RED_NOVA'S PROFILE

While we were off mourning the site, zDS was on that eternal grindset. Congratulations on finishing the game!

Ankylo is the hero we need but not the one we deserve. Thanks so much to everyone for working hard to get this site back up and running!

Awesome looking portraits! Will raise aware on this in what little way I can.

Having watched a few people play Prayer of the Faithless, a game with touch encounters where 90% of them chase the player once they come into sight, I haven't seen anyone try to avoid them. Since that game was fairly difficult with limited healing options (especially in the early game), I completely understand the innate instinct to run if an enemy was chasing you. So I countered that with a few things:

1) Add in optional (but difficult) mini bosses that offered high EXP and weapons you couldn't get anywhere else in the game, which encouraged players to fight more random battles to get strong enough. If players were strong enough to beat them, they usually were a high enough level to beat the bosses at the end of the level.

2) Place immobile enemies at choke points in the map that required players to defeat to proceed. They weren't stronger or weaker than normal encounters, but they do ensure that players didn't approach end bosses severely underleveled.

3) You start the first dungeon with a level 3 character and a level 16 character. As you fight enemies, some players may notice that the level 16 character earns much less exp than the level 3 character. This is to prevent excessive grinding and subtly inform players that they don't have to set aside grind time, which hopefully gets them to fight more enemies while on their way to the next objective.

4) The combat is complex enough with each character having a diverse skill set and approach to battle that some players may feel the need to fight more enemies just to understand how the mechanics work.

The winning formula could be some combination of the above points or maybe something else entirely, but again, I haven't seen many players run from encounters in my game.

It really depends on how you want to balance it. High damage numbers are fun, but low damage numbers are easier for the player to wrap their head around. I would run a couple of test battles with all enemies and allies at their stat caps and see how that feels to you. Then run more battles with enemies and allies at their starting stats and see how that feels. If either of them don't feel good to you, adjust either the stat caps or the damage formula itself.

If it helps, rather than thinking about the numbers themselves, try to think about the desired flow of battle. For instance, instead of asking, "how much damage should this attack do?" instead ask, "How many hits should this enemy take before dying?" and adjust your stats accordingly. If a perfectly optimized party did about 500 damage on average per round, it may make sense to set a normal enemy's HP to be about 400 to account for damage variance and a player's sub optimal party. Maybe 300 if you want battles to go by quicker.