rjshae

Adding in damage absorption in PE makes that +50% critical hit damage more effective. Suppose you have a base 2-8 damage, giving a 3-12 critical hit damage. A -4 damage absorption means the maximum normal damage is 4, whilst the critical hit damage is 8 and there is a greater chance of inflicting damage with a critical hit.

---

The JRPG Tales of Destiny revolved around the concept. There was also a "Sword Familiar" in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Nothing psychotic or evil going on in either case. Okay. I don't doubt but that you could make an entire CRPG centered around an intelligent weapon, perhaps with it serving as your Avatar. It might even get to be fun after a while being a talking symbiotic sword.

I'm not going to claim I'd have been wholly happy or sad in regard to this. I see the good reasons for why they came up with it, and even agree with them to an extent. However . . . I'd also have missed it a bit for my own reasons - I like characters being punished for overstepping their bounds, not even being able to hit something as a result. I'm okay with this though. I do understand that low level miss miss miss fest concern, so, if they'd gone as described, at least I'd have understood the logic. As Napoleon said, Chance is the providence of adventurers. Personally, I don't mind it when certain encounters require a high degree of luck; if anything that usually just makes me optimize my odds with better tactics and the heavy use of potions and other expendables. But no matter; I'm sure I can live with whatever combat scheme they come up with. I just hope it doesn't feel too contrived.

What, you've never gone wading waist deep in swamp water that is home to poisonous snakes, giant boas, and crocodiles? No, that's not scary at all.

A grid/tiles with terrain effects isn't exactly new or innovative. You've just described pretty much every turn-based strategy game's map for the past 20+ years. Let me just jump into Civ V for a moment and... There, now I've got a Hoplite fortified on a hill, yes, the hill cut the Hoplite unit's movement rate by half, but it also gave it a significant combat bonus. That in itself doesn't really apply to random encounters, does it? You're really addressing the concept of terrain effects rather than the concept of random encounters. Why would terrain effects be limited to random encounters? And that's an awful lot of villages for a land with no food sources, farms, etc. Hmm... kind of a stupid argument, frankly. First, I never claimed a grid arrangement was new or innovative; only that it was a good approach. Second, you're saying we shouldn't use good ideas from an entirely different game genre? Nonsense. Thirdly, I never said we should apply every concept from turn-base strategy games. A grid allows you, the player, to access the entire map while implementing movement costs and allowing the player choice. It does not preclude the developers from implementing random encounters, but it does allow them to apply random encounters that are appropriate for the terrain type. It is also readily extensible by modders.

"Are we there yet?" No. "Are we there yet?" No. "What about now?" ... Noober, the sword of heya.

Yeah, the SoZ system was decent. But remember it did run on a 3D landscape; I'm not sure how plausible implementing that would be for PE. Besides, the Day/Night system on the overland map was completely wonky.

I'm all for adding in terrain effects on movement and concealment. Flooded areas are nice for a little paranoia effect; you never quite know what's going to leap up and bite you.

Another really nice option is an overland map that is sub-divided into regions. Kind of like this screen shot from Eador: Each region would have it's own environmental conditions, movement costs, hazards, and so forth. Within some of these regions are clickable destinations, or maybe just abstracted sites such as inns or villages.

I'd hope that these will almost never happen to a competent warrior. Having a critical miss on one in twenty swings just seems way too high: the fighter's skill should play a big part in the outcome.

Sigh, I hate to do this, but.... It's rogues, not rouges. Rogues are devious people; rouges are powders that eighteenth century french prostitutes used to put on their cheeks. Fighters wear full-plate; they know where to shove the pointy thing. Also, can I suggest using a recent version of Firefox so you've at least got a spell checker available? I get the feeling he's not a natural English speaker. Not too huge an issue so long as he's trying and you can more-or-less work it out. A spell checker won't help with things like "rouge" and "where" and the Firefox spell checker says that "mages" isn't a word, anyway. Well, my apologies then, but the use of "rouges" just keeps recurring up so I wanted to make a small point of it.

Sigh, I hate to do this, but.... It's rogues, not rouges. Rogues are devious people; rouges are powders that eighteenth century french prostitutes used to put on their cheeks. Fighters wear full-plate; they know where to shove the pointy thing. Also, can I suggest using a recent version of Firefox so you've at least got a spell checker available?

By itself, a "critical miss" always seemed like a silly thing; intended more for the gamer's amusement than for anything constructive. What I wouldn't mind seeing is a "critical miss" that allows the opponent a favorable opening. If an enemy attacks me and flounders badly from my crafty block, then that should leave me a brief, favorable opening. Perhaps even give me an opportunity attack (or opportunity counter-attack, as it were). Otherwise... shrug. I can live without a "critical miss".

As the player you're essentially doing the thinking for six different characters. The only way to realistically play it as a "twitch" game would be to slow the action down to one-sixth normal, which wouldn't be fun at all. So no, even on hardcore mode, I still want my pause button. If you want to play hardcore mode without a pause, then do so... and good luck to you.

Ranged defense could be treated as a "Concealment" effect (with suitable adjustments for player skill). That would provide a "hit or miss" binary. Once you score a success, you can then check the result against the Concealment success range to see what type of hit you got.

It sounds like a type of mini-game. Not really high on my list of gaming interests.

I'm thinking the benefit is primarily for attackers with low odds to hit. Take, say, 1d6+1 non-absorbed damage (for average 4.5 or 1 point half-minimum) and a 10% chance to hit: With min dmg of 1: .9*1 + .1*4.5 = 1.35 average With no miss dmg: .9*0 + .1*4.5 = 0.45 average That's a 1.35/0.45 = 300% damage improvement rate. Now take the same damage and a 50% chance to hit: With min dmg: .5*1 + .5*4.5 = 2.75 average With no min dmg: .5*0 + .5*4.5 = 2.25 average. That's a 2.75/2.25 = 22% damage improvement rate.

The degenerate case where the "always hit" mechanic makes less and less sense is when the defender becomes exceedingly small. If you're fighting, say, a tiny but powerful sprite that is moving around rapidly, then logically you'd have a decent chance of a clean miss. Said tiny sprite may only have a single health point, meaning a single swat could take it down. If you're wielding a powerful weapon with a decent magical modifier, then the sprite goes down pretty quickly even if you keep missing.

An 80% chance to hit is a 20% chance to miss; IIRC, three consecutive misses is (.2)^3 = 0.008, or 0.8%.

Few must be new to this forum...

Hopefully the game will allow a Concealment-type effect to cause a complete miss during melee. I.e. such as when the defender is invisible, the attacker is blinded, either is fighting in pitch darkness, or there is a magical blur/displacement effect.

A "miss" against any defense translates to half minimum damage inflicted or half minimum duration on any sort of status effect. I.e. there aren't "full" misses, but mitigated effects. A hit is the standard damage/duration. A hit that is within the critical hit range does 150% max damage or duration. There's something I'm unclear about here. Is he saying that if the opponent would have scored a hit against you if you were not employing any defenses, then you will always receive some minimal amount of damage? Or is he saying that just waving a sword in your general direction will always cause some damage? If it is the former then that would make at least some sort of sense. However, then latter seems completely illogical; it's just too much of an abstraction for me to be happy about.

Well-disciplined opponents can also perform a fighting withdrawal; performing a coordinated retreat to a defensible position, for example. But that would require excellent AI.

Oh sure, stick one hand in boiling water and the other hand in ice water, then on average you're comfortable... But then I suppose the "hit point total" as such is kind of a fake damage counter anyway.