change in BTH lean per hit would likely have to be adjusted very slightly

    The wording of the post before it was edited was slightly different, but the core message remains. In any case, in the absence of numbers from them, I directly applied the current DEX ramping formula, which is:
    quote:

    -85*[Total]^2 / ([Total]^2 + 32*[Total])
    Where [Total] = [Hits] - 2 * [Misses] throughout the battle

    This produces the following table of BTH leans: 
    Total	BTH lean
---------------- 
   -2	   +5.67
   -3	   +8.79
   -4	  +12.14
   -5	  +15.74
   -6	  +19.62
   -7	  +23.80
   -8	  +28.33
   -9	  +33.26
  -10	  +38.64
  -11	  +44.52
  -12	  +51.00
  -13	  +58.16
  -14	  +66.11
  -15	  +75.00
  -16	  +85.00

    Assuming the monster had a two-hit attack, both of which missed for 4 turns, it is possible with this formula for the monster to reach a BTH lean of +85. I have also corroborated these numbers in-game. I understand that @Grace Xisthrith is currently in the process of modifying the mechanism for monsters, and I await to see how that changes the outcome.

    Also: No, the cost of Dodgelash mechanics wouldn't need to change if dynamic accuracy were implemented because the /0.15 is a compensatory modifier and item balance is internal. Items costs wouldn't be compensated because the number went down due to a blind.

    While I'm clearing up misunderstandings, @Aura Knight claimed that Dodging isn't the problem simply because it "extended fights":
    quote:

    Dodging itself just extends fights. It's not the problem here. You're mixing things up. It is the damage from little setup that causes imbalance...

    Below is another table demonstrating just how much Dodge builds can theoretically extend the battle for (total turns), as well as how much extra %Melee they are able to deal over that period of time (cumulative output): 
     Monster          Incoming     Marginal      Cumulative	 	                Total 	Cumulative	Marginal      Cumulative 
Accuracy	    Damage	Utility		   Cost		Effective HP	Turns	    Output        Output        Increase
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   
     100	    164.71	     NA	     	     NA	                2958	   17	      2380	      NA	      NA
      95	    156.47	     NA	             NA		     3113.68	17.89	   2505.26	      NA	      NA
      90	    148.24	     NA	             NA		     3286.67	18.89	   2644.44	      NA	      NA
      85	    140.00	     NA	             NA		        3480	   20	      2800	      NA	      NA
      80	    131.76	   8.24		      7		      3697.5	21.25	      2975	     175	     175
      75	    123.53	   8.24		     14		        3944	22.67	   3173.33	  198.33	  373.33
      70	    115.29	   8.24		     21		     4225.71	24.29	      3400	  226.67	     600
      65	    107.06	   8.24		     28		     4550.77	26.15	   3661.54	  261.54	  861.54
      60	     98.82	   8.24		     35		        4930	28.33	   3966.67	  305.13	 1166.67
      55	     90.59	   8.24		     42		     5378.18	30.91	   4327.27	  360.61	 1527.27
      50	     82.35	   8.24		     49		        5916	   34	      4760	  432.73	    1960
      45	     74.12	   8.24		     56		     6573.33	37.78	   5288.89	  528.89	 2488.89
      40	     65.88	   8.24		     63		        7395	 42.5	      5950	  661.11	    3150
      35	     57.65	   8.24		     70		     8451.43	48.57	      6800	     850	    4000
      30	     49.41	   8.24		     77		        9860	56.67	   7933.33	 1133.33	 5133.33
      25	     41.18	   8.24		     84		       11832	   68	      9520	 1586.67	    6720
      20	     32.94	   8.24		     91		       14790	   85	     11900	    2380	    9100
      15	     24.71	   8.24		     98		       19720   113.33	  15866.67	 3966.67	13066.67
      10	     16.47	   8.24		    105		       29580	  170	     23800	 7933.33	   21000
       5	      8.24	   8.24		    112		       59160	  340	     47600	   23800	   44800

    (NB: the units for the above table are all in %Melee except for "Total Turns" (which is in turns), "Effective HP" (which is in HP), and "Accuracy" (which is in %)).

    In my personal opinion, the player shouldn't be able to boost their average lifespan in battle to 340 turns, which is what they're capable of doing at the current accuracy floor of 5%. This would theoretically allow them to output a total of 47,600% melee, a lot more than the 2800 they're assumed to be capable of in 20 turns. My proposed 25% accuracy floor reduces that to 68 turns, which is still a lot, but far more manageable. It's quite apt (and fortunate) that it cuts off the exponential growth before things become rather ridiculous. I'll note that this also provides a strong case for the multiplicative stacking of blind effects rather than additive, though I also stress that this would likely take a large amount of work to implement.

    This brings me onto @Dardiel's comment:
    quote:

    - A player has 140% melee to spend on each of their turns.
    - A monster deals 140% melee damage on average on each of its turns.
    - If a player spends 140% melee to heal, they typically receive 140x0.85x0.9 = 107.1% melee in health
    - If a player spends 140% melee on an eleshield, they typically reduce damage by 140/1.1 = 127.3% melee
    - If a player spends 140% melee on a defboost, they typically reduce expected incoming damage by 140x0.6 = 84% melee

    I agree that in a balanced scenario this is true. If nothing else, it absolutely highlights the very inconsistent ways these methods are penalised (this inconsistency has actually been raised before by @Lv1000). I do have some comments to make though:
  • We're not in a balanced scenario. Players can mobilise a lot more than 140% Melee a turn (a skill alone deals 200% before things like elecomp), they have interactions which further exacerbate these deviances, and extremely efficient ways to regenerate resources.
  • Even if we ignore that, I think we should ask ourselves whether it's even an appropriate assumption to make. Should the player even be allowed to enter into a scenario where they're assumed to last 340 turns? My proposed accuracy floor still assumes the player can survive ~68 turns, it's not exactly a small window of opportunity.
  • You've raised a number of parallel cases here. Some might choose to claim this justifies leaving Dodge as it is. My inclination would be the opposite. Why do these other mechanics also enable the player to last >100 turns? Perhaps these other mechanics also warrant GBI posts in their own right.
  • I understand that there's a variety of underlying mechanisms that exacerbate the issue of Dodging, but how long is it going to take to fix even just the ones you mention to an effective degree (Shields, Healing, Resource Efficiency). Is it even practically possible? What about the interim?
    I think I need a bit more information on the answers to those questions before I could reasonably evaluate your own solution. I will however point out that if your solution only kicks in after turn 10, then I struggle to see how it would fulfil my goal of making elemental resistance matter on Dodgelash armours.

    ...and finally @Telcontar Arvedui I. I think it's worth saying that I intentionally omitted those other effects. It wasn't incomplete, it was me intentionally overlooking certain mechanisms used by Dodgelashers to exploit Dodge mechanics. I didn't want to explicitly advocate for using dynamic accuracy simply because it would be a bigger nerf for Dodgelashers. With that said, I can't really argue with your proposed Dodgelash modifier as it is mathematically accurate. I'm also rather fond of the defensive measures you've taken to prevent the compensatory modifier going below 0.15 or above the accuracy floor.



    • dizzle -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/4/2025 19:52:49)

    An argument against a play style on the grounds of straying from the games base assumptions does not hold water with me. There are dozens and dozens (and more dozens) of different item combinations that pulls the player away from the games base assumptions. Assumptions are just that, assumptions. They are not concrete set outlines. The argument that the player can deal more %melee in a battle because they can extend fights is a non argument to me and detracts from the real serious issue that’s been brought up here.

    I think in general there really shouldn’t be anything wrong with the player turtling by causing the mob to miss reliably. In the OP, the user stated that for 461sp/turn the player can reduce the mobs hit rate down to ~11%. This is a massive cost. Over 30% of the players SP bar, when the player is only getting ~7% of their SP bar back every turn. Paying a very steep cost to turtle imo should be allowed. The argument is that 461sp per turn is insignificant because of EO. This statement is astride a red herring, the problem lies with EO, not the mechanic itself. Once updated it’ll cost the player 400-500+ HP per turn to maintain EO fuel for this stack. This is a significant cost. Mages being able to split the cost between MP and SP is just a benefit of investing in INT. Also, the example stack used in the OP included the Bun companions, meaning the player must also be invested in CHA. You need multiple items and particular stat investments in to create this stack, on top of the significant cost upkeep required to maintain the ~11% hit rate. I do not see this as a problem, giving players unique items to create interesting reliable turtle methods is a good thing from my perspective.

    The issue with me personally lies with the “lash” part of it. Admittedly, we are walking a fine line by being able to dodge so easily thanks to the plethora of methods and items combinations, even if it does get expensive. Being able to take no damage *and* deal massive damage at the same time has been questionable since day one. Being able to turtle I support 100%, being able to turtle and wipe mobs out in 2-3 turns via your turtle method is where you start to lose me lmao. I think a solid approach to this would include a combination of ideas presented so far in the thread. I think the “lash” part could potentially be modified in real time based on your actual dodge rate, not the assumed dodge rate (I am biased and not consistent with my opinions on dodge lash and LS, get at me) Jokes aside, I think giving the mobs some kinda of lean that gradually increases their bth so that it becomes less reliable to dodge unless you put more resources into upping your stack is a good idea. I’m not sure if this should be applied to all monsters though because then that takes away from (potential) future mobs having auto hit attacks/skills. I think applying it to all mobs with DEX honestly wouldn’t be a bad start since the majority of mobs do in fact have DEX investment, so it’s not like it would be applied to just a small subset of monsters.

    TLDR: turtling via dodge is fine, dodgelash should get a second look and turned down a couple notches, and mobs should get some kinda of gradual +bth bonus the more they miss, similar to ranged adaptation. I’ll stay away from specific numbers on this ranged adaptation idea and let the devs sort that mess out [:'(] just wanted to toss my thoughts out there on the subject



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