Dexterity - Make it do something

Iocun

Yeah, aeon is pretty OP. Sometimes I just go "screw that, if they want to lame me by throwing aeon, I'll lame back", so I smoke some elm from a pipe. I always feel bad about it, but hey, they started it.

Traxtin

well what do most people who build a character around dexterity THINK it should do?
Let's start with looking at the dictionary!
dexterity [dɛkˈstɛrɪtɪ]

n

1. physical, esp manual, skill or nimbleness

2. mental skill or adroitness: cleverness

[from Latin dexteritās aptness, readiness, prosperity; see dexter¹]

Certainly seems like it should have something to do with balance times and with avoiding damage to me.

So that is my thoughts on the matter! As for how they would go about making this change possible without breaking the system?

Here is some of my ideas:

Have dexterity be "capped" at certain points dependent on armor. Sort of like in D&D where the heavier armors can only receive a bonus from a max of 10 dexterity and anything beyond that is useless to them, but leather armor or no armor can get bonuses up to 18 or even higher dexterity.

Have dexterity give bonuses to things like avoidance. For example trans avoidance gives... 1/7th damage reduction. The lowest possible base dex when specialized is 10 so if they have 10 dex they have 1/7th but if they have higher dex it could reduce further than 1/7th. Again this works with the cap suggested above and prevents plate mail users from suddenly having ridiculous resistances. The idea being that since you are more dexterous and have better control over your body when you are hit the chances of it being to a less vital part is far higher than someone who is less nimble or who is burdened by heavy armor.

Nimble nimble nimble. Speed kills! It is a tried and true fact of reality and games alike. Dexterity should alter balance times. People don't like this idea but it is simply fact. Let's see if I can think of a valid comparison... ah! Bruce Lee VS Bodybuilders! Bruce Lee is far more dexterous and he attacks far faster than the body builders who have simply amassed strength! Yet in Achaea these same "bodybuilders" who amass strength with little care for dexterity will attack and move at the same pace as the "Bruce Lees" of the world who have focused on honing dexterity.

Jacen

At first glance, I like your ideas, but upon further thinking, it'd be way too hard to balance, and would require a complete overhaul of everything. Let's take blademasters for example.

Strength really doesn't affect blademasters unless its at very high (spec'd and artied for it) levels. Intelligence has almost zero effect on blademasters, and constitution is only good for hunting. So the majority of blademasters would spec for DEX, given your scenario. Mir blademasters would be virtually unkillable except by instakills and truelocks. 

Now, if DEX altered balance times, a level 3 banded blademaster would be pommeling at around .6 seconds or so. Parry/Guarding would hardly hinder the blademaster at all, not even considering voidfist. Its just extremely difficult to balance all classes around such a wide range of speeds. 

Sena

Making dexterity give faster balance, damage reduction, and dodging would make it too useful. It would become by far the most important stat for most classes, and the armour restrictions would just mean people with high dexterity would wear worse/no armour (and not really lose anything for it because they still get damage reduction in addition to improved offence).

Asmodron

Iocun said:

Yeah, aeon is pretty OP. Sometimes I just go "screw that, if they want to lame me by throwing aeon, I'll lame back", so I smoke some elm from a pipe. I always feel bad about it, but hey, they started it.

Aeon with groups is so painful, you get slapped with it and your entire system can go haywire from the mass of attacks shooting through.

Sena said:

Making dexterity give faster balance, damage reduction, and dodging would make it too useful. It would become by far the most important stat for most classes, and the armour restrictions would just mean people with high dexterity would wear worse/no armour (and not really lose anything for it because they still get damage reduction in addition to improved offence).

I  like this idea somewhat, a serpent choosing dexterity over beefiness should be give the advantage of quicker attacks vs squishiness. However, concerning the dodging mechanic, I honestly wouldnt mind if it  was just removed as a whole. Honestly, it seems it only has a bit of a chance with monks, other than that you really cannot depend upon it. Avoidance can still work for mobs and decreasing damage from attacks of course, but I think if the whole Dodging mechanic was removed, we could replace it  with much needed buffs in the Dexterity department.

Aerek

Balance time is too important of a game mechanic to tie to a stat, though. Faster is always better in Achaea. Your damage over time increases, you can easily run/shield while hunting/fighting, and you can abuse salve/herb balances even harder than we do, now. You don't want knights, blademasters, and monks prepping and breaking limbs even faster than they do now, Apostates Evileye'ing at old Raja speeds or faster, or Serpents with Thoth's Fangs being even more ridiculous, etc.

Dexterity may be a stat that most people ignore, now, but if you tie balance to it, it will become the only stat that any balance-using class cares about.

Traxtin

Remove dodging? How about no! At the moment dodging is fairl useless so I could understand how you might think it should just be removed and other buffs given to dex. However Dex being tied to dodging is a mechanic that has existed since before IRE and i see no reason why this should be changed. If anything they need to simply make a dodging strat viable again. Achaea id the only game ive played where dodging is viable early and useless later... Usually it is the opposite.

Someone mentioned BMs would get ridiculous balance times? Here is another idea not based on dexterity... Hardcap balance times based on weapons! A sword should never be faster than a fist anyways.

Sena

Dodging is very far from useless. It's extremely effective, to the point of being frustratingly over-effective in some cases. It's just that your actual dexterity stat counts for relatively little compared to all the other dodging bonuses.

Traxtin said:

A sword should never be faster than a fist anyways.

This is also incorrect. Swinging or thrusting a sword could easily be faster than punching, especially since it takes far less force to cause damage with the sword compared to a bare fist.

Traxtin

Im sorry i practice kenjutsu... I can tell you for fact that fists are faster.
The only swords potentially on par with fist speed is rapiers but those are pure thrusting weapons and should be absurdly easy to dodge because of their highly predictable attack route but they arent!

Aerek

That's nice, dear, but you're still talking about ripping out the guts of the game and re-writing them to add some little perk to Dexterity. It would have to coincide with a complete re-write of the Weaponry code to make sure knights didn't end up completely ridiculous, and every single balance-using class would have to re-balanced to operate on the sliding scale of "higher DEX = higher speed" to make sure they somehow are feasible at low DEX without being utterly overpowered at high DEX.

Even if you somehow accomplish this, it'd still be broken, because everyone would just start stacking DEX, just like everyone takes Nimble, and every Knight uses rapiers, because speed is king in Achaea. Dexterity isn't perfect, but it's not worth overhauling the entire game over, and tying balance times to it will break it no matter how you do it.

Xith

I specialised as a mhun scout, and even went with the Agile and Light stepper for my other major traits (after nimble). I was reasonably dodgy to mid-low level people with swords and stuff who would miss once in a while. With acrobatics up, it was noticeably frustrating for them.

Then I finished transing Avoidance. And I was nearly unhitable without hindering if I had acrobatics up. My only complaint would be that dex does become useless once hindered. If that were modified, people might see its use.

But as I've heard Dex does not suffer from diminishing return and is linear all the way, and I grabbed Boots of Dexterity in the 30% off sale (+2 Dex), I'm sitting cozy at 12/18/12/13 for my stats, and with acrobatics up, the physical classes (monk/knight/bm) are easier to handle.

My complaint though is with Sylvans and Metamorphs. I'm not sure their attacks are stopped enough by dex. Might be worth investigating. Fairly sure Sylvans hit me too often, maybe it's vinewreathe.

EDIT: It also has its downfall in groups, because once someone in the room hinders you, the rest can wail on you no problem, and then you have all those points of investment down the drain. Need to fix that.

Sidonia

Thornrend doesn't miss.

Darklyre

Here's a suggestion: give dex a chance at avoiding projectile/hindering attacks, like staffcast, web tats, lunge, firelash, etc.

Asmodron

Xith said:

I specialised as a mhun scout, and even went with the Agile and Light stepper for my other major traits (after nimble). I was reasonably dodgy to mid-low level people with swords and stuff who would miss once in a while. With acrobatics up, it was noticeably frustrating for them.

Then I finished transing Avoidance. And I was nearly unhitable without hindering if I had acrobatics up. My only complaint would be that dex does become useless once hindered. If that were modified, people might see its use.

Those must have been some pretty low precision swords O.o.

From my understanding of the subject, even with all your dex and avoidance, at high tier combat (which is the generally  accepted rule of universal combat balance) your opponent should -never- miss you with the right swords in hand. I  also took the dexterity stats and even used Weaving with subterfuge and was hit every time . The  only time I notice Dodging having an effect is with monks it seems.

Iocun

I think quite a few people here are missing certain key issues.

1. The main question here is not whether dex currently is useful or not. It is whether its current function (no matter how effective it is at it) is a game mechanic that makes combat more enjoyable/balanced.

2. Appealing to tradition is pointless. If the current mechanic of dexterity isn't good for the game, it must go, no matter how "traditional" it is.

3. Arguing "what kind of effects would fit the idea of dexterity" and asking for those to be implemented isn't sufficient. If a mechanic is detrimental to the general state of combat in Achaea, it should not be implemented, even if it "sounds like it would make sense".

4. Excessive randomness in defence doesn't tend to be very enjoyable. (Also see: shrugging, lifevision, passive curing, etc.). Randomness in offence has its place, but in defence it often just ends up being very frustrating if it's not kept within certain narrow constraints. Randomness also tends to make things much harder to balance.

5. Defence is already very powerful in Achaea, which leads to tedious fights. Dexterity giving more bonuses to defence should only happen if those bonuses are very carefully considered and only affect an area of combat where there exists an established lack of defensive options.

Traxtin

Iocun said:

I think quite a few people here are missing certain key issues.

1. The main question here is not whether dex currently is useful or not. It is whether its current function (no matter how effective it is at it) is a game mechanic that makes combat more enjoyable/balanced.

2. Appealing to tradition is pointless. If the current mechanic of dexterity isn't good for the game, it must go, no matter how "traditional" it is.

3. Arguing "what kind of effects would fit the idea of dexterity" and asking for those to be implemented isn't sufficient. If a mechanic is detrimental to the general state of combat in Achaea, it should not be implemented, even if it "sounds like it would make sense".

4. Excessive randomness in defence doesn't tend to be very enjoyable. (Also see: shrugging, lifevision, passive curing, etc.). Randomness in offence has its place, but in defence it often just ends up being very frustrating if it's not kept within certain narrow constraints. Randomness also tends to make things much harder to balance.

5. Defence is already very powerful in Achaea, which leads to tedious fights. Dexterity giving more bonuses to defence should only happen if those bonuses are very carefully considered and only affect an area of combat where there exists an established lack of defensive options.

1. Yes dodging is a mechanic that is actually quite enjoyable when it happens. Is it balanced for endgame? no...

4. you say randomness in offence has it's place? what randomness? in endgame you have high speed rapiers that never miss... doesn't seem random at all. I've seen people wielding 2 soulpiercers come swinging(the audacity! it's a thrusting weapon! maybe make it not able to use slashing skills? XD XD) at me when I had 21 dex, evasion block, trans avoidance, raja dodging, dodging skill from traits... and they never missed.

5. defense is very powerful? yes... for a very strict group of people following a certain style of play. I'm sorry that you don't like/appreciate the fact that some people prefer to not be cookie-cutter combatants and want to do something that they like.

Tvistor

Defense can be extremely strong. Tirac vs Kalvon (I think) was apparently well over an hour. Moreover, being defensive is often the only choice if you want to avoid death in many situations.

Sylvance

Traxtin said:

Iocun said:

I think quite a few people here are missing certain key issues.

1. The main question here is not whether dex currently is useful or not. It is whether its current function (no matter how effective it is at it) is a game mechanic that makes combat more enjoyable/balanced.

2. Appealing to tradition is pointless. If the current mechanic of dexterity isn't good for the game, it must go, no matter how "traditional" it is.

3. Arguing "what kind of effects would fit the idea of dexterity" and asking for those to be implemented isn't sufficient. If a mechanic is detrimental to the general state of combat in Achaea, it should not be implemented, even if it "sounds like it would make sense".

4. Excessive randomness in defence doesn't tend to be very enjoyable. (Also see: shrugging, lifevision, passive curing, etc.). Randomness in offence has its place, but in defence it often just ends up being very frustrating if it's not kept within certain narrow constraints. Randomness also tends to make things much harder to balance.

5. Defence is already very powerful in Achaea, which leads to tedious fights. Dexterity giving more bonuses to defence should only happen if those bonuses are very carefully considered and only affect an area of combat where there exists an established lack of defensive options.

1. Yes dodging is a mechanic that is actually quite enjoyable when it happens. Is it balanced for endgame? no...

4. you say randomness in offence has it's place? what randomness? in endgame you have high speed rapiers that never miss... doesn't seem random at all. I've seen people wielding 2 soulpiercers come swinging(the audacity! it's a thrusting weapon! maybe make it not able to use slashing skills? XD XD) at me when I had 21 dex, evasion block, trans avoidance, raja dodging, dodging skill from traits... and they never missed.

5. defense is very powerful? yes... for a very strict group of people following a certain style of play. I'm sorry that you don't like/appreciate the fact that some people prefer to not be cookie-cutter combatants and want to do something that they like.

You can't sneak a troll post past me, buddy.

Antonius

Traxtin said:

you say randomness in offence has it's place? what randomness? in endgame you have high speed rapiers that never miss... doesn't seem random at all. I've seen people wielding 2 soulpiercers come swinging(the audacity! it's a thrusting weapon! maybe make it not able to use slashing skills? XD XD) at me when I had 21 dex, evasion block, trans avoidance, raja dodging, dodging skill from traits... and they never missed.

Neither of the two rapier attack lines when using doubleslash mention slashing: "Lightning-quick, you jab <target> with <weapon>." and "You viciously jab <weapon> into <target>."

Rapiers themselves can be used with the SLASH command, and that will occasionally result in the "You slash into <target> with <weapon>." line, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

In regards to Soulpiercers in particular, they're very expensive and have the most to-hit of any artefact weapon (except shortswords) usable by Knights. Knights, at Transcendent Chivalry and Weaponry, have reasonably good accuracy on doubleslash, but only when using weapons with good to-hit. If you skimp on that then you're going to miss; I've fought against and tested things with plenty of knights with to-hit in the 150-160 range that have missed attacks because of it.

Expecting to dodge a Knight using Soulpiercers is frankly unreasonable and incredibly silly.

Trey

Would be willing to drop 20 points from their to-hit for 11 speed so he has a better dodge chance

Asmodron

Trey said:

Would be willing to drop 20 points from their to-hit for 11 speed so he has a better dodge chance

I see what you did der.
:-w

Trey

Asmodron said:

Trey said:

Would be willing to drop 20 points from their to-hit for 11 speed so he has a better dodge chance

I see what you did der.
:-w

Are you kidding, calling me out? - @Tanris - saw what I did there.

Xith

As it stands, I don't regret my dexterity choice. I give monks and knights hell until they adapt with their accuracy increasing thing in chivalry or whatever that is.

As I said though, a simple hinder (web/prone) removes dodging chance entirely. Perhaps it should be reduced to 95% accuracy for the skill in question, give or take for dex points.

The only other way I see dexterity being improved is to let it give a small chance to avoid direct magic attacks like staff cast, decay, and such.

I would say to just boost its effectiveness, but it's already plenty effective against physical classes like I said, so it would just always give knights and monks a disadvantage throughout combat.

Jonathin

I can't let this thread die without saying: all I see in this thread is "THIS IS HOW IT IS IRL AND THE GAME SHOULD MATCH IT" and "I have no idea what I'm talking about, but I'm still going to post random ideas that would break the game."

Tvistor

Less RNG is best RNG. I already hate how imprecise having to use a kelp stack is, but concede it's required for balance and to make automation harder. Getting rid of dodging altogether wouldn't bother me at all. Weaving + trans avoidance feels like cheating against unartied monks.

Nemutaur

Tvistor said:

Weaving + trans avoidance feels like cheating against unartied monks.

That'd be ok if you don't factor in scales damage reduction too, without arties it's really hard to break through that with damage. Oh and mounted serpents in arena are such a pain.

Jonathin

I miss bard in drunkensailor with old trueparry and harmonics, trans avoidance and SoA.

Good times, good times.