Making Skill More Useful

[Anouleth]

The idea isn't to buff crit so much as make skill more useful without screwing over lower-SKL characters. Ideally every character can at least do SOMETHING despite a lack of a certain stat. Units with low STR can be mages/dancers, low MAG can be fighters, low HP ranged, and so-forth. The problem is that the only way to compensate for having low SKL is to avoid fighting entirely. So if we use the overflow hit and the 1:3 skill to hit ratio suddenly SM's go from being meh combat units to critting deities who will crit at LEAST every other attack without bonuses. All the while low-skill units are going to be looking at 0% critical rates and be outright unable to score a critical since they lack the hit, which isn't very fair.

But we want to screw over lower-SKL units. Units with bad STR, SPD, DEF suck. But units with bad skill are not badly affected. Gonzales has unspeakably abysmal skill. If anyone had strength that bad, they'd be unusable in combat.

Yeah, it's not fair that units with bad stats are bad. Maybe we should just make skill do nothing at all. That way, high-skill and low-skill units will be balanced!

Currently, low-skill units already can't hit criticals. Many units already are in the position of having 0 crit all the time, except when they use a Killer weapon. Why is that a problem? Some units can't critical. How is that soooo much worse than some units not doubling, or some units not being able to take a hit, or some units not being able to deal a lot of damage? Units should have weak points. Except that being unable to critical isn't really even a weak point. I don't see Haar crying over not critting very often.

1 skill=3 hit seems unbalanced if 1 speed=/=3 avoid (what is TRS's formula anyway, it's not on the website)

even then, it only makes units that start strong better than the rest

I don't see how that follows. Edited June 28, 2013 by Anouleth

[PKL]

Isn't Gonzalez already trash because he can't hit?

[dondon151]

1 skill=3 hit seems unbalanced if 1 speed=/=3 avoid (what is TRS's formula anyway, it's not on the website)

even then, it only makes units that start strong better than the rest

hit = weapon hit + 3*skl + other bonuses

avo = terrain bonus + 2*AS (0 if AS is negative) + luk + other bonuses

[-Cynthia-]

Isn't Gonzalez already trash because he can't hit?

These problems stem more from axe lock than the low Skl IMO, although the low Skl doesn't help certainly.

[Anouleth]

Isn't Gonzalez already trash because he can't hit?

I think he's good, for an unpromoted unmounted unit. He's very hit and miss, though, and initially he's really annoying because he has like 60 hit on everything and doesn't double.

That being said, he also has 5+15% skill. It would be hard to imagine a unit with 5+15% strength or speed being in any way competent. Although, we don't have to imagine when we can look at Ronan, or Barth, who are way way worse than Gonzales.

[Kngt_Of_Titania]

There's a few ways to do it.

I just went with the simpler way and bumped up the hit from SKL and the avoid from LUK/SPD. Of course, this really only works if you normalize SPD a bit, since SPD is already too good of a stat if you have a ton of doubling. And even then, some people (*cough* Anouleth *cough*) aren't the biggest fan of this.

Upping the crit from SKL and then lowering the crit damage kind of screws over support bonuses and crit weapons and LUK a bit, unless you bump those up too -- except you can still hit around 80% crit if you line everything up, IIRC, even without modifying it -- and thus you run the risk of capping the stat somewhat easily. Also, I was worried that if you made crit chance high enough that it becomes almost as reliable as hit (i.e. close to 100% for SMs), then you end up with some classes that essentially get reliable double scaling from STR; then all you have to do if throw a few energy drops at them and...BAM!...Rutger reincarnated.

Changing SKL to affect ATK runs the risk of making SKL a bit of a STR clone, but it could work, given some tweaking and the right mathematical weights; i.e. ATK is X + Y, where X is derived from STR and Y is derived from SKL.

Not a bad idea, really, but I would make it so that Y can be a max of a certain % of X, based off of (Your SKL - Enemy SKL)...or I would make it (Your SKL - Enemy SKL)*Z%, where Z can be modified as necessary.

Edited June 28, 2013 by Kngt_Of_Titania

[shadykid]

hit = weapon hit + 3*skl + other bonuses

avo = terrain bonus + 2*AS (0 if AS is negative) + luk + other bonuses

ah ok, luck factors into avoid but not hit

These problems stem more from axe lock than the low Skl IMO, although the low Skl doesn't help certainly.

also FE6 lock because nobody can hit anything reliably

Also, I was worried that if you made crit chance high enough that it becomes almost as reliable as hit (i.e. close to 100% for SMs), then you end up with some classes that essentially get reliable double scaling from STR; then all you have to do if throw a few energy drops at them and...BAM!...Rutger reincarnated.

nothing wrong with that

[Kngt_Of_Titania]

nothing wrong with that

Except if you want to justify using 75% of your cast

[Snowy_One]

But we want to screw over lower-SKL units. Units with bad STR, SPD, DEF suck. But units with bad skill are not badly affected. Gonzales has unspeakably abysmal skill. If anyone had strength that bad, they'd be unusable in combat.

Yeah, it's not fair that units with bad stats are bad. Maybe we should just make skill do nothing at all. That way, high-skill and low-skill units will be balanced!

Currently, low-skill units already can't hit criticals. Many units already are in the position of having 0 crit all the time, except when they use a Killer weapon. Why is that a problem? Some units can't critical. How is that soooo much worse than some units not doubling, or some units not being able to take a hit, or some units not being able to deal a lot of damage? Units should have weak points. Except that being unable to critical isn't really even a weak point. I don't see Haar crying over not critting very often.

I don't see how that follows.

Barring some specific situations (attacking a boss) most combat units should be capable of 2HKOing as VERY few have the ability to 1HKO without a critical or skill activating (and most activation skills are SKL-related). You lack STR/MAG? You don't go to the front lines. You lack SPD? You're a tank at best. You lack DEF? At best you're regulated to hovering around the edges. You lack SKL? No big whoop so long as it isn't horribad.

[shadykid]

Barring some specific situations (attacking a boss) most combat units should be capable of 2HKOing as VERY few have the ability to 1HKO without a critical or skill activating (and most activation skills are SKL-related). You lack STR/MAG? You don't go to the front lines. You lack SPD? You're a tank at best. You lack DEF? At best you're regulated to hovering around the edges. You lack SKL? No big whoop so long as it isn't horribad.

But we want to screw over lower-SKL units.

ok Snowy....

[CT075]

i personally like having excess hit over 100 going into crit

[shadykid]

Except if you want to justify using 75% of your cast

who cares about balance

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

who cares about balance

We should have a Jeigan with 50 base HP, and 20 everything else with Freddy growth

[The Void]

The idea isn't to buff crit so much as make skill more useful without screwing over lower-SKL characters.

Not every character has to be good at everything.

Edited June 29, 2013 by The Void

[Shin]

Skill = crit, and an accuracy penalty from AS loss. Skill also works quite well for skill activation, but when it's stuff like skl/2% chance, a character with 20 skill only gets 5% more crits and activations than one with 10.

[Anouleth]

Barring some specific situations (attacking a boss) most combat units should be capable of 2HKOing as VERY few have the ability to 1HKO without a critical or skill activating (and most activation skills are SKL-related). You lack STR/MAG? You don't go to the front lines. You lack SPD? You're a tank at best. You lack DEF? At best you're regulated to hovering around the edges. You lack SKL? No big whoop so long as it isn't horribad.

So why is it ok for skill to be less valuable than other stats? Surely the whole point of this thread is to figure out how to change that.

[dondon151]

Changing SKL to affect ATK runs the risk of making SKL a bit of a STR clone, but it could work, given some tweaking and the right mathematical weights; i.e. ATK is X + Y, where X is derived from STR and Y is derived from SKL.

basically the intention of my suggestion was that all characters can hit a maximum damage and a minimum damage, and having higher skl raises the minimum damage threshold. so with more skl, you'd have on average slightly higher damage output, but more importantly, more consistent damage output.

perhaps here's a good sample equation: max damage variance = 2 - 0.5*(user's skl - opp's skl), 0 if negative. so if you and your opponent have equal skl, your damage variance is 2 points. there's no damage variance if your skl exceeds the opponent's by 4. and if you have, say, 4 less skl, your damage variance is 4 points.

Edited June 29, 2013 by dondon151

[Snowy_One]

So why is it ok for skill to be less valuable than other stats? Surely the whole point of this thread is to figure out how to change that.

The idea isn't to make it less valuable. The idea is to make it so that a unit can not have super-high scores in a stat and still function.

Being able to fight with low SKL, with penalties, but not regulated to a side-line/bottom tier = good.

Being unable to fight with low SPD due to the stat being so important to combat fighting with low SPD is stupid = bad.

[shadykid]

The idea isn't to make it less valuable. The idea is to make it so that a unit can not have super-high scores in a stat and still function.

Being able to fight with low SKL, with penalties, but not regulated to a side-line/bottom tier = good.

Being unable to fight with low SPD due to the stat being so important to combat fighting with low SPD is stupid = bad.

my goodness

Anouleth has already said that units with bad skill SHOULD be punished more, did you miss that part

I mean, you could argue that other stats such as speed should be devalued to achieve the same result, but you seem to have missed his point

[Kngt_Of_Titania]

The idea isn't to make it less valuable. The idea is to make it so that a unit can not have super-high scores in a stat and still function.

Being able to fight with low SKL, with penalties, but not regulated to a side-line/bottom tier = good.

Being unable to fight with low SPD due to the stat being so important to combat fighting with low SPD is stupid = bad.

But you WANT units with really, really stupidly low values in stats to be bad, or need to have some amazing redeeming quality to counteract it.

You know why? Because the only time you can be ridiculously deficient in a stat and not be significantly harmed by it is IF THAT STAT SUCKS. Which is bad.

The reason why you can have low/mediocre SKL/LUK and not care is because the stats are deficient compared to everything else. So you either fix both problems at once, or neither of them.

basically the intention of my suggestion was that all characters can hit a maximum damage and a minimum damage, and having higher skl raises the minimum damage threshold. so with more skl, you'd have on average slightly higher damage output, but more importantly, more consistent damage output.

perhaps here's a good sample equation: max damage variance = 2 - 0.5*(user's skl - opp's skl), 0 if negative. so if you and your opponent have equal skl, your damage variance is 2 points. there's no damage variance if your skl exceeds the opponent's by 4. and if you have, say, 4 less skl, your damage variance is 4 points.

Oh, I misunderstood you then. While this would definitely make SKL considerably more valuable...

I wouldn't be a fan of something like this because variance in damage would be a major pain in the ass, mostly because you wouldn't exactly know if you can reliably 2HKO/3HKO a target -- it would be like a way more drastic version of having unreliable hit. I mean, not only do you have hit rates screwing with you, but you can't even be sure whether or not you'll be able to finish the enemy off even if it DID connect. It'd make FE6 RNG look GOOD.

And it wouldn't be too bad in the easier modes, where enemies are complete trash (you'd probably overkill them because of their crap stats, and you'd most likely have more SKL than them, so variance would be small), but Lunatic modes would be mind-bendingly, ball-crushingly random.

Edited June 30, 2013 by Kngt_Of_Titania

[dondon151]

And it wouldn't be too bad in the easier modes, where enemies are complete trash (you'd probably overkill them because of their crap stats, and you'd most likely have more SKL than them, so variance would be small), but Lunatic modes would be mind-bendingly, ball-crushingly random.

quite literally, if player skl doesn't fall behind enemy skl, you just need to do something like increase weapon MT by 2 and you'll have almost no difference. there's a reason why the base variance and the gradient is low. you just need to make sure that your minimum damage range can KO whatever.

[FEAnon]

The fact that enemies typically have terrible avoid and weapon hit being fairly high makes it so that there isn't really that much of a need for skill. But thing is, since the avoid formula is far more reliant on speed than it is on luck, giving enemies better avoid would wind up making speed even more important than it already is.

It's kind of a tricky thing really.

[Anouleth]

Oh, I misunderstood you then. While this would definitely make SKL considerably more valuable...

I wouldn't be a fan of something like this because variance in damage would be a major pain in the ass, mostly because you wouldn't exactly know if you can reliably 2HKO/3HKO a target -- it would be like a way more drastic version of having unreliable hit. I mean, not only do you have hit rates screwing with you, but you can't even be sure whether or not you'll be able to finish the enemy off even if it DID connect. It'd make FE6 RNG look GOOD.

Well, speaking as an avid Advance Wars fan, which uses a similar system, it doesn't seem so bad.

And it wouldn't be too bad in the easier modes, where enemies are complete trash (you'd probably overkill them because of their crap stats, and you'd most likely have more SKL than them, so variance would be small), but Lunatic modes would be mind-bendingly, ball-crushingly random.

Losing 2 points of damage is hardly ball-crushing.

[Kngt_Of_Titania]

The fact that enemies typically have terrible avoid and weapon hit being fairly high makes it so that there isn't really that much of a need for skill. But thing is, since the avoid formula is far more reliant on speed than it is on luck, giving enemies better avoid would wind up making speed even more important than it already is.

It's kind of a tricky thing really.

Well, you can bump up avoid by increasing how much avoid LUK gives (So you get, say, 2 AVO per point of LUK) and allowing enemies to get decent amounts of it. That way, you don't have to jack up SPD to outrageous levels.

[NyanKitteh]

Any of:-Take out weapon ranks, replace with skill-Change the way that skills proc off skill-Increase the crit bonus for each point of skill to 1:1 and reduce critical damage from 3x to 2x (or make criticals simply ignore defense rather than increase damage)-Increase the hit bonus for each point of skill to 3:1, reduce weapon hit rates to compensate

Wow, I was thinking the EXACT same thing about critical hits! (besides the defense-ignoring thing) I full-heatedly support that idea; I wish we could make it happen.