AoD combat stats and discussion thread

[Shadenuat]

The block / aim thing is a bit weird - from my experience, there are times you block damage and shrug off the aim special, but there are also times when you get hit for like 1-2 damage and still get the penalty

I often crit enemies for 1 damage and then apply -30 to their dodge by aim: legs for 3 turns and stuff like that, so I think it's an issue. Not sure when and how it stacks but it sure does if enemies do that to you; and when you meet 1 single enemy aim: legs barrage is an ideal debuff opening making them super easy to hit and kill.

I think that a 5 dmg crit should lower accuracy or defence for 5 points; or x2 of damage; or character should suffer the highest penalty he gets without injuries "stacking". tl;dr Injury system could get a bit more polish.

Throwing nets etc used to be tied to Throwing skill, which made them much less useful for all other characters since it's heavy investment to equip them and throw them and miss. The current solution is better for everybody, though not for throwing as a skill.

Well Throwing could just give an extra bonus to these items maybe. That would please everyone I think.

As for bows I'm okay with big crossbows and x bows doing lots of damage but I feel like even smallest hand crossbows & weak bows got quite a buff since old demo.

And yeah I invested quite into Block later I just think heavy crafted armor should be viable without it too, at least in the beginning of the game.

Makes me wonder how do 2-hand builds fair really.

Next update:

- Fixed issue with "half-blocks" still getting secondary effects, like arm injury.

What about Crit Strike skill affecting Crit Defence? Is it just flavor text?

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Aim Injury should be nerfed. AI abuses arm crits and it stacks without penalties when opponents hit you which basically gets your chances to hit anything except fast attacks too low. In 1 turn you can get to -30 and then up to -60, and that's with wearing heavy armor and stuff with crit protection. Each penatly after first one should get lower and lower.

It makes little sence when you block almost all if not all damage from crit yet you still get stacking penalties to accuracy from aimed: arms (1 point of damage turns into -15 to accuracy for 3 turns debuff, lel; add multiple enemies and after 1st round of combat everything but Fast attacks gets obsolete again). The penalty should depend on how bad the wound you actually got is.
Maybe add a pain resistance potion to Alchemy at least that would lessen the effects from crits and injuries.

Yeah but wouldn't that made daggers suck? It's kinda the main draw with them.

Also I dislike how every little girl or old man apparently has 40 hp at least and like 8+ Dex and 5+ points in combat skills. Even if some enemy with lethal weapon like heavy crossbow can be very dangerous he should at least go down in less hits than melee guys, so it would make sense to change your target priority depending on enemy setup.

Agree, not every filthy beggar and peasant should have PC's total number of attribute points, it feels silly. There should be a clear difference between soldiers/adventurers/raiders and some commoners who just might not stand out in any way.

 

[Mozg]

3AP baby daggers already only get -5 aim on Aim:Arm (and 10 on crit). It's actually two-hander types doing Aim:Arm for -20 hit/-40 crit that really nullify you.

 

[Shadenuat]

You know what skills should have had synergy?

Social skills.

Aside from putting a few 5-cents into synergetic weapons to raise your THC, it is a wasted opportunity there since most people focus on a single weapon, which is a good idea since enemies defences are quite high through the game until a certain mid-game or mid-to-late point.

I understand why they don't have 'em. If social skills had Fallout-like math and ratings between 1 and 100, it would be a nightmare to assign checks in text quests. So, instead developers went easier way but what happened was more metagaming challenge was placed on the players themselves. Imagine if instead rows of checks like Streetwise > Stws + Cha / Impersonate or Lore/Crafting/Lockpick many of these skills would have synergy with each other. So, a char with 10 points of Lockpicking would also count as one with 2-4 extra points in Crafting and vise versa, while maybe not having the new recipes (although those could also depend on some sort of rating), and if he also had 10 INT instead of 8 that would be 11 Lockpicking and ~6 Crafting.
A character with 10 Persuasion would occasionaly pass low 2-4 Impersonate & Etiquette checks.
Ecetera ecetera.

I think that kind of system would have been a lot more elegant and less gamey. Actually, maybe it could even turn out to be an easier system for developers themselves to use since, instead of working with rows and combinations of checks and creating replacements in other skills for characters that don't have some other skill, developers would know that a character with one skill probably could have invested in the other synergetic skill and plan appropriatly.
But oh well.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Is there more to Hardiness than just having a chance to dent opponent's armor? Don't completely understand the mechanic.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

If social skills had Fallout-like math and ratings between 1 and 100, it would be a nightmare to assign checks in text quests. So, instead developers went easier way but what happened was more metagaming challenge was placed on the players themselves.

Originally the skills in AoD had a 0-300 range, then 0-100 and finally 0-10. They streamlined the system to give the game more mass market appeal.