Chef Archive
Thread: SciguyCo, Answers on Dodge
Thunderheart or Keldarin:
Some questions have come up regarding the +dodge foods. I know that Publish 7 had some fixes included for these, the notes included "Dodge enhancing Food now decreases your chance of being hit." But confusion remains.
1. Do you need to have the dodge skill already? Is there some small percent chance to dodge that all players have, not just pistoleers and fencers?
2. Dodge foods gives a "% chance to dodge". Percentage of what? Of the skill you already have? Say you have a 25% chance to dodge; Does a 21% Pikkata Pie add 21% to the existing percentage (for a total of 46%), or does it increase the base chance 21% (so 25 * 1.21 = 30.2%)? And is that the % of hits that you should be dodging?
3. How noticable are the effects suppose to be? If you do not have the dodge skill, will you see "creature tries to hit you but you evade"? Or does it just increase the chances of "creature misses you"?
mesome wrote:
Thanks sciguyCO, I've wondered about this, just not enought to hunt down an answer. Might use it a little more often now. Although it would be nice to know exactly how many attacks it prevents, I wonder if they could give it some description in the combat tab like Synth steak does.
From Keldarin's post, that's apparently difficult to do. The food's bonus gets smushed in with all the other defensive bonuses your character has, so to mention that the attack missed because of the food, the game would have to track not only whether the attack missed (which is probably checked with something along the lines of "if Attack > Defense then Hit"), it would have to determine by how much you got missed, and whether or not that attack would have missed if you didn't have the food's bonus.
For example (using completely made up numbers) if your defense # was 75 while under the effect of a +20 Pikatta pie, an attack of 80 would hit, an attack of 10 would have missed regardless of the Pie, and an attack of 65 misses only because of the pie's bonus.
Having the game track those "what if" variations would make the combat code have to do more, probably slowing it down slightly (but cumulative for each attack being done on the server), just to provide feedback to the player.
Message Edited by sciguyCO on 04-12-2004 04:26 PM
+dodge food has nothing to do with the dodge skill, instead being a modifier to melee and ranged defense. (Can we PLEASE get the wording changed? This seems almost intentionally misleading).
What remains unclear (to me, anyay):
Is the effect a flat bonus or a percentage increase on your existing defense skills?
I think what is misleading is that there is no dodge skill. If you look, no where do you see a profession that gives you the dodge skill. You see pistoleer that gives +5 dodge or whatever, but nowhere does it say the dodge skill.
Basically, when pistoleers get + to dodge, they are getting a modifier to melee and ranged defense also.
SirVimes wrote:I think what is misleading is that there is no dodge skill. If you look, no where do you see a profession that gives you the dodge skill. You see pistoleer that gives +5 dodge or whatever, but nowhere does it say the dodge skill.
Basically, when pistoleers get + to dodge, they are getting a modifier to melee and ranged defense also.
Vimes, you're wrong on this one. Melee and ranged defense are primary defenses: they determine whether you get hit or not. Once a hit is registered, secondary defenses like dodge, counterattack, and block are considered. There is a dodge skill, and it performs a different function than ranged/meleed D. When you dodge you get a different message in the combat spam ("Mutant rancor hit you for 673, but you evaded" instead of "Mutant rancor swings at you, but misses"), and dodge only works with certain weapons, while defenses are constant across classes.
The dodge foods are NOT a skill mod. They do affect your opponents chance to hit you directly. It stacks with all other "dodge" abilities in the game.
To me that's saying that the bonus from foods is not a skill mod, but the "stacks with all other dodge abilities" is saying that +Dodge gained in pistoleer and fencer is a separate actual skill along the same lines as block and counterattack.
Some numbers posted on allakhazam.com about the Dodge skill modifer indicated that you have a 0.1% chance to dodge a hit (meaning something that already got through your melee/ranged defense) per +1 in Dodge.
My assumption is that if an attack hits, then the "evasion" abilities get rolled to see if you dodge/counter/block the attack. If you have a 1-handed melee or pistol equipped and "roll" below your dodge modifier, you take no damage. If you have a 2-handed melee or carbine and "roll" below your counterattack modifier, you counterattack.
Although that's all beside the point for these foods, since it's a generic defensive bonus not a +dodge bonus.