Regarding staggering in combat 0.9.0x

[Enubis]

I'm not sure if this is intentional to the new build since it was not mentioned, but the new frequency by which staggering happens, which is basically upon every hit seems to be quite the hassle when it comes to combat. At this point it seems practically impossible to go for a high dodge based character with really light armors since all they need is one hit and they can quite easily chain a few more hits in, especially when dealing with multiple opponents.

If this is intentional, I don't have too big an issue, I guess I can go on and build towards heavy, perhaps it is to prevent players for being able to single handedly wipe out entire squads? If someone could verify this It would be appreciated.

However there is one HUGE issue. Staggering supposedly works both ways, so if a character goes for quick weapons, I.E. Katanas, it would give a bit of an advantage. STAGGERING does not work on animals, which gives them a RIDICULOUS advantage against anyone. Since they don't get staggered and their attacks are pretty damned fast, a small group of dogs can be quite dangerous if not, overpowered.

Unless there's an entire chance I'm building my character wrongly and being stupid, so if someone could verify and or assist with some guidance, that'd be helpful!

[Loengrinn]

I've noticed this problem, though not just specifically with animals. The stagger chances are way high, and the duration of a stagger is massively debilitating. Big hits or hits in crucial areas should stagger, and I like the mechanic, in concept. But a small hit to an arm shouldn't cause my guy to have to throw himself around to "catch his balance". If there's a balance aspect to this that I'm missing, I'm all ears, but as it stands it just feels overdone.

[swillo]

Stagger currently seems to long. Before if you got staggered you took one more hit and then got back in the fight. Now if you get staggered the fight is over as every hit after that staggers you more. I have a 40+ fighter who got took out by a hungry bandit one on one because the bandit got in the first hit and my guy never got a chance to defend himself after that.
If stagger is going to be so prevalent then the recovery from it should be based on toughness. Then the tougher you are the quicker you recover.

[Silivren]

Stagger currently seems to long. Before if you got staggered you took one more hit and then got back in the fight. Now if you get staggered the fight is over as every hit after that staggers you more. I have a 40+ fighter who got took out by a hungry bandit one on one because the bandit got in the first hit and my guy never got a chance to defend himself after that.
If stagger is going to be so prevalent then the recovery from it should be based on toughness. Then the tougher you are the quicker you recover.

+1 !

That is really a great idea and should be added, it's perfectly logical and I wont have to hit n run anymore because of some weird ass stagger with 50 toughness...
Okey if you have 1 toughness you stagger all the time, no probleme with that. but with a bad ass with over 60 strength, well fed and trained, stagger and gets crushed because of a starving dude ? Come on...

A combination of strength and toughness should be the deciding factor for that since the dex oriented character should be dodging later on, but would still resist more at higher toughness training then a starving untrained bandit.

[bwc153]

Not only are stagger chances real high, I've noticed that virtually every weapon in the game has quite the large AoE on attacks now, making one hit in group combat easily stagger several guys. I've had virtually my entire 13 man squad staggered by one hungry bandit swinging a sabre one, for example. Group combat tends to go very one sided when the AI blobs up so much and a single sword swing can stagger so many guys.

[TotallyRandomPerson]

In a one on one situation I've noticed that a staggered character seems to not receive more hits from his opponent unless there's more than one enemy nearby, and even then sometimes a flanking opponent can't hit.

There does seem to be that one bit of balance against staggering, but I agree that it is ridiculous that almost every attack staggers someone for four to five attacks. Even if only one of them hits, it just makes stagger-chains very overpowered. Also to mention, being flanked basically means the defender is going to lose 95% of the time. (Unless they get good swinging attacks in that hit both enemies consistently.)

A temporary solution would be to simply lower the stagger chance by A LOT. But that might not balance uneven fights.