Idea: demote Accuracy

[clintbellanger]

Discussion point.

Attack rolls are used in old games (e.g. D&D) to simulate action. But in an Action game, the avatar's movement and the player's skill can be used instead. If the attack looks like it hits, it should hit.

I'm considering demoting Accuracy as a stat that the player needs to care about. By default the player and enemies would instead have 100% accuracy.

Avoidance would still be a relevant stat for the hero. It would start at 0%, and increase from there. Enemies would probably always have 0% defense.

Much of that can be done in the data, and just a couple small tweaks in the combat formula.

The bigger issue is that the Offense attribute wouldn't have a primary bonus stat anymore. I'm considering putting something crit related there (crit chance or crit damage %).

[makrohn]

I assume Accuracy would be kept in the engine - some games, like a zombie/survival game, would probably need it.

For FLARE-the-game, though, I think it makes a lot of sense to ditch it. Crits are more fun, and it's always frustrating to swing-and-miss if you're almost dead.

[clintbellanger]

Side thought about Offense + Accuracy:

One of the first thing that many Flare modders will want to do is change the main attributes. It's one of the first thing that comes to mind when dreaming up a new RPG -- probably because it's the first choice made when creating characters for pen & paper RPGs.

We don't really have an easy way of making those core attributes really flexible (short of adding an entire scripting language so we can define formulas without compiling). So we have to alter our focus a bit:

• Make the core attributes sensible and useful
• Make the core attributes slightly configurable (e.g. "HP per point of Physical", or "rename Physical to Strength")
• Isolate attribute code if possible, so that modders can rework features easily

@makrohn Yes, Accuracy would still be a stat under-the-hood, and could be a visible stat if desired.

[makrohn]

https://github.com/clintbellanger/flare/blob/master/mods/fantasycore/engine/stats.txt#L7 is a little bit of #2.... but you couldn't say AND mp_per_physical=1, if you think the engine needs that kind of flexibility. I assume that renaming Physical to Strength could be set here as well - Maybe even coming up with a way to do

basestats (includes HP, MP, Accuracy, Avoidance, Crit, Absorb, Speed, Base dmg variables)

mp_base=10 mp_per_level=2 mp_regen_base=10 mp_regen_per_level=1

customizable stats

[stat] id=3 name=Intelligence base=3 per_rank=mp,3 // Replaces mp_per_mental per_rank=avoidance,1 // Or whatever per_rank=ment,2 // Replaces bonus_per_mental max_rank=18 // Replaces max_points_per_stat

[stat] id=4 name=Dexterity base=3 per_rank=avoidance,3 per_rank=accuracy,3 max_rank=18

I don't know how tough that'd all be to code, though.

[clintbellanger]

The stats (e.g. "hp", "avoidance") are part of core game formulas and need to exist. But the attributes ("physical", "magical") are higher level and more abstract. We probably could have arbitrary attributes and per_rank values as you say. I'll keep an open mind on that.

For now, I think sticking to the four core attributes and fixed related stats are fine. I think as we see what other people try to do with the engine, we'll get a feel for the best way to refactor.

[makrohn]

Well, then, there could be stats.txt and attributes.txt. You can see where I did draw that distinction as well - I just called them "base stats" and "customizable stats", but calling them stats vs attributes would help differentiate.

We could always just add physical_name=Physical, etc, etc, to the stats.txt, and call upon those in the menus?

I know the tooltip text is another place where there's some stuff hardcoded that should probably be configurable/flexible - for instance, if you set Accuracy to 100 and Offense grants 0 bonus per rank, the tooltip will still say "Each point of Offense will grant 0 Accuracy per rank."

[igorko]

I don't imagine using bow without accuracy. Most games have such "skill" for ranged bolt weapon. If you shot from bow, not only strength has matter, but also "bow using skill" (hit precision). you just CAN'T hit the same points each time using bow. And this should depend on avatar skill, not on enemy avoidance / defence.

[clintbellanger]

It seems Accuracy is fine for now. Subject to change down the road, especially if we can add more interesting combat elements.