basic(?) how to questions

[MagusMartovich]

What does strength/dexterity do? Without equip, my characters die from just about everything.

Is there a way to start with less than 4 party members? I'd like to start with 1.

Thanks people.

[Mcardy]

Re: basic(?) how to questions

To set up your beginning party go to the Database and it is under the System tab. On the left of the system tab there is a box for "Initial Party."

I'm not exactly sure what the exact mechanism for STR and DEX are, but I'm pretty sure:

Attack = (Strength + Weapon Attack) - Monster DEF / 2

Dexterity is accuracy and critical hit chance, but I am not certain how it is calculated.

[Wavelength]

Re: basic(?) how to questions

Game_Battler 3 in the Code Editor has most of the formulae for calculating damage, crits, misses, and so on.

If you can follow the logic there, you can determine what your characters need in order to be better/worse at certain battle aspects, or you can change the formulae yourself if you think there's a systematic imbalance in it.

It's probably worth getting used to how everything in your standard database flows together before you start messing with the code, however.

I decided I wanted critical hits (and therefore DEX and AGI) to have a bigger impact in battle, so I modified the critical hits calculation to look like this:

# Critical correction (JTC Custom)
if rand(100) < 4 * ((attacker.str + attacker.dex)/2) / self.agi
self.damage *= 5
self.critical = true
elsif rand(100) < 8 * ((attacker.str + attacker.dex)/2) / self.agi
self.damage *= 2
self.critical = true
end

I think the original code only had the first half of the code, up to the "elsif" command, and it used a damage modifier of Times Two. So, I made it Times Five, added a second chance to get a Times Two, and then copied this whole thing into the Skill Effects section later in Game_Battler 3 (replacing 'attacker' with 'user' and 'str' with 'int'). It's cool to have that small chance of having a mage character run up and whack an enemy with a rod and score huge damage, and I also like the chance that even a lowly enemy can make things go wrong for you once in a while.

[MagusMartovich]

Re: basic(?) how to questions

I play tested a party with 1 character having no equipment and he would never score any damage despite his huge strength and my mage (who had a wand) was actually hitting harder despite having no strength because she a weapon that was +5 more than anyone else. It struck me as odd and I looked at the status screen and even at max level character"s "battle stats" seem to depend entirely on equipment. That's why I asked what str/dex directly effect as it wasn't very obvious to me.

[Wavelength]

Re: basic(?) how to questions

I play tested a party with 1 character having no equipment and he would never score any damage despite his huge strength and my mage (who had a wand) was actually hitting harder despite having no strength because she a weapon that was +5 more than anyone else. It struck me as odd and I looked at the status screen and even at max level character"s "battle stats" seem to depend entirely on equipment. That's why I asked what str/dex directly effect as it wasn't very obvious to me.

I'll look tonight and see if I can figure anything out. Offhand I'm guessing maybe the character's strength is multiplied by the weapon's attack, or possibly that the weapon's attack is used as a base and then is multiplied by certain rates depending on the character's strength? If that's the case, you can change the multiplication to addition if it suits you well and you can find good balance...

[Mcardy]

Re: basic(?) how to questions

I haven't looked at the code since I'm not all that familiar with Ruby, and haven't messed with RPGXP in awhile, but here's what I tested. Wavelength will have to confirm this.

Monster DEF is 1, Physical DEF is 1

Hero's STR / ATK / Damage Done

ST | AT | DAM
10 | 00 | 00
01 | 10 | 10
10 | 10 | 15
20 | 00 | 00
20 | 10 | 20

It seems here that in the formula it is necessary to have at least 1 Attack to cause any damage, and that (Damage = Attack + STR/2); IF Attack=0; Damage=0
----------------
STR | ATK | DAM
100 | 000 | 000
100 | 001 | 006
100 | 002 | 012
100 | 003 | 018
100 | 004 | 024
100 | 005 | 032

Here however, it seems like the way Strength is working is 1 Attack per 100 STR will increase damage by 6%. So if you had 200 STR the table would be 12% (0 / 12 / 24 / 36 / 48 / 60) and if you had 300 STR the table would be 18%.

This seems kind of odd.

[Ryner]

Re: basic(?) how to questions

The in-game help file has the damage calculations explained in a relatively easy way.

[Wavelength]

Re: basic(?) how to questions

I found this in Game_Battler 3.

# Calculate basic damage
atk = [attacker.atk - self.pdef / 2, 0].max
self.damage = atk * (20 + attacker.str) / 20

Everything past here basically just multiplies the damage. If attacker.atk is zero, the whole thing is going to be zero. Zero is just going to be modified a bunch of times.

And as far as I can tell, characters don't have innate ATK; they only have STR. Weapons have ATK. So, unarmed, your character is going to do zero. If you plan to make a character that fights with his fists, you'll either have to make a "Fists" weapon, or go in and modify the damage formula to something you like.

This also explains Mcardy's find, although I'd expect it to go 6-11-16-21 instead of 6-12-18-24.

I think this solves everything you were looking for... please let me know if it doesn't!

[Mcardy]

Re: basic(?) how to questions

The help guide says the variance is 15, so I took an average of ~5 attacks. The first attack was always 6-7, then 12-13, then 17-19, etc.

One can always mod the self.damage to include STR rather than have (20+STR)/20. I find it interesting they decided to calculate damage this way.

[MagusMartovich]

Re: basic(?) how to questions

6% extra damage for every 100 att. That's not a problem. I figured after playtesting a bit that it was some kind of multiplier thing. I had a character with max att and another with a maxed weapon both attack a sample monster I threw together and neither could deal damage.

I'm now using same said critters to better understand status effects and the like.

[Mcardy]

Re: basic(?) how to questions

Well, the 6% for every 100 STR only applies is the monster's PDEF is 1. If it were higher it would probably be less of a % boost.

BTW, if you haven't looked at the help page yet, this is the DEX formula.
Critical hit rate = (4 × Attacker's DEX) ÷ Defender's AGI

So, with 100 DEX against a 40 AGI target you would have (400/40) or a 10% critical hit chance.

[MagusMartovich]

Re: basic(?) how to questions

The balance in this game is really touchy. I can tell already that my particular creation style is leaning toward making an unplayable game, lol. I made my basic monster and set up a party of 2 and kicked off a rousing 3 hours of "figure out how to do damage that isn't lethal!" I got it finally but I know I'm going to need to be careful about boss fights and whatnot so that players don't have the same experience. "I guess that's why the mages have such high MP..."

[Wavelength]

Re: basic(?) how to questions

The balance in this game is really touchy. I can tell already that my particular creation style is leaning toward making an unplayable game, lol. I made my basic monster and set up a party of 2 and kicked off a rousing 3 hours of "figure out how to do damage that isn't lethal!" I got it finally but I know I'm going to need to be careful about boss fights and whatnot so that players don't have the same experience. "I guess that's why the mages have such high MP..."

That's interesting. I'm still using the sample characters to test things, and while the battle results do end up a little feast-or-famine (I'd either steamroll the enemies, barely survive, or get wiped), I get a lot of moderate damage numbers as the battles play out. My guess is that if you're using low numbers for the character and monster stats, it's more likely to be lethal-or-nothing. Or if you use modest stat differences as you upgrade your weapons you can probably force a good balance.

I'm planning to create my own damage formula to try and make things more intuitive for the player. Haven't decided on anything to use yet, although I think I'm going to try to limit the number of defensive factors (which lower the damage done) to one.

[Mcardy]

Re: basic(?) how to questions

If using lower numbers with the default algorithm, it might be better to have Enemies have extremely low PDEF so it is easier to calculate.

For instance:

Start Area / 1 - 3 PDEF
Next Area / 2 - 4 PDEF
Next Area / 3 - 5 PDEF

And give Bosses slightly higher PDEF then the "area" PDEF. This would allow you to give lower amounts of strength and other stats and still maintain a balance moving through the area.

FFIV does it in a similar way. Most monsters have 1 or 2 PDEF, high level end-game enemies like Blue Dragons and Behemoths only have 6. You can do this to calculate damage easier, and then fix the "balance" by adjusting Enemy HP.

[MagusMartovich]

Re: basic(?) how to questions

A lot of my problem (I figured out) is I was trying to cut corners and use custom characters against the preset enemies. My party all have lower numbers because I started everything in the 10s and then enemies are all in the low to mid 100s.

I usually just throw together stats and whatnot to keep myself reminded of what character does what (mages have no str, all MP; fighters are att and HP; etc.) And then balance things out at then end after I have all the maps and dialouge set up and running.

Ideally I'd like to start stat point in the 5-25 range and build them to the 1000-8000 range by the end of the game. Weapons and armor totals are 15 or so to 800. That's my long term goal, though. Right now I've got a good feel for the data entry system and I'm starting with maps and basic quests so I can make aa game I'd like to play, and hopefully other people too.