Andor's Trail

While there does seem to be a general resistance to crit based builds because too many of the nasty monsters are immune, I'm not convinced this is the solution. To go for a crit based build already requires a player to invest in two skills, and this would add a third. Think about it like this. Say the current game ends at level 44. That gives you 11 skill points to spend through the entire game. The last one is at the end of the game though, so only 10 have any use. IF1, CS2, and I would argue Re1, are mandatory. That leaves 6 points. If you want a fighting style that's 2 more gone. That leaves only 4 skill points to split between 3 skills. It's not enough, and so it's not going to induce people to go for a crit based build.

Having said that, if such a skill were implemented I prefer Nick's suggestion, just because it's lot simpler.

And having said that, for Voom's suggestion, numbers in AT seem to always be rounded down, in which case the table looks like this: 10% for 1 skill point is to low. Compare it to Hard Hit, which gives 2 damage for every level, for all monsters, every time you hit. I think 20% per skill point, capped at 3 skill points would be better.

rijackson741 wrote:While there does seem to be a general resistance to crit based builds because too many of the nasty monsters are immune, I'm not convinced this is the solution. To go for a crit based build already requires a player to invest in two skills, and this would add a third. Think about it like this. Say the current game ends at level 44. That gives you 11 skill points to spend through the entire game. The last one is at the end of the game though, so only 10 have any use. IF1, CS2, and I would argue Re1, are mandatory. That leaves 6 points. If you want a fighting style that's 2 more gone. That leaves only 4 skill points to split between 3 skills. It's not enough, and so it's not going to induce people to go for a crit based build.

Having said that, if such a skill were implemented I prefer Nick's suggestion, just because it's lot simpler.

And having said that, for Voom's suggestion, numbers in AT seem to always be rounded down, in which case the table looks like this:

Piercing criticals 2.jpg

10% for 1 skill point is to low. Compare it to Hard Hit, which gives 2 damage for every level, for all monsters, every time you hit. I think 20% per skill point, capped at 3 skill points would be better.

Forgive me if I misunderstood, but my idea is exactly just the expansion of Nick's idea. All I have extra is the calculations, which would be needed anyway.

As far as the 20% per skill point (max 3), I think it is an excellent suggestion. If Hard Hit gave you 2 extra damage per skill point per hit, then Piercing Critical would give 4, 4, and 5 extra damage (on average) per skill point per hit. I believe this is fair since there are less creatures that are immune to criticals than not.

Currently, a build based on criticals doesn't have a fair shot at 3 BC and 3 MC let alone any subsequent skill. Lvl 44 assumption is good for this version, not the next one. Internal Bleeding and Fracture are currently out of the picture, however, I'm glad we agree that to some degree a lot of players are discouraged from forming builds primarily based on criticals.

I think Nick was suggesting just a modification of CM, with ECC (which is a derived stat anyway) remaining unchanged.

rijackson741 wrote:I think Nick was suggesting just a modification of CM, with ECC (which is a derived stat anyway) remaining unchanged.

Whether you do 20% of CM (rather CM - 1) or ECC, CD is the same (CD = AD * ECC * (CM - 1)). Wording is the only difference.

(Edit: 20% of ECC makes critical strikes more rare. 20% of CM - 1 makes critical strikes weaker but same chance of hit. In both cases,though, CD is the same.)

On average it's the same, but if you change ECC you get the full damage, but less often, whereas if you change CM you get the same number of critical hits, but less damage each time.

Edit: I think you edited your post while I was typing

rijackson741 wrote:On average it's the same, but if you change ECC you get the full damage, but less often, whereas if you change CM you get the same number of critical hits, but less damage each time.

Edit: I think you edited your post while I was typing

Haha, now that we understand each other, is there any better suggestions for incentivizing critical builds? I believe something needs to be done. This is the best I can think of and I think it is a pretty good idea (credit to Nick).

Change the monsters perhaps? Currently immunity to critical hits is an on-off switch, but it doesn't have to be. Monsters could have a "critical immunity" property, which could be anywhere from 0% to 100%. Animals such as dogs, wolves, anklebiters, etc would have 0%, so the same as they have now. Insects have a hard shell, so maybe they get 20%. Apparitions such as Mist of the Crypt get 100% immunity (what's the critical part of a mist?). A bone champion maybe gets 50% (if you smash it's leg it will have to hop around to attack you, so it shouldn't be completely immune, as it is now). Demons get 50-80%. The immunity modifier could be applied to either ECC or CM. So for a character with criticals, some monsters would be harder than they are now, and some would be easier, but criticals would have some benefit for most of them.

rijackson741 wrote:Change the monsters perhaps? Currently immunity to critical hits is an on-off switch, but it doesn't have to be. Monsters could have a "critical immunity" property, which could be anywhere from 0% to 100%. Animals such as dogs, wolves, anklebiters, etc would have 0%, so the same as they have now. Insects have a hard shell, so maybe they get 20%. Apparitions such as Mist of the Crypt get 100% immunity (what's the critical part of a mist?). A bone champion maybe gets 50% (if you smash it's leg it will have to hop around to attack you, so it shouldn't be completely immune, as it is now). Demons get 50-80%. The immunity modifier could be applied to either ECC or CM. So for a character with criticals, some monsters would be harder than they are now, and some would be easier, but criticals would have some benefit for most of them.

This seems reasonable to me. If we did this we could potentially do away with another skill since, as you said, critical strikes on mist doesn't make sense. This solution would still allow crit builds to be more viable. As far as the mist, perhaps there could be weapons, heart steel for example, that allow crits on these monsters. Or, we could do a mixture with this cit immunity system with another skill.

Well, we could have a Critical Resistance stat added, that would be added to attacker ECC before rolling the dice. CR would be between -1.0 and 1.0, meaning some mobs could be always critted, while others are immune.
The player may even have a way to get his own CR up through a skill.

Zukero wrote:Well, we could have a Critical Resistance stat added, that would be added to attacker ECC before rolling the dice. CR would be between -1.0 and 1.0, meaning some mobs could be always critted, while others are immune.
The player may even have a way to get his own CR up through a skill.

I like it.