Change accuracy boost from DEX to be multiplicative

[papilio]

Because it's ridiculously weak as it's additive now.

To compensate, I think it's good to raise up lategame enemies' EV.

[PleasingFungus]

If this had a meaningful impact, it seems like it'd strongly discourage people from picking str at level-ups.

[papilio]

Damage boost from STR is multiplicative.
Why not for accuracy boost from DEX?

[Siegurt]

Really i think it might be nice if everything in the game (on both sides) was a lot less accurate, so that accuracy could have a meaningful impact, a significant portion of the time.

Presently, you are looking at 80-90% accuracy, that means on average, doubling your accuracy (which takes a ton of skill and or dex or int if we are talking about spells) adds 5-10% to your net damage, creating a space where more accuracy is significant means you can increase average damage without changing your max damage per attack, which lets you have more control over power levels.

It also means that you can actually use "more accurate" and "less accurate" to distinguish between different attacks, Presently that role is taken up entirely by speed, but there are whole classes of attacks (spells, evocations) which have a set speed, making accuracy more significant generally would make attacks at the same speed distinct.

It gives design space for monsters that isn't there presently, too (although i suppose it is presently faked for monsters with things like cantrips)

Of course rebalancing everything around a new, less accurate, paradigm would be a crap ton of work, i don't have lots of expectations that anyone would be super excited for it.

There is of course a downside, if everything is half as accurate, then in a vacuum, combat takes twice the time, it also is more complicated to explain, presently, accuracy is such a minor component that it really doesn't matter that it isn't very clear how it impacts your average damage, making it more significant would change that, making, for example, the question of "which weapon is better" even less easily communicated.

[PleasingFungus]

high miss rates are also really, really unfun. proof: Battle for Wesnoth

[duvessa]

saying something should be multiplicative without specifying what it should multiply is pretty meaningless

anyway you don't need an accuracy mechanic in a game where hitting for 0 damage is already common, especially when you have another mechanic (attack delay) to make things hit more or less often

[papilio]

"what it should multiply" is too trivial to specify.
To-hit value after applying fighting+wpn skill and before applying slaying/enchant value/armour, shield penalty/etc.

and DEX doesn't affect attack delay

[PleasingFungus]

here's the thing: i agree with the premise that dex's effect on weapon accuracy is pretty irrelevant. but i think that dex is in a good place vs the other stats right now - i don't think dex needs to be stronger - and, as discussed, i'd really rather not punish non-dex chars with high miss rates. so my takeaway is "remove dex's effect on weapon accuracy entirely" - which would simplify things nicely, and make it easier to balance other effects on weapon accuracy as appropriate.

[papilio]

but i think that dex is in a good place vs the other stats right now - i don't think dex needs to be stronger

I don't agree here, DEX's main boost is increasing EV but because of armour penalty,
STR actually do better than DEX on enhancing EV for armours with some ER.
(and by softening armour penalty, STR helps spell success rate very much as well)
I never go DEX for lvup stats, except when I play stabbers or DrFi/NaFi, etc. (quite rare case)

i'd really rather not punish non-dex chars with high miss rates.

I agree here. There is no fun in miss-miss-miss in attacks.

Then how do you think about changing the formula of armour penalty to be affected by both STR and DEX?

Current a.b.a.p is
0.4 x ER^2 x (1 - (Armour LV)/45) / (STR+3)

My suggestion:
0.4 x ER^2 x (1 - (Armour LV)/45) / (STAT+3)
where STAT is an weighted average of STR, DEX defined as STR * (ER/25) + DEX * ((25-ER)/25).

[duvessa]

"what it should multiply" is too trivial to specify.
To-hit value after applying fighting+wpn skill and before applying slaying/enchant value/armour, shield penalty/etc.

so it should have less effect early in the game, where accuracy is most important, and more effect later on, when characters always have more than enough accuracy already?