Reduce critical chance, improve critical?

[Own]

Currently in SoG you can get a ridiculously high critical hit rate.

+15% from talents, +5% from Archer's Apple, +10% from Rabby's Feet, +1% per pet level. My own is +19%, despite only maxing Fencer. I have no idea where the other +4% is coming from.

I get the feeling 1 out of every 5 of my attacks shouldn't be a critical hit, criticals in RPGs are usually rare, awesome things. Some RPGs even attach cool effects to criticals, like lengthening the duration of a debuff, increasing the severity of it or inflicting some add-on debuff from a critical. Like, on-crit with a weapon set the enemy on fire.

It also seems way too early in the game for my critical hit chance to be so high, it doesn't leave much room for crit buffing things to go without risking crit chance being 50-75% by mid or endgame. Criticals are given out a bit like candy at the moment and that seems to take away from them being pretty neat things. I'd personally increase crit damage, reduce the talent boosting crit to 1% to match up with the pet and maybe shrink Rabby Feet a little bit too. That would make shieldblock crits much more spectacular if you could pull them off routinely. But I have no real insight on the balance of the game.

 

[GarlicJelly]

I think you missed the Blindfold and Phaseman's Face. And I agree that the crit rate you can get right now is way too high. With items and talents you can get 43% and that's without pets. :O
Phaseman's Face, 2x Rabbit's Foot and Surgeon = 43% Crit Chance

 

[MrChocodemon]

Yeah, with Pets you can get if far higher.

 

[Own]

I don't really mind the pet critical boost, it seems fair. Since you're getting +1% crit in favor of so many, many better options.

 

[GarlicJelly]

I don't really mind the pet critical boost, it seems fair. Since you're getting +1% crit in favor of so many, many better options.

Yeah, the pets are balanced but the rest is not. XD

 

[Fred]

I do agree that the critical curve increases a bit too much too fast with the current items and talents that are in the game. Adjusting the stats of all the talents and gear will be an ongoing quest all through out the development, making sure no particular build gets totally overpowered. The further we get into production, the easier it is to spot those elusive OP-devils!

I do however want players to have the option to go balls to the walls crit only, and reach ridiculously high critical chances. If not 100% then close nearby.
I (as do all three of us in Pixel Ferrets!) have a background in playing Ragnarok Online, where going full crit was a valid (and very satisfying!) option. It would balance it self out since you would have to give up pure power in favor of higher critical chance. This was mostly done by clever item design. Most items that gave you higher critical chance did nothing to improve your overall attack power. You would end up with a character that dealt less damage on average, but was great versus certain types of enemies (anything with high DEF, since it got bypassed by criticals).

In the end, I hope we can reach similar results in our balancing. If you really want to reach those super high critical numbers, you will have to sacrifice other stats in favor of it.
Since we have perfect guarding, going full power will probably always be a better option since you, if you're skilled enough, have a 100% crit at your disposal. And that's fine. Whatever takes most effort to perform should yield you the best results. I just like the idea of giving players more options to play around with, even though they might not be on par with the optimal route!

 

[Own]

So I guess that rules out 'on-crit: bonus effect' weapons then? I guess that always leaves in '% chance of the time on-hit: bonus effect', at least.

 

[GarlicJelly]

If you're going to have full crit builds then I need that song to be played as long as I'm doing critical hits, and I also need that attackspeed.... While you're still at it make sure that the crit damage covers both my character and the enemy I'm attacking so I can't see a damn thing. XD