RE: Dodge + Dodgelash

RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (Full Version)

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Dreiko Shadrack -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/4/2025 20:57:14)
I'm personally more partial to raising the accuracy floor than any other potential solution to dodge as it's the simplest while keeping the playstyle largely the same, the lash component I'm not decided on quite yet. EDIT: Wording. Snipping some parts because I deleted a post ~Ward

ruleandrew -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/4/2025 23:10:54)
If expected monster hit rate to character is 40 % then monster attempted hit to character have 0 % to auto hit. If expected monster hit rate to character is 39 % then monster attempted hit to character have 0.75 % to auto hit. If expected monster hit rate to character is 0 % then monster attempted hit to character have 30 % to auto hit. Monster auto hit cannot be block at all by the character. The point for monster having a chance to auto hit the character is to encourage character to focus on elemental resistance defence.

Aura Knight -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/4/2025 23:29:46)
Why not introduce elevuln to players who dodge? Dodge can still keep us safe but if we get hit it'll be worse. As fights progress enemy accuracy and power increases. This forces dodge to be a short term benefit and makes reliance on elemental coverage no longer optional.

Grace Xisthrith -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/5/2025 2:24:07)
I'd like to argue that using expected turns survived is a very poor measurement for how powerful something is for three main reasons. I bring this up because it's seems to be being used as evidence for dodge becoming more powerful the higher your dodge rate is, and I'd like to push back on that idea. The first point is the most important. *edited minor grammar issues 1: Turns survived makes a slightly stronger setup seem exponentially stronger. I'm going to use healing to demonstrate my point here, as I think it's simpler to understand than dodging, but functions identically. Monster damage is complex, so lets just say for this argument they do on average 350 damage a turn. If a player is healing on average 300 HP per turn from their defensive / sustain setup, you can say that they're sustaining 300 out of 350 damage the monster takes each turn, so the monster is only truly dealing 50 damage. So, the player would survive 7 times as long as expected, because 50 damage is 1/7th of 350. With that being said, if you were instead healing 325 HP per turn, I suspect most players wouldn't view that as significantly stronger than healing 300 HP per turn, but that would double the expected survival times to 14 times as long as expected, which you could write as the scary number of 280 turns survived, which is 140 turns more than 300 HP per turn, which sounds crazy. 25 HP isn't worth a lot, and I think it's easy to conceptualize how little 25 HP actually is, which helps show that expected turns survived really isn't very accurate to how strong a mechanic or setup is. In short, I think it would be nearly impossible for anyone to convincingly argue that healing 325 HP is twice as powerful as healing 300 HP, but if you use the expected turns survived as a marker, 325 HP is twice as powerful as 300 HP. Therefore, it's a poor way to measure a mechanic's power or value. *If you'd like to think about this in dodge terms, the healing 300 per turn would be equivalent to ~86% dodge chance (reducing damage to 1/7th), and the healing 325 per turn would be equivalent to ~93% dodge chance (reducing damage to 1/14) 2: Turns survived according to the player turn model aren't really accurate to in game realities. This is true of many things outlined by the model, but for turns survived, it's using monster damage from the model, player damage intake assumptions from the model, and player HP pools from the model, all of which aren't represented well by the model. In short, these three things that are generally not well tracked by the 20 turn model compound, and so a prediction using them is generally less accurate to what actually happens in game. This does not mean it is a useless measure, as many measures from the turn model which don't represent what actually happens in game can be useful, but my opinion is this is a weakness. 3: Turns survived greater than 20 to 30 is somewhat meaningless, practically. In my opinion, it's an extremely rare circumstance where a player is not able to kill a monster within 20 to 30 turns, even if they are turtling, or playing very defensively. In short, surviving a model predicting a ridiculously high turn survival doesn't really mean much, because the monster's going to die anyways way way earlier, in a vast majority of situations.

CH4OT1C! -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/5/2025 6:08:36)
@Grace Xisthrith: I won't devote much space to a response here as it's (at best) tangential to the goals of this thread. With that said: Given the way that you describe the hypothetical in your post, yes, the difference between 300 and 325 HP really doesn't sound all that bad. However, that doesn't change what's actually happening. In one scenario, you're taking 50 damage per turn. in the other, you're only taking 25. That will objectively double your average lifespan, even if it's only 25 HP in absolute terms. I agree that the player turn model isn't perfect, but one thing the expected turn count does that other metrics don't is capture this exponential increase in player lifespan. That exponential increase would be a feature of the model regardless of whether the expected turn count at a given accuracy was 10, 100, or even 1000. I also agree that it's only in extremely rare circumstances where it takes more than 30 turns for the player to kill a monster. So why are we currently allowing a 5% accuracy floor when, assuming 2 hits per turn, the monster will average just 3 hits over that window (2300.05)? Even for suboptimal elemental resistances, that isn't a lot (as demonstrated in my OP). Rather fittingly, the 25% accuracy floor I propose calculates to be approximately 68 turns, close to the 20-30 turn threshold per battle beyond which you described to be "somewhat meaningless". @Ruleandrew: I've had a look at your linear equation and to really get a sense of what you envisaged, I need to know how you intended to apply this autohit. If it completely bypasses the roll like normal autohit, then the total average monster accuracy can be calculated something akin to: quote: [Autohit%]+([HitChance%](1-[Autohit%]/100)) Which produces an effective accuracy floor that varies from 30-40%. If so, it does close to the same thing as my proposal, but is more complicated. Why would this be a better solution? @Aura Knight:* Because it would be more sensible to have monsters hit more regularly than have a player die instantly as soon as they get hit due to elevun. I request that you provide some numbers to explain how this would work.

Sapphire -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/5/2025 10:51:16)
IMO, Gibby is correct about the effective HP chart Chaotic provided. It's not a great way to look at this as it provides an extreme hypothetical. I wanted to simply mention something that's slightly related to this topic that WARD inserted into Dizzle's post, which is: quote: Your own red herring is showing. The Thesis of the post is to limit Defence Boost so that Elemental Coverage matters. The point is to limit Defence Boost in such manner that the Player is still expected to have full Elemental coverage regardless of whatever stat they train and regardless of whatever item combinations exist. Resource conversion is another issue on its own. You are selectively picking on the Resource Conversion and requiring CHA for Buns. This entire paragraph does not deal with why the Player should be allowed to get past the game with 5 gear slots and a chosen Stat Build. The Thesis goes to the root of the problem, which is Defence Boost as a status. Deal with the topic ~Ward_Point The bolded part above is what I'd like to address. Buns are being repeatedly being used as examples of how easy it is to stack DEfboost. ANd yeah, I'm fully aware this in many ways is another target for CHA. That much is obvious . However, I agree that being able to dodge should be the same regardless of stats trained. I wanted to use this to come back to an idea I've pushed before, since when it comes to this topic, it's related, but also because I believe it will bridge some other gaps/issues (not fully resolve but help immensely) Booster pet/guests should never be solely CHA scaling. In fact, I think every single booster that does not attack (including damage boosters) and simply buffs/heals the player should all scale with mainstat only. (Defboost, status potence, all heals, backlash, etc etc) So Buns should give the same def boost to anyone with a mainstat trained. This approach would give non CHA builds some traditionally CHA-only tools in their arsenals and several other topics and concerns with CHA that have been raised would be lessened. It'd be a consistent approach and I think would be an improvement. I know this is an aside but IMO is related to this topic because everyone keeps bringing up Buns and the underlying foundation in some ways is another CHA complaint, to which in this case I agree. I know this doesn't solve the issue, but I think it's another step that should happen to help tackle this + some other issues. (Like FGM type stuff) You could implement any number of people's ideas here but you'd still leave CHA players with the easiest route to dodge due to Buns, even when changing how defboost stacks. It shouldn't be for CHA players only. I also think that pets/guests that use non CHA stat to scale should receive a minor power penalty, but that's for another debate. Irrelevant. There has not been any statement made about Buns being the problem. Buns were brought up as a DefBoost example, but the thesis of the topic is that a Player should not be allowed to get away with sitting in a Non-Elementally appropriate armour. DefBoost, in its current form (Regardless of its source), allows a Player to gain a period of effective invulnerability. Buns are not and have never been the target of this thread. If this was an ideal world, the Player would have 8 different Dodged-based armours for 8 different Elements, and we would still be having this conversation because it's not reasonable for a Player to be effectively invulnerable for a period of time barring specific circumstances. (Eg: Invincible Star, Wyrd Ward) ~ Ward Edit- BTW, fixing defboost stacking will go a long way, including the fact defboost works on 0 turn. (Maybe blind, but I haven't given it much thought) For example, Bunny guest gives 19.69. Bunny Pet gives 15.75. Together these stack to 35.43 for 1 turn. Instead, these should extend out to 2 turns and average to 19.69+15.75/2=17.72. 17.72 for 2 turns vs 35.43 for 1 turn (discounting 0 turn) That's going to matter. Now, using bard of war... we get both going 2x for an additive stack to 70.87 for 1 turn (Again, ignoring 0 turn) Instead, this should be 15.75+15.75+19.69+19.69/4=the same 17.72 but for 4 turns Fixing defboost stacking like this would be a MASSIVE fix for dodge.

Aura Knight -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/5/2025 12:35:18)
quote: Because it would be more sensible to have monsters hit more regularly than have a player die instantly as soon as they get hit due to elevun. Being hit more often while using dodge makes no sense. My idea keeps dodge relevant but includes punishment when it fails. And this paired with a reduction in counter damage limits the overall effectiveness of the passive style of evasive fighting. While I think these comments are for Monster Adaptation, (Something which I don't necessarily agree with, because as you say, does negate the purpose of Dodge entirely), it should be kept in mind that the idea being floated assumes that you're in an elementally appropriate armour. The hit shouldn't kill you outright, but applying a EleVuln as a penalty is more like paying a HP Cost as opposed to using another resource like SP or MP. The resource matters little, what should be debated is whether Adaptation is a better idea over a 25% Accuracy floor. ~ Ward

ruleandrew -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/6/2025 3:22:15)
quote: @Ruleandrew: I've had a look at your linear equation and to really get a sense of what you envisaged, I need to know how you intended to apply this autohit. If it completely bypasses the roll like normal autohit, then the total average monster accuracy can be calculated something akin to: quote: [Autohit%]+([HitChance%]*(1-[Autohit%]/100)) Which produces an effective accuracy floor that varies from 30-40%. If so, it does close to the same thing as my proposal, but is more complicated. Why would this be a better solution? This (monster) autohit would bypass the roll like normal autohit. Variable accuracy floor is more desirable than fix accuracy floor because character hate getting zero gain for an investment on a thing.

CH4OT1C! -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/6/2025 5:20:36)
@ruleandrew: Depending on the parameters, it's theoretically possible to achieve both the goal of this thread while also avoiding the character receiving 'zero return' on their investment. With that said, the formula you described doesn't have that right combination of parameters: Acc.% Autohit% Tot. Acc.% ---------------------------------- 40 0.0 40.00 38 1.5 38.93 36 3.0 37.92 34 4.5 36.97 32 6.0 36.08 30 7.5 35.25 28 9.0 34.48 26 10.5 33.77 24 12.0 33.12 22 13.5 32.53 20 15.0 32.00 18 16.5 31.53 16 18.0 31.12 14 19.5 30.77 12 21.0 30.48 10 22.5 30.25 8 24.0 30.08 6 25.5 29.97 4 27.0 29.92 2 28.5 29.93 0 30.0 30.00 These are the average hit rates produced using the equation I mentioned by assuming the autohit bypassed the rolls. Between 40 and 20% accuracy you cover 80% of the 40-30 range. Below 20%, you're moving <0.5% real accuracy per 2% raw accuracy loss due to the autohit. It's going to feel like a flat cap beyond that point regardless. The base 30% is enough to achieve my goal, but this formula wouldn't really achieve yours. To be clear, I think this could work, but I think the parameters need to be changed in order to really fulfill the objectives you're going for.

KhalJJ -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/6/2025 8:16:56)
—— Dodge - is it broken/initial general thoughts: Forgive me if I’ve missed anything, there’s been quite a lot to read. I think Grace has very effectively shown, with examples, why “Effective HP” (EHP) as a metric is not very useful. I’d also disagree with Chaotic’s claim that Grace’s response is tangential at best, given you introduce the EHP first in your own post as a supporting argument, as far as I can see? (Although Ward also refers to this concept in his initial post, which would also imply that it is relevant?) If you saw fit to use this as a supporting argument, any effective argument against it seems fairly relevant. Apologies if edits or deleted posts have changed this and I’ve missed them. Further, and in support of Grace’s point, I’m not convinced that there is a GBI-worthy mathematical balance issue (with dodge/defboost) whatsoever. Using an EHP, or turns survived, metric, as has been done here, will *always* show the relationship shown, for any effect which reduces monster damage output; as that reduction tends towards 100%, the EHP tends towards infinity. This is a bit of a mathematical rabbit hole, and again I think Grace has shown why it is not useful. Using a %melee in = %melee out approach (which as far as I can tell is the standard for GBI) appears balanced, in the case of modern defboost items. Further, as to the correct “number of turns” to be able to theoretically survive, this is completely subjective as far as I can see? I personally have no issue with the player hypothetically being able to survive infinitely against an average mob, provided they input a reasonable amount of their %melee into this, and hence they pay a suitable cost as a result to offensive capability, provided this is the case, which I do recognise in some cases does not occur. —— Elemental Coverage/Sustain example: Re: limiting dodge such that elemental coverage matters - all of Chaotic’s calculations, and hence entire (dodge) premise is predicated on consistently sustaining that level of dodge, which even in current (broken resource generation) conditions, is not easy! I would argue that most players would agree that Chaotic’s figure of 461 SP per turn is a huge cost to maintain. None of those calculations include how that cost would be covered, and whilst this is addressed it is simply dismissed as "easily covered", which I disagree with. Chaotic’s example also takes up pet, guest, and misc actions, plus a spell slot, which is not insignificant with respect to player output. There have been a lot of mentions of resource generation throughout and I figured I’d actually try to put real-game numbers to this scenario: Essence orb, per click: 144.59 crit SP heal,(8% chance), 88.98 standard SP heal, 75 HP cost per click, average heal = 93.428 SP per click Start 493 SP turn 1, gen 98 SP per turn HDL ranged wep = 32 per hit, so 4 hits = 128 SP. so at 461 SP cost per turn, you get the first turn “free” and then you’d need to generate an extra 363 SP per turn on top of your natural SP gen (with a spare 32 SP leftover from turn 1), which if it comes entirely from Essence orb works out at ~ 3.88 clicks per turn, which averages at 291 HP per turn. (and it is worse than this initially as the first few turns will necessitate 4 clicks, so 300 HP) ~300 HP per turn is not negligible, and certainly when applied to any of the many-turn scenarios outlined throughout this GBI, renders the point (of massively boosted survivability) moot. (as the player will run out of HP in ~11-12 turns doing this in this case, using all their HP pool to fuel dodge to ironically avoid HP damage… ) Note also, I’m using Essence orb as 1) chaotic's given example and 2) an example of something generally accepted as hugely broken, in the hopes of showing even the most extreme example of SP regen not working in reality for Chaotic’s premise. However NB, these (appropriately) are lv150 EO figures, and the efficiency is much better for lower levels, which is a large resource gen issue in itself that is obviously an exploit that will be addressed) Additionally, I’m aware of other sources of SP generation which are generally thought of as strong, which do not have associated HP costs, such as HDL weapons, and in the interest of fairness/completeness, will run through an example using this also: Including HDL in the mix (with also a 4 hit armor) gives an extra 128 SP (ranged example bc it was first to come up in google) per turn, which leaves 235 SP per turn required. Turn 1, again, is “free”, but looking long term I’ll still need ~2.5… EO clicks on average per turn to make up the deficit, which comes to 150 or 225 each turn, averaging at 187.5 HP per turn. This HP cost lets me sustain this setup for 16.78 turns (2958/187.5 =15.78, + turn 1 being free), whilst occupying my pet, guest, misc, + weapon slots, and restricting my armor slot to any 4-hitter, whilst also only either clicking attack or using a 4-hit+ weapon-based armor skill if it is present. This (subjectively) feels like a reasonable player investment, of cost+restriction, to achieve the dodge output in question. This maintenance cost alone is not sustainable (+ interestingly roughly meets the turn model in scenario 1, assuming you kill the monster in time!), but further, given these maintenance HP costs/expected turns survived in both scenarios, any actual monster damage is going to be significant, especially if it catches you in inappropriate ele-res, even at the current accuracy floor. (and as many folks like to point out, 5% chance events can happen surprisingly often!) Caveated again, all of the “appropriate turn count” stuff seems very subjective to me, but I would argue above scenarios feel appropriate and I think illustrate the point that these setups are not in reality as game-breaking as chaotic’s initial post tries to claim. I think I’ve also made a case that there isn’t really a mathematical issue with dodge (or at least, defboost) as a mechanic, and I’d argue that specific items, their interactions, and resource generation are the cause of any actual issues. —— 75% dodge ceiling I think I’ve outlined why I don’t think there is a need for this, but in addition: The proposed 75% dodge rate maximum (if I’ve understood correctly) would feel terrible, I imagine. It would mean no reliable 100% dodge items such as Wyrd Ward (I presume?). Subjectively, I likely would never use items like this in this circumstance, which is a shame because I feel they have a useful niche currently. (NB obviously Wyrd Ward is not 100% dodge for a whole turn, but against specific monsters (1hit) it effectively is, which I assume was part of the intended concept/trade-off). There would be a potential cost issue here in that presumably any such theoretical (current or future item) would want to pay for 100% dodge/a whole monster turn of %melee. Would such an item just pay for 75% in the case of the ceiling being implemented? I guess that could work. Forgive me, the only singular current item I currently think of for this is Wyrd ward, and even that is just 1 hit and costs nothing, just Once-per-battle limited, so I’m unsure if this actually pays currently appropriate costs for such. I don’t think such a universal limit would be a good idea, as chaotic you yourself stated that “I understand that there's a variety of underlying mechanisms that exacerbate the issue of Dodging” in your response to dardiel, agreed yes there are lots of other possible balance issues in game, and because of this I strongly feel slapping a relatively large, imperfect mechanical restriction onto dodge would ultimately be much more of a hindrance, than helpful in the long run. I do feel however that such a mechanic would make for some interesting individual fights (where a boss imposes a (reactive?) x% max dodge rate or similar) —— Mob design Small note, I would be inclined to agree with some previous notions, that simple variations on autohit mobs being made and dispersed throughout occasional mob pools largely solves this “problem” (elemental coverage would matter much more) and seems a very mechanically easy solution, plus also interesting for players (more mob diversity). —— Dodgelash, brielfy I think the dodgelash section of the initial post holds much more weight. I think the above autohit mob example above would also naturally help to address this a decent amount. I’m personally quite against complete normalisation approaches (/real dodge rate) similar to the previous LS discussions because I’m a huge fan of item synergies and this harshly limits that (eg. Grandads becoming a bloodblade at 100% LS rate feels completely awful) - but maybe this would work actually be ok for dodgelash? I’m unsure, as I haven’t played this build overly. I have trialled it, and even it its current alleged broken state I didn’t much enjoy it, but that’s just my preference. I find it very hard to make a confident judgement on things like this without actual play-testing. However, from previous discussions, there are lots of cases where x used with y means you get more %melee output than you put in, due to synergy, and I do think this can be ok, but I think I understand the desire+possible need to limit this at extremes, and I agree with dizzle that being able to simultaneously turtle + nuke feels OP (although again, I do think monster design could largely address this). —— Other notes: - Small side repsonse to Zerxes’ suggestion of universal mob damage and accuracy ramping post turn 10: this feels like a crazy large change (which I would oppose as too large a universal cost for what it is trying to address, a negligible problem imo), and is also a completely different topic no? Apologies if I misunderstood that. Also sounds like an interesting boss mechanic with some tweaks. - As a related but very subjective aside, I do genuinely feel modern mobs hit reasonably appropriately currently. This has been mentioned before, but if you are lax at all, take risks, or even forget to turn on “ready inventory…” you can easily get nuked. - NB - Small not too important aside, is hairmuffs a modern standard item? The lean does seem quite large.

Aura Knight -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/6/2025 14:29:47)
Ignoring an entire mechanic for the sake of added difficulty isn't right. Dodge must remain useful throughout the strategy. What might be worth looking at is that counter damage gained as a result of successful evasion. Either lower its power, make it miss or idk add a cooldown.

Ward_Point -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/7/2025 4:28:15)
We've been on-topic for the most part. This is good. But I think we'll need to steer the discussion back into Dodge and whether it should be possible for a Player to become practically invulnerable over the battle. 1) I think that arguments based on the equipment that currently exists is very much what-about-ism. In the same way Buns exist (Which isn't a problem in itself), Riftwalker exists (Which allows for +34 MRM to Fire). A Guest version of this (Theoretical, but possible), allows for a Player to reach ~41 MRM, taking the +MRM possible from just a pet & guest to +75 MRM. Even if we took an actual, real example (Riftwalker + Bun Guest), that ends up at around ~+54 MRM, taking the player to 69% Block Rate. This is a fully sustainable block rate that, for all intents and purposes, guarantees the Player a Win vs any Fire Monster. This is very much what-about-ism that shifts the focus away from dodge & practical invulnerability into a debate about gear. In the same way that pundits have strawmanned the named examples posted in the OP by stating how unsustainable 461 SP Per turn is, I could easily steelman the argument by raising Riftwalker (As above). Riftwalker + Bun Bannaret is a very sustainable combination. However, just addressing examples do not deal with the thesis. 2) Furthermore, the gear itself isn't the root of the problem. Items such as Riftwalker, are 'theoretically balanced'. As a Player, I wouldn't want to say 'No' outright to an Elemental Clone of Riftwalker (and by doing so stifle Dev creativity), but there should be some mechanics in place to stop the Player from becoming effectively invulnerable. 3) There is no objection to specific gear like Wyrd Ward or Invincible Star (Both items that, in effect, practically grant a turn of invulnerability). These mechanics, with their Once Per Battle & Cooldown respectively allow for a 'timed shield'. These two pieces of gear are not part of the debate and are not intended to be invalidated. 'Timed Invulnerability' is not the issue here. There is a clear conceptual & mathematical argument as to how dodge allows a player to become practically invulnerable. I think that arguments based on 'Existing Equipment' or 'Theoretical Equipment' detract from this. On one hand, Dodge needs to retain it's 'chance to be invulnerable' nature. At the same time, Players who want to spend resource to reach 'Invulnerable' Status shouldn't be overly disadvantaged. Let's all move away from dealing with the examples and instead move on to dealing with the Thesis.

ruleandrew -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/7/2025 4:50:23)
For every 1 % below 45 % expected monster hit rate to character, monster gain 2/3 % to auto hit the character. This (monster) auto hit would bypass the roll like normal auto hit. Goal Variable accuracy floor is more desirable than fix accuracy floor because character hate getting zero gain for an investment on a thing. Encourage character to focus on elemental resistance defence. This set of parameters should meet the goals.

CH4OT1C! -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/7/2025 7:37:50)
The line between invulnerability and invincibility is a fine one. I want to lay that problem bare for you now. I recognise that I'm straying somewhat from my initial thesis to do this, but I promise that I will bring it back in towards the end of the post. Additionally, given the multiple objections of "expected turns", I'm going to view things solely through the lens of: quote: Using a %melee in = %melee out approach (which as far as I can tell is the standard for GBI) appears balanced, in the case of modern defboost items. Please note that this doesn't mean I agree with my ardent critics, only that I don't want to have the conversation derail into a debate on which metric is "better". I want to stress now: This is a purely hypothetical example. Other item design precedents prevent the specific scenario I'm about to raise from actually happening. I will highlight some of them myself. The point here is to show just how easily the line into invincibility can be crossed. In the absence of all other standards, both the player and monster are assumed to be outputting 140% Melee per turn (140/0.85% damage at 85% accuracy). In this hypothetical scenario, you could effectively turtle forever by sacrificing all of your turn damage, SP, and Pet damage. 140% Melee to cancel out 140% Melee. However, both armours and shields can be designed to focus on either elemental defences or MRM. At Level 150, the player can get up to 5 more MRM than is typically expected. With shields, if you follow the spreadsheet @Ianthe provided during the summer donation event to calculate this, the highest average shield MRM you can get is 16, 3 more than expected. This reduces base accuracy down by 8, to 77%. This alone can make the player situationally invincible. If you were to pay 1400.77/0.85 = 126% Melee, you could zero out monster damage entirely, leaving 14% Melee leftover for damage. Even the most basic design standards, focusing on incoming monster damage make that possible. What does this show? As I'm writing this, I already envisage the various item-based objections given how much I've omitted. I'm not claiming it's this simple in reality. Instead, I want to draw your attention to a few important characteristics of this model: The difference between invulnerability and invincibility is minute: One small deviance in Armour/Shield design standards at the fundamental level was enough to turn invulnerability into invincibility. In fact, even a difference as small as 1% Melee would have been enough. Unless the monster's attacks autohit or have a positive BTH lean, the player wouldn't lose the battle or even take damage. And, as long as they can deal at least 1% Melee in damage back, they could eventually still kill the monster. Regardless of your views on invulnerability, an immutable tenet of AQ gameplay is that the player shouldn't be invincible. In order to enable invulnerability but not invincibility, the staff would have to micromanage every interacting factor to ensure that if the player invested everything, they'd only just become invulnerable. That's a problem because... AQ is extremely complex: Mechanisms don't even fully align at the fundamental level, as demonstrated above. I've ignored all the other mechanisms that would complicate the matter further: Status effects, Save Rolls, Dodge Lean armours, Mastercrafts, the monsters themselves, the list goes on. The staff would have to consider all of those factors* when trying to make the player invulnerable, but not invincible. There's a reason they introduced a minimum 5% accuracy floor! They're a small team, and implementing new MRM mechanics while dealing with that many interacting factors is an impossible task. Besides... This scenario is also elementalised: Spending 140% Melee to cancel out monster damage doesn't mean cancelling damage from every monster, it means cancelling it for one element at a time. Of course, some get around this with an omni-elemental penalty (hooray for complexity!), but as I demonstrate in the OP, reducing accuracy beyond a certain point irrespective of the source(s) means that players can effectively ignore this core facet of AQ Gameplay. It doesn't matter if your armour trades in Elemental Defence for MRM if they never get hit! That's a false penalty! That's part of why I'm advocating for raising the accuracy floor. The current one doesn't do its job properly, and an approach that allows invulnerability would be far too risky when it can all-too-easily become invincibility in such a complex environment and where staff time is limited (suppose we agree that they could do it, how long is that going to take? They haven't fixed nukes and soft damage caps have been around since 2017). I'm proposing raising the floor to just enough where elemental defences matter, the player would still be able to stack 60 MRM over base standards and still benefit. That's 100% Melee worth of MRM boost a turn, most of the player turn's assumed 140% Melee. Is it less reliable? Yes, but dodging shouldn't be entirely reliable. Dodging is about the chance to be invulnerable. That alone implies there should also be a chance that you aren't. Snip ~ Ward @ruleandrew: That increases the actual accuracy range to approx. 33.25-30% between 20 and 0% raw accuracy. My guess is that still won't be enough.

Telcontar Arvedui I -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/7/2025 11:07:46)
To the proponents for dispersing autohit abilities to random monsters, I concede that it can be a long-timeframe, low-intensity project as devs pick and choose the monsters to give autohit abilities to, depending on the encounter pool of the quest being released or updated. And should those abilities be explicitly shown in the monsters' scroll-tip, then yes, it's atleast a good thing that the player is informed. But, here are my 2 follow-up questions: What percentage of the monster encounters (including mooks, not just boss or elite monsters) should be given autohit? And why? How would this autohit work? Does it work on all monster attacks, only some of them? Will there be autohit or other penalties associated? And again, why? The answer to the above questions should flesh out this proposal, and perhaps sway some players into supporting it. Or the opposite. But at least let potential supporters get a clearer idea of what this proposal entails. Ballpark numbers should suffice, of course. * * * * * * * SECTION BREAK * * * * * * * I think @Sapphire has some interesting ideas in posts #23 and #31, so I'd like to present my take on their pros and cons for debate: For post #23, I like the premise - narrative-wise it also makes sense as your opponent starts figuring out a pattern to your evasion, allowing them to land hits, only for you to adjust your dodges by figuring out their counter-patterns. However, given that @Chaotic proved the requirement of a flat 25% accuracy floor for proper elemental resistances to be relevant in a standard-model-assumed 10-turn battle, I think all the numbers presented in post #23 (from the starting floor, to the cap, to the amplitude of swings) will have to be heavily adjusted to ensure that the above criteria remains met. And then there's the (secondary?) criteria of still allowing Dodge-focused players to feel like having a significant chance of evasion or total damage nullification throughout the battle. Unless, this proposal indirectly advocates for Dodges to be employed periodically/cyclically instead of consistently throughout the battle, like how I feel the other "Monster accuracy (lean) ramping" proposals are heading towards. * * * * * * * SECTION BREAK * * * * * * * For post #31, w.r.t. the DefBoost stacking alteration, I'm assuming an example of double Buns, then using Space Gauntlet's Harden Space the next turn would result in 3 turns of +17.72 plus 1 turn of +60, which equals 4 turns of (17.723+601) = +28.29 DefBoost. If instead, you are envisioning 4 turns of +38.86 DefBoost, then I will immediately not entertain this idea, as it runs against the mathematical balance. However, even if my original interpretation is correct, and the example above does end up with 4 turns of +28.29 DefBoost, this solution has some major cons that IMO will make it very unattractive. One, it significantly devalues items that provide smaller DefBoosts compared to items that provide bigger ones, because smaller-DefBoost gear will end up pulling down the per-turn DefBoost bonus due to the averaging. Eg. Imanok Edoc will, under this proposal, lower Space Gauntlet's Harden Space Defboost from +60 MRM to +40, even if it does end up with a 3-turn duration. Unless players cannot afford the bigger-DefBoost items, I can't see them entertain the thought of having smaller-DefBoost gear in their inventory. Or, what's more likely to happen, is that given two DefBoost items that have the same costs, the one with a shorter duration but higher per-turn DefBoost will always eclipse its counterpart. Second, this will shut down DefBoost from having the potential to be the sole mechanic employed by Dodge players, since stacking upwards is not possible. Or, Devs could hypothetically release a non-QC overcharged Edoc-variant that grants +70 DefBoosts for 2 turns, but then we circle back to the first problem of such a hypothetical future release rendering older or lesser DefBoost items effectively obsolete. One could argue that this is actually a good thing, as it promotes diversity in item usage by heavily encouraging Dodge-oriented players to branch into Blinds, Berserks, or any other game mechanics that increase dodge-rate. Personally though, I'd still rather have Blinds and DefBoosts be able to reach the dodge-rate ceiling on their own, to allow build distinction (the possibility of totally different equipment loadouts that cater to the Dodge playstyle) in diversity, instead of just minor differences in equipment loadout. Third, I heavily suspect this proposal will require devs to go through each individual DefBoost item released, in order to check for, and remove, hard-coded programming that overrides the proposed stacking rules. This will entail a much heavier dev workload than simply raising the accuracy floor. To summarize my take, this proposal: [Con] Poses limits to the practical design space of future DefBoost items, [Con] Quite significantly nerfs the potential of DefBoost as a mechanic, although it also [Pro] Encourages Dodge-inclined players to branch into other mechanics, [Con] Entails a comparatively heavier workload on devs. The first con in particular is a dealbreaker for me. If there's a way to not limit the design space, this proposal could have my support - but that might entail changing stacking DefBoosts to the way we currently stack Fear (if the per-turn power goes past a cap, add one turn and adjusts power accordingly) of all things.

Sapphire -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/8/2025 13:31:09)
I'm not beholden to the defboost stack change I proposed. If there was a cap and excess rolled over into more turns, in order to find a middle ground, it'd be a workable solution. Another idea could be to completely rework defboost into a different mechanic altogether. While this isn't a likely possibility, AQ doesn't really have a lot of ideas for playing defense. It's either hit or dodge, or reduce damage. There's no difference between dodge (like using a shield to block an attack) and a monster actually whiffing (missing the attack) They should have made some distinctions. This would mean there'd be a difference between dodging and missing, and dodge lash mechanics could be narrowed down to a specific status. But that's an aside. WHat I am really trying to say here is (defboost) could be a hybrid of blocking, but if the hit landed, you take in less damage. This would split the valuation in half. Half of the value goes towards dodging and half to reducing damage. Since we already have A. Blinds B. Berserks C. Reduction to monster stats etc etc such that combining idea makes dodging even easier, maybe simply altering defboost to not just focus on dodge would be a better solution. So a 1 turn +60 dodge on an item right now would change to 1 turn of +30 blocking and whatever value -x% (30?) reduced damage intake. Then stacking other defboosts could be altered to not be additive on the blocking side but maybe the damage reduction side comes with a 50/50 save to work. Other damage reducers don't have saves on-hit, so this would be different. I just wonder if thinking outside the box could open up new, fun ideas and tbh, something like this makes more sense for "defboost" than simply adding to block rate. Another idea could be to categorize the entire hit rate 85% accuracy game to hit vs miss, and you can only "block" if defboost status is up. And blocklash effects can only exist if defboost is up, and wont work based on "missing". That might require a massive undertaking, but if a monster is blind in reality, you're not going to dodge that attempt at you, the monster is going to miss. I know perhaps animations wouldn't necessarily make sense all the time but again, there should have been a difference between blocking and the monster missing.

KhalJJ -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/8/2025 16:14:59)
Ah I typed up a whole response and it got chewed up by the forum (it was better first time I promise!), so here’s a quick version: tldr; I think this is all a very subjective argument about how long the player should be able to extend a battle. ——— Thanks Ward and Chaotic for clarifications. I would disagree that the equipment based examples were whataboutism, given I was trying to run through the numbers for the situation used to make the OP’s argument (even just for my own interest). That wasn’t my intent, and I do agree that it might be helpful to drop that as we could spend all day working through different hypothetical setups. With that said, I’m a little confused how Wyrd Ward wouldn’t be affected by this, how could that work? If gear like this (100% dodge under conditions) would still be possible, I’d be much more accepting of the proposal, but I’m unsure how this would work and it feels quite convoluted. However, I do think the statement Ward made (on discord I think?) summed up the disagreement - do we think the player should be able to extend the battle indefinitely (in this case via dodge?) - and like I said in my first post, I think this is fine (against an average mob). @Chaotic specifically, I actually agree with much of what you’ve written in your response. We just fall on different sides of the above question, and I ultimately stand by what i said in my first post, that due to this being an imperfect and relatively significant mechanical change, I don’t see the benefits outweighing the perceived costs long term. But I would argue against the false penalty point, given the current 5% floor. Eg, 16 fight quest, 5 turns per fight, you’ll get hit 4 times on average. Even if statistically this is not a meaningful risk, with modern monsters hitting hard and a 5% floor, you will be punished hard for being hit in inappropriate eleres gear (obviously more so by single hit mobs) such that you will take a big HP hit, or even possibly die mid quest. Again, low chance, but I weight this highly due to the annoyance of dying mid-quest. However, given the complexity you mention and the fact that other gear could be used to completely circumvent this risk, this is probably a bit of an endless discussion too, so happy to drop it. ——— @telcontar - I think this may be needless given my above view of it all being subjective, but I’ll address your q’s: (sorry, I think I gave good answers the first time I posted and I’m not sure this is quite as clear) On the frequency of mobs with autohit: I don’t think this should be perfectly mathematically distributed throughout every quest in the game. I wouldn’t want to assign a frequency to this - but I think it would be appropriate if some quests/areas had a higher density of these types of mobs, ideally fitting thematically. On the autohit: I’d like this to be highly varied. Some mobs could have an SP-cost autohit “nuke” where penalty is paid via SP cost, others could have a penalised autohit for every attack. Some could even get “enraged” and autohit with ++damage upon a miss or upon a defboost/blind effect. Idk, I’m spitballing. Point is I do not think there should be an overly standardised approach on this Ultimately, I think if you go too far down the “everything is perfectly balanced” path you get a very flat, grey, game. (I think a good illustrative example of this would be the hypothetical grandad’s=bloodblade at 100% HC). I don’t think every situation should be mathematically equal for every build and every playstyle, which is what I think blanket universal changes like the proposal push towards, but I do acknowledge that much of this is very subjective, so just giving my 2 cents. EDIT - just typos

Aura Knight -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/8/2025 16:20:32)
I like the idea regarding dodge vs miss for effect benefit. Misses should not work with this.

ruleandrew -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/9/2025 5:21:07)
One proposal to fix the dodge issue. If raw monster hit rate to character is greater or equal to 20 % and less than 45 % then monster auto hit rate to character is (0.45 - r) * 0.9, where r is raw monster hit rate to character. If raw monster hit rate to character is greater or equal to 0 % and less than 20 % then monster auto hit rate to character is 0.225 + (0.2 - r) * 0.375, where r is raw monster hit rate to character.

Branl -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/10/2025 2:26:26)
I'd like to reopen discussion around @Telcontar Arvedui I's idea of utilizing dynamic accuracy rather than just defense boost. I realize Chaotic wishes to not take a sledgehammer to the problem, but concerns around merely shifting the issue with dodgelash rather than fixing it kind of prevents me from totally overlooking it. Under those circumstances, I'd rather not adjust dodgelash' formula at all rather than only account for def boost. From there, maybe you can introduce some sort of decay to stacking things like blind/def boost/etc. Regardless, Waiting until status GBI to fully fix the issue runs the risk of making what will already be a highly controversial GBI even more controversial as more and more problems get pushed until the umbrella of other GBIs. This is a similar objection I had to an LS proposal of scaling cost of LS damage weapons with rate (The problem gets pushed under resource GBI, which will only make that GBI much harder to produce productive conversations with players having a bunch of disperate worries about GBI changes introducing massive sweeping nerfs. Doing it piecemeal is honestly preferable to me, especially if it helps streamline future GBIs with less issues tied to them. If we do this, however, I'd like for players attempting to propose solutions to try to account for dodgelash. As it stands, it's not really "meta" for dodge, since reaching the floor is simple regardless of lean. Raising the accuracy floor makes it easier, but if dodgelean's MRM boosts being exempt from dodgelash calculations would help incentivize using them for dodge. I'd be interested in knowing HOW dodge lean is coded in game and whether it can be detatched from dodgelash calculations or not. If not, regardless, I'd like for more discussion to take place regarding incentivization of dodgelean.

Dardiel -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/10/2025 6:09:33)
I think a potential solution to the dodge debate could be handled as such: - Goal: Solidify dodge as a short-duration "burst" of defense, contrasting eleshield which typically functions as the sustained defense. - Reasoning: Defboost effects atack power, while eleshield effects stack duration; the effects have a lot of overlap otherwise, be would stand out more if their small differences were doubled down on. - Proposal: Monster accuracy floor starts at 0%. At the end of each monster turn, the floor is updated to = Average(Floor, MonsterMiss%-PlayerMRM+PlayerAssumedMRM) rounded down to the nearest 5% and capped at 85%, where MonsterMiss% is the percentage of monster attacks that missed that turn (no action = 0% misses). With this system in place, dodgelash effects can either be left largely untouched or can scale partially with the floor; eg changing from /0.15 to /(0.15+min[floor,0.35]) to make dodgelash less powerful as it's relied on harder but not extending into the realm of being both weak and unreliable when monster accuracy passes 35%. The inclusion of the player MRM in the calculation is so that dodge lean effects can keep full effectiveness, especially in contrast to the modern equipment trend of spending MRM for better resists and bonus effects (those low-blocking sets would functionally have a floor that trends around 5-10% higher, encouraging dodge gear to be used). I picture the end result to be that defboost/dodge is a form of opportunistic playstyle that uses timing windows to maximize its defensive capabilities, while synergizing with dodgelash effects to make the most of those windows. Meanwhile to contrast, eleshields would cement their spot as the consistent form of defense that's easier to maintain for long periods in exchange for the reduced "outplay potential". Both would care about resists, but feel extremely different to boost gameplay diversity.

ruleandrew -> RE: Dodge + Dodgelash (1/10/2025 7:30:52)
One proposal to fix the dodge issue. Goal Variable accuracy floor is more desirable than fix accuracy floor because character hate getting zero gain for an investment on a thing. Encourage character to focus on elemental resistance defence. This proposal should meet the goals. Proposal If raw monster hit rate to character is greater or equal to 30 % and less than 45 % then monster auto hit rate to character is (0.45 - r) * 0.9, where r is raw monster hit rate to character. If raw monster hit rate to character is greater or equal to 15 % and less than 30 % then monster auto hit rate to character is 0.1350 + (0.3 - r) * 0.63, where r is raw monster hit rate to character. If raw monster hit rate to character is greater or equal to 0 % and less than 15 % then monster auto hit rate to character is 0.2295 + (0.15 - r) * 0.47, where r is raw monster hit rate to character. This (monster) auto hit would bypass the roll like normal auto hit. Piecewise function was used to limit potential bugs to fix the dodge issue. The table below shows the total accuracy rate if this proposal is used to fix the dodge issue. Raw accuracy \| Auto hit rate \| Total accuracy \| Rate of change 0.45 0.0000 0.4500 0.44 0.0090 0.4450 0.0050 0.43 0.0180 0.4403 0.0048 0.42 0.0270 0.4357 0.0046 0.41 0.0360 0.4312 0.0044 0.40 0.0450 0.4270 0.0042 0.39 0.0540 0.4229 0.0041 0.38 0.0630 0.4191 0.0039 0.37 0.0720 0.4154 0.0037 0.36 0.0810 0.4118 0.0035 0.35 0.0900 0.4085 0.0033 0.34 0.0990 0.4053 0.0032 0.33 0.1080 0.4024 0.0030 0.32 0.1170 0.3996 0.0028 0.31 0.1260 0.3969 0.0026 0.30 0.1350 0.3945 0.0024 0.29 0.1413 0.3903 0.0042 0.28 0.1476 0.3863 0.0041 0.27 0.1539 0.3823 0.0039 0.26 0.1602 0.3785 0.0038 0.25 0.1665 0.3749 0.0037 0.24 0.1728 0.3713 0.0035 0.23 0.1791 0.3679 0.0034 0.22 0.1854 0.3646 0.0033 0.21 0.1917 0.3614 0.0032 0.20 0.1980 0.3584 0.0030 0.19 0.2043 0.3555 0.0029 0.18 0.2106 0.3527 0.0028 0.17 0.2169 0.3500 0.0027 0.16 0.2232 0.3475 0.0025 0.15 0.2295 0.3451 0.0024 0.14 0.2342 0.3414 0.0037 0.13 0.2389 0.3378 0.0036 0.12 0.2436 0.3344 0.0035 0.11 0.2483 0.3310 0.0034 0.10 0.2530 0.3277 0.0033 0.09 0.2577 0.3245 0.0032 0.08 0.2624 0.3214 0.0031 0.07 0.2671 0.3184 0.0030 0.06 0.2718 0.3155 0.0029 0.05 0.2765 0.3127 0.0028 0.04 0.2812 0.3100 0.0027 0.03 0.2859 0.3073 0.0026 0.02 0.2906 0.3048 0.0025 0.01 0.2953 0.3023 0.0024 0.00 0.3000 0.3000 0.0023

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