Some Questions regarding Parameters and Skills

[Marston]

Hey there. I have a few questions regarding various parameters and skills, as well as their effects.

First of all, if I have different equippable items, all of them give +5% resist to poison, are they additive, or does only the highest chance count (if I have 2 items with 5%, and 1 with 10%, do I get 10% (highest) or 20% (all of them added together))? Also, does this rule apply to everything? State resistance, elemental resistance, bonus hit/crit/whatever chance? Do items and spells interact with one another, do they add together or does also only the highest chance count?

I also have various skills were I added the parameter "Normal Attack: 100%". As I understand, this skill is now based on the normal attack. So if I have a weapon with a certain element equipped, this skill would also deal damage of said elemental. What is the 100% for? Hit chance? Effectivness? If it's the latter, how exactly does that apply? Would 200% result in double damage?

Last thing, regarding hit chance. Does hit chance only apply to normal attacks or also to the "success" rate of a skill? I made a skill that does quite a lot of damage, but only has 50% success chance. If I have another skill, that increases hit chance by 25%, does this also increase the success rate of the skill or does it not affect the skill? If not, is there a way to create such a skill that get affects directly by hit chance? 

Thanks in advance.

 

[Tai_MT]

The way I understand it (don't simply take my word for it, I haven't actually tested all of these things out for sure... though I've tested some of them)...

The resists is additive.  You can have above the 100% threshold, but it doesn't seem to matter in terms of the game unless they have a resistance to it to count against.  As in... Over 100% chance of happening doesn't seem to matter unless the enemy has some resistance to it.  To be honest though, I don't think I've ever seen anything above a 100% chance in terms of status effects.  Items and spells seem to interact with each other, yes.  They add together, it seems, from my tests.  I could be wrong on that as I'm working with really low stats here (nothing above 10), but that's the way it seems.

If you hover over the box with your mouse, it should give you the tooltip for how it works (unless you've disabled it... which I don't recommend unless you're an expert with the program).  A "Normal Attack" is merely whatever formula you used for the #1 Skill slot to determine damage...  (or at least I think it is... I haven't run tests on it yet)  The percentage under it is how much of that damage is done based upon the formula.  So, if it would have done 10 Damage to the enemy, but you have a 110% on it, it'll do 11 damage instead.  200% would indeed double standard damage dealt.  If it was 90%, then the attack would do 9 damage instead of 10.  Now, if you used a status effect instead, anything above the 100% threshold accounts for defenses the target may have.  So, if you have a skill with 200% Poison hit a character with 110% resistance to Poison (through equipment and items used), there's still a 90% chance of getting Poisoned.

Okay... this one is more complicated as it kind of falls out of what you're asking and requires some explanation:

You see on the "Skills" tab where it says "Invocation"?  Then, within that box it says "Hit Type"?  Here's how this works.  If you set the "Hit Type" to "Certain Hit", then whatever percentage you have specified in the "Success %" Box is what the game will use to determine whether or not it will hit (which means it can't be affected by any other stats in the game).  If you select "Physical Attack", then the game will use the users Hit Rate and the Target's Evasion Rate to calculate if it hits.  If you select "Magical Attack", then the game will use the Target's Magic Evasion rate to determine if it hits.  "Hit Rate" only comes into play if you mark a skill with the "Physical Attack" attribute.  Otherwise, you set the Hit Rate of a spell manually...  Or you use Magic Evasion Rate to determine how often it hits.

I hope that helps!

 

[Marston]

The Certain hit/Physical Attack part definitly helps a bit. So if I put in 50% Success rate and choose "Physical attack", this skill gets 50% hit chance? And if I increase my hit chance by 25%, this specific skill then has 75% hit chance? Or does it completly ignore the success rate if I choose Physical/Magical Attack? Depending on the exact explanation I may have to redesign several skills.

As for the "Normal attack" part. Let's say I have the default formula of "4 * attack - 2 * def" (which I actually use). I then create a skill that has "6 * attack - 2 * def", so it is stronger. If I now add the state "Normal attack: 100%", would that result in the first formula and ignore the second one completly? Or would it still use it's own formula?

I pretty much only copied this, as many (all?) physical attacks from the standard spells have this."Cleave" for example has "2 * attack - 2 * def" and also the state "Normal attack: 100%". The main reason is to apply the element of various weapons with the physical skills.

 

[Tai_MT]

It completely ignores the Success Rate, from the way I understand it.  Only if you choose "Certain Hit" does it take into account the "Success Rate".  "Hit Rate" only really applies to physical hits.  "Magic Evade" determines the hit rate of "Magic Spells".  The reason for the three options is so you can determine how evasion of a spell or skill works in combat.

If you click the skill itself and add your own formula, I'm pretty sure it ignores the formula of the "Normal Attack", but the percentage gets applied to the new formula, I think...  Again, I haven't really run tests on it.  You might need to test that yourself.  Perhaps "Normal Attack" simply means basic damage type instead?  As in, just uses the damage from whatever formula you put in or whatever stats you're using?

 

[whitesphere]

I've heard for Status effects, the Luck of the enemy and player somehow affects the results.

So there can be a reason for those to have more than a 100% Success rate.

 

[Tai_MT]

Luck does affect them, but you have to go into the system somewhere and change that formula if you want it to factor less or more.  There was a topic about that some time ago.

 

[Harmill]

Some of the answers are incorrect. Let me see if I can clear things up a bit.

First of all, if I have different equippable items, all of them give +5% resist to poison, are they additive, or does only the highest chance count (if I have 2 items with 5%, and 1 with 10%, do I get 10% (highest) or 20% (all of them added together))? Also, does this rule apply to everything? State resistance, elemental resistance, bonus hit/crit/whatever chance? Do items and spells interact with one another, do they add together or does also only the highest chance count?

By default, resists stack multiplicatively. I very much dislike multiplicative stacking, and so I created a post last year asking how I could change it to Additive. (my old thread: http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/13081-how-to-make-multiple-element-resistances-stack-additively/)

I'm not sure if Hit/Crit chance follow the same method, but my guess is that they do.

I also have various skills were I added the parameter "Normal Attack: 100%". As I understand, this skill is now based on the normal attack. So if I have a weapon with a certain element equipped, this skill would also deal damage of said elemental. What is the 100% for? Hit chance? Effectivness? If it's the latter, how exactly does that apply? Would 200% result in double damage?

If you use the "Add State: Normal Attack: 100%", you're telling the skill to behave like a normal attack, as in, inheriting all the special properties your weapon gives, such as Element, chance to inflict a status ailment, etc. I'm not sure what making the Normal Attack at 50% does, though, but my guess is that it behaves just like any of the other states: your skill has X% chance of applying your weapon/normal attack's extra effects. That's a guess, but what I do know is that it does not affect damage. Set Add: State Normal Attack to 200% and it doesn't double your damage.

Last thing, regarding hit chance. Does hit chance only apply to normal attacks or also to the "success" rate of a skill? I made a skill that does quite a lot of damage, but only has 50% success chance. If I have another skill, that increases hit chance by 25%, does this also increase the success rate of the skill or does it not affect the skill? If not, is there a way to create such a skill that get affects directly by hit chance? 

I think this was answered correctly.

 

[Tai_MT]

How do they stack multiplicatively?  By that, I mean...  In what order are they multiplied against each other?

I ask because with my small attribute numbers, when I tested it, it seemed to be additive.  As in, 3 pieces of equipment all with 5% Poison Resist added up to a total of a 15% Poison Resist (I tested this a while ago to make sure I was balancing some of my equipment properly.  If it's multiplicative, then my equipment may not be very balanced at higher stats).

Is it .05*.05*.05?  If this is the case, it would be more beneficial to equip a single item of 5% than multiple ones (as multiplying 5% by 5% makes the number much smaller).  If you mean divisible instead...  we'd be looking at like a whopping 2000% increase to resistance with three pieces of equipment.

Could you explain how the game calculates these if the additive nature I tested is false?  I'm very confused now.

 

[Harmill]

I don't know the way the game calculates it (as I said, I hate multiplicative resistance stacking so I asked how to change it to additive and I've never looked back). It would make sense to me, that it's going to go in descending order, taking the highest source first and working its way down. Your example of equipping three separate pieces of equipment each having 5% resistance is exactly why I hate multiplicative stacking - the diminishing returns tries to scare players away from equipping multiple stuff with the same resists.

You can test this yourself by creating a spell that deals exactly 100 damage with no variance with any element (let's say Fire). Give it to an enemy, and then start playing around stacking equipment with varying resistances to Fire.

 

[Tai_MT]

Yeah, that seems stupid.  Who decided to default the program to that?  Seriously, they need to be punched in the nose and fired for being so braindead -_-"

Okay, how on earth did you change it to additive?  I would prefer being able to stack the percentages as that makes far more sense to players of RPGs.  As in, I wouldn't have to explain to players meta concepts that make absolutely no sense like multiplying resistances and that they should only concentrate on the highest percentages and don't stack at all or they'd get diminishing returns.

Seriously, I need the name and address of the moron who thought making them multiplicative with diminishing returns was a "good idea".  What RPG ever in existence does that?

 

[Andar]

I think you all should check on the program options before continuing the discussion, because you're discussing something that does not exists in the program: there is no state resist rate, and there is no poison resist percentage...


And the features that do exist are working properly for what they are:


Element rates are mu8ltiplicative, based on 100% and the end multiplicator is multiplied with the damage result. If your "Poison" is defined as an attack element, and a "resist" should reduce the damage, then that is implemented as a *95% damage - and several such resists would be multiplicative , 95% * 95% * 95% etc.


If your "Poison" is a state, then you only have an absolute "state Poison Resist" without any number - if that feature is added, then the actor/enemy will never be poisoned, and that poison resist has no percentage.


What exists for the states is the state rate (multiplicative) and the attack state effect (additive). The percentage from attack state increases the chance of inflicting the state on the target, and the targets state rate gets multiplied into this chance.


So if you want the target actor to have a higher chance of "resisting" a state from an attack, you would add one or more reduced state rates with 95% or 90% or so on it, and with those numbers it's easy to understand why that rate uses multiplication for several effects.


But there is no "Poison resist +5%" in the entire engine...

 

[Marston]

The "Poison  resists 5%" was a bad description on my part, as I am already using "State Poison: 75%" for a 25% resistance. But the main question was if different items with the same resistance are better then a single item with the highest resistance. As the answer is yes, I am a happy person.

As for the weapon part, that means, a weapon with 10% poison inflicts poison 10% of the time (without resistance of course). But if I dual wield the weapon, I get 20%? Or 10% * 10% (so 10% for each weapon). 

So the only the only thing left is now the hit chance for my skills. Seems I have to redesign some of them, if I can only choose between a certain hit rate, that can't be changed, and the normal hit rate. 

As for the state "Normal Attack: 100%", I have tested a bit and absolutely no idea what it does. It doesn't use a weapon attribute of the skill itself has another one, it doesn't use the damage formula. No idea why it is there.

 

[Wavelength]

I haven't checked the code to see exactly what's additive and what's multiplicative (I believe most things are multiplicative), but you seem to be a little hazy on the concept, so hopefully I can help you understand it.

Here's a good example of multiplicative stacking.  If two "State Rate 25%" effects stack multiplicatively, the chance of applying the state to that actor would be (0.25 * 0.25 = 0.0625) or 6.25% chance.  If that same actor instead had a 25% and a 200%, the chance of applying it would be (0.25 * 2.00 = 0.50) or 50%.

If it stacked additively instead, the best way to think of it would be a "State Rate 25%" gives a (25% - 100% Default = -75%), or a -75%, modifier to receive the state.  When you go to apply that state, you add the 100% Default and the -75% modifier to get, unsurprisingly, 25%.  But if you stack two of those together, that's a 100% + (-75%) + (-75%) = -50%, which means the state will NEVER be inflicted on that actor (by a skill/attack/etc.).

In your example, if the two Poison Weapons stack additively, they have a 10% + 10% = 20% chance to inflict poison.  If it's multiplicative, what's actually happening is the first one is judged, then the second one.  So on the first weapon you have a 10% chance to inflict poison, and on the second, if you haven't already gotten a success, you have a 10% chance again.  That would be 10% + (10% * 90%) = 19% overall chance to inflict poison.  (The 90% is the probability that you failed to inflict poison on the first check.)

As far as Attacks inflicting states like Poison, here's a great way to test whether it's multiplicative or additive.  Give each weapon a 50% chance to inflict a state and try using the attack a lot of times.  If it's additive, 50% + 50% = 100% so it will inflict the state every single time.  If it's multiplicative, 50% + (50% * 50%) = 75% so it will occasionally not inflict the state.  If it ever doesn't inflict the state against an enemy with no resistance to the state, you know it's multiplicative.

 

[Andar]

all features are added together to the actor, no matter where they came from (actor, class, state, equipment). And they add or multiply depending on the mathematical sign on their feature.


And you should be carefull about not mixing up skill success rate with hit rate, they're two different things.


Hit rate is actor based and is used for physical attacks. It can be changed like all features by equipment, class or states or so on.


Success rate is skill based and used for certain hit and magical attacks. Each skill can have it's own success rate, but that is fixed no matter who uses the skill.

 

[Marston]

I do understand the concept behind additive and multiplicative states, but it sounded like all states/elements/resistance/whatever are multiplicative, but if I have weapons equipped it's additive. After a few tests, weapons seem to indeed be additive and resistance is multiplicative. Also it seems at first the damage is calculated (so, atk - def) and then the reistance kicks in. 

As for the skills, okay then. I have to rethink a few skills. Or is there a script that adds increased success rate to skills with certain hit?

 

[Wavelength]

The main reason I thought you were confused was because you asked whether a multiplicative rate on weapons would be 10% * 10% (1%), when it would actually be 19%.  The arithmatic is relatively high-level there and a lot of people don't understand that kind of stuff.  So, sorry if the explanation came across as condescending.  Seems like you know what you're doing.

 

[Tai_MT]

Okay, so let me see if I understand this:

I have a Poison State Rate on a weapon that has a 20% chance of inflicting Poison.  I use a Skill that buffs that chance, so I'd put the State Rate of Poison on that Skill to be above 100% in order to get a boost in chance of inflicting the Poison State.  Multiplicative.  Right?

To add a "Resistance" without using the "Resist" Feature (which negates the state altogether) to a piece of armor or weapon, I'd simply change the "State Rate" to something under 100% so that when it's multiplied, the number is much smaller.  So, if I had multiple pieces of equipment that granted 95% Poison State Rate (three pieces), then it would add up to a 15% reduction in the chance to inflict the Poison State (As in, it doesn't start from 100%, it starts from whatever percentage the State has to be inflicted based upon weapon or skill).

Correct?

EDIT:  Element Rate would do the same thing, except work for Elements instead of States, right?  Higher percentages increase the damage of whatever Element you are applying and lower percentages decrease the damage of whatever Element you are applying.  Correct?

 

[Marston]

I tested it with a simple skill.

This is the formula:

4 * a.atk - 2 * b.def

To have everything nice an easy, attack power ist 25, defense power is 25. So damage would be 4 * 25 - 2 * 25 = 100 - 50 = 50. Let's say the skill deals water damage. You take 50 water damage. If you now wear an item that reduces water damage by 25%, you would only take 37/38 damage (not sure if it goes to the nearest whole number of simply the next one), because:

1.) The damage formula takes place, which results in 50 damage.

2.) Resistance are factored in. So 50 damage is reduced by 25%, which would be 12,5, so either 37 or 38, as said.

3.) The formula would basically look like this then:

(4 * 25 - 2 * 25) * (1.00 - 0.25) = (100 - 50) * (0.75) = 50 * 0.75 = 37.5 (rounded to 37/38)

Now, if you wear a second item that also reduces damage by 25%, you get the following formula:

((4 * 25 - 2 * 25) * (1.00 - 0.25)) * (1.00 - 0.25) = ((100 - 50) * (0.75)) * (0.75) = (50 * 0.75) * 0.75 = 37.5 * 0.75 = 28.125 (again, rounded to 28/29)

Basically, you only reduce the already reduced damage, which will of course be smaller as if you would reduce the base damage. If it would be flat 50% reduction instead of reducing it 25% twice, it would be 25 damage and not 28.125.

As for the elementals, yes. 100% is the base damage each enemy and actor has. If an enemy has a fire rate of 200%, he would take double damage from all fire attacks. If his elemental rate would only be 50%, he would only take half damage from all fire attacks.

 

[Tai_MT]

Alright, I ran some tests of my own...

I created a fire skill that simply does a flat 100 Damage (no formula, just put in the value 100).  I put all defenses of the character at 0 to ensure it would only be calculating resistance.  I equipped 4 items with 95% Fire Rate (resistance to the fire skill).

Here's what happens:

Monster casts skill... hits me for 81 Damage every single hit.  That's roughly 20% reduction in damage with the four items reducing it by 5% each.  Except, it should be 80 Damage instead of 81, so where did this extra one point come from?

I ran another test.

I removed the Accessory with the 95% Fire Rate on it.  Damage rate was 85 Damage.  Okay, that works.

I ran another test.  This time, I put the Fire spell up to 1000 flat damage and left the Accessory off.  Damage was 857 flat damage.  Equipping the Accessory produced 814 Damage.

Now, please keep in mind that you can't have 0 Defense and the system automatically turns it into 1 Defense.  Maybe that plays a factor, though I doubt it.

Okay, so basically what I gather from my own tests is that the "Variance" I see in the amounts is negligible enough to not really matter and likely results from formula rounding.

However, the tests seem to indicate that even with high stats, the resistance is additive...  Or, it's so close to additive, that it won't really matter that much.  Now, keep in mind that I haven't done anything higher than 5%...  But, I can run those tests when I get back and see if I get the same level of variance with 10% or even 15%.

 

[Andar]

Wrong, those numbers are the perfect proof that the elemental rate is multiplicative.


95% * 95% * 95% * 95% = 81,45%


95% * 95% * 95% = 85,74%


Edit: And you can see how each number works whenever the features are added - look at the feature window for the element rate: there is a multiplicator (*) in front of the field with the default 100%.


Any feature that is multiplicative has a * in front of the value, and the value defaults to 100% for new features.


Any feature that is additive has a + in front of the value, and the value defaults to 0% for new features.