Wild idea: Increase the minimum chance to hit from 5%

[Vanden]

...and allow powers to reduce that. I made a thread about giving powers the ability to affect the maximum hit chance. This is the natural inverse of that thread, letting powers have that same influence over the other extreme of hit chances.

 

Basically, the idea is we increase the minimum chance to hit from its current 5%, to something higher. Let's say 15%. Then, we give the powers system the ability to modify that minimum tohit chance, a pair of new stats I'm going to call Bolstering and Precision. Bolstering would modify the minimum hit chance of tohit rolls against an entity, while Precision would modify the minimum hit chance of tohit rolls an entity makes against others.

 

Highly defense-centric power sets like Super Reflexes, and Bane/Widow VEATs would get enough +Bolstering buffs from their powers to take their minimum chance to be hit all the way back to 5%, hybrid sets like Invulnerability and Willpower would have less, maybe only enough to take it down to 10%, and resistance-based sets like Electric Armor and Dark Armor might not get any +Bolstering at all. Crucially, +Bolstering would also be present in powers like Fortitude, Deflection Shield, and Ice Shield, and -Precision debuffs would be present in powers like Darkest Night and Flash Arrow, giving support characters back some of the relevance that they've lost with the proliferation of IOs.

 

I don't expect this to be a popular idea, since it would be a straight nerf to any character that softcapped their defenses and doesn't have a set that would grant +Bolstering, but I think it's in a good spot where it increases the difficulty of the game for player characters performing at the highest levels without harming player characters performing at more average levels.

[DrRocket]

Not sure it is a good idea, increasing the minimum % chance would impact support types much greater than the melee types.

 

so no thank  you, leave the percentages as they are.

 

Sorry bud

 

v/r

[Vanden]

Just now, DrRocket said:

Not sure it is a good idea, increasing the minimum % chance would impact support types much greater than the melee types.

 

so no thank  you, leave the percentages as they are.

 

Sorry bud

 

v/r

Only the support types that have used the IO system to approach or exceed the defense soft cap. Ones with less extreme buffs would see no change. And support types are supposed to be less hardy than Melee types.

[Black Zot]

"Make the game harder for no good reason."

 

Hell no.

[Redlynne]

2 hours ago, Vanden said:

Basically, the idea is we

screw over Defense sets even harder than Regeneration "just cuz" ...

 

EMPHATIC NO.

[Vanden]

5 minutes ago, Redlynne said:

screw over Defense sets even harder than Regeneration "just cuz" ...

 

EMPHATIC NO.

It doesn’t sound like you even read the second paragraph, since as I outlined it defense sets would come out unscathed.

[Redlynne]

Just now, Vanden said:

It doesn’t sound like you even read the second paragraph, since as I outlined it defense sets would come out unscathed.

I didn't need to ... because I don't believe your "solution" would work.

 

STILL EMPHATIC NO.

[Vanden]

22 minutes ago, Redlynne said:

I didn't need to ... because I don't believe your "solution" would work.

You really should have, if only so you could say no to the idea that was actually posted.

[Razor Cure]

This idea did make me go WTF..but it does make sense. It would have been a good mechanic to have from the games inception..maybe at this time it would just be too much work/change. However, I think something similar could work for pvp. I know pvp has the Elustivity effect/buff to defence based sets, and for most non-def sets (melees etc), the actually amount of def you cna get is stupidly small. Not claiming to know how all the interactions work, but I saw a thread saying a SR Sentinel only gets to about 20% def to all in pvp, and if they pop Elude..that goes up. To a huge 22% (these values are quite possibly misquoted). SOmething like teh bolstering/prescion ideas could address that.

[macskull]

On 3/12/2020 at 6:57 PM, Vanden said:

Basically, the idea is we increase the minimum chance to hit from its current 5%, to something higher.

To be fair, the only thing that has a 5% minimum chance to hit is an even-con minion or lower enemy since all enemies get accuracy bonuses from their rank or relative level, to the point where, for example, a +4 AV actually has more than double that 5% chance to hit and there is nothing you can do to lower it. An interesting thought exercise would be to implement elusivity (currently a PvP-only mechanic which is basically "anti-accuracy") for PvE. This would mean for the most part defense remains entirely unchanged but if you run powers that give elusivity (almost every armor set toggle and the APP/PPP shields that give defense) you'd be able to actually reduce enemy chance to hit.

 

That being said, I feel like this is a solution to a nonexistent problem since players are very rarely fighting against enemies that actually have a 5% chance to hit and it isn't possible to lower that minimum hit chance anyways.

[DrRocket]

On 3/12/2020 at 6:47 PM, Vanden said:

Only the support types that have used the IO system to approach or exceed the defense soft cap. Ones with less extreme buffs would see no change. And support types are supposed to be less hardy than Melee types.

Getting a bit tired of the ole support types are supposed to be fodder comments, they are supposed to be super types as well, while they may lack in resistance bit, defense is the balancing factor that allows them to be heroic. Why not start a set of make it harder against the melee types, they seem to be the ones asking for challenge anyway. If anything why not do something that focus on melee types for a change, say give a whole bunch of mob types ignore resistance abilities for instance? How is that for challenge?

[Sarrate]

On 3/12/2020 at 4:47 PM, Vanden said:

Only the support types that have used the IO system to approach or exceed the defense soft cap. Ones with less extreme buffs would see no change. And support types are supposed to be less hardy than Melee types.

Or any characters using Lucks to try to power through a difficult situation. That's something I see as a defining feature of CoH, and restricting it would be a mistake.

 

edit: Lower hp alone makes them squishier. They have a lower hp pool to soak successive hits and also regen less hp/sec.

Edited March 14, 2020 by Sarrate

[Vanden]

2 minutes ago, Sarrate said:

Or any characters using Lucks to try to power through a difficult situation. That's something I see as a defining feature of CoH, and restricting it would be a mistake.

Purple inspirations could be modified to grant +Bolstering as well.

[Redlynne]

3 hours ago, Vanden said:

Purple inspirations could be modified to grant +Bolstering as well.

So ... create a problem in order to propose a solution ...?

[Steampunkette]

Your hit chance is calculated by the engine as:

 

HitChance = Clamp( AccMods × Clamp( BaseHitChance + ToHitMods – DefMods ))

 

Accuracy is a proportional bonus while ToHit is an absolute bonus. That is to say +40% ToHit increases your chance to hit by 40%, while +40% accuracy increases your chance to hit by 1.4 times your current chance to hit. So 10% chance to hit +40% ToHit is 50% chance to hit, 10% +40% Accuracy is 14% chance to hit.

 

Where would you put your modifier in this calculation? You can't modify the Clamp itself, because it's a fixed value that cannot be externally altered by buffs or debuffs. And putting it anywhere else in the calculation means a multiplicative change or an external fixed value being applied to attack or defense.

 

Without retooling how the game engine determines hits (Something hard-coded into it) you cannot implement this idea, or it's partner concept.

[Vanden]

Well, yeah, new code would have to be written. That goes without saying.

[Andreah]

Too big and messy a can of worms to open. Leave it be.