Weapon / Armor / Evade / Shield Mechanics

[kablizzy]

So, I got to thinking tonight, reading through some of the v3 development things, that we may be going about the concept of armor and evade and all that incorrectly.

Ponder this; FFT had the bright idea of Armor adding to your HP / MP / Etc. That's what armor does. It makes you tougher by simply adding numbers to your "Amount of damage I can take before I die" stat. But manually calculating this total through, what, eight slots of items is a bit off. So, I was pondering different ways to go about representing the concept of armor. Of course, there's damage reduction and the defense stat and all that, but I wanted to see what everyone thinks here.

And then I started thinking about WP. Each weapon has a certain amount of WP assigned to that weapon. A level, if you will. Each weapon has a specific level, and its relative power and usefulness is based upon that conceptual number.

And then I started pondering on Shield mechanics and evade. What's different about a shield and armor? Shields just block more damage, but I hate

So this came back around to the Block / Dodge / Evade / Glancing Blow (Damage Reduction) thing. My problem with this concept is that it makes calculations more convoluted. Evade is kind of this catch-all, and stacks with itself, and all kinds of silly stuff. But then I thought, "Why does evasion have to stack?" Shields can give Physical Evasion, other things can give Magical, right? Those don't stack. So, why would a Ninja's ability to flip out of the way of something stack with the heavy-assed tower shield they're carrying? Because that would actually hinder their ability to dodge, but they'd still have the shield to block with.

So, I'm just pondering and postulating and trying to figure out what direction is best here. I know we've had a bit of discussion on the topic, but I want the best of both worlds. I want a good, clean calculation as well as something that makes a good amount of sense and is easy to run. Is "Armor gives HP" the way to do this?

[Ilium]

One of the main issues is that evasion is not stackable/additive in FFT, it is multiplicative.

from front:  hit% = [(base hit%)*(100-P.CEv)*(100-P.SEv)*(100-P.AEv)*(100-WEv) / (10^8)]
from side:   hit% = [(base hit%) * (100-P.SEv) * (100-P.AEv) * (100-W.Ev) / (10^6)]
from rear:   hit% = [(base hit%) * (100-P.AEv) / 100]

When you attack a unit, it has a chance to dodge your attack with four parameters: (1) its class evasion (CEv); (2) its shield (SEv); (3) its accessory (AEv); (4) its weapon (WEv), if it has the reaction ability 'Weapon Guard' set. There are separate categories for physical (P.SEv, P.AEv, P.CEv) and magical (M.SEv, M.AEv) evade. Note that there is no magical class evasion. Weapon evasion only works on physical attacks, and for the purpose of these equations, WEv = 0 unless the evading unit has'Weapon Guard'.

HoI tried to implement magical class evasion, but I believe the whole premise was built upon stacking variables so it was flawed from the beginning.

Theoretically all we would have to do is create two different tables for physical and magick attacks, create a magick class evasion (M.CEv) variable, and we are good to go. Shields, accessories, and class variables all interact to create an evasion rate. I think in this case it is easy enough to leave armor as the main +HP modifying item. However if you'd like to introduce evasion rates to armor we could do so, then add Armor Evade (ArEv) to the equation and divide the whole thing by (10^10).

[Ilium]

Evading magical attacks, with Magick Class Evade (M.CEv) included in the equation.

any position:  hit% = [(base hit%) * (100- M.CEv) * (100 - M.SEv) * (100 - M.AEv) / 1000000]