PROTECT ME, SQUIRE!

You ever just sit there, enjoying a nice Ephemeral Tale session when suddenly it's just MISS, MISS, MISS, MISS, MISS? Yeah, me too. After putting it off for quite some time, I was finally able to unravel the mess that is the hit calculations inside of the Ephemeral Tale engine. Let's go over what the issue was, why it could seem so pervasive, and how it's been addressed (after this week's changelog, of course).

Ephemeral Tale 1.30.3 Changelog

• Implemented a form of hit protection (see details below)
• Because of the above hit protection, the hit floor is now 60% (down from 80%)
• Lowered encounter rate within the Lost Caverns
• Added additional dialogue to the Lost Caverns
• Adjusted the experience rate of enemies in the Lost Caverns
• Adjusted the cost and damage output of Double Strike and Arcane Bolt (cost increased slightly, damage output lowered slightly)
• Adjusted the HP pool of Psychopomp Empress, from base amount of 2750 to base amount of 3000
• Adjusted the Defense and Magic Defense stats of Psychopomp Empress, from base amount of 30/40 to 40/50
• Empowerment on Psychopomp Empress has been increased in effectiveness: from 5% stat buff at Lv. 1, to 10%, and from 20% buff at Lv. 4 to 40%
• Moved a ladder in the Oasis to help better guide players
• The mini-bosses in the Forgotten Forest will now appear in order of difficulty
• Adjusted the Defense and Magic Defense stats of Tyranis, from base amount of 35/25 to 45/35
• Fixed an issue where the Power icon wasn’t displaying inside of the combat reward screen
• Fixed an issue where Paralyzing Tyranis could cause the game to crash
• Fixed an issue with portraits being blurry inside of combat (thanks, fmoo!)
• Fixed an issue where players could overpower evasion mechanics with sheer, brute force
• Fixed an issue where players could skip mini-boss encounters inside of the Forgotten Forest
• Fixed a number of instances where certain text wasn’t properly centered

HIT ME!

The way that hits (really, combat formulae in general) are calculated inside of Ephemeral Tale has always been a bit of an odd duck. For the sake of making this easier to discuss (and the added bonus of transparency), here's the current equation for how hits work:

Math.min(Math.max(0.6,(base + ((user.level / 5)+(user.agility*0.125))*0.01)), 1.5)

Now here's what this means, in plain English. You have your base hit rate (which is 80%), this is added to your level divided by 5. So, for example, if you're level 10, you'd get a bonus of 2% hit rate, where as at level 50 you'd get a 10% bonus. Then, a secondary bonus is added based on your agility. The higher the agility, the higher the hit rate. Keep in mind, this is all added to that base rate of 80%-- so we can afford to have these be smaller, incremental increases.

Finally, this is multiplied by 0.01 to turn it into a decimal. At which point, we choose the larger number between your hit rate (which, if it was for example 200% would now read as 2) and 0.6 (i.e., a 60% hit rate floor). Finally, we choose the smaller number between your hit rate and 1.5 (which serves as a 150% hit rate ceiling). This is your final, displayed hit rate. Okay! Now we can hop into the complex stuff.

You see, hit rate is only one part of the equation: another piece is enemy evasion. That's right, enemies can evade your attacks! Since this is functionally the same thing as a miss, they aren't delineated or presented in any different kind of way. What does this mean for you, the player? If you're up against an enemy with a 10% evade rate, and you have an 80% hit rate, this means that your hit rate is closer to 70%. I can't really report that in the menu, however, as it varies from enemy to enemy.

So how can we approach this, then? Simple solution, complicated to implement. Hit protection! Whenever you attack, the engine now checks the result of that attack. If you've missed, we trigger an internal timer that will be checked on any subsequent attacks that miss. If you're still within your timer, we override that miss and force a hit instead. If not (i.e., a couple turns have passed and you've hit successfully within them), we allow you to miss once more.

The goal of this change is to stop you from rolling several, subsequent misses. Because of these changes, you can miss a maximum of one out of every three hits! This will help alleviate the feeling that players are constantly missing, without edging things too far in their favor.

Next week, I've got another round of balance changes scheduled that will address other issues I've come across in recent play, and maybe another surprise or two (depending on time).

Until next time, stay safe and have fun!
-- Ryan
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