Post by drspendlove on Nov 30, 2017 11:42:19 GMT -5
Ok, silly American political title aside, Evasion is a beginner's trap. In case you (the reader) aren't aware of this argument it is based upon the following argument:
1) Evasion grants +1 standard die to dodge and +1 standard die to parry.
2) Warrior is a skill for all classes, as is evasion.
3) Warrior grants +1 strong die to parry.
4) Ranged dodge is statistically useless.
5) Thus the only benefit of evasion is completely eclipsed by warrior until Warrior is at 16 and cannot be increased further.
Anyway, moving on to suggestions to make evasion have some reason to invest in, if only for niche builds:
Note: In all of these, Evasion should probably get a different name to fit the theme better with the proposed additional mechanics. All suggestions are in addition to the existing bonuses. All suggestions could be combined together if that fit balance best. I've ordered these in my personal preference order. Everything beyond C is pretty shaky to me.
Suggestion A: Evasion increases maximum heat by 2 points per point Evasion. Classes initial heat is adjusted downward so their base Evasion raises level 1 maximum heat to exactly 100. This would mean no change for characters with no investment in Evasion.
Suggestion B: Evasion adds to Toughness for some (all?) classes. An example of this would be the Scout, who could have their toughness slightly boosted by changing their toughness from 50% Fortitude to 50% Fortitude + 75% Evasion, or possibly just 0% Fortitude + 100% Evasion. The Berserk(er) could also gain +25% Evasion in toughness perhaps. This would give a slight survivability bonus to a few classes. You could adjust the numbers here to have the "0 investment in evasion" keep their toughness unchanged, to make balance in the common case easier.
Suggestion C: Same as suggestion B but for Resistance.
Suggestion D: Every X points in Evasion add +1% auto-block. This would have to have a rather high value of X, such as 5 or 6 to keep from disrupting auto-block balance. This would also be a little weird because the other skills don't have power spikes at particular levels.
Suggestion E: Evasion increases counter-attack chance by 1% per point. This would mostly make sense for Berserk(er)s with maxed Warrior unless this skill were made attractive via other suggestions as well. This would require a bit of a re-theme to make it make sense to have a somewhat offensive property. The good thing about this suggestion is that it would have a very modest impact on game balance, as counter-attack isn't a huge priority for most builds. (It would also aid in a possible counter-attacking Soldier relic build...)
Suggestion F: Evasion increases the non-detection radius portion of Stealth by 1 every other point. You'd want to change the base non-detection radius change for Scouts in stealth so the baseline stealth mechanics wouldn't change. However, particularly combined with another suggestion to make the attribute more attractive, this could be a good choice for bio-poison based Scouts (or the future assassins?) I don't think this gain the "5% chance to be completely ignored per point of Stealth" though. That would rob Stealth of too much of its value.
1) Evasion grants +1 standard die to dodge and +1 standard die to parry.
2) Warrior is a skill for all classes, as is evasion.
3) Warrior grants +1 strong die to parry.
4) Ranged dodge is statistically useless.
5) Thus the only benefit of evasion is completely eclipsed by warrior until Warrior is at 16 and cannot be increased further.
Anyway, moving on to suggestions to make evasion have some reason to invest in, if only for niche builds:
Note: In all of these, Evasion should probably get a different name to fit the theme better with the proposed additional mechanics. All suggestions are in addition to the existing bonuses. All suggestions could be combined together if that fit balance best. I've ordered these in my personal preference order. Everything beyond C is pretty shaky to me.
Suggestion A: Evasion increases maximum heat by 2 points per point Evasion. Classes initial heat is adjusted downward so their base Evasion raises level 1 maximum heat to exactly 100. This would mean no change for characters with no investment in Evasion.
Suggestion B: Evasion adds to Toughness for some (all?) classes. An example of this would be the Scout, who could have their toughness slightly boosted by changing their toughness from 50% Fortitude to 50% Fortitude + 75% Evasion, or possibly just 0% Fortitude + 100% Evasion. The Berserk(er) could also gain +25% Evasion in toughness perhaps. This would give a slight survivability bonus to a few classes. You could adjust the numbers here to have the "0 investment in evasion" keep their toughness unchanged, to make balance in the common case easier.
Suggestion C: Same as suggestion B but for Resistance.
Suggestion D: Every X points in Evasion add +1% auto-block. This would have to have a rather high value of X, such as 5 or 6 to keep from disrupting auto-block balance. This would also be a little weird because the other skills don't have power spikes at particular levels.
Suggestion E: Evasion increases counter-attack chance by 1% per point. This would mostly make sense for Berserk(er)s with maxed Warrior unless this skill were made attractive via other suggestions as well. This would require a bit of a re-theme to make it make sense to have a somewhat offensive property. The good thing about this suggestion is that it would have a very modest impact on game balance, as counter-attack isn't a huge priority for most builds. (It would also aid in a possible counter-attacking Soldier relic build...)
Suggestion F: Evasion increases the non-detection radius portion of Stealth by 1 every other point. You'd want to change the base non-detection radius change for Scouts in stealth so the baseline stealth mechanics wouldn't change. However, particularly combined with another suggestion to make the attribute more attractive, this could be a good choice for bio-poison based Scouts (or the future assassins?) I don't think this gain the "5% chance to be completely ignored per point of Stealth" though. That would rob Stealth of too much of its value.
