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Are You All In?

A place for general discussion about the content and gameplay of Andor's Trail.
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Kashim
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Re: Are You All In?

Post by Kashim »

Just because I like numbers, and wanted to know exactly how unlikely it was that I'd get owned unexpectedly:

At the time I had a maximum health of 85 (all from IF 1-3). The theoretical maximum damage that one Arulir could deal in 1 round was 84, so they couldn't kill me outright (though dang near) if I was at full health.
However, I consistently did not care, at all, if I was damaged down to about 50, because I like to use my bonemeal to maximum efficiency when possible. So how likely was it that they would manage 50 damage in one round?
Well, both hits had to be critical. The maximum critical damage to me at my high DR was 42. The maximum for one normal hit was 4, so they had to have 2 critical hits.
calculating the liklihood of two consecutive strikes both hitting and being critical hits is 0.07%. So we're already past extraordinary item finding territory with 1:1429 odds.
to figure out what percentage of those occasions would actually do more than 50 damage, we need to know how many combinations of critical hits there are, and how many of those hit for over 50. There are 361 combinations, and most of those don't break 50. only 78 of them do, so even with 2 critical hits, only 21.6% of them hit hard enough to take half my health. So that's 0.00015% to hit me for more than 50.
Which just so happens to be almost exactly (within my rounding errors) the liklihood of finding an RoLS with MF:1. Funny how the numbers work out sometimes isn't it?
I have too many characters to list them, so I'll just list my most important:
Template Flux
Lvl: 1 XP:56034
L&E: RoLS: 2 ElyR: 1 RoL: 2 BD: 1
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rijackson741
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Re: Are You All In?

Post by rijackson741 »

I admit I had never thought about trying to get such a high DR. I mostly ignore DR, because unless you do get a lot of it then it's not very useful past mid game.
Level:71, XP:6493739, PV:608, FQ:84
HP:210, AC:212, AD:58-77, AP:4, ECC:16%, CM:1.5, BC:188, DR:3
Gold: 237559 | RoLS:1, RoL:1, GoW:1, VSH:1, RoFLS:1, WoB:1
HH:1, WA:1, CS:2, Cl:1, IF:4, Ev:3, Re:2, WP:DA:1, WP:1S:1, WP:B:1, AP:L:1, FS:DW:2, S:DW:1
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Growler
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Re: Are You All In?

Post by Growler »

Very interesting numbers, Kashim! Yeah, doesn't seem you'd need to sweat getting 2 high crits back-2-back from the Arulirs or Trolls & such.
A couple~few DR points Really helped me in the early game..at least once I started to appreciate it. Several levels earlier could've saved my sweaty hide, however! If DR points scaled more easily (tho Kashim has clearly shown it's possible), then I'd focus more on DR in mid-2-late game.

Randomness, odds, chances..all very strange stuff. Our world seems so ordered in many ways, but then there's good ole unfathomably random QM underlying it all. At least until we dig deeper -- and unearth/leash the Dragon. Hey, isn't that what happened to the folks in the Charwood Mining Town (Maevalia, etc in the Trade House)?? They dug...too deep; they unleashed..the Beast. :O
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Re: Are You All In?

Post by rijackson741 »

Weeelll, do we want to make it easier to get more DR mid to late game? That is an interesting question! I feel that at the moment it's so hard to get enough DR to be useful that I don't even bother trying. On the other hand, Kashim's numbers show that if you can get too much it would overpowered. Maybe we need to tweak it up a little, but not too much? What does everyone think?
Level:71, XP:6493739, PV:608, FQ:84
HP:210, AC:212, AD:58-77, AP:4, ECC:16%, CM:1.5, BC:188, DR:3
Gold: 237559 | RoLS:1, RoL:1, GoW:1, VSH:1, RoFLS:1, WoB:1
HH:1, WA:1, CS:2, Cl:1, IF:4, Ev:3, Re:2, WP:DA:1, WP:1S:1, WP:B:1, AP:L:1, FS:DW:2, S:DW:1
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Kashim
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Re: Are You All In?

Post by Kashim »

DR is an interesting stat: the first 1-5 points are really critical, and help out a TON to reduce incoming damage. After that, it seems a lot less useful, but it has a side-effect that people don't really realize much: it gives you time to use potions. During those fights were you got yourself in a little too deep, DR reduces the maximum damage that you can be dealt, and helps you keep your health high with potions without wasting all of your AP doing it.
I would be really careful adding any more DR, it could get really broken. The thing is this: DR doesn't scale with levels like other stats do, so most RPG players have a natural aversion to it. But consider that I was already completely immune to damage from the Allacephs. Kazaul Spawn and Imps couldn't hurt me either, so if I wanted to farm for a RoL, I could do so without ever taking damage. The Hirathil blue ghosts couldn't hurt me at all unless they managed to critical, and then I was only taking 3 to 6 damage. The green ones could still hit me pretty hard for a cool 1 damage without criticals, but their criticals did 6-33, so they really could hurt, but not often enough to be a problem. Want to farm an RoLS the old fashioned way? This character only took damage from the gargoyle trainers/masters when they managed a maximized critical, and then only 3 points. He was immune to wrym trainers also, so an ElyR would be an easy farm. Even the Chaos beasts could only hurt him with normal attacks after they managed to get the chaos effect on him. He could farm pretty much any leg/ex with ease, with the exception of the friggin' plaguestriders.

The reason I haven't posted much about this method before is because it had already gotten broken. If I'd switched to a RoL (as I'd planned to do, but went through a phone switch and lost the character) I would never need to heal myself again for any enemies that weren't the plaguestriders.
The character had the easiest time farming up levels, because his RoLS handled almost all of the damage he took.
I'm in the process of rebuilding that character now to see if I can break it even further. This might be something I would recommend scaling back in future releases, I haven't decided yet.
I have too many characters to list them, so I'll just list my most important:
Template Flux
Lvl: 1 XP:56034
L&E: RoLS: 2 ElyR: 1 RoL: 2 BD: 1
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Growler
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Re: Are You All In?

Post by Growler »

Kashim makes good points, tho reflecting a very narrowly focused build (all in for DR) And had benefit of an extremely hard-2-get RoLS -- what percentage of players grind sufficiently for such? I've spent stupid hours grinding for one & still nada.

For me -- and I assume most others -- going with a fairly broad/balanced build, a couple~few extra DR points along the way would be helpful & fun to aim for..or at least be a more compelling objective during the mid-2-late game.

An obvious way would be to add a point of DR to a few more items..and clip off a couple other stats if/when needed to maintain item balance.

Another way would be to offer..say, 1/3rd DR point at every level-up (so you'd need 3 level-ups to get 1 add'l usable point of DR).

So I'd suggest minor tweaks could be enough to make level-up & item-choices all the more agonizing!
Opposition is True Friendship. As your Once & Future Friend, I oppose that notion.
~~~
Black is White, White is Black, 1984 is Back.
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Voom
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Re: Are You All In?

Post by Voom »

If you use the formula 5 AC = 3 BC as a way to compare them, then I find that it is more often best to equip high BC items and use your level ups for AC. I think the more useful weapons (imo) are valuable b/c of their BC more so than their AC. Rings and necklaces are a different story. If you want to find out which pieces of equipment are more valuable ONLY in terms of AC and BC, then use the formula above to convert an item's AC into BC and compare which item has the highest BC.

My minimum BC before I go all in into AC is around 60 - 100 based on the build. Doing the same with DR or Crits is harder to value in comparison to other stats but using common-sense I would come to the conclusion that 1 DR is more valuable than 1 AC or 1 Critical Skill. BUT, I believe AC's and CS's value grows exponentially when stacked, while DR is not like that. So I think a little DR is best, all-in DR is inefficient.
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Kashim
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Re: Are You All In?

Post by Kashim »

I might think about introducing items that have a non-fixed DR. Say, a helmet that has 0-2DR (rolled against when you get hit, like damage, representing the different parts of the helmet (0 for "oh god, he got me in the eye", 2 for "clang, the sword bounces off your head")). It wouldn't prevent all damage from coming in, but would be another force seriously getting in the way of it, and you could put higher numbers here like 0-4 knowing that some damage would still get through. I'd actually like to see pretty much any armor that has metal in it have an effect like this: if the enemy hits the plate, then damage is reduced, if the enemy hits the cloth part, then it isn't.
Adding enemies that can reduce your DR, but not send it negative would be another thought. It never really made sense to me that I could be so afraid that I would cause myself to take more damage than if I'd been completely unarmored...
Critical hits piercing DR was another thought I had a while ago. If critical hits ignored DR (or even just ignored 1/2 of it or something) then it would be extremely difficult for high DR characters to be 100% immune to damage. Those things without criticals wouldn't get better, but it seems like most enemies can critical hit.

The other thing, that would require insane amounts of coding, would be to split the body into hit zones, and have DR from equipment only apply to the local hit zone, like Fallout 3 did. That would add a whole lot of potential complexity though. You could simplify it by just saying that an incoming hit will apply the DR from only one piece of armor, chosen mostly at random (some bias toward shields and breastplate maybe), and then up the DR on everything. Then if you aren't wearing boots, you can't have 100% protection from damage there.

Just kind of spitballing ideas.
I have too many characters to list them, so I'll just list my most important:
Template Flux
Lvl: 1 XP:56034
L&E: RoLS: 2 ElyR: 1 RoL: 2 BD: 1
User avatar
Kashim
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Re: Are You All In?

Post by Kashim »

I'll note a few other difficulties of the DR build:
1) You can't do this if you dual-wield. The DR you lose from not having the shield equipped is completely crippling. -3 DR is a big deal.
2) The QSD is a bad weapon for this build. you need all of the AC you can get, and damage too, since you'll be spending so many levels on BC for Bark Skin. Also, you don't want to give up all that BC that you worked so hard to build up.
3) You have to complete at least the first part of Charwood early to make this work, and doing so is pretty brutal before 20.
4) You can't truly finish this until you hit Remgard, where you get the last 2 pieces of DR equipment.
5) You don't get Marrowtaint or the JoF. You have to live with less attacks.
6) To truly max, you lose both of your ring slots. I usually lose 1.
7) Your fights with monsters will be slow, because you probably won't have any AC since (if you're like me) you will take 5 levels of BC, 5 levels of damage every 10 levels.

The problem is this; you can get away from several of these downsides easily, by just saying, "oh, the difference between 15 and 14 DR isn't worth this loss..." but if you keep doing that, you usually find yourself around 10DR by the time you stop. It is usually something like "I want the JoF and a QSD because it makes my offense 800x better" and "I want an RoLS and a Villain's Ring because I don't have any damage", but you've just lost 4 DR. "I want combat speed" is another common one that delays DR skill acquisition.
Here is the skill build I use:
4 -> saved for IF at 5
8 -> saved for Bark Skin at 10
12 -> saved for Shield proficiency (whenever I get it)
16 -> saved for Bark Skin at 20
20 -> used for IF at 20
24 -> Your first, actual, free skill point. (I go combat speed 1)
28 -> saved for Bark Skin at 30
32 -> saved for IF at 35
36 -> Your second, actual, free skill point. (I go combat speed 2 for my third hit)
40 -> used for Bark Skin at 40
44 -> Saved for IF at 50
48 -> Saved for Bark Skin at 50
52+ You are finally free. You have all of the DR skills, and the +7 DR that comes with them.

Also, the technically highest DR you can currently get is 17. You will have to put 25 levels into block chance (giving you an insane natural 75% BC) to get it. I am working on building my 16DR character (one ring swapped out) now. We will see how long it takes me to get to 50.

Anyway, I promise I'll stop going on and on about it now. It's just one of my favorite builds, just because it is so counter to what everyone else seems to always do (almost all builds I see are either balanced or high-offense. I never see tank builds.)
I have too many characters to list them, so I'll just list my most important:
Template Flux
Lvl: 1 XP:56034
L&E: RoLS: 2 ElyR: 1 RoL: 2 BD: 1
User avatar
Voom
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Re: Are You All In?

Post by Voom »

Kashim wrote: Fri Oct 06, 2017 4:40 pm I might think about introducing items that have a non-fixed DR. Say, a helmet that has 0-2DR (rolled against when you get hit, like damage, representing the different parts of the helmet (0 for "oh god, he got me in the eye", 2 for "clang, the sword bounces off your head")). It wouldn't prevent all damage from coming in, but would be another force seriously getting in the way of it, and you could put higher numbers here like 0-4 knowing that some damage would still get through. I'd actually like to see pretty much any armor that has metal in it have an effect like this: if the enemy hits the plate, then damage is reduced, if the enemy hits the cloth part, then it isn't.
Adding enemies that can reduce your DR, but not send it negative would be another thought. It never really made sense to me that I could be so afraid that I would cause myself to take more damage than if I'd been completely unarmored...
Critical hits piercing DR was another thought I had a while ago. If critical hits ignored DR (or even just ignored 1/2 of it or something) then it would be extremely difficult for high DR characters to be 100% immune to damage. Those things without criticals wouldn't get better, but it seems like most enemies can critical hit.
I think you are headed in the right direction if you are someone who believes DR needs to fixed. Most players do not build tanky builds I think because it would not be the most efficient build to use, even if it is pretty awesome. I personally love builds based on immunity.

Now, you gave some interesting ideas on how to improve DR in general. If critical hits could ignore DR you would certainly provide OP defensive builds with a weakness (which I think is necessary). Unfortunately, DR specifically and defensive builds in general are no where near OP or efficient or balanced in the current state of AT. Every good build needs a weakness, I agree. But, that should come only after we figure out how to balance weapons, the combat system, and equipment altogether.
Kashim wrote: Fri Oct 06, 2017 9:43 pm The problem is this; you can get away from several of these downsides easily, by just saying, "oh, the difference between 15 and 14 DR isn't worth this loss..." but if you keep doing that, you usually find yourself around 10DR by the time you stop. It is usually something like "I want the JoF and a QSD because it makes my offense 800x better" and "I want an RoLS and a Villain's Ring because I don't have any damage", but you've just lost 4 DR. "I want combat speed" is another common one that delays DR skill acquisition.
Here is the skill build I use:
4 -> saved for IF at 5
8 -> saved for Bark Skin at 10
12 -> saved for Shield proficiency (whenever I get it)
16 -> saved for Bark Skin at 20
20 -> used for IF at 20
24 -> Your first, actual, free skill point. (I go combat speed 1)
28 -> saved for Bark Skin at 30
32 -> saved for IF at 35
36 -> Your second, actual, free skill point. (I go combat speed 2 for my third hit)
40 -> used for Bark Skin at 40
44 -> Saved for IF at 50
48 -> Saved for Bark Skin at 50
52+ You are finally free. You have all of the DR skills, and the +7 DR that comes with them.

Also, the technically highest DR you can currently get is 17. You will have to put 25 levels into block chance (giving you an insane natural 75% BC) to get it. I am working on building my 16DR character (one ring swapped out) now. We will see how long it takes me to get to 50.
It is interesting how you made a distinction between max DR and downsizing to 10 DR. I think you acknowledged the opportunity costs of inefficient DR builds greater than 10 DR. And this is one of the issues we have to recognize so we can figure out how to balance the game. An all-in DR build is simply not worth while to most players. And that needs to be fixed.

I like how you made a level path of skills and level points. I feel like organizing it that way should have a name.
Voom
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