Post by Gozuja in MV - Parry Chance (Shield Block ext.) comments

MV - Parry Chance (Shield Block ext.) » Comments

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I'm pretty excited about the possibilities--I was stoked when I saw this plugin available, as one of the core party members for my current project is framed as a duelist and intended to be a very 'mechanical' sort of character, juggling various stances and the like.

Having the ability to wrangle parrying and triggering actions into ripostes and the like has great potential for fun and interesting mechanics--and I similarly like the idea of being able to have enemy battlers or even bosses who utilize parrying in compelling ways too.

As it stands I just worry for managing scaling without ending up in a situation where the player is left frustrated because enemies are frequently parrying with no recourse on their part--but I don't want to write off enemies being able to parry altogether. Thanks again for the consideration!

Ramza4 years ago (1 edit)

I have just posted an update to this plugin that adds in a couple of ways to mitigate balance problems resulting from scaling.

Expertise is an xparam-like trait that subtracts from a targets parry rate during an attack. It can be added to classes, states, weapons, armor, and enemies via note tags. Multiple sources of this trait stack additively. Every 1% of expertise reduces the chance for your attack to be parried by 1%. This xparam can also be shown on the YEP_StatusMenuCore screen using the short code 'xpt' via the exparamfix plugin, or the dual wield's menu extension.

I also added Pierce Parry, which is an effect that can be put onto weapons, states, or enemies, and reduces the targets parry rate by a % of their total. This effect is calculated after expertise has been applied. If there are multiple sources of this trait, only the one with the highest magnitude is used. This trait can also be negative, causing the targets effective parry chance to increase by a %. Actors who are dual wielding weapons with this trait will only get the value from the weapon currently being swung, allowing specific weapons to break parries more easily.

I was unable to implement the ability to use the attackers parameters in the additional parry chance formula. This is because the additional parry chance formula is used to calculate parry chance at all times, not just during battle, so an attacker cannot be part of the formula, as one is not always present when the calculation is being done. However, the above two additions should more than make up for this.

Gozuja4 years ago (1 edit)

Remarkably swift! Expertise and Pierce Parry are both great--I was actually just experimenting with setting up flails and Pierce Shield so that they're harder to block, so having a source of parry piercing as well is fantastic!

My only remaining wishlist element then is not having an avenue for a scaling expertise formula, simply for concern over how to balance expertise against scaling enemy parry chance. I'm going to need to do some brainstorming over how to best present expertise equipment / skills / actor perks to players in a fashion they can appreciate defeating enemies with high parry (or really, a way to visually ID parry-happy enemies in general.) Maybe a state icon, or a 'parry aura' effect as visual shorthand. Hmm.

I realize this is ultimately a sliding scale issue to begin with though, since it will be difficult for a player in an RPG Maker game to really get a transparent understanding of their odds / the 'why' of how these calculations occur in a given battle. That stems from the broader boundary of RPG Maker MV's UI limitations in general though--my kingdom for the ability to mouseover a UI element and get a tooltip with information for the player!

Though writing that, I'm prompted with the notion of potentially having an optional animation for expertise making the difference for an otherwise parried hit (I imagine that is not actually viable, with expertise reducing parry rate instead of being its own calculation--but it's a fun mental image for one battler to do a parry 'clash' animation, only for the attacker to do their own expertise 'clash' animation to 'overrule' it.)

Much oblige for your efforts, stellar materials!

itch.io

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