We've been busy figuring out the calculations and laying the groundwork for the reworked combat system in RSMC v0.5. We've already decided (much earlier) that Magic and Ranged combat will be getting two new skills, Will and Sight, to behave analogously to Strength for Melee combat. Our new combat system is very skill- and stats-driven. Higher accuracy skills means more hits, higher power skills means harder hits. Better weapons have better stats, and thus boost your accuracy and power even more than "naked" fighting. The accuracy formulations were easy - three types of combat, three governing skills, it's pretty simple. When we moved on to power, things began to get a little tricky. Strength was the only governing power skill, and it only pertained to Melee combat. We could have used Magic and Ranged as power skills, but the problem becomes that Melee training takes longer because it becomes necessary to train an extra skill. We have encountered a similar problem with Defense. Normally, Defense has been shared between all three combat styles to determine a bit of defensive capability and what armors can be worn. That was fine when the combat system didn't rely on numbers as much as it does in v0.5. We are considering two solutions, but we would like some input from the players, hence this poll. Solution 1: Warding and Evasion Warding and Evasion would be two new defensive skills for Magic and Ranged combat, respectively, while Defense becomes related purely to Melee combat. Legacy support will of course be available, such that when a player first logs in to 0.5, the amount of experience in their Defense skill will be applied to Warding and Evasion to bring them to the same level. Adding these two skills will result in a total of four new skills to train, so the amount of experience rewarded during combat will be increased. If this Solution is not chosen, Defense will continue to influence all types of combat, and no experience boost will be implemented. Solution 2: Hybrid Stats Layer As I said earlier, the new system is heavily skill- and stats-driven. However, the only stats available to us currently are the Skills that are available. We can add whatever stats we want to items, as long as a Skill exists to reflect that stat. Originally, we wanted to use offensive skills and defensive skills to calculate a "fake" defensive skill, but that would have required giving offensive boosts to items where they did not belong; why would a piece of Ranged armor have an offensive boost to Magic, if it is meant to block all Magic completely? This Solution involves adding a new layer between items and Skills in the form of specific stats. We would be able to add stats for whatever we want, such as "Ranged Defense", but this will result in a more complex system and more number crunching. Depending on the complexity, it -could- delay the update further. However, with this option, there will be no new defensive skills to train, and Defense will remain influential to all forms of combat. TL;DR: We need a way to handle defensive calculations - two new skills or hybrid stats; don't vote without reading the two above paragraphs, please! Make sure it is understood what will be added with each solution!