Devlog: Stats

Greetings adventurers of Zoria, We’ve had a busy couple of months with the release of the Prologue and the Steam Summer Festival, going through all the awesome feedback we have received from you and updating and improving the Prologue based on that feedback.

With Prologue update 0.3.5 launched and all that behind us now, we are moving towards finalizing development for the features that are still missing and adding content for the game.

For today’s Devlog we will make an in-depth presentation of updated stats system and its influence on skills and items in the game. We will not be discussing exact numbers since game balance is still ongoing and many of these numbers will probably be adjusted several times before release, but the workings of the system remain in place.

First thing to mention, we are renaming some stats that proved to be confusing for a lot of players to be more in-line with classic RPG players expectations.

• Mastery becomes Strength
• Prowess is now more properly named Agility
• Speed is now Initiative, to better illustrate its role in the combat queue.

Together with the new Stats we are introducing several new concepts:

• Melee Attack Power
• Ranged Attack Power
• Spell Power
• Block Power

Every ability’s power is influenced by one of these 3 values, and each of these values is directly influenced by a Main Stat.

Block power only applies to characters wearing a shield and mitigates a percentage of the damage received depending on the Block Power of that character.

With all this said, character stats now look like this:

Main Stats

These stats directly influence the character’s various attributes (health, damage) and the power of a character’s individual abilities.

• Stamina: directly affects the character’s health. Especially important early game and the single greatest contributor to player survivability.
• Strength: especially important for melee characters, directly affects Melee Attack Power and increases the Energy pool for Lancer class and Captain. Also increases block power for characters wearing a Shield.
• Agility: increases Ranged Attack Power for Ranger. Increases Melee Attack Power for Thief. Increases Melee Attack Power for Lancer, Kingsman, Battle Cleric and Captain, to a smaller degree. Increases Energy pool for Ranger, Thief, Kingsman. Increases Crit Chance with values depending on class. Increases Armor.
• Intellect: Increases Spell Power.  Increases Magic Armor. Increases Crit Chance for magic abilities. Increases Mana pool for Wizard, Necromancer, Priest, Battle Cleric, Bard.
• Armor: reduces the amount of damage received from physical abilities and effects.
• Magic Armor: reduces the amount of damage received from magic abilities and effects.

All weapons have a weapon damage stat. This damage is added to the base attack of the character using that weapon.

Specific caster weapons, like the Staff, have a Spell Damage stat instead of Weapon Damage.

Secondary Stats:

•  Initiative: it influences the character’s place in the combat queue at the start of the combat as well as the place it will be placed in the queue once that character’s turn is finished. A character with a high Initiative value will be placed higher in the combat queue, once its turn is completed, than a character with a low Initiative value.

• Hit Chance: chance to hit with an ability. Is directly influenced by level difference between the character and the enemy. The higher the level of an enemy compared to the character, the lower the Hit Chance.
• Crit Chance: Critical chance is influenced by the dominant stat for that class – Agility or Intellect.

Elemental Resistances:

 All magic effects belong to a type of elemental magic.

• Fire Magic
• Water Magic
• Nature Magic
• Arcane Magic
• Death Magic
• Light Magic

The Light and Death Magic are in direct opposition, with Death Magic wielders being especially weak to Light Magic and Light Magic wielders especially weak to Death Magic abilities.

Enemies weak to Fire Magic are also equally weak to physical Fire effects, like the Fire Arrow Ranger ability.

Elemental resistances mitigate a percent of the incoming damage from that specific element. Gear pieces with elemental resistance have values representing their elemental resistance. These values translate to different percentages of elemental resistance, depending on level, making a low-level gear piece more effective in elemental protection for the appropriate level character.

Effects:

 These effects are placed on the character by various abilities and can be temporary (only during combat) or permanent (must be removed either by resting, using a potion or in the Outpost). Each effect influences the player’s stats differently:

• Sunder: can be applied by physical abilities. Decreases the player Armor and can stack multiple effects.
• Wound: can be applied by physical abilities. Decreases the player Initiative while active.
• Bleed: can be applied by physical abilities. Deals damage over time to the character until removed.
• Stun: can be applied by any kind of abilities. Locks the character in the current position in the combat queue for its duration.
• Poison: can be applied by Nature abilities. Decreases Hit Chance.
• Disease: can be applied by Nature abilities. Decreases Agility and Intellect.
• Curse: can be applied by Death abilities. Decreases Strength and Magic Armor.

These effects do not show on the Character Stat sheet but in the abilities description for each ability that places a certain effect. Some enemies can be immune to certain types of effects, making the abilities that place those effects less effective. This immunity will be shown in the Compendium entry for each enemy.

Stats influence on abilities:

The power of each ability of a certain class is affected by a certain main stat. Because of this, different builds for a class can benefit from a different main stat.

 As an example, below some of the Kingsman’s abilities and the stats affecting their power:

Strength: Basic Attack, Vanquish thy Foe, Avenger Strike, Bash of Wrath

Agility: Shield Wall, King's Resolve, Deflect, Hold the Line, Avatar of Protection

Intellect: Magic Absorption, King's Fire

Fatigue: is a special stat, central to the Fatigue and Outpost recovery mechanic. We will introduce more details on this mechanic in a dedicated post, at a later date.

Together with the Stats update we are also introducing new stats to armor and weapons.

Durability: all weapons and armor now have a certain durability that decreases with each combat. Once a gear item’s durability reaches 0, that item is no longer usable and provides no contribution to the character’s stats.

Armor Types:

• Light Armor: worn by Wizard, Necromancer and Priest classes.
• Medium Armor: worn by Ranger, Thief, Bard classes and the Captain.
• Hardened Armor: worn by the Ranger, Kingsman, Lancer, Battle Cleric classes and the Captain.
• Heavy Armor: worn by the Kingsman and Lancer classes.

Weapon Damage and Spell Damage:

There are any more changes coming to Armor and Weapons, but we will detail those systems in our next Developer Log, that will focus on gear and the Crafting System. 

• All weapons have a weapon damage stat. This damage is added to the base attack of the character using that weapon.
• Specific caster weapons, like Staffs, have a Spell Damage stat instead of Weapon Damage.

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