Clarity in Game Mechanics

[ragnarokio]

It's unclear what different stats do. ATK increasing weapon damage, MATK skill damage, and DEF damage mitigation is clear enough, but I can't find the specifics anywhere. Do combat skills scale off ATK rather than MATK? How many points of damage in a spell do I get per point of MATK? How much damage reduction am I getting per point of DEF? Skill scaling suffers the same issue, it' unclear what happens when you take or level up a skill. Most skills when leveled up simply say +damage. How much damage?

Having the details of the numbers and formulas available somewhere would be really nice.

 

[Schattenphoenix]

I got the feeling that the increase in damage mostly comes from Charge-Levels.
There is barely a noticable boost for each level sadly.
Maybe its a small percentage which would at least boost the damage by greater amounts later in game but as of now i find leveling skills pretty lackluster.

 

[GarlicJelly]

I agree that there is nothing that tells us if the combat skills scale with ATK or MATK but with common sense you would probably come to the conculsion that they do since they are all based on physical attacks and there is a specific section called Magic so Magic Attack (MATK) would seem to only affect magic spells/skills. I don't think it's a big deal but it wouldn't hurt the game if there was something in maybe the skill description that tells us what stats that affect them.

As for the skills and stats: I think the incease is by a small percentage so you can't really see much of a difference when leveling up skills. Same goes for stats as they won't affect your damage much (going from level 1 to level 2 makes no difference in how many attacks you need with a 1h sword to kill a Slime or a Rabby). To see the actual numbers seem useless to me (even if it would make decision making easier) as it wouldn't really add anything to the game, it would just provide the tools you need to involve maths in your skill decisions. To me personally it wouldn't really matter as I've already found my prefered skills but for new players the stats might "force" them to choose a skills they think seem less appealing because the stats are way better. Going for style rather than stats seems like the general approach in this game so I guess keeping it as it is would follow the current structure (Maybe???).

Right now you gain a lot of skill points so eventually you reach this point where you go "Hmm, I've used 5 bronze points in this skill I like and now I have 15 more of them that I haven't used... Let's try some new skills!" and off you go. Even if you make the decision to spend a lot of points on one skill you will always end up with spare points (unless you have a very diverse build that uses more than 4-5 skills.) Also, right now (and this might just be my opinion on the matter) you don't really spend skill points to get the +damage for your skills, you spend points to unlock the next charge for it. The change in damage us huge (on some skills at least) between the charged vs non-charged skills. Cloud Strike is a good example of a skill that gets better when you reach a new charge for it while skills like Earth Spike don't really gain much (DPS) from the extra points. To get back on the topic again, the +damage numbers would be pretty useless as you don't want level 2 or level 8 skills, you want bronze, gold, normal, silver or final charged skills.

If you disagree with me then feel free to let me know. I'm just stating my opinion.

 

[MrChocodemon]

I like the idea of clarity as many of us might have wondered, but i don't think a blunt approach with an massive amount of numbers and statistics is suited for the game. I'm more for a cleverly implemented database that the player can access if wanted.

If it clears my intentions if want it more like FireEmblem with the Help menu where you can see everthing you learned (but more detailed) and not like Dark Souls where the first look in the character stats is confusing as heck. Of course it is useful but not stater friendly.

 

[ragnarokio]

@phoenix: Yeah, that was the first thing that made me curious, the apparent non-existence of scaling on a per-level basis.

@GoodStuff: It wasn't until I played a couple characters through story mode and sunk a few hours into arcade that the specifics of the stats started interesting me. I've spent a few dozen hours in arcade now and have found silver charged insects to be an efficient source of damage. Rather than spend multiple hours experimenting for the chance to look at the numbers in practice, It would be nice to be able to just read them and then decide on a few that looked promising and try those. I also still don't know how defense works, as it's not practical to experiment in arcade and I don't have the will to test it out in story mode. Knowing when it's practical to take defense over health and vice versa, or how necessary defense is at all would also be nice.

I do appreciate the style-first philosophy of the game. A small handful of skills already give specifics on some numbers (berserker style, insect swarm, and protect) and I don't feel those detract from the game. That said, if the information would be too distracting to uninterested players, placing it under a menu section would be a seemingly non-disruptive solution.

The quantity of information also isn't huge. A chart for each ability that lists stats at each level, and a few formulas that explain how damage is calculated versus armor in different situations.

 

[Schattenphoenix]

I would already be fine if leveling up a skill wouldnt state "+damage" but instead "+10% Damage" and the description would state the base damage like Fireball (deals 120% Matk firedamage).

EDIT: I think that would be pretty obvious to add these basic numbers as this game is HEAVILY inspired by a lot of games i know and most heavily by ragnarok online in terms of design. RO has all the damage numbers shown in the skill desc. and i loved it.

PS: For people that didnt know. Slimes dropping apples obviously seems like a reference.

 

[GarlicJelly]

Haha, nobody agrees with me. XD The "hidden"-stats-menu-thing sounds like a good compromise as that would keep the game as I like it and would allow all you guys to go stat crazy. 5/5! for that idea!