Thank you for your reply. I'll give more feedback on this after I played more...
Most feedback is really helpful if it is formulated correctly (please be specific). Thanks in advance.
For instance, with an offense value that goes from 0 to 100+ and a defense value that covers the same range (simplifying here to ignore the difference between parry and dodge), my immediate instinct would be to assume that somebody with 70 offense would have a 50% chance to hit someone with 70 defense. Maybe a 40% chance to hit someone with 80 defense, and so forth. However, I find that hard to prove in practice.
The base hit-chance in Blackguards 2 is 60%, the base offensive value for a healthy human being is 40%.
There is no base defensive value! Only trained warriors can actively lower the chance of incoming blows.
That means a healthy human being can hit another one with any weapon at a chance of 100%.
If the target is able to try a parry or dodge maneuver the chance is lowered by the defensive skill value of the target.
If the attacker chooses an advanced maneuver to attack (like powerblow), the chance is lowered by the special-attack's handicap.
If the attacker is suffering from poison, debuffs or environmental effects, these might lower his base
offensive value, thus lowering the chance to hit.
Training a Weapon Skill gives a bonus equal to the skill points distributed into offense and defense, but
only while the character is wielding a weapon matching the skill type.
Here's the formula:
-If the target is able to parry or dodge:
60% + Offensive Value - Defense Value - Handicaps from special attacks
-If the target is not able to parry or dodge:
60% + Offensive value – 0 – Handicaps from special attacks
Here's an example:
Jimmy has put 50 points into his sword weapon skill and assigned 30 of those to offense and 20 to defense.
He fights Wombo who is trained in daggers with 10 points in offense and 20 in defense.
Jimmy's offensive value is:
40% base offense + 30% sword skill = 70%
Wombo's defensive value is:
20% dagger skill = 20%
Jimmy wants to try a Powerblow special attack.
So the Hit chance is:
60% (base melee chance)
+ 70% (Jimmy's total offensive value with swords)
- 20% (Wombo's dagger defense value)
- 20% (Powerblow handicap)
--------------------------------
= 90% Chance to hit
I also don't understand how spell dodge works or if it exists at all; I don't recall ever missing with a spell, but the Narrenholz ranged attacks (which look magical to me from the animation) ended up having something like 60% miss chance on my characters by the time the end game rolled around. Do those count as physical special attacks?
Spells are always casted successfully. However it is still possible to evade, for example by casting Ecliptifactus Shadow Force.
The Narrenholz doesn't have any Astral Energy. It is not capable of casting spells.
Ranged to-hit calculations are a whole other kettle of fish and make very little sense to me.
Ranged Combat works very similar but there is:
- only a 50% base chance
- a handicap for very near range (fixed)
- a handicap for long range (incremental)
- a handicap for small targets
- a handicap for partially obstructed targets (behind cover)
- no chance to parry a ranged attack unless the defender is carrying a shield (dodge is always possible)
I liked fighting wizards in BG1, but in my playthrough the enemy wizards basically served as weak debuffers who packed a surprising punch in melee (if they bothered to do any direct damage at all). One particular example is the druid boss, who started the fight by turning himself invincible, then cast a weak group debuff, and then proceeded to just stand there while I killed his pets. The fight was still reasonably challenging, but it simply amounted to fighting a lot of the same enemies I'd already been fighting for a while.
Generally there are different AIs for the enemy spellcasters that are supposed to reflect their personalities. Of course there is a certain random factor regarding the behaviour of the mage, but I never heard or read in any current review or testing report that the mages where simply debuffing or attacking in melee. Yes, there are certain mages (like the druid) who are casting support spells (in his case the "Move as Lightning" on all Jestertrees), but just turning themselfes invincible and doing nothing is not part of their behavior routine.
May I ask which version of the game you've been playing (version/platform)?
I'm also curious to know by what criteria you decided which battles should have seemingly random spawn points (like the optional Takate fight), and which should have fixed spawn points (like the one at the colossus - at least the spawns there looked fixed on two restarts).
Which optional Takate fight do you mean? Against the spiders? The answer to the "seemingly random spawn points" there would be: Because it makes sense, tells the right story and gives you the right feeling for the battle. The colossus had fixed spawn points, because Marwans troops were advancing from these two directions and not "all around you" like the spiders.
Or why you decided that traps in the later game should mostly be timer based "you can pass on every second turn" stuff that seemed to give no benefit to characters with the defuse traps mechanic.
The level design was handcrafted just like in the old Blackguards. I need to know which maps exactly you mean by "the later game".
There are clearly major AI issues as well, with melee enemies (trained soldiers, mind) just skipping their turns in cover while I sling fireballs into their ranks (and then continuing to do nothing after I've stopped slinging fireballs).
The AI behaviour for certain maps is also handcrafted. I'm just assuming you are talking about the troll fortress, because there the AI is scripted to act as a group. The whole group won't move if you're damaging only a small part and the soldier you are damaging won't attack you on his own, because that would be suicide.
Or running into the same traps that they've just seen someone else run into. Or just standing around in burning fire pits and skipping their turns on top of a spike trap.
Again, I don't know which map you are referring to. Therefore I can't tell if it's a bug or if you are fighting against the "coward AI". Your version/platform would be helpful here, too.
...but it's more fair not to make assumptions.
I'm currently replaying BG1 and generally the only cases were you really depend on the RNG are some (comparatively few) battles that are set up badly, e.g. 3 of the early fights in chapter 2 and one of the nine hordes fights. When I found a battle too difficult otherwise it was always a case of either approaching it with the wrong strategy or tackling it too early in the game (exception being getting several really unlucky rolls).
So in other words, it would have been enough to revise the problematic battles instead of removing all randomness.
Yes, Blackguards 2 isn’t as dependent on luck anymore. Maybe you liked this about Blackguards 1, but maybe you haven’t lost a map 17 times in a row, unable to figure out if you’re making the wrong tactical choices or are just unlucky. That's the thing about games that rely heavily on RNG: Your experience and level of frustration doesn't translate to the whole community at all. I believe this design decision has already been heavily discussed in another thread.
