Mocchi: Item Level, Weapon Skills, and More
Great post with a series of questions all from one guy, and Mocchi went ahead and responded to all of them point by point (with a couple new details dropped about weapon skills, etc.).
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For item display, how will it show up? For example, will the item level represent the strength of the stat enhancements (say, +20), without individually being listed on the item?
We plan to display all stats. The display may become a little lengthy, so please forgive that!
If player level is changed when equipping these items, how will it affect other level-related things? For example, how will Lv 5 Petrify be treated?
To refer to your specific example, a level 99 player with item level 105 will still not be affected by Lv 5 Petrify. Additionally, any specific equipment triggered by level will reference the player's level, not the player's item level.
Upon calling a pet, will it be based on the player's level or the item level?
As we stated previously, the levels of pets will not change, and we will carry out any pet enhancements with new or updated equipment.
What happens for jobs that don't have a ranged weapon, jobs that single wield vs. dual wield, etc.?
Because this description is a bit complicated, if there's a specific point that's difficult to understand, please let us know.
For weapons to be added in the future, weapon skills will be adjusted for the increased level.
On existing weapons, although the main weapon's DMG value is independent from the sub weapon's DMG value, for future weapons, the weapon skill's value will also be calculated independently.
Here's our reasoning for this. Let's assume that you are equipped with Dual Wielded weapons with high accuracy and attack values. When you have one equipped alone or with a shield, even though you only have a main weapon, we still want to maintain the same attack power and hit rate.
So, for weapon skills and additional effects, the hit rate element will be calculated as a function of the weapon skill, with the hit rate raised to the corresponding level.
Additionally, I wanted to touch on hand-to-hand weapons separately from the above concern. Unlike other weapon skills, with hand-to-hand skill, as hand-to-hand skill rises, the DMG value rises. For hand-to-hand weapons that we add in the future, we will add weapon skills like with other weapons, and we will continue to update the DMG value by taking this relation to skill into consideration.
Although there will be equipment implemented in the future, will any of this be added to the existing Delve?
We plan to continue to add top-tier gear (= equipment from boss monsters) as part of Delve.
For the rising parameters on gear, how will it work? Will it be just by level, or also correspond to armor type/jobs, individual equipment, etc.?
The numerical values will not be the same for all equipment, but we do plan to have a pattern to some extent.
Can you give us a rough approximation on the stats that will be added per level?
I'm sorry I can't really respond to this, but please reference the existing equipment and the equipment to be added.
Are you suggesting that HP and MP will not be rising with the future "levels"? HP and MP are parameters that typically increase with level.
We are moving in a direction to reduce damage taken by adding more magic defense bonus and physical damage taken reduction.
In the future, as monsters become more powerful and the DMG value of those monsters rises, we will continue to increase HP present on gear. On the other hand, since the MP consumption of spells won't change, we won't be increasing MP to the same extent (though that doesn't mean we won't be adding any MP gear).
Right now there's an existing cap of 50% reduction on physical damage taken which can already relatively easily be hit with Earth Staff and some other accessories. Do you plan to increase this parameter with the "level" rise?
There will be no change to the 50% cap. We will add different amounts of physical damage taken between the front-line and back-line jobs.
As usual, jobs like WHM, BRD, COR, and GEO don't really benefit from any of these step changes in equipment. Are they supposed to just skip over the middle level ranges and go right for level 119 equipment?
If you don't require all of the intermediate equipment, you can go ahead and try to challenge whatever you think you're capable of. That being said, we would like to increase the attractiveness of equipment for all jobs.
Depending on the job, there is certain equipment which cannot be removed. For example, Treasure Hunter+ gear on THF. For equipment which can't be removed during combat, are you planning on doing anything to update it?
I'd say Treasure Hunter equipment is in trouble. [[I think this is what he's saying anyway, his response confused me here, but seems to indicate they're either adding new/better TH gear.]]
I think an adjustment needs to be made to enemy moves which strip and encumber. Now, it's likely that these moves will have an additional effect of reducing a player's level to 99. Are you planning anything?
We will try to avoid implementing techniques which strip and encumber as much as possible. Although they might be used rarely, in those cases we will have methods to avoid them.