Update #39: Non-Core Classes, Cooldowns, Attack Resolution, Damage vs. Armor and a Tileset!

[Lephys]

If you add it to DT, it isn't an armor bonus across the board: it affects piercing weapons more than any other weapon type the equation works that way. Adding armor bonus as a DT removes armor bonus's distributive property.

I don't know to what exactly you are referring here. If you add what to DT? All I'm referring to is 2 factors: Damage and DT (basically negative damage). Negative damage and damage are always going to cancel out, lowering the final damage amount. So, changing the relationship between damage and DT seems overly complicated (Piercing essentially lessening the effects of DT, and crushing basically lowering it even further).

 

I think maybe that's why the original system is unintuitive. You don't really have a side-by-side comparison of the damage types because the effectiveness works differently for each type. For example, the only bonus slashing gets is basically a higher base damage (because piercing and crushing weapons of comparable quality/level will always have lower base damage.) But you can't really see that in a side-by-side comparison. It's like saying "This sword does 10 damage, +7 damage. This dagger does 10 damage, plus 1 damage for every point of DT present, up to a maximum of 7. This mace does 10 damage, but can never do less than 5 damage."

 

There is no single factor augmentation value that can be compared. In other words, it's not readily apparent, in looking at weapon stats, exactly WHAT the damage bonus is for a slashing weapon as compared to the damage bonus of a piercing weapon, because a piercing weapon has no damage bonus. It has a damage negation negation bonus, or a damage retention bonus.

 

"Light, Medium, and Heavy" armors, and "Slashing, piercing, and crushing" weapons are really only tiers of potential damage values.

Edited January 25, 2013 by Lephys

[Hormalakh]

 

If you add it to DT, it isn't an armor bonus across the board: it affects piercing weapons more than any other weapon type the equation works that way. Adding armor bonus as a DT removes armor bonus's distributive property.

I don't know to what exactly you are referring here. If you add what to DT? All I'm referring to is 2 factors: Damage and DT (basically negative damage). Negative damage and damage are always going to cancel out, lowering the final damage amount. So, changing the relationship between damage and DT seems overly complicated (Piercing essentially lessening the effects of DT, and crushing basically lowering it even further).

 

I think maybe that's why the original system is unintuitive. You don't really have a side-by-side comparison of the damage types because the effectiveness works differently for each type. For example, the only bonus slashing gets is basically a higher base damage (because piercing and crushing weapons of comparable quality/level will always have lower base damage.) But you can't really see that in a side-by-side comparison. It's like saying "This sword does 10 damage, +7 damage. This dagger does 10 damage, plus 1 damage for every point of DT present, up to a maximum of 7. This mace does 10 damage, but can never do less than 5 damage."

 

There is no single factor augmentation value that can be compared. In other words, it's not readily apparent, in looking at weapon stats, exactly WHAT the damage bonus is for a slashing weapon as compared to the damage bonus of a piercing weapon, because a piercing weapon has no damage bonus. It has a damage negation negation bonus, or a damage retention bonus.

 

"Light, Medium, and Heavy" armors, and "Slashing, piercing, and crushing" weapons are really only tiers of potential damage values.

If you add armor bonuses (like if a mail+1 adds 5 to DT) it doesn't work the same way across the board. The equation for damage is much more complicated than a simple subtraction. There are max() functions, some multiplications, and some subtractions. Piercing and crushing do not affect DT the same way.

 

One by-passes it completely UP TO A POINT. This would be your piercer.

Crushing weapon attacks but "may" by-pass armor. If you can hit harder by by-passing the DT, then you do. If you can't by-pass the armor with a crushing blow, then you can hit the minimum threshold amount. This is a MAX() function.

 

Once again, they crushing and piercing do not work the same. Very very different. Also notice that crushing weapons always do more base damage than piercing weapons. Piercing weapons (like a knife) would always do less damage than one you can bash someone over the head with (a maul).

 

You can't really compare them like you are. You have to look at the weapons in a different way. We are so used to looking at damage from a addition/subtraction view from PnP that it's sort of a little difficult to see it this way.

 

----

 

I'll try explaining again. You have to firstly move out of the DnD mindset for a second. "Young padawan, think outside the box." Weapons do not act in tiers. A hammer is not a screwdriver. Each weapon type has a certain area in which it's effective. Imagine that there are three qualities you can find in any weapon. How well it can pierce through a material, how well it can damage a person (with no armor), and if all else fails with bypassing an armor, it causes damage by knocking you around. These three qualities are piercing, slashing, and crushing respectively. Now depending on a variety of factors like the weapons that you have, the enemy you are facing, their armor, etc you will want to use different weapons in different situations. A crushing weapon works best against armors you can't by-pass. Piercing weapons work best if you can by-pass that material completely, and slashing weapons disembowel your opponents (they do the most damage outright). Using this idea, you pick your weapon that fits what you need done best. Now whether you have figured out the best "damage-output" depends on the factors mentioned above. It's quite complex, yes, but there are general rules that any padawan can follow to get a good idea. Only the best will master the secrets (i.e. you have a spreadsheet). But the tactical dabbler knows where to start and can be effective against his/her enemies.

Edited January 25, 2013 by Hormalakh

[SunBroSolaire]

I think maybe that's why the original system is unintuitive. You don't really have a side-by-side comparison of the damage types because the effectiveness works differently for each type. For example, the only bonus slashing gets is basically a higher base damage (because piercing and crushing weapons of comparable quality/level will always have lower base damage.) But you can't really see that in a side-by-side comparison. It's like saying "This sword does 10 damage, +7 damage. This dagger does 10 damage, plus 1 damage for every point of DT present, up to a maximum of 7. This mace does 10 damage, but can never do less than 5 damage."

 

There is no single factor augmentation value that can be compared. In other words, it's not readily apparent, in looking at weapon stats, exactly WHAT the damage bonus is for a slashing weapon as compared to the damage bonus of a piercing weapon, because a piercing weapon has no damage bonus. It has a damage negation negation bonus, or a damage retention bonus.

That's one of the things that makes the system attractive though. It isn't, in the words of Penny Arcade, an Arrow Comparison Engine. If you have one variable that you're comparing, that's not really fun or interesting.

[Lephys]

Ahhh, I get what you're saying. When I said "When you factor in DT," I was talking about my example (as it was using 0DT across the board). Not the original system.

I realize that things are working differently, but I'm saying it still seems like a convoluted way of just using damage and DT for the exact same effectiveness ranges.

Having a sword do 15 damage vs 15 DT armor (resulting in 0 damage) and a mace dealing only 10 damage vs 15 DT armor, but always dealing a MINIMUM of 5 damage is achieved just as easily by making the mace do 20 damage instead of 15. Sure, if things have 100 armor, the minimum damage works when the 20 damage doesn't. But, who decides whether or not things ever have 100 armor? You do, in designing the system.

I'm not saying "You can't use DT negation and minimum damage thresholds for damage types because they're not simply addition and subtraction." I'm saying that it doesn't seem to accomplish anything that a much simpler system (slashing < piercing < crushing in damage, and Light/no armor < medium armor < heavy armor in DT).

Imagine if you did the same thing with elemental magic. Fire just does base damage. Lightning penetrates up to 10 magic resistance, and Frost always does a minimum of 10 damage. The only "appropriate" resistance for Fire to be effective is no/hardly-any resistance. If stuff has high magic resistance, Fire is pretty much useless.

The system, itself, is highly restrictive. They just got the math balanced out really well, but it's still WAY more math than is needed. (For the record, I'm ONLY talking about the damage-type part of the system. The dual-wielding and speeds and all that is not faulty.)

 

That's one of the things that makes the system attractive though. It isn't, in the words of Penny Arcade, an Arrow Comparison Engine. If you have one variable that you're comparing, that's not really fun or interesting.

 

Yes, but... they're all still based on DT, but then they're all different on top of that.

It would be one thing to have different effectiveness bonuses for each, like:

Slashing inflicts bleed damage-over-time versus the correct type of armor,

Piercing deals 300% (instead of 150%) critical damage versus the correct type of armor,

Crushing temporarily reduces DT by 1 per hit versus the correct type of armor.

 

That's 3 different things that are fine. What wouldn't make much sense is if I said:

 

Slashing inflicts bleed damage as long as DT is under 10,

Piercing deals 300% critical damage as long as DT is between 10 and 20,

Crushing temporarily reduces DT by 1 per hit as long as DT is between 20 and 30.

 

In the first example, you can have 3 different types of weapons all have the same base damage, and you're STILL going to wind up with different final damage (based on 3 completely different bonus effect calculations). In the 2nd example, DT does TWO things, so you have to adjust base damage relative to DT values of armor for a comparable level, AND adjust DT for each range of armor to make sure that your damage-type effectiveness is balanced right in the end.

 

In other words, in the original system, you have DT versus damage PLUS 3 different relationships with DT (slashing doing nothing, piercing negating it, and crushing negating it in a different way) to account for, JUST to achieve the balance you're looking for (you can't make slashing do 50 damage to make up for the fact that it can't get around DT, and you can't make DT too high on heavy armor because it would too quickly make both slashing and piercing useless.)

 

You're doing MULTIPLE calculations just to make slashing better against one armor type, because that armor type is really just a grouping of a bunch of calculations.

Edited January 25, 2013 by Lephys

[Hormalakh]

Ahhh, I get what you're saying. When I said "When you factor in DT," I was talking about my example (as it was using 0DT across the board). Not the original system.

 

I realize that things are working differently, but I'm saying it still seems like a convoluted way of just using damage and DT for the exact same effectiveness ranges.

 

Having a sword do 15 damage vs 15 DT armor (resulting in 0 damage) and a mace dealing only 10 damage vs 15 DT armor, but always dealing a MINIMUM of 5 damage is achieved just as easily by making the mace do 20 damage instead of 15. Sure, if things have 100 armor, the minimum damage works when the 20 damage doesn't. But, who decides whether or not things ever have 100 armor? You do, in designing the system.

It's not a 0/1 binary for the slashing weapons. Even slashing weapons have a minimum threshold (10%). The crushing weapons just have a higher minimum threshold. So your slashing sword never does 0 damage. It does 15*10%=1.5. A mace (single-wield) would do at least 15*20%=3. Now if you mace or your sword have some "by-pass" power, this would help you tell which would be more effective. If you have a mace that has a by-pass power of 2, then you get 15-15+2=2. Since 3>2, since your mace cannot by-pass the armor, it does 3. Now let's say your sword has a by-pass power of 5. 15-15+5=5, Since 5>1.5, your sword with a by-pass will do 5 damage instead of 1.5. So it would seem that by-pass power (piercing) is the best right? Well, if mainly piercing weapons have the lowest damage output, there will be situations where you will want a slicier blade. It's never a simple 0/1 binary. The reason for this is that you never have a 0 minimum threshold. Also, your piercers never do the most damage.

I'm not saying "You can't use DT negation and minimum damage thresholds for damage types because they're not simply addition and subtraction." I'm saying that it doesn't seem to accomplish anything that a much simpler system (slashing < piercing < crushing in damage, and Light/no armor < medium armor < heavy armor in DT).

 

Imagine if you did the same thing with elemental magic. Fire just does base damage. Lightning penetrates up to 10 magic resistance, and Frost always does a minimum of 10 damage. The only "appropriate" resistance for Fire to be effective is no/hardly-any resistance. If stuff has high magic resistance, Fire is pretty much useless.

 

The system, itself, is highly restrictive. They just got the math balanced out really well, but it's still WAY more math than is needed. (For the record, I'm ONLY talking about the damage-type part of the system. The dual-wielding and speeds and all that is not faulty.)

I don't know how to explain the magic stuff, because I don't know what their mechanics are. I think I explained your concern though. Let me know if it isn't clear. Edited January 25, 2013 by Hormalakh

[DakkonZerth]

Ok here's my fear: my awesome sword that I had to work hard to get (like a +5 Avenger) sucking against heavy armor. 

[Hormalakh]

Crushing doesn't negate armor. Only piercing does.

[Lephys]

It's not a 0/1 binary for the slashing weapons. Even slashing weapons have a minimum threshold (10%). The crushing weapons just have a higher minimum threshold. So your slashing sword never does 0 damage. It does 15*10%=1.5. A mace (single-wield) would do at least 15*20%=3. Now if you mace or your sword have some "by-pass" power, this would help you tell which would be more effective. If you have a mace that has a by-pass power of 2, then you get 15-15+2=2. Since 3>2, since your mace cannot by-pass the armor, it does 3. Now let's say your sword has a by-pass power of 5. 15-15+5=5, Since 5>1.5, your sword with a by-pass will do 5 damage instead of 1.5. So it would seem that by-pass power (piercing) is the best right? Well, if mainly piercing weapons have the lowest damage output, there will be situations where you will want a slicier blade. It's never a simple 0/1 binary. The reason for this is that you never have a 0 minimum threshold. Also, your piercers never do the most damage.

 

I'm probably just coming across as extremely difficult at this point, heh. I'm realllllly sorry if I am. Seriously. Maybe I just need to give up for the night. But, I realize what you're saying. I do. I think I do. I'm pretty sure.

 

Here's the most simply I can state my concern of over-complication:

 

The thing that makes crushing different from slashing is the difference in MDTDT PLUS the difference in base damage PLUS the difference in the DT value of heavy armor. But, the only real difference you're accomplishing is that a level 10 masterwork steel mace is going to do more damage against 20 DT armor than a level 10 masterwork steel sword. And a level 10 masterwork steel dagger is going to do more damage against higher DT armor than a sword will, but only against LOWER DT armor than a mace would.

 

In other words, "DT too high? Use a dagger. DT still too high? Use a mace."

 

Whether or not you give weapons minimum damage is a separate issue, as that only deals with the basic relationship between damage and DT.

 

Am I making sense? A range can already be achieve with appropriate damage/DT values/differences between weapon types, but instead, 3 or 4 different variables/calculations are being used, and still only achieving a range of effectiveness.

 

Crushing doesn't negate armor. Only piercing does.

 

 

Oh but it does. Just in a different relationship. If an enemy has 50 DT, and a crushing mace has a minimum of 5 damage, then it negates 45 DT. If the enemy had only 10 DT, it would be negating only 5 DT. Whereas, a dagger actually negates a set amount, which might be higher than the difference between crushing's MDTDT and the foe's armor. Which is part of my point.

 

I get that if the sword did 15, the dagger did 25, and the mace did 35, the mace would ALWAYS be the best weapon. My only point is that that staggered base damage approach accomplishes the same weapon range effectiveness. That's why I'm not advocating that slashing always do less damage than piercing which does less than crushing.

 

Like I said, they got the math right. I just think the system made it more complex than it needed to be.

Edited January 25, 2013 by Lephys

[Hormalakh]

The thing that makes crushing different from slashing is the difference in MDTDT PLUS the difference in base damage PLUS the difference in the DT value of heavy armor. But, the only real difference you're accomplishing is that a level 10 masterwork steel mace is going to do more damage against 20 DT armor than a level 10 masterwork steel sword. And a level 10 masterwork steel dagger is going to do more damage against higher DT armor than a sword will, but only against LOWER DT armor than a mace would.

 

In other words, "DT too high? Use a dagger. DT still too high? Use a mace."

 

Whether or not you give weapons minimum damage is a separate issue, as that only deals with the basic relationship between damage and DT.

Am I making sense? A range can already be achieve with appropriate damage/DT values/differences between weapon types, but instead, 3 or 4 different variables/calculations are being used, and still only achieving a range of effectiveness.

It's actually only one single calculation. The actual equation doesn't really matter as long as the concept is understood and can be applied. But yeah, if all else is equal (which it wouldn't be) it comes down to what you said about "sword < dagger < mace" when considering DT. That was the point though, from the beginning. What mechanics equation do you propose? Val's? Edited January 25, 2013 by Hormalakh

[Lephys]

I already proposed one. Although, it was more just thinking about a simpler-yet-equally-effective manner of creating a difference in effectiveness between weapon/armor types than my claiming to be proposing a unique system that no one had proposed before. It's not necessarily COMPLETELY different from either Val's proposed system OR the newly proposed system from Josh (or what we know of it so far.) I'm merely stressing the importance of the separation of DT (as a value that already determines base-damage reduction) and the calculations for armor-type/damage-type effectiveness. This is something I believe Josh pointed out in his new proposal.
 

I mean, as a very simple example, imagine if you simply adjusted the damage range on weapons, based on the armor.
 
Slashy the Sword does 5-10, but versus Light armor, it does 5-17. So, against Medium armor, you're still doing 5-10 with the Sword, while Piercy the Dagger (being effective against medium) will do 5-17. Then, against Heavy armor, Crushy the Mace will do 5-17 instead of 5-10 with the sword or the dagger. (This assumes all armor is 0DT and is merely different TYPES of armor.)
 
OR, going with my example of one bad, one okay, and one good damage type for every armor type, you could lower the minimum damage for the "bad" type.
 
So, against heavy armor, Slashy the Sword would do 1-10, Piercy the Dagger would do 5-10, and Crushy the Mace would do 5-17. Etc...
 
Obviously, Valorian's system accomplishes the same effect (and more), but more elegantly. I was just trying to simplify it to show that difference. But, the point is, when you use a "good" weapon type against a certain armor type, you're not DEFINITELY doing more damage on every swing, you're just able to do more damage. You might still do between 5 and 10 damage (with these example numbers), but you CAN do between 11 and 17, also.
 
When you factor in DT, it's still an armor bonus across the board. And a sword that does 10 more damage is always going to be that much better against armor with 10 DT, but it's going to be worse compared to the mace (and/or dagger, depending on whether or not you go with "bad/okay/good" or "okay/okay/good."

 

The same mathematical change across all weapon types (against the appropriate type of armor for each) was purely for simplicity's sake. Like I said, you could always give different types of bonuses for each (like my bleed damage for slashing/extra crit for piercing/temporary DT reduction for crushing example).

 

But see, in that, you have 3 different effects (damage over time, critical augmentation, and DT reduction) to be paired up with 3 weapon types. In the original system, you have 2 factors (more or less base damage, and more or less DT negation), split between 3 weapon types.

Edited January 25, 2013 by Lephys

[SunBroSolaire]

 

That's one of the things that makes the system attractive though. It isn't, in the words of Penny Arcade, an Arrow Comparison Engine. If you have one variable that you're comparing, that's not really fun or interesting.

 

Yes, but... they're all still based on DT, but then they're all different on top of that.

 

It would be one thing to have different effectiveness bonuses for each, like:

 

Slashing inflicts bleed damage-over-time versus the correct type of armor,

Piercing deals 300% (instead of 150%) critical damage versus the correct type of armor,

Crushing temporarily reduces DT by 1 per hit versus the correct type of armor.

 

That's 3 different things that are fine. What wouldn't make much sense is if I said:

 

Slashing inflicts bleed damage as long as DT is under 10,

Piercing deals 300% critical damage as long as DT is between 10 and 20,

Crushing temporarily reduces DT by 1 per hit as long as DT is between 20 and 30.

 

In the first example, you can have 3 different types of weapons all have the same base damage, and you're STILL going to wind up with different final damage (based on 3 completely different bonus effect calculations). In the 2nd example, DT does TWO things, so you have to adjust base damage relative to DT values of armor for a comparable level, AND adjust DT for each range of armor to make sure that your damage-type effectiveness is balanced right in the end.

 

In other words, in the original system, you have DT versus damage PLUS 3 different relationships with DT (slashing doing nothing, piercing negating it, and crushing negating it in a different way) to account for, JUST to achieve the balance you're looking for (you can't make slashing do 50 damage to make up for the fact that it can't get around DT, and you can't make DT too high on heavy armor because it would too quickly make both slashing and piercing useless.)

 

You're doing MULTIPLE calculations just to make slashing better against one armor type, because that armor type is really just a grouping of a bunch of calculations.

 

Well, it does depend on imlpementation. The problem I see with your first example (and the 50% penalty system Josh talked about in the OP), is that it makes for a very straightforward matching game. Light Armor? Better use the highest damage slasher that I have. Heavy Armor? Highest damage crusher. So maybe you have to think about which weapons to put in your pack, but the choice of which weapon to use on an enemy is transparent and fairly stiffly enforced. The old system, particularly with the adjustments Hormalakh suggested, makes determining the optimal weapon more of a interesting problem. Because instead of every stabby weapon getting the same bonus, every weapon has to be evaluated individually. Overall, you'll have a similar efficacy graph, but produced by mechanics instead of a hard division of weapon classes. It would also allow for more interesting weapon builds, like halberds that have good slashing and good piercing but can only be used two-handed, dull great swords that have no piercing but decent slashing and crushing, etc... Weapons can be more interesting than just one of three types + damage modifier.

Edited January 25, 2013 by SunBroSolaire

[some guy]

 

Personly I think that having weapons that are extra effective against a specific enemy class would be allot easier to manage and prepear for. Say a sword that can take down archers very quick but fails against big brutes or whatever. Kinda abstract way of doing it but it lay down the rules very easily and gives your fighters their own target to go for and specialise against. When you randomly mixes armor with different fighting styles it kinda put all advantages and disadvantages all over the place.

 

Big brutes would have heavy armor. So what quality would you be looking for most in your weapon? (Crushing)

Archers with low armor need to be cut down quickly. So what quality will you be looking for in your weapon? (Slashing)

But you got archers with mail armor. Your sword does 10-15 damage, it has no armor piercing. Your mail-piercing dagger has 6-8 damage. Which one would you pick? (The mail-piercer).

Well I don't really se that playing out as much of a intresting tactic as much as just a random mess. I'd rather try to focus on getting say my archer killer crazy guy behind enemy line than juggling weapons around for armortypes and such. It just tries to achive what i'm proposing but ends up puting it all over the place. Having a clear cut enemy type where the weapon shines is to me more tactical and straight forward rather than having something usefull against some fighter, some archers, some beasts and so on.

 

In the end though this is all kinda depending on what skills you load up with and default enemy equipment and such I guess.

Edited January 25, 2013 by some guy

[Hormalakh]

I'm going to try explaining the mechanic one last time with a different perspective altogether. First of all, the system is set in a way where there is no "best weapon" that you use every time. That's kiddie stuff. In a real tactical situation, you want to use the right weapon for the right armor. With that out of the way, let's show the weapons you've got. I'm going to simplify this a little at first. We're going to start with 2handers to keep our speeds the same and so as to not worry about single/dual wielding. Generally, faster speed and dual-wielding = better. I've given some numbers in parentheses and I'll get to them later. I've used the spreadsheet Josh has on page 6 to come up with the first example. So if you're looking for numbers, you can follow that spreadsheet (but I promise you won't need it).

 

Claymore:

45 damage

No piercing (DT 0)

Minimum Crushing Damage (MCD): 30% (13.5)

 

Two-handed Dagger:

26 damage

Leather piercing (DT 20)

Minimum Crushing Damage: 30% (7.8 )

 

Troll's club:

34 damage

No piercing (DT 0)

Minimum Crushing Damage: 60% (18.36)

 

Now, the way to figure out which weapon works best is to always start with how deep you can pierce an armor. Your two-handed dagger can pierce up through Leather armor (20 DT). Therefore, you will always get the best bang for your buck with the highest piercing weapon, even if your damage is low. Much lower than the troll's club(34>26) and the Claymore (45>26). Those are significant increases in damage (8 and 19 points), but when dealing with armored enemies, the best thing is to always by-pass/pierce their armor and get to the squishy center.

 

Now, let's say your enemy starts deviating away from Leather armor. If the armor starts getting better and heavier (plate), then you'll want to start thinking more and more about moving towards the troll's club. Your other weapons have no piercing damage, so you can be sure that the further away they get from their piercing class, the more likely they are to hit for Minimum Crushing Damage (MCD). You can calculate this quickly: multiply the MCD with the damage.

 

 

Claymore:

30% X 45 = 13.5

 

Two-Handed Dagger:

30% X 26 = 7.8

 

Troll's Club:

60% X 34 = 18.36

 

 

Now whether the devs want to show you this calculation instead of the "minimum crushing damage" as a percentage, that's fine with me. The calculation doesn't really help/hurt you. It just gives you more information. Hence, I put them in parentheses in the original weapon descriptions above.

 

As you start moving away from your highest piercing damage, you're more and more likely to be doing the MCD for that weapon. Since you have those numbers, it becomes fairly easy to calculate which is the best weapon for the situation (not considering things like speed, although between the three weapons I've given above the speeds are the same).

 

So, now you have a good starting paradigm for any situation:

 

You are fighting an enemy with Leather armor, you go for your Leather armor piercer even if it does something close to 10-20% less damage (here, the dagger does up to 40% less damage than the claymore!). Armors much higher than leather armor, you go for the crushing weapon (troll's club). Less armor than leather? Go for the highest damage weapon you can (claymore).

 

So that's our basic scenario. Now let's move on to something "weird."

 

You have three new weapons.

 

 

Samurai sword:

Padded piercing (DT 10)

Damage 67.5

MCD 30% (20.25)

 

Pike:

Mail piercing (DT 30)

Damage 31.2

MCD 30% (9.36)

 

Flail (2H):

Tunic piercing (DT 5)

Damage 44.2

MCD 60% (26.52)

 

 

Now. Let me give you scenarios.

1- Plate wearing enemy (DT 45)

2- Mail wearing enemy (DT 30)

3- Padded wearing enemy (DT 10)

 

Your answers are

 

1-Flail

2-Pike

3-Samurai

 

 

In fact, I don't even have to go through the numbers to know any armor much higher than your highest piercer needs to go for the highest MCD. That would be our first scenario. None of my weapons are plate-piercing, so I'll want to go for the flail since it has the highest MCD. In the second scenario, even a 50% reduction in damage between my samurai sword and my pike has no effect on the mail-piercing efficacy of the pike. That is to say that the pike still out-deals damage in this scenario! Since you've got a mail piercer and an enemy who wears mail armor, make his armor not matter at all. Finally, the samurai sword can pierce up to padded AND does the most damage, that this would be absolutely destructive on my padded wielder.

 

Now here's one more example. Same weapons as given above. Which weapon would you use for a leather wielder (DT 20)? Answer at the bottom.

 

---- The Answer

 

 

The answer would be samurai sword. With a leather armor you're looking at 47 dmg compared to 28 and 23 (approximately) for the pike and flail respectively. You might not know the exact numbers, but you quickly get a feel that the samurai would out do either of the other two. In fact, when I answered this question, I didn't look at my spreadsheet.

 

What I did was to look at my piercing damage first. Leather is between padded armor and mail armor. So while my pike can completely outpierce the leather, the damage is too low. At the same time, while the samurai can only pierce up to the padded (DT 10), a leather armor is only 2 classes further up. And my damage is more than twice of a pike! So weighed it in my head: I want to maximize damage and pierce only slightly through the armor. So I'll got for a samurai sword.

 

 

 

---- My work (for any devs reading or to verify my answer with a spreadsheet)

 

 

So I took the spreadsheet and made these changes.

Samurai. 2H slashing. DMG* 1.5 DT- 10

Pike. 2H Piercing. DMG* 1.2 DT- 30

Flail. 2H Crushing. DMG* 1.3 DT- 0

 

 

Edited January 25, 2013 by Hormalakh

[Gumbercules]

I like your suggestions, Hormalakh, and agree that the main issue is conveying information rather than changing the system. One thing I'm still not entirely clear on: do we know if different types of armor will ever have overlapping DT ranges, or will they always be distinct even for special armors? For example, your labelling idea may run into trouble if fancier Chainmail armors end up having higher DT than plain Plate armors. On the other hand, fancier armors could give just give bonuses to defense and various stats instead while always falling into the expected DT range, which would avoid this problem.

 

On another note, the Mount & Blade games use a similar cutting/piercing/blunt system which may be worth taking a look at. I don't have the time to do it myself, but here's a thread that examines their system:

http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?topic=137021.0

[Hormalakh]

I like your suggestions, Hormalakh, and agree that the main issue is conveying information rather than changing the system. One thing I'm still not entirely clear on: do we know if different types of armor will ever have overlapping DT ranges, or will they always be distinct even for special armors? For example, your labelling idea may run into trouble if fancier Chainmail armors end up having higher DT than plain Plate armors. On the other hand, fancier armors could give just give bonuses to defense and various stats instead while always falling into the expected DT range, which would avoid this problem.

 

On another note, the Mount & Blade games use a similar cutting/piercing/blunt system which may be worth taking a look at. I don't have the time to do it myself, but here's a thread that examines their system:

http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?topic=137021.0

The DT changes with fancier chainmails, as long as they affect the DT system as a whole, will not terribly affect it.

 

The equation would distribute evenly among all armors. I've tested it with the spreadsheet. The rules stay the same. Piercers do best in their piercing category. Crushers always do best in the higher end. Slashers do best at the beginning tiers. It's just that now, every weapon hits for less damage. Because ultimately a masterwork chainmail (or platemail or whatever) should be a better armor in general. It's always better to have a +1chainmail over a regular chainmail.

 

It's just another multiplication that you add to the beginning of your equation (1-armor bonus) X everything else. Where armor bonus is a % between 0 - X% where X < 100.

 

I also tested it in a scenario where if armor bonuses increase, the base DT of that armor slightly decreases (nothing more than 1-3 points). The numbers change and ever so slightly shift, but the rules stay the same. Anything more than that and you're starting to change your armor tier designations. If the shifts become 5 points or more, you're effectively shifting your armor to a different tier. Which would "make sense" in the real world. As you add more chain to your padded armor, it becomes less and less a padded armor, and more and more a chain mail. So you really shouldn't be calling your padded armor with 51% chain mail, a padded armor anymore. You should be calling it a chain mail with 49% padded armor.

Edited January 25, 2013 by Hormalakh

[Falkon Swiftblade]

All this talk of weapons and thresholds, and everything that goes into it reminds me of when I played Star Wars Galaxies, the Vanilla version and when you finally unlocked your jedi – which was a miracle in itself when you did – you had to collect resources to build your lightsaber and each little piece contributed to the stats like what you have going on here. I really liked that system because no two players had the same saber even though on the outside it potentially looked the same. You may need a generic type of materiel like Metal, but there may be five types of metal to choose from at a time depending on the region you were in, and those all had different quality. My weapon may have a higher damage output but it was fragile and could break easy, and they had sub components that made up the final product. For reference for anyone at Obsidian who wants an idea for crafting for our weapons, here's info regarding saber construction as used in the old SWG. Maybe you guys could use something similar.

 

 

First Generation Lightsaber Resource Requirements

15 Metal 14 Mineral 14 Mineral 17 Chemical 20 Gas

Totals: 15 metal, 28 Mineral, 17 Chemical, and 20 Gas

Second Generation Lightsaber Resource Requirements

25 Mineral 8 Non-Ferrous Metal 20 Inert Petrochemical 22 Known Inert Gas 20 Non-Ferrous Metal

Totals: 25 Mineral, 28 Non-Ferrous Metal, 20 Inert Petrochemical, and 22 Known Inert Gas

Third Generation Lightsaber Resource Requirements

35 Ferrous Metal 20 Titanium Aluminum 25 Polymer 25 Colsion Inert Gas 25 Poly Steel Copper

Titles As Shown Above

Fourth Generation Lightsaber Resource Requirements

40 Duralloy Steel 22 Titanium Aluminum 28 Polymer Culsion Inert Gas 28 Poly Steel Copper

Totals As Shown Above

Relevant Resource Characteristics: OQ and CD. Some resources do not have CD (Gas, Polymer); in this case only the OQ goes into the calc. Both TiAL and Steel have CD that are capped. Duralloy Steel caps at 650. Ti Al CD caps at 450.

In addition the thing that gave your weapon secret sauce was the Dragon pearl. 

Flawless - Up to 20 damage (Looted from Ancient Krayt Dragons, or found in Buried Treasure)
Premium - Up to 19 damage (Looted from Ancient Krayt Dragons, or found in Buried Treasure)
Select - Up to 16 damage (Looted from Ancient Krayt Dragons, or found in Buried Treasure)
Quality - Up to 11 damage (Looted from Ancient & Giant Canyon Krayt Dragons, or found in Buried Treasure)
Good - Up to 9 damage (Looted from Ancient, Giant Canyon Krayt Dragons)
Fair - Up to 7 damage (Looted from Ancient, Giant Canyon, & Canyon Krayt Dragons)
Poor - Up to 5 damage (Looted from any Krayt Dragon)
Scratched - Unusable (Looted from any Krayt Dragon)
Cracked - Unusable (Looted from any Krayt Dragon)

Edited January 25, 2013 by Falkon Swiftblade

[Gumbercules]

 

I like your suggestions, Hormalakh, and agree that the main issue is conveying information rather than changing the system. One thing I'm still not entirely clear on: do we know if different types of armor will ever have overlapping DT ranges, or will they always be distinct even for special armors? For example, your labelling idea may run into trouble if fancier Chainmail armors end up having higher DT than plain Plate armors. On the other hand, fancier armors could give just give bonuses to defense and various stats instead while always falling into the expected DT range, which would avoid this problem.

 

On another note, the Mount & Blade games use a similar cutting/piercing/blunt system which may be worth taking a look at. I don't have the time to do it myself, but here's a thread that examines their system:

http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?topic=137021.0

The DT changes with fancier chainmails, as long as they affect the DT system as a whole, will not terribly affect it.

 

The equation would distribute evenly among all armors. I've tested it with the spreadsheet. The rules stay the same. Piercers do best in their piercing category. Crushers always do best in the higher end. Slashers do best at the beginning tiers. It's just that now, every weapon hits for less damage. Because ultimately a masterwork chainmail (or platemail or whatever) should be a better armor in general. It's always better to have a +1chainmail over a regular chainmail.

 

It's just another multiplication that you add to the beginning of your equation (1-armor bonus) X everything else. Where armor bonus is a % between 0 - X% where X < 100.

 

I also tested it in a scenario where if armor bonuses increase, the base DT of that armor slightly decreases (nothing more than 1-3 points). The numbers change and ever so slightly shift, but the rules stay the same. Anything more than that and you're starting to change your armor tier designations. If the shifts become 5 points or more, you're effectively shifting your armor to a different tier. Which would "make sense" in the real world. As you add more chain to your padded armor, it becomes less and less a padded armor, and more and more a chain mail. So you really shouldn't be calling your padded armor with 51% chain mail, a padded armor anymore. You should be calling it a chain mail with 49% padded armor.

 

What I'm saying is that in order for the system to maintain at least some degree of intuitiveness, Leather should always have lower DT than Mail which should always have lower DT than Plate, and so on. Doing that allows players to develop a general sense for when weapon types become the most effective, whereas introducing overlap just adds confusion. Luckily, based on the examples you're giving, you seem to agree, since armor bonuses that are calculated before DT would affect all weapons equally and would maintain distinction. So we're on the same page more or less, and I was just trying to figure out what was already in Josh's system vs. what you and other people were suggesting as additions.

[some guy]

Just wanted to add I'm not against this type of system per see. It's all fine and dandy for what it is. And this is all a very small stuff in the grand scheme of things. And I don't think it will come into play more than just; a little bump here, a small bost there. It's just not something I'd like to place much emphasis on unless it bites me in the face (which was kinda its point anyway).

Edited January 25, 2013 by some guy

[IndiraLightfoot]

Falkon: I'm no fan of crafting by any means, but if it should be implemented, this is the way to go! And make the things crafted rare, not just something resembling an artisan chipping away at some workbench.

 

What I really like about this system is that each player of PE would more or less gets a unique crafted item (it could work for several kinds of items: weapon, armour, ring, etc) and that circumstance alone, I think, would add so much value to the appreciation of it. Imagine our sharing one another's crafted rarities and talk about them, even here on the forums. It would be fun and sometimes worthy of bragging rights or lamentation of one's bad luck. I really hope OEI dares venture into this fuzzy random crafting territory. It sounds much more fun than a few recipes and the same outcome every time.

 

A disclaimer: It shouldn't be done like in DIablo 3, where the great majority of crafted items were junk. Make it so that each crafted item truly is a marvel, but still a unique marvel to behold. 

[Falkon Swiftblade]

yeah I agree Indira, it was it's own game in itself going on a scavenger hunt trying to build your totem so to speak. I liked it for many reasons, but amongst the main reasons it was this.

 

1) I'm creating something and have control of the final out put. The more i invest in it, the potential it would be better than something I could buy or find let me take pride in my skill. 

 

2) It was a flexible system. If I needed a metal, there were deposits throughout the land like flowers are in a field. You could just grab something to get the job done, or hunt for gold so to speak if you wanted it to be the best. In addition the quality of the metal in zone A may be throughout the whole game, but have slightly different quality as you come upon it, which you might have to horde some if you found something rare, but if you didn't have it it wouldn't make or break the final output, but collectively all the pieces could

bump you up to a higher min damage for example, or make the speed faster.

 

3) It was not repetitive. Games like Skyrim where ya just collect 1000 of X and have a lot of money allowed you to gain max level without leaving the first town if you wanted. This system encouraged you to explore the world, you had certain points of interest you had to go to in game to find certain pieces so you are still part of the world. 

 

4) like you mentioned you could share your craftable's with other players and compare which was fun and could be competitive. One thing I would like in PE regardless of if they use this system is that anything other than standard starter craftables to have it's own skin. I don't want my uber sword of awesome +5 to look like the rusty iron sword I just picked up off the baddie. I think crafted items should only in it's initial build look like the stuff that drops. At the very least we should have an option to change color. However I digress back on topic.

[Tsuga C]

One wonders if scent will be factored in for druids who are shapechanged and rangers with their animal companions as one of their natural abilities.  Compared with the nose of many animals, that of a human is mostly there for ornamentation.  I'm curious if scent might be used by the party for enemy detection and tracking.

[rjshae]

One wonders if scent will be factored in for druids who are shapechanged and rangers with their animal companions as one of their natural abilities.  Compared with the nose of many animals, that of a human is mostly there for ornamentation.  I'm curious if scent might be used by the party for enemy detection and tracking.

 

As long as the shapeshifted Druid doesn't start randomly sniffing people's backsides...

[Tsuga C]

 

One wonders if scent will be factored in for druids who are shapechanged and rangers with their animal companions as one of their natural abilities.  Compared with the nose of many animals, that of a human is mostly there for ornamentation.  I'm curious if scent might be used by the party for enemy detection and tracking.

 

As long as the shapeshifted Druid doesn't start randomly sniffing people's backsides...

One of the NPCs will be a druid named Legdancer.    Shapeshifted druids will automatically gain the talent "Know What Sniffed Creature Ate Recently".

[Falkon Swiftblade]

Speaking of animals and rangers and druids. It would be nice for the ranger to have different calls and whistles in game, and creatures within ear shot come charging in to assist and save the day. As far as smelling goes, that might be tricky to pull off with the scale of the heros, but maybe they could at least find and follow tracks easier?

[Ieo]

 

The thing that makes crushing different from slashing is the difference in MDTDT PLUS the difference in base damage PLUS the difference in the DT value of heavy armor. But, the only real difference you're accomplishing is that a level 10 masterwork steel mace is going to do more damage against 20 DT armor than a level 10 masterwork steel sword. And a level 10 masterwork steel dagger is going to do more damage against higher DT armor than a sword will, but only against LOWER DT armor than a mace would.

 

In other words, "DT too high? Use a dagger. DT still too high? Use a mace."

 

Whether or not you give weapons minimum damage is a separate issue, as that only deals with the basic relationship between damage and DT.

Am I making sense? A range can already be achieve with appropriate damage/DT values/differences between weapon types, but instead, 3 or 4 different variables/calculations are being used, and still only achieving a range of effectiveness.

It's actually only one single calculation. The actual equation doesn't really matter as long as the concept is understood and can be applied. But yeah, if all else is equal (which it wouldn't be) it comes down to what you said about "sword < dagger < mace" when considering DT. That was the point though, from the beginning. What mechanics equation do you propose? Val's?

I haven't been paying attention to the numbers and shorthand being thrown about, but... with this system, does that mean I should always equip my party with maces/bludgeoning to be on the safe side? (As someone may interpret it.)

 

As for information presentation to the player.... What would it be like, selecting a party member who has a particular weapon equipped, then mousing over enemies and watching their selection circle change color or an icon pop over the avatar heads or require tab-popup? Hmmm.