Dodge discussion

[Gardner Denver]

Done

[Martyr The King]

Basically I don't see dodge cap working at all right now. Instead of actually creating a cap, You somehow lowered the dodge rates in the formula. First step would be to mainline the cap so it doesn't pull from your current attributes, but does actually make a cap limit, instead of an inhibitor.

The idea of racial dodge caps is unique and probably the best solution and now, you also have another stat to add to all races, I.E. Your dark-elf can cap out @ 50% or so, You might be more inclined to use that race instead of a tank for your heavier classes, Because now you can build your dodge (we'll say) warlock instead of the usual tanker, Say  your kang caps out @ 25% or so, it could potentially be a determining factor when you go to make a caster?
Anyone else have any other thoughts?

[Zetetic]

Gardner: Is there any possibility that we can test a level 50 combat 3 character vs a level 55 Priest with 110 AC and 90 dodge?

I ask because I would prefer to adjust my proposed formula to cap dodge at (agility/2)+racebonus+classbonus+encumbrancebonus and I would like to know whether we will end up with the old 99% dodge problem.

The other thing that I would like to add is that currently agility, charm and level (can someone confirm this?) all provide dodge bonuses? I think that the bonus for what level you are needs to be removed, or badly nerfed. Capping dodge at all devalues the +dodge items, and having level bonuses means that characters that otherwise would not dodge very much (cough, Half Ogre Mystic, cough) will eventually lose much of the downsides to their character.

I would prefer that people balance their choice of race/class based on something important, instead of just saying 'Well at level 75+ Half Ogre is better at everything because of the hitpoints. Why would I go anything else?'.

[Zetetic]

So from the looks of things the next thing`that needs to be discussed for dodge, is how it is calculated. Currently (please correct me if I'm wrong Vitoc) what I have gathered is that characters first do a swing attempt vs ac as per normal. If that hits, then the characters dodge % is rolled for, so for a character with 80 dodge, they have an 80% chance of not being hit by the swing, with no modifiers being given with regard to the swinging players accuracy.

In regular mud I believe the calculation was that players swing against a combination of AC + dodge with dodge being modified on a sliding scale vs the swinging characters accuracy. Also regmud had a hard dodge cap of 60 (once again, feel free to correct me if you know better).

Niether of these systems balances out particularly well. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, and I know that the current dodge system is far superior to what we have had in it's various iterations previously. I'm just saying that I think we should try to work out what we would consider to be a fair system. The issue with the current system is that you cannot improve your chances of hitting someone with high dodge no matter what. The dodge roll is vs a fixed amount, so even Witchunters (who should in theory have high accuracy) have a terrible time hitting anyone with dodge.

I like the idea of relaxing or removing the soft/hard caps to the dodge system (giving an advantage to those with high dodge characters), but adding some kind of accuracy of opposing monster/player modifier to the roll. This would mean that as you increase in level, or kit yourself out with +accuracy gear you become more likely to hit your opponent.

So say a character has 110 dodge (unhittable with 0 accuracy bonus) and they are fighting a high level Witchy. We add the Witchy's accuracy bonus (I was thinking of making the calculation similar to the one done for normal swings) and let's say for the sake of argument that is 50 (pulled entirely from my proverbials) then the resulting swing is calculated against a dodge of 60.

What say we all?

[Thergin]

I like the idea of have accuracy vs ac, then accuracy vs dodge, it still gives advantages to chars that can get high ac and high dodge, maybe your ac can modify your chance to dodge, the higher it is the less chance it is to dodge, so that its hard to get passed your ac, but then a little more easier to get passed the dodge.

[Rage]

I can tell you right now as a witchunter the current dodge settings don't seem right in the slightest.  Go look at some of the posts I've shown in the captures section.  People with even halfway decent dodge gear have around 95% dodge against me even if I'm 10 levels above them.