Evasion vs. armor

[wizard1200]

I think that it is currently too easy to get a high evasion score AND a high armor score which makes you basically immune to most attacks, because grazes do not inflict any damage.

The damage reduction of armors should be increased by 1 - 2 points (this would also make the penetration stat more interesting) and the evasion penalty should be increased by 5 - 15 points. Now the player has the choice to wear light armor with high evasion, medium armor with medium evasion or heavy armor with low evasion.

[Elhoim]

Interesting points, we'll look into it.

[wizard1200]

Originally posted by Elhoim:

Interesting points, we'll look into it.

Cool :)

The submitted melee character had for example an evasion score of 82 and an armor score of about 10 (the ap penalty of 2 points was annoying, but no problem if nothing can really hurt me).

I think that it should be more difficult to stack evasion:
- warrior: evasion + 15, but only against melee attacks
- artful dodger: evasion + 10 or + 20 during the first turn after stealth initiated combat

[Bishi]

That person must have just sat around farming graze and evades though. I've done just about everything so far on EA with a character abusing evasion, and it is nowhere near those levels. I think it is an outlier that needs more samples. Evasion is pretty strong though paired with armor. Associated perks help too.

[wizard1200]

Originally posted by BishiDe:

That person must have just sat around farming graze and evades though. I've done just about everything so far on EA with a character abusing evasion, and it is nowhere near those levels. I think it is an outlier that needs more samples. Evasion is pretty strong though paired with armor. Associated perks help too.

Farming evasion is not necessary, because reaching this evasion score with a solo character is no problem if you select all evasion feats (their effects stack).

[Bishi]

I do realize that, but evasion kinda sucks in the beginning until you get enough, so it probably took a lot of scumming to get to a point it was working. Especially solo. I do concede it is strong, but the average player will hardly get to that point. It takes an extreme amount of metagaming to get to that point. And everyone shouldn't be punished for it.

[wizard1200]

Originally posted by BishiDe:

I do realize that, but evasion kinda sucks in the beginning until you get enough, so it probably took a lot of scumming to get to a point it was working. Especially solo. I do concede it is strong, but the average player will hardly get to that point. It takes an extreme amount of metagaming to get to that point. And everyone shouldn't be punished for it.

Nope, i started with lone wolf (evasion + 15), tagged the evasion skill, increased the evasion skill to level 2, purchased the distortion field (enemy ranged to-hit chance - 35) with the starting money, used aimed attacks against the arms (enemy to-hit chance - 15) and selected warrior (evasion + 10) at the second level which you reach really fast.

[Bishi]

And that took metagaming is my point. For instance purchasing the distortion field early never seemed to cross my mind. But you are right about the other things. I started with Fast Runner personally and then got warrior at level 2. Evasion does actually start to work at that point. Not super reliable, but easier to get than fishing for crits offensively.

[hauau]

Originally posted by wizard1200:

Originally posted by BishiDe:

I do realize that, but evasion kinda sucks in the beginning until you get enough, so it probably took a lot of scumming to get to a point it was working. Especially solo. I do concede it is strong, but the average player will hardly get to that point. It takes an extreme amount of metagaming to get to that point. And everyone shouldn't be punished for it.

Nope, i started with lone wolf (evasion + 15), tagged the evasion skill, increased the evasion skill to level 2, purchased the distortion field (enemy ranged to-hit chance - 35) with the starting money, used aimed attacks against the arms (enemy to-hit chance - 15) and selected warrior (evasion + 10) at the second level which you reach really fast.

That's not exactly "too easy", you've created a dedicated solo evasion character

[wizard1200]

Originally posted by BishiDe:

And that took metagaming is my point. For instance purchasing the distortion field early never seemed to cross my mind. But you are right about the other things. I started with Fast Runner personally and then got warrior at level 2. Evasion does actually start to work at that point. Not super reliable, but easier to get than fishing for crits offensively.

You could replace fast runner with lone wolf, because reaction attacks were never an issue for my melee fighter with a con of 4 and the other effects of lone wolf are great, too.

Originally posted by hauau:

That's not exactly "too easy", you've created a dedicated solo evasion character

I think that it is hardly a dedicated evasion character, because every character could have this amount of evasion if you replace lone wolf with artful dodger or true grit.

[Bishi]

Well you are dedicating a tag too and 500 of your starting money. Considering outside of a mastermind character, most of us are only getting 3-4 perks in EA. 50%-66% of your perks is a lot. It is metagaming, but yes if such knowledge got around, it would work on and be useful on nearly every build.

[wizard1200]

After trying different evasion builds i think that increasing the evasion penalities could be the wrong approach to solve the issue, because the problem is that the armor handling score varies widely: str 4 + armor 1 = 0 ... str 10 + armor 10 = 30. This is an evasion penalty reduction of 30 points per piece of armor.

Instead of reducing a penalty towards 0 armor handling could reduce the penalty to its base value:
- armor handling = (str - 4) + (armor - 1) = 0 - 15
- armor has an armor handling requirement = 0 - 15
- armor has base evasion, initiative, reaction and sneak penalities
- every point of armor handling below the required score increases the penalities by 10 %

[wizard1200]

Using the previously suggested mechanic would make it ALWAYS possible to have light armored characters with high evasion, medium armored characters with medium evasion or heavy armored characters with low evasion.

[Nox]

Well - and I'm just going to lay this out there - is that armor skill _eliminates_ the evasion penalty for heavy armor.

This is like watching the mandolorian and seeing him dodge blaster shots because he's so good in his armor. No, that would be dumb. Instead, he takes a hit on his armor and shoots the guy because that's what armor is for.

The author makes a fine point. Winning in this gamesystem means evasion + armor skill + shield. You won't get hit, when you do you won't take damage, when you do it'll get absorbed. There are a few "geometric progression" systems like this that cause your midgame character to suddenly become a titan.

Once you hit that multiplicative peak, you've trivialized most of the content. Until you do it's absurdly difficult. There's very little in between.

[Bishi]

The issue though is balancing for solo and party runs. It is insanely easy to build armor and evasion solo because what other choice does the AI have? Where on the otherhand, my party runs gave me migraines with Jed and Faythe (in particular) getting focused fired because Evans and MC had too much evasion.

I think the real issue is how early you can get a distortion field gadget, that is what trivializes solo. It's not even worth bragging about. Also there is 3 you can get in the game besides the store, so earning those doesn't feel like much of a reward when you can get the one that really matters 10 seconds into the game.

[wizard1200]

Originally posted by BishiDe:

The issue though is balancing for solo and party runs. It is insanely easy to build armor and evasion solo because what other choice does the AI have? Where on the otherhand, my party runs gave me migraines with Jed and Faythe (in particular) getting focused fired because Evans and MC had too much evasion.

I think the real issue is how early you can get a distortion field gadget, that is what trivializes solo. It's not even worth bragging about. Also there is 3 you can get in the game besides the store, so earning those doesn't feel like much of a reward when you can get the one that really matters 10 seconds into the game.

That is exactly the reason why the previously suggested mechanic would be better in my opinion: You could set the base evasion penalty of every piece of armor to 0, 5, 10 or 15 and it would be impossible to reduce it below this score, but if the character does not meet the required armor handling score these penalities would be increased by up to 150 %.

I think that not when you get the distortion field or how many of them is the issue, but the balance between the three gadgets. The distortion field should increase the required ap for ranged attacks (tier 1: + 3, tier 2: + 4 and tier 3: + 5), the energy shield should have more hp (tier 1: 25, tier 2: 40 and tier 3: 55) and hp regeneration (tier 1: 5, tier 2: 8 and tier 3: 11) and the cloaking field should turn a character only invisible if the enemy is at least a few tiles away (tier 1: 4, tier 2: 3 and tier 3: 2).