Tree of Savior Forum

On the issue of Accuracy: why is active targeting still at a disadvantage?

With Re:build, all skills were united under the same accuracy vs evasion mechanic.
But instead of overhauling the system, the system was kept at the same level it had before,
meaning that skills which required active evasion before (i.e. ground target magic) can now be evaded via active and passive evasion, while homing skills can only be evaded via passive evasion.

This fact creates a huge discrepancy between Classes, weapons and skill types, as some skills and some auto-attacks automatically target a certain target, providing them with 100% active accuracy,
while other types of weapons/skills/autoattacks require active targeting, meaning that if you cast the attack/skill in the wrong direction or the target moves, you will directly miss and never even invoke the passive “accuracy vs evasion”-calculation.

So, let us say we have three different attack patterns

Pattern A

  • contains the homing category, e.g. Wizard- & Archer auto-attacks with ranged weapons, pistol auto-attacks by Scouts and skills that will search for targets like Magic Missile which require close to no active aiming

Pattern B

  • contains auto-attacks/skills that require active aiming via either moving to a target and using the skill close to it while facing in a certain direction (e.g. Smite) or aiming the skill execution area at them (e.g. Katadikazo)

Pattern C

  • contains skills that target the ground and change specific things in the area/deal damage/etc. (e.g. Aqua Benedicta)

Let us now talk about active and passive accuracy and evasion, so we have a general understanding about the differences.

Active accuracy and evasion
are fictive action gameplay-related terms that derive from the fact that in a game with action elements, you can actively aim to land attacks and dodge to evade attacks.
For TOS, this terminology will be used to describe the aiming mechanics and the ability to avoid aiming by moving out of the AoE of the skill/attack.

Passive accuracy and evasion
are status-derived values that exist in certain games with status systems, which leave it to a random number generator to determine whether an attack hits or misses the target.
For TOS, we’re talking about the effects of “Accuracy” and “Evasion”.

Now that the terminology is defined, let us take a look at how the certain patterns of attacks fare when plotted against active and passive types of accuracy and evasion:

Pattern A

  • only passive accuracy and evasion applies within the skills limitations (i.e. every attack/skill has a certain range limit) as it will always apply to the target selected by the automatic aiming system

Pattern B

  • active accuracy and evasion apply, and their influence is strongly affected by the attacks/skills AoE, skill animation delay, casting time, characters positioning and for some attacks/skills AoE attack ratio
  • passive accuracy and evasion apply after the active aiming process was successful

Pattern C

  • active accuracy and evasion apply, and their influence is strongly affected by the attacks/skills AoE, skill animation delay, casting time, characters positioning and for some attacks/skills AoE attack ratio/number of targets;
    In addition, the skill effect duration and number of ticks/second are also greatly influential on the overall outcome, since the target can simply move out of the AoE after taking a few hits
  • passive accuracy and evasion apply after the active aiming process was successful, reducing the overall effectiveness even in the case the target fails to leave the AoE during its active state

As we can see, some attacks/skills are only affected by raw stats when it comes to hitting the target, while others require aiming and beneficial stat calculations, and some even require the target to stay in one place obediently for a certain duration on top of that, which causes a great discrepancy in effectiveness of certain weapon types/Classes/skills.

Some are even utterly foolish, like the notion that you not only need to aim e.g. your Iron Maiden at someone but then even have to overcome the RNG when hitting the Iron Maiden to land a successful attack.

I believe the accuracy system needs an overhaul in a way that reflects the active aiming process in the final outcome (e.g. bonus Accuracy the closer the target is to the area you aimed at for AoE skills and [partial] Evasion ignore for attacks/debuffs/skills that need to be landed on the target,
e.g. 100% evasion ignore while the target is caught in Iron Maiden for follow-up attacks)
so homing attacks don’t have the advantage of being readily available to be cast away at the enemy while other attacks need aiming and positioning to even have a chance on hitting in the first place.

Worst case is made for AoE ground target circle skills like e.g. Hamaya & Aqua Benedicta which can be easily avoided by stepping out of the AoE, so you need to aim and CC the enemy to remain in the AoE while the skill keeps ticking down its damage over a long time period.

Even a random movement can cause the loss of base damage on top of the passive evasion/miss every now and then, which makes these skills very bad, especially if they have low skill factor ratios and longer duration as it’s currently true for Hamaya and Aqua Benedicta.

2 Likes

I like your point. Debuffs that stun and put enemies to sleep should be given a 100% evasion ignore.

Based on what you presented. In my opinion, Pattern B is balanced, while Patterns A & C are not balanced.

Here is my perspective:

Pattern A
Attacker >Skills are auto aim
Defender >Not allowed to manually dodge attacker’s skills

WINNER: ATTACKER
The attacker has the most advantage in this pattern. Once attack has landed, players will rely on their respective passive accuracy and evasion.

Pattern B
Attacker >Manual aiming
Defender >Manual Dodging

WINNER: NONE
We can say that this situation rely on both players’ eye and hand coordination skill. Once attack has landed, players will rely on their respective passive accuracy and evasion.

Pattern C
Attacker >Manual aiming, skills casted are stationary
Defender >Manual dodging, player is always mobile unless under CC.

WINNER: DEFENDER
The total opposite of pattern A. The defender has the advantage on this type of skills. Once attack has landed, players will rely on their respective passive accuracy and evasion.

With that, I think giving accuracy bonus based on proximity is a good idea but at the moment, needs to be carefully studied. I personally think that the current accuracy and evasion system needs to be improved but not totally overhauled.

Tho I must say I’m really disappointed with pattern C skills. We really need to use them strategically.