Gameplay - Character Stats

Continuing my series of articles looking at various gameplay mechanics, and tying into the previous update about the Status menu, let's take a look at character stats and parameters!

Character stats fall into two major categories: primary and secondary stats. The primary stats are fairly straightforward and are the ones you see on the General screen of the Status menu. They also provide bonuses to your secondary stats and other things. So even if a character doesn't necessarily need one of the primary stats for their main role (such as a mage not needing much ATK), buffing that stat may still prove useful in some capacity. Meanwhile secondary stats are much more numerous, and more specific in what they do.

Primary Stats

• ATK: Attack Power. Governs how strong basic and physical-based attacks are. Combination of a character's natural strength and the weapon(s) they have equipped. Also provides a passive buff to Hit Rate and Counterattack chance.
• DEF: Physical Defense. Governs the character's ability to resist physical damage. Combination of a character's natural endurance and the armor(s) they have equipped.  Also provides a passive buff to Evasion, Guard Effect, Recovery rate, and DEF Rate.
• SPI: Spirit. Governs the strength of a character's magical abilities, whether offensive or defensive. Also provides a passive buff to Magic Reflect chance and SP Cost reduction.
• MDF: Magic Defense. Governs a character's resistance to magical attacks. Also provides a passive buff to Magic Evasion, Recovery rate, and MDF Rate.
• AGI: Agility. Governs a character's action speed in combat, so a higher agility means they will be able to act faster. Also provides a passive buff to Hit Rate, Evasion, Critical Evasion, Magic Evasion, and Counterattack chance.
• LUK: Luck. Provides a passive buff to the chances of status ailments being applied to enemies or resisted, as well as Critical Chance and Critical Evade.

So many numbers! Let's see what they all mean.

Secondary Stats

• Hit Rate: Determines a character's chance to hit with physical attacks. Note that magical attacks operate separately, and have a base chance to hit of 100%.
• Evasion: Chance to evade physical attacks. The hit roll is the attackers Hit Chance minus the target's Evasion.
• Crit Chance: Chance to land a critical hit (triple damage).
• Crit Evade: Chance to evade a critical hit. Crit roll after a hit is successful is the attacker's Crit Chance minus the target's Crit Evade (So a Crit Evade high enough to reduce the chance to 0% or below negates any chance of the hit being a crit).
• Counter: Counterattack chance. This is checked as the first step in an attack roll (If successful, the attack is negated and the target makes a regular attack against the attacker instead. Counterattacks can't be countered).
• Magic Evasion: Chance to evade a magical attack. 
• Magic Reflect: Chance to reflect a magical attack. Functions like Counterattack, i.e. is rolled first.
• XP Rate: The rate at which this character gains XP from all sources. Any XP gained is increased or decreased by this percentage.
• SP Cost: The SP cost of abilities. At 100% for standard, reducing this means abilities will cost fewer SP.
• OD Charge: The rate of OD charging in battle, increased or decreased by this percentage.
• DEF Rate: Physical Defense rate. Any physical damage taken is flatly reduced by this percentage.
• MDF Rate: Magical Defense rate. Any magical damage taken is flatly reduced by this percentage.
• Floor DMG: Floor Damage. Occasionally you might come across hazardous terrain that damages you by walking across it. This determines the rate of damage you receive. At 100% for standard, reducing this number will mean you take less damage.
• Guard Effect: Determines how much additional damage reduction you receive when using the Guard action.
• Recovery: Recovery Rate. Any healing you receive is increased or reduced by this percentage.
• Item Effect: The effectiveness of any items used are increased or decreased by this amount.
• HP/SP/OD Regen: Naturally regenerate HP/SP/OD by this percentage over the course of a round.

The values are also color-coded to give a general idea of how high/low they might be, although some of the values follow slightly different scales. If a value is white while being at 0% or 100%, it's at its standard value. If it's purple while being at 0%, then it's drastically low. Shades of red and yellow indicate low or sub-optimal values, while green, turquoise, and even blue indicate values enhanced beyond their normal values.

So basically white = normal, yellow/red/purple = sub-optimal or bad, green/turquoise/blue = good.

​And that'll do it for today!