"Contested" character stats

DarkTides

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Stats

Most stats are contested, which means you're kind of testing your rating versus other people's ratings. So you kind of figure out what the end result is... but we're not going to go for like hard caps for sure.[6] – Jeffrey Bard

It would be interesting if a players contested stat result between two combatants was visually displayed..such as an attack using strength overpowering a parry that also uses strength.... you could take it a step further and add additional effects, in various categories, to these types of attacks or defensive actions when one players stat is greater than the others.

Swing sword through a parry, and it now stuns, or adds a bleed for example...

Strevi

I think that they actually want to hide that.

SongRune

You might as well just display the other player's stat block and ability level distributions. It'd be easier to read.

A basic attack with bleed proc chance on the weapon would probably cause the following to all flash on screen at the same time (every 0.5-1.5 seconds or so):

- Accuracy vs Evasion
- Attack vs Defense
- Crit Rate vs Incoming Crit Rate Reduction
- Crit Damage vs Crit Damage Protection
- Bleed Proc Rate vs Bleed Proc Reduction blended with Status Proc Reduction

If the opponent is dual wielding you get two of these lists alternating every 0.5-1.5 seconds, with different values.

- Some abilities might give chances of multiple status effects.
- Should it be displayed as base or with buffs?
- On the defender side, if you get hit by two people at once, does it display two "stat comparison lists"?

If you want to just show a color...

- Which of these five (or possibly sometimes more) things would you decide to give priority to?
- Do all status effects share a color, or are we gonna run out of easily distinguishable colors?
- This is going to be visually noisy as hell, or show only a tiny and likely deceptive subset of the actual comparisons going on.

It's typical to instead add visual indicators for:

- Hit
- Miss
- Status Procs
- Sometimes ticking DoTs

Which, along with watching your HP bar, generally gives you a good idea of what's going on. I have a feel for how much damage a Fighter normally does to me. Is this one doing more? I know my own stats didn't change. This tends to work much better, as it allows players to intuitively track the situation rather than trying to give them an unmanageable amount of visual information to try to process mid-battle.

People have an easier time noticing "This enemy tends to hit more often", "I am losing more HP per hit than I'm used to", "This status seems to proc more often", than reading and interpreting flashing (and changing every ability-use) numbers off a screen.

DarkTides

There was a decision to avoid "metas" with respect to races, due to their innate stats.

When playing DND, which is what these MMOs originated from, stats are usually influenced by race. Ogre STR vs Elf STR...how do the elves win? Agility and Precision....speed... Ogre is slow, can take the hits....

Not elaborating enough, this wont happen, so waste of time typing any of this really.

Anyways, this has been done in games like DBZ Tenkaichi 3 on the Wii.

SongRune

How does DBZ Tenkaichi do it? What does this look like in practice?

DarkTides

It takes time to perform an action, so speed decreases that time...game is fast paced in the first place, but it can mean you get the hit in before your opponent....coupled with Strength, you can break blocks faster, or hit through it..depends. Thats 100% action combat though.

For hybrid combat it would change and have RNG along with some dashes/blocks/parry buttons

If you have an Elf fighting a huge beast of an Ogre, do they have equivalent strength? They likely do not.

Stats are not usually compared to one another, to the degree that someones defensive ability is negated entirely. Comparing STR stats of each combatant, if the Elf tried to block the Ogres strike, in this case he would not succeed...it would either penetrate through, or daze the Elf, giving the Ogre a better chance to hit the Elf on the next go.

Here is where speed comes in play...Elf speed vs Ogre speed...who is faster? Likely the Elf. Comparing speed stats, call it Agility, or AGI+speed+DEX...whatever...Elf would be dodging around, evading, trying to not get hit, while poking the ogre here and there...the ogre would be able to take more blows, but would miss more frequently, however when landing a hit, would pack a punch.

You now have an actual tank, that is slow, but there are pros and cons....and you have an agile elf that can square off with an ogre....each class/race combo you fight would be completely different, requiring more knowledge of the game to do well in combat.

SongRune

That sounds similar to the standard system of opposed stat comparisons that's common in video games in general. (Attack (based on STR) opposed by Defense (based on CON), Accuracy (based on DEX) opposed by Evasion (based on AGI), and the like). The indirectly opposed "speed" stat makes sense as well, though I'm less accustomed to that sort of thing being racial.

My question was about the visual indications for these clashes, which you asked for in your original post. How was this displayed beyond the standard "Damage", "Hit/Miss", "This person attacks faster"? What is it (more concretely) that you hope to see in Ashes?

DarkTides

SongRune wrote: »

That sounds similar to the standard system of opposed stat comparisons that's common in video games in general. (Attack (based on STR) opposed by Defense (based on CON), Accuracy (based on DEX) opposed by Evasion (based on AGI), and the like). The indirectly opposed "speed" stat makes sense as well, though I'm less accustomed to that sort of thing being racial.

My question was about the visual indications for these clashes, which you asked for in your original post. How was this displayed beyond the standard "Damage", "Hit/Miss", "This person attacks faster"? What is it (more concretely) that you hope to see in Ashes?

I can't seem to describe well enough what it is I'm trying to convey.

It sounds similar but it is not.

I had typed up a combat sequence to aid in this explanation...but I have a feeling it won't help.

Pretend you are reading a book, or playing DND.... Are you able to imagine a fight between an elf and ogre? What does it look like, and how could you reflect that with coding and responsive animations?

I dont believe stats matter anymore in games, especially when trying to avoid metas. So an Ogre cant really be an Ogre and an Elf cant be an Elf.

Sapiverenus

Just remove random stat increases and instead of meta-gaming there is just gaming; between Elf and Ogre.

DarkTides

Focusing on speed for a moment..

If you are attacked by 1 player, your chance to dodge should be max, decreasing as more foes attack you within a given period....your agility or speed stat(should they choose to add it in)should affect this...this could be visually demonstrated with blurred movements/animations, as your speed stat increases it allows you to perform more actions per second.