Remove the Combat Accuracy talent

[Aquillion]

See, now some of you guys are asking for something else and too much. What's wrong with you with wanting to know so much? Why can't you just, I don't know, ATTACK, see if you hit, and then judge weather the fights worth it or not from that. Why in the world would you want to know your %chance to hit any given npc? You know you don't have to kill/fight everything right?

Knowing those numbers makes it easier to decide if your equipment is good for you and where you should invest in future development. Right now, it's often a huge pain to figure out how good your accuracy is -- yes, you can try and eyeball it based on how often you hit, but that's tricky to track, especially since one string of bad rolls can stick in your head and make you think you're doing worse than you really are.

If you want the game to obfuscate the numbers, it shouldn't display accuracy bonuses at all Displaying that number but then refusing to clarify what it means to the player is just frustrating; one of the biggest annoyances I had when I was just starting ToME (and even a bit, today) is that it would often confront you with a choice between two pieces of equipment or two skills with no real way to judge how much each would really help you -- it would have a number, but you couldn't translate that number into what it would do for your average damage. Worse, you'd know that there is one clearly right choice, but the game wouldn't give you enough information to make it.

Games are about making a sequence of choices. If you don't give your players enough information to make those choices intelligently, they're going to feel like they're not playing the game as much -- it'll feel more like you're poking around at random. So I'm always in favor of more transparent mechanics, as long as it doesn't reveal stuff that is actually supposed to be totally unknown to the player.

[eronarn]

Why can't you just, I don't know, ATTACK, see if you hit, and then judge weather the fights worth it or not from that.

Because due to the way talents/combat/etc. in TOME work, this is both a terrible indicator of how dangerous something is and a great way to get yourself killed instantly. There are way too many enemies that can deal >100% of your maxHP in one hit for 'just try fighting it' to be a reasonable approach to the game.

[kazak 2]

I think I got this thread a little off track. I guess I was talking more about a general sense of "where you should be" at various points in the game, with regard to accuracy. For instance, in tome2, I think it was generally accepted that 30 points in weaponmastery was a good number to shoot for, otherwise you're going to have trouble hitting anything late game (I believe this was Lord Dimwit wisdom).

I don't really have a similar sense of what "a good number" is in tome4, so I probably end up dumping way more points into accuracy than I should. For instance, my fighter winner ended up with 212 accuracy - I just maxed it because I had no idea what would be needed late in the game (I also maxed precise strikes, mainly for the crit bonus). You don't want to get to the prides and find you're having trouble hitting anything, and at that point, it's not terribly easy to correct if accuracy is too low (it's not like you can go scum earlier levels for exp). And of course you never get perfect accuracy, so no matter how many points you throw in there, you still here that whiff sound in fights, and there's nothing on your character sheet that indicates your hit/miss ratio, so it's hard to really know how well you're doing until it really becomes a problem.

This is probably more potent with newer players, especially considering lukep's point. The idea that generally 30 - 50 is okay, but maybe 90 to 200 is needed at times. That's one of those things where, if I run in to something in the first half of the game that requires twice my current accuracy to hit, then I'm gonna freak out about what I'm going to encounter later, see the 10 point accuracy talent, and figure I'm just going to have to max it.

But that's all the sort of thing that can be resolved with something like character guides, or monster/area spoilers, once the wiki is more well-developed. Something like, "Gorbat Pride generally contains foes with defenses ranging from xx to yy", so when you're planning out your character you can see that you need an accuracy rating of at least zz. And now that I think about it, maybe tracking your hit/miss ratio in the character sheet would be a good indicator as well - if the percentage seems low, sink more points in accuracy.

Aside from the transparency issue, I still like the idea of merging the two talents. This encourages investment in more interesting talents - making your game more fun and interesting as opposed to making your game suck less, which is kind of what accuracy investment feels like currently. It removes a tedious artificial impediment, rather than actually adding something.

[jotwebe]

It would be a no-brainer to boost that skill

Its your combat mastery, you generally want it high, no?

Well, my whole point is that maybe you don't want it quite as high as your damage output, and would rather have a generic point available. Reasons for that would be:

• You're using Precise Strikes
• You've put some points in whatever the +100 accuracy talent was called again and are going to use that when needed
• You're mostly using weapons with an accuracy bonus
• ... or icy weapons (frozen guys have no defense, AFAIK)

Conversely, you might want more accuracy:

[*] You use talents that depend on hitting the enemy a lot (shield bash and friends, double strike...)
[*] You rely on weapons that inflict an status effect (slimy, icy) for protection
[*] And yes, I've used icy as an argument for less accuracy, too - if you're not relying on it for protection so much, and mainly want to kill frozen guys quickly

Anyway, don't take away choice just because the skill is there and you feel you have to max it. Do some extreme builds in arena, familiarize yourself with it. Also, we now have respec, so keep some generic points elsewhere and reshuffle them to accuracy if you need it...

[Laerte]

Well, my whole point is that maybe you don't want it quite as high as your damage output

I agree, thats why I said (twice) that the accuracy effect could be toned down.

and would rather have a generic point available.

yes, and my proposal gives even more generics to the player.

• You're using Precise Strikes
• You've put some points in whatever the +100 accuracy talent was called again and are going to use that when needed

Well, some classes like reaver, mindslayer, cursed and temporal warden do not have access to the combat-techniques.

Anyway, don't take away choice just because the skill is there and you feel you have to max it.

I never said that I max the actual combat accuracy skill. Most of the time I keep it under 5 (and the combat mastery enough to give like 70% ~ 80% damage), but then, I generally die my only life before level 30.

I've already stated my vision: a combat mastery must also gives accuracy and the talents to give extra accuracy would be there when needed. Looks like we disagree at this point, but that's fair. I just think that even if some builds need few points in accuracy today, those points would be better spent in other skills.

[Aquillion]

Honestly, I'd be in favor of a merge purely because the talents are so boring, even for generics. I'd rather have interesting stuff to spend talents on, rather than boring numeric increases, so decreasing the number of boring talents out there by merging them together seems valuable to me. Obviously it would require some form of rebalancing, but overall it seems worth it -- yes, there's a bit of a decision involved between the two, but at heart it's still a choice between two really boring things to put points into, and I'd rather have fewer boring generic-sinks and more interesting places to spend them, instead.

[jotwebe]

Well, why not go all the way then and remove the whole talent? Make accuracy and damage scale off character level? Even more generic points, and even less boringness?

[Grey]

Not a bad point. Could make accuracy scale off dex more, and damage scale more off base physpower.