In City of Heroes, there were a few basic ways to achieve Critical Hits. These were:
[url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Critical_hit#Assassination]Assassination[/url] when Stalkers attacked from Hidden status.
[url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Critical_hit#Containment]Containment[/url] doing double damage to Foes that were already subject to Mez effects (which PToD prevented).
[url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Critical_hit#Critical_Hit]Critical Hit[/url] for Scrappers giving a random chance of double damage on any attack.
[url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Critical_hit#Domination]Domination[/url] to increase MAG and Duration on Mez effects.
[url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Critical_hit#Scourge]Scourge[/url] which grants an increasing chance to deal double damage as Foe HP goes down.
You'll note that all of these Critical Hit mechanics were in some form or fashion all tied into being Inherent Powers for specific Archetypes ... Stalkers, Controllers, Scrappers, Dominators (kinda sorta) and Corruptors. Furthermore, none of these means and methods for achieving Critical Hits had any possible relationship to Enhancements because the Powers that granted these effects couldn't be Enhanced.
Which was in its own way "fine" for a game released in 2004 ... but a little "lacking" in a game intended to be playable in the 2017+ time frame.
One thing that we do have to work with from other games is the notion of converting "excess" Accuracy into improving chances for Critical Hits. In a City of Titans context, that could potentially mean that certain kinds of Augments/Refinements combinations might give an increased chance for Critical Hits when Accuracy gets boosted beyond a certain threshold ... that way "too much Accuracy" doesn't wind up being "wasted" for lack of anything useful to do.
Indeed, it ought to be theoretically possible to configure the underlying To Hit System itself to be the core of such functionality (ie. push Accuracy over 100% and you start adding Chance To Critical Hit) regardless of which attack Power(s) are being used ... but then also have additional modifiers for Primary/Secondary/Tertiary Powersets that could then multiply the "efficiency" of converting excess Accuracy into Critical Hit Chance. So for Archetype A, the conversion of excess Accuracy into Critical Hits might be a 1:1 ratio, while for Archetype B is could be a 1:2 or even 1:3 ratio, depending on where playtesting suggests there might be a "sweet spot" for a multiplier effect. That way, every PC can partake of the system (if they invest into it heavily enough), but some Archetypes are "better at it" than others while still needing to develop excessive Accuracy in order to make use of the advantage.
Another possibility is to do something akin to what Star Trek Online does, where they split the modifiers for Critical Hit Chance from Critical Hit Damage and allow excessive Accuracy to modify both factors upwards simultaneously using a sort of "overflow" calculation that yields a "rollover" into increased Critical Hit Chance and Damage.
My basic thought here is that it would be interesting to see multiple paths to maximum throughput of damage on Foe(s) in City of Titans such that you don't necessarily have a single cookie cutter method to follow by rote as the "best" way to do things. In other words, you could have "power" fighters who just do huge straight damage with few to no critical hits ... and at the time time have "finesse" fighters who produce most of their damage through critical hits. Same goal, different means.
Thoughts?
Opinions?
Demands for funding to replace keyboards due to coffee spills upon reading this post?
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Well, Stalkers also had Critical Hits just like Scrappers. Though thinking on it, I really just thought everyone would have a chance for critical hits in CoT. O.O
crit hits. are they even really needed? I'm sure we'll get them as people, in general, looove big numbers for bragging rights.
assuming they are incorporated, all AT's should have the ability to score crits. otherwise, doesn't really matter to me how they are incorporated as long as it is done in a fair manner respective to the AT in question.
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I can't think of an mmo that doesn't have crits.
There were no crits for blasters in CoX. DPS was really boringly predictable.
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Stalkers had a controllable means and method to produce Critical Hits reliably. That required the Stalker to be Hidden, which then essentially translated into a front loaded guaranteed Critical Hit on alpha strike ... but then the Stalker couldn't produce another Critical Hit until regaining HIdden Status.
Scrappers, by contrast, could not produce Critical Hits reliably ... but they had a 5-15% chance to Critical Hit on ANY and EVERY attack they made. Some Powers, such as [url=http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/power.php?id=Scrapper_Melee.Martial_Arts.Eagles_Claw]Eagles Claw[/url] in Martial Arts, featured and increased chance to Critically Hit with a follow up attack. But the key point was that Scrappers were at the mercy of the RNG to produce their Critical Hits.
Critical Hits for both of these Archetypes produced Double Damage.
So Stalkers got to "choose" when they would Critically Hit, while for Scrappers any Critical Hits were "bonus" damage that happened randomly ... so controlled vs random. Not exactly the same.
Exactly my point, and why I'm thinking it would be wise to tie in any sort of Critical Hits game mechanic to an "overflow" of Accuracy feature, making it available to everyone. Once you've got that foundation in place, it's then a relatively simple matter to give specific Archetypes (in the case of City of Titans, specific Primary/Secondary/Tertiary combinations) advantages in terms of how "efficiently" they convert their "overflow" Accuracy into Critical Hits. After that, there comes an additional decision point of whether or not to split that "overflow" into Critical Hit Chance and/or Critical Hit Damage, with different Archetypes offering a different "mix" of advantages of efficiency in this area driven by their Primary/Secondary/Tertiary grouping.
A Power that functions like [url=http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/power.php?id=Stalker_Defense.Super_Reflexes.Hide]Hide[/url], for example, could offer a "stupidly huge" Accuracy Bonus so as to provide a "guaranteed" 100% Critical Hit Chance when coming out of Hide, for example, as a sort of deliberate side effect of how the game mechanics are structured.
A Power that works like [url=http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/power.php?id=Inherent.Inherent.Rage]Fury[/url] could perhaps offer a continuum of scaling of efficiency for Critical Hit Damage (the more "Furious" you are, the harder your Critical Hits hurt) but do absolutely nothing for Critical Hit Chance.
You could do something similar but in reverse for a Ranged Blaster sort of Archetype, where they use a "Fury" mechanic to build up a continuum of scaling efficiency for Critical Hit Chance, such that the longer they fight, the more likely they are to score Critical Hits, but the damage of each Critical Hit isn't being increased. Note that this is functionally the way that Corruptors worked, except that Corruptors keyed their Critical Hit Chance off an inverse of HP remaining on their $Target, meaning that the more wounded the Foe was the more likely they would score a Critical Hit against them in a sort of "adding insult to injury" kind of "piling on" behavior.
The key thing I want people to be aware of is that by utilizing the system of Accuracy Overflow to produce Critical Hits (chance and damage bonuses), that then creates a competitive pressure on simple sheer basic Damage Enhancement of Powers ... if the "overflow" mechanic is set up right and if Enhancement strengths are working on a Decay Curve of diminishing returns. It creates a complex set of variables in which there will be inflection points for which is the most "efficient" way to generate extra HP Debuffing "throughput" from attack Powers. In some combinations, the most efficient way to increase Damage will be by adding Damage Enhancements (duh) ... while in others it may be more efficient to increase Accuracy, and thus Critical Hits. And rather than being a hard and fast "rule" that is universally applied, there will be other factors to consider in the totality of build.
In other words, I want to create a Mids' Hero Planner worthy challenge of competing factors to consider, in which sheer straight Damage Enhancement isn't necessarily ALWAYS going to be the answer to EVERY question.
In City of Heroes ... Damage was King, and AoE wore the crown.
In City of Titans, I want Damage to have to [b][i]compete[/i][/b] with other factors for supremacy, rather than just being handed the crown by default, simply because everything ultimately boils down to Damage and throughput generated per second.
Better to make Players stop and think (or even better yet, agonize) over which is the better choice FOR THEIR BUILD than have a cookie cutter that cannot be challenged under any circumstances, producing a No Brainer result that no one ever questions or doubts. In other words, DON'T set up "railroad tracks" that lead directly in a straight line to the "best" choice out of all possible combinations with no deviations running on the path of least resistance.
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Red, wrong. That was changed. Stalkers at the end, had the ability to crit just like a scrapper, from outside of the hidden state. they could also enter the hidden state and crit that way.
Just like at the end they had a way to use Assassinate outside of the hidden state for really great damage.
Hello, all you critters out there.
We do have plans* for everyone to have the possibility of critical hits. That is all, true believers.
Felix.
* this is not a promise, just an intent.
Know thy users, for they are not you.
"Preliminary optimization is the root of all evil." -Knuth
[color=#FF0000]Coding Lead[/color]
a.k.a. Mr Sigma, Mr. Stochastic, Balancing Act, The Oncoming Storm
If (since) we''re going to have Crit Hits, why can't we also have Crit Misses? In my old PnP days, Rule #1 for ranged attacks, "Never fire into melee". How about we include if there is a critical miss, there is a chance that you instead hit a random character (friend or foe) within an AoE of the targeted foe?
-Wolf sends
I want to contend the first line of this by saying that AoE's were not always the straight path to victory or the prime, glorious example of straight damage. Having spent a lot of time with Mids and playing CoH in general, the offset of a moderate damage AoE was the amount of endurance it cost and the amount of time it took to recharge. Attack rate is just as important as the damage of an attack, and in a lot of cases, single target damage did wonders when a moderate damage singular attack could recharge and be effectively spammed compared to AoEs that you had to wait for. In addition, AoE's held the crown in more circumstantial situations.
In my mind, an effective moment of crowning glory for any build, I believe, was the capacity to solo an Arch-Villain. Lord Recluse specifically was the final boss of any AV slaying build, as the mechanics behind his character were so brutal they put every aspect of the build to the test. AoEs in this capacity was to cull the increasing number of adds he would summon, but nothing more.
High profile enemies would regenerate quickly, and if you weren't attacking often enough with high enough damage attacks, then their base regeneration would be too high for you to beat; it's why it is always suggested that a team is used to tackle an AV, simply for the fact that it would generate enough ticks of damage to wear them down.
However, the crux of the matter is something I agree with; straight damage should not be the only solution to a problem. However, the mechanic that you have suggested might provide some additional problems by itself.
To begin, the core maths behind CoH was to generate a single percentile based on the core accuracy of the used power (To-Hit and Accuracy raised it, Defence and Elusiveness lowered it). The resulting percentile would be rolled against to see if you hit the target, with some measure of contingency to possibly ensure there was always a chance to miss. What resulted was ok to start with, but the amount of accuracy one would generate would be so high, most levels of defence below 40% would be worthless in PvP. In PvE, the maths was good, as it provided some level of dominance and survival over the NPCs, whose superior assets would boil down to their much greater number of hitpoints as well as high enough damage on various attacks to pose a threat when needed.
By using that core stance, but placing a cap over accuracy to feed into critical hits may cause damage output in general to be reduced. The base of damage was down to the RNG to begin with, not just the Critical hits. The accuracy of various attacks was simply high enough to allow for consistent damage. If Accuracy was to be capped and fed into a universal critical hit system, then the player would more than likely hit less often, thereby dealing no damage at all, reducing over all attack rate and replacing a constant, steady stream of damage with the occasional, big hit.
I feel like Critical Hit chance and Damage could be derived from a series of enhancements, like standard damage and accuracy can be, and maybe having a toggle or auto power that boosts it in a potential tertiary power set might be the best option, depending on how many tertiary sets a player can pick from to round out their character. Give all the characters a chance to crit, and have the extra damage that, say, an Enforcer would gain from their Surprise Attack mastery be a separate slot of critical damage, which may or may not stack with the base critical hit.
In short, I do agree with the idea of the post, give everyone critical hits, as it will be a fair option for the most part. However, what I do not agree with is that providing more focus on inconsistent damage to take focus away from damage in general is not how I would envision that. I would say giving more options to utilise Debuffs, or even the ability to resolve situations with diplomacy or intimidation rather than just combat is the route that should be taken.
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Additionally, I write up my sessions of a Teen Heroes game here.
Well, if things worked like CoH, where melee DPS (scrappers) could generate higher DPS than ranged DPS (blasters), that means that when the scrappers mob the archvillain, the blasters should just go to the corner and play cards or something. Seriously, just the fact that some blaster AoEs had always-on knockback (which tended to kick things out of the scrapper and tank PBAoE areas) meant that those powers had to be left unused during such fights. Critical misses would only make this worse.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
That and typically any mechanic that has a random, uncontrollable instance where you provide a detriment to the team will be frowned upon by players. It's why there was such an uproar with Super Smash Bros Brawl and Tripping.
I do a DnD Podcast, which can be listened to here.
Additionally, I write up my sessions of a Teen Heroes game here.
In an MMORPG context, what you're talking about is called GRIEFING.
Are you sure you want to go there and provide game mechanical support to the most obnoxious and antisocial behaviors a PC can deliberately engage in?
Consider that the people you played with at the table with PnP gaming could reach across the table and do something physical to restrain you from behaving like a jerk to them. Now imagine that they couldn't do that ... oh and that the people being jerks are anonymous and cannot be traced, except by Customer Support. So a Critical Miss mechanic as you've described creates an opportunity for Griefing [b]AND[/b] increases the workload of Customer Support.
Does any of this make sense to you yet as to why your suggestion might be a Bad Idea™?
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What about critical heals? Just throwin' it out there.
This is also in the plan*.
Felix
* This is intent, not a promise.
Know thy users, for they are not you.
"Preliminary optimization is the root of all evil." -Knuth
[color=#FF0000]Coding Lead[/color]
a.k.a. Mr Sigma, Mr. Stochastic, Balancing Act, The Oncoming Storm
If it's random by the RNG I don't see how it's griefing or how anyone can actually grief someone with something they couldn't control.
But no, people don't like anything they can't try to avoid and I'm not keen on critical miss myself, but a 1% chance at missing and doing damage to oneself wouldnt bother me that much, but still not keen on the idea.
Felix has already pointed out that there is already "intent" for critical hits and heals.
Redlynne's idea of tying critical hits to accuracy overflow is interesting, and would be very beneficial for someone like me who is prone to favor Accuracy over Damage when building characters. I can't help but wonder how this might interact with the Momentum mechanic.
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I'm in agreement with all of this. Interesting.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Just trying to find ways of making ranged weapon specialists even more useless when in a team. ;-)
[/sarcasm]
-Wolf sends
/em politely declines your offer
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One does what one can to keep thy girlish figure! ^_~
I just like the idea of taking something that would otherwise be "wasted" (ie. Accuracy Enhancement overflow potential) and turning it into something potentially "useful" ... and then set up the framework for HOW it could be used as being something with myriad potential influences and factors, creating a complex gameplay interaction that yields a "puzzle" to be "solved" by the Players as to what the "best" route to maximal performance is for their specific character and build strategy. Instead of letting min/max be a simple matter of "Do this. Done." ... instead you've got a situation of "Well ... it depends ..."
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Don't forget Accuracy itself isn't an Augment but a Refinement. Multi-socket Augments won't be commonly available and a Refinements handle many aspects of how powers operate. If accuracy were to play a role in critical hits, our power design system is flexible that we can tune many different aspects without messing with others. If we want to say have a Mastery that increased critical hit capability we could do that without increasing accuracy.
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- Combat Mechanic -
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I am not willing to discuss why yet, but there is currently no such thing as accuracy overflow. However, if you were interested in that sort of behavior, you could make the check for a critical happen after a hit is determined, so a greater chance to hit would result in a greater chance for a critical. I say this in no way implying that we are committing to either of these options.
As an aside, I personally dislike the idea of critical misses.
Just my 2 IGC.
Felix.
Know thy users, for they are not you.
"Preliminary optimization is the root of all evil." -Knuth
[color=#FF0000]Coding Lead[/color]
a.k.a. Mr Sigma, Mr. Stochastic, Balancing Act, The Oncoming Storm
Thinking about it a little bit more, there is [i]one[/i] implementation of "critical misses" I'd support: a "critical miss" meant that you'd hit another [i]hostile[/i] in a small area around the target. So if your aim is lousy, you might pull more aggro than you'd expect over the long haul. If there's nobody in that area, it's just a miss.
But that's it.
Which makes me now want different power animations for "miss" vs. "invulnerable to that"/"eaten by damage resistance". Bullets bouncing off and all that. But maybe that belongs in the "jiggle" thread.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Soo, something like holding down a power button/key to charge will increase the chance for a Critical hit?
Can we haz the attack Animation look a teeny bit different if its a critical hit... even if its just a red'ish aura?
I don't really look at the numbers, text that floats above NPC's, mostly never, mostly. :P
No, charging is not going to be a general requirement for power functions. It could be possible a set has a power that uses a charge function to increase critical capability, but not a typical thing.
I'll make a notemof the critical hit visual indicator, but no promises as there are somemother things which are tangentially related to consider as well.
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- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Doing such a thing requires precognition by the computer. The only way is MIGHT work is if the entirety of an attack is computed and resulted prior to being animated, which was how it worked in City of Heroes (and why bouncing grenades could "chase" PC's around corners and through terrain).
In a animate first/resolve after system like Unreal 4 is [i]designed to do[/i] and perfectly capable of accomplishing natively, such precognition becomes ... let's just say, more trouble than it's worth for the attacker.
You might be able to do something on the $Target, but then all you're doing is increasing the workload on your Art Assets Team and opening up the possibility that Critical Hits necessarily introduce some kind of game mechanical advantage, even it is momentary Interrupts or whatever. Again, not something to embark on without knowing ahead of time what you're trying to accomplish.
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The solution to the "resolve after" situation is simply to limit critical hit special effects to those effects applied at the target. For example, a bigger than normal explosion effect, or a "FREEM!" text that floats up from the point of impact...
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Alternate FX is probably the easiest/cheapest way to go. Doing an extra animation of blowing out the smoking barrel of a gun, however, is probably begging for trouble in terms of resource expenditures (except maybe as a freestanding emote).
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Hmm... if you want to blow smoke out the barrel of your gun, make it a random animation that happens sometimes after you stop attacking. Kind of like an idle animation, but keyed to the in-combat-to-out-of-combat status transition.
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Critical Mez
Crowd Control Enthusiast
One way I have seen Critical Misses handled is that they cause a delay before your next attack. In one game, you would actually drop your weapon on a critical miss and have to pick it up to continue fighting
That's more of a "fumble".
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
The hand to hand fighter's hand can just pop off!
It could get tangled in his cape while he's winding up like Popeye.
They could break a nail.
Be Well!
Fireheart