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« on: February 22, 2014, 07:59:15 AM »
I disagree about perception, so let me explain why. First, I will go into some details about how exactly the hit chance is calculated.
In the following, "Effective range" is 2/3 of the max range of a weapon. So if max range is 60, effective range is 40. The system is made so that being able to shoot at "effective range" or below takes very little skill, but anything beyond "effective range" requires a lot of skill. This is in accordance to our desire to reduce the gap between low and high level characters, and also to reduce the importance of super high skills.
The AoP Hit chance formula
The first 150 skill points are worth 95 hit chance. Having less than 50 skill means you can't hit with 95% chance even at point blank range. Every skill point above 150 gives 4 hit chance, so that 25 extra skill points gives 100 hit chance. Maximum hit chance then becomes 495.
For each percent range below the effective range, 0.95 hit chance is deducted. This means that shooting at max effective range has 95% chance to hit with 150 skill.
Now for each % above the effective range 10 hit chance will be deducted. So to shoot at 110% of effective range means you need 175 skill, and the maximum range you can shoot and hit at is 140% of effective range (this requires 250 skill).
Hit chance penalties
The above is the base hit chance. There are penalties to this depending on the type of weapon, strength, perception, armor class and where you aim.
For all weapons, if your skill is above 150, you get -40 hit chance (aka -4% effective range) for each strength point missing from the weapon strength requirement. So if you have 3 strength and wield a 5str weapon, you get -80 hit chance.
For burst weapons in burst mode, you get an additional hit chance penalty of 10 for each strength below 10. So again, with 3 strength, that's -70 hit chance for any burst weapon.
For all weapons, for each perception below 5, you lose 40 hit chance if your skill is above 150, and you lose 10 if your skill is less than 150. (Sharpshooter gives +2 to perception for this check).
For single shots only, if you're aiming, you get a penalty to hit chance that depends on your perception (sharpshooter adding +2 for this). It's currently the same regardless of where you aim, and you can check the penalty in the aim screen in the pipboy. The formula is:
aimPenalty = 20*(15-perception)
For every single shot, currently only while aiming (but imo we should make it apply even for unaimed shots, to make perception more important for non-snipers), you also get a penalty to your hit chance based on armor class. The AC penalty depends on the armor class of the target (modified by ammo AC modifier and armor and weapon perks) and of the perception of the shooter (sharpshooter adding +2 perception for this).
The formula is:
ACPenalty = AC*(22-perception)/4
Conclusions
Now if you followed me this far and tried plugging in some numbers, you see that perception is extremely important for snipers that intend to take aimed shots, especially if the target is moving. With 4 perception and no sharpshooter, you have a total hit chance penalty of 40+220=260, which means you need at least 215 skill to hit at effective range (2/3 of max range). If your skill is less than 168, you will have 0 hit chance even at 1 hex range. Compared to the best possible sniper (10 perception + sharpshooter + 250 skill), your range will be 20 percentage points shorter, which for a rifle with 70 or so range is quite significant. And this is even if the target is standing still! Against a moving target with average (20) AC, you lose an additional 90 hit chance, requiring 22.5 extra skill to compensate. So unless your sniper has at least 237 skill, you won't even reach the threshold for diminishing returns against moving targets. In other words, you can basically forget about sniping running targets. Not to mention anybody investing a little in AC. And even with max skill, a more perceptive sniper will always outperform you.
But yes, you can make a low perception sniper, especially if you compensate with higher skill and are careful with the targets you pick. I think this is the way it should be, in fact the whole system is designed particularly with such cases in mind: I want any kind of weird build to be viable, if not optimal, in most roles, if you know what you're doing. I want people to be able to try different roles on the battlefield without feeling like they have to make a new char with specialized stats just to try it out. Like it was on every other fonline game ever. So is it radical? Maybe. But it's most definitely intended.
Now I'm not saying it's perfect, and certainly some values (AC in particular) could use some tweaking. But I'm not going to even consider changing the underlying system without substantial testing showing that it's necessary.
A final word about sight range. We specifically added the "scoped" perks to certain weapons in order to make sure that even lower perception chars have a chance to be snipers. They won't be perfect snipers by any measure, but at least you have an idea what is going on. You should in many cases be able to see whoever is sniping you, even though you might not be able to touch them.