how does the penetration mechanic feels like?

[Climhazzard]

 

 

 

Interesting.

I am trying to figure out what would be the perfect PEN thresholds that would satisfy a set of conditions/expectations set by the forumers.

And your statement regarding "if there is no armor, penetration can't do anything" - kinda heavily affects the viability of high pen weapons.

 

I'd like to clarify:

- you expect two similar attacks against naked character, but one with quite higher PEN, deal same damage?

- (same thing rephrased) you are against dealing bonus damage with stuff like estocs and stilletos when your PEN is much higher than target's AR?

 

I think I would agree with this too, if the target has no armor I don't see why PEN should do anything.

 

 

 

If it doesn't then there isn't really much to discourage the player from going around naked with all his non tank characters.

Edited November 22, 2017 by Climhazzard

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

 

 

 

The high penetration weapon (the Estoc) is still superior vs. anything with an armor rating between 7 and 11. It's also generally preferable because the downside risk is lower -- if your Greatsword can't penetrate enemy armor it drops down *dramatically*, but the Estoc still does an okay job against most everything.

 

 

 

above quoted is the point.  can't look at weapons with blinders affixed. estoc is superior 'gainst high armour, and 'gainst low armour it is hardly doing paltry damage.  more significant, bosses will predictable have high armour. being able to mop up mobs a bit quicker with the great sword makes up for relative ineffectuality 'gainst high armour foes?  play long game and estoc wins as particular with overwhelming ap it is doing good consistent damage 'gainst low armour adversaries and will continue to be a far more viable option 'gainst the handful o' heavily armoured foes.

 

with the new announced scheme for weapon proficiencies, there will be a much greater motivation to choose a particular weapon with which to specialize. am not seeing such as a particular difficult decision making process.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

 

Yeah, I'm not saying you're wrong. The main thing is that you get two weapon proficiencies to start (from what I can tell,we won't be able to pick open talents until 4th level), so the smart play is probably to pick a high-pen weapon as your primary, and a low-pen/high-dps weapon as your secondary (preferably of an alternative damage type). The modals will also play a role, too; for example, the club seems really nice for Ciphers due to the anti-will modal. 

 

One big issue is that most of the very high penetration weapons deal exclusively Piercing damage (Estoc, Arbalest, Arquebus, etc.) and there are piercing-immune monsters already in the beta, plus monsters with extremely high pierce armor (12 is the highest i've seen so far), so such may be fairly common in the general game. From what Josh has said on SA, there will be at least some "damage sponge" type monsters with low armor but very high health pools (though I'm a little skeptical of how much difference this will make personally). 

 

All that said yeah you're right that some kind of armor-penetration ability -- whether that's a high-pen weapon or a armor debuff or both -- is going to be a must-have option on every character. But mechanically speaking it will be advantageous to have an alternate, high-dps/low pen option also.

[dunehunter]

 

Yeah, honestly the "No Pen" messages get spammy and annoying, they're so frequent now.

 

 

More for my own satisfaction than anything else I went and made a little spreadsheet comparing the greatsword and the estoc under the new system vs. various AR's. 

 

Greatsword and Estoc stats: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1207831090

 

I think the math is accurate under the new (upcoming) system, but I may have made some mistakes:

 

https://i.imgur.com/pD5uCL4.jpg

 

conclusion's pretty straightforward: low pen, high dps weapons will be best at the very high and low ends of the damage tree, and also will probably function better (slightly) even one point under target DR (because their inherent 30% damage bonus will exceed the 25% penalty). That's a little counterintuitive so you might want to playtest a 30%/20%/20% penalty instead of 25%/25%/25% .

 

 

I feel that you didn't consider the factor of critical attacks here, low pen high dps weapon has more potential than high pen ones when critical attack. So I think high dps weapon's overall performance is better than it is in the sheet.

[Answermancer]

 

 

 

 

I think I would agree with this too, if the target has no armor I don't see why PEN should do anything.

 

 

 

If it doesn't then there isn't really much to discourage the player from going around naked with all his non tank characters.

 

 

Well I think enemies should do enough damage that they don't need a 30% bonus to be a threat to naked characters...

 

Seems more logical and easier to balance to me, but I dunno. I certainly don't want everyone to run around naked to cheese mechanics.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

 

 

Yeah, honestly the "No Pen" messages get spammy and annoying, they're so frequent now.

 

 

More for my own satisfaction than anything else I went and made a little spreadsheet comparing the greatsword and the estoc under the new system vs. various AR's. 

 

Greatsword and Estoc stats: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1207831090

 

I think the math is accurate under the new (upcoming) system, but I may have made some mistakes:

 

https://i.imgur.com/pD5uCL4.jpg

 

conclusion's pretty straightforward: low pen, high dps weapons will be best at the very high and low ends of the damage tree, and also will probably function better (slightly) even one point under target DR (because their inherent 30% damage bonus will exceed the 25% penalty). That's a little counterintuitive so you might want to playtest a 30%/20%/20% penalty instead of 25%/25%/25% .

 

 

I feel that you didn't consider the factor of critical attacks here, low pen high dps weapon has more potential than high pen ones when critical attack. So I think high dps weapon's overall performance is better than it is in the sheet.

 

 

 

Yeah, I wasn't sure how to really account for that given how much variation there will be in a given character's critical hit chance; theoretically, I suspect it should even out -- if we say that, for example, a critical hit rate of 5% is statistically equivalent to a 10% boost in damage, then multiplying each of the values in that table by 10% should give parallel results. The actual math may be more complicated than that though since critical hits also give extra penetration, which will push the values on the table around a bit in a way I'm not sure how to model.  Theoretically though yeah both weapons will outperform the sheet values because of other character factors -- weapon lash enchants, character critical hit rates, Might and Dex bonuses, etc. Comparison should just be considered a thumbnail sketch not a decisive comparison; other posters here are much better at that sort of thing than I am.

Edited November 22, 2017 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

 

 

 

 

 

I think I would agree with this too, if the target has no armor I don't see why PEN should do anything.

 

 

 

If it doesn't then there isn't really much to discourage the player from going around naked with all his non tank characters.

 

 

Well I think enemies should do enough damage that they don't need a 30% bonus to be a threat to naked characters...

 

Seems more logical and easier to balance to me, but I dunno. I certainly don't want everyone to run around naked to cheese mechanics.

 

 

 

That was one of the big problems with the current iteration of the system that's getting phased out in the next patch; it made sense to do things like change into clothing to fight xaurips etc. Even with the new system there are edge cases; it'll make sense to wear all leather armor vs. the Skulking Terror; he has a Penetration of 11, so the only thing beta armor can accomplish is preventing the 30% malus, and leather does that just fine.

[Gromnir]

 

 

One big issue is that most of the very high penetration weapons deal exclusively Piercing damage (Estoc, Arbalest, Arquebus, etc.) and there are piercing-immune monsters already in the beta, plus monsters with extremely high pierce armor (12 is the highest i've seen so far), so such may be fairly common in the general game. From what Josh has said on SA, there will be at least some "damage sponge" type monsters with low armor but very high health pools (though I'm a little skeptical of how much difference this will make personally). 

 

 

earlier we made this same observation 'bout ap piercing weapon lack of diversity.   warhammer isn't an ap weapon on par with stiletto or estoc, but is a possibility for a weapon-focused build which stacks ap.  am suspecting is one o' the reasons why devoted, after the proficiency bug is fixed, may become far less appealing than it current is. take estoc and then face a high armour and high deflection foe immune to piercing.

 

...

 

well p00p. 

 

now face the fire blight boss... of DOOM.

 

"sorry guys. i am gonna need to sit this one out."

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

 

 

 

One big issue is that most of the very high penetration weapons deal exclusively Piercing damage (Estoc, Arbalest, Arquebus, etc.) and there are piercing-immune monsters already in the beta, plus monsters with extremely high pierce armor (12 is the highest i've seen so far), so such may be fairly common in the general game. From what Josh has said on SA, there will be at least some "damage sponge" type monsters with low armor but very high health pools (though I'm a little skeptical of how much difference this will make personally). 

 

 

earlier we made this same observation 'bout ap piercing weapon lack of diversity.   warhammer isn't an ap weapon on par with stiletto or estoc, but is a possibility for a weapon-focused build which stacks ap.  am suspecting is one o' the reasons why devoted, after the proficiency bug is fixed, may become far less appealing than it current is. take estoc and then face a high armour and high deflection foe immune to piercing.

 

...

 

well p00p. 

 

now face the fire blight boss... of DOOM.

 

"sorry guys. i am gonna need to sit this one out."

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

 

Oh, it's not even just a problem with the Devoted; it's a HUGE issue for rangers and ranged ciphers too, because like every single ranged weapon in the game does Piercing damage exclusively. That's why the Stormcaller soulbound bow was the preferred endgame weapon for pretty much all ranged classes: it did piercing/shock damage. 

 

A lot will depend on what unique & soulbound ranged weapons come available.  A piercing / burning blunderbuss might be preferable to a piercing-only arquebus, for example, just because the extra four (five?) points of AR might not be worth getting locked into a single damage type. We'll have to see. 

[Katarack21]

Bow in the beta *show* piercing and slash on their tab. And my combat log shows slash damage.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Bow in the beta *show* piercing and slash on their tab. And my combat log shows slash damage.

 

 

yet another brick in the anti-gun hegemony

[hilfazer]

 

No. If i want to do damage i'd be increasing my damage, not AP. Likewise if i want to increase attack speed i'm increasing attack speed, not acid resistance.

 

I want Armor Penetration to do what is in its name - penetrate armor. At best it will make armor do nothing and i'll be doing full (100%) damage. If there is no armor, penetration can't do anything, just like cold is useless vs cold immune enemies.

Interesting.

I am trying to figure out what would be the perfect PEN thresholds that would satisfy a set of conditions/expectations set by the forumers.

And your statement regarding "if there is no armor, penetration can't do anything" - kinda heavily affects the viability of high pen weapons.

 

I'd like to clarify:

- you expect two similar attacks against naked character, but one with quite higher PEN, deal same damage?

- (same thing rephrased) you are against dealing bonus damage with stuff like estocs and stilletos when your PEN is much higher than target's AR?

 

 

Yes and yes.

Two ends of the spectrum would be: high Pen / low DPS weapons and low Pen / high DPS weapons.

High Pen would be better vs well armored target while high DPS would be better vs low armor targets.

In Deadfire everyone will be able to pick multiple weapon profs without sacrificing talents (well, not true anymore but multiple profs is kinda 'default' way to go), it's not like we are married to a single weapon (excepting Devoted) so not every weapon must be good vs every target. And by using more weapon type we will be able to utilize more uniques.

 

Also, since Deadfire is using % damage reduction i'm not worried about high Pen weapons. % reduction has a number of flaws but it's good for keeping DPS bloat in check.

[Enduin]

 

Bow in the beta *show* piercing and slash on their tab. And my combat log shows slash damage.

 

 

yet another brick in the anti-gun hegemony

 

I feel like guns should do crush damage. Those giant lead balls pancake and mess stuff up big time. They're not exactly modern rifled bullets with jackets. Even if it's only like 50-75% dmg. You get hit with that wearing plate armor and you're going to have a mighty huge crater in that thing even if it doesn't fully penetrate. 

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

 

 

Bow in the beta *show* piercing and slash on their tab. And my combat log shows slash damage.

 

yet another brick in the anti-gun hegemony

I feel like guns should do crush damage. Those giant lead balls pancake and mess stuff up big time. They're not exactly modern rifled bullets with jackets. Even if it's only like 50-75% dmg. You get hit with that wearing plate armor and you're going to have a mighty huge crater in that thing even if it doesn't fully penetrate.

I could see it for the arquebus at least. Would make it very powerful though.

[OrangePulp]

Anyone else concerned about how armor is going to scale on enemies, compared to penetration? On a non-devoted martial character, the only way I can think of to increase penetration is weapons with modals, or naturally high penetration. That doesn't feel... great, to me. At the moment each enchantment tier adds what, +1 pen? And baseline weapon pen is 5. So if you're using a non-pen weapon, at exceptional, you'd be at 7. Compared to the lagufaeth that are what, level 7-8 enemies, that have 9 base armor? I felt like in pillars 1, when characters needed to switch weapons to get a different damage type, it was usually against enemies who had much higher resist against one type of damage, and a lot lower to others. In this scenario, using any of the non-pen weapons, and with the upcoming pen changes, you're doing half damage.

 

I feel like my main problem with this is that penetration doesn't feel very easy to come by. If accuracy ended up being much more important than anything else, you can at least build characters with high perception. But for armor pen... what do you do as a rogue, or a ranger? Or really anything that isn't a devoted fighter. Building accuracy can help, with crits giving that 50% bonus, but I don't feel like that's enough. I'm especially concerned about any big monster encounters, dragons and the like, having very high armor in addition to high defenses otherwise.

 

Possibly even worse for casters, as they have less options for increasing penetration than melee chars, really. No weapon modals for them; hope you really enjoy those spells with naturally high penetration!

 

Obviously the numbers, and even the current class/build options we have, aren't final; just saw that sawyer tweeted out changing priests to no longer having restricted spells, which is great. And I do like the idea of armor being relevant to large amounts of damage, so that it's more universal. But I feel like getting the current system balanced is going to be very tricky.

[Lamppost in Winter]

Anyone else concerned about how armor is going to scale on enemies, compared to penetration? On a non-devoted martial character, the only way I can think of to increase penetration is weapons with modals, or naturally high penetration. That doesn't feel... great, to me. At the moment each enchantment tier adds what, +1 pen? And baseline weapon pen is 5. So if you're using a non-pen weapon, at exceptional, you'd be at 7. Compared to the lagufaeth that are what, level 7-8 enemies, that have 9 base armor? I felt like in pillars 1, when characters needed to switch weapons to get a different damage type, it was usually against enemies who had much higher resist against one type of damage, and a lot lower to others. In this scenario, using any of the non-pen weapons, and with the upcoming pen changes, you're doing half damage.

 

I feel like my main problem with this is that penetration doesn't feel very easy to come by. If accuracy ended up being much more important than anything else, you can at least build characters with high perception. But for armor pen... what do you do as a rogue, or a ranger? Or really anything that isn't a devoted fighter. Building accuracy can help, with crits giving that 50% bonus, but I don't feel like that's enough. I'm especially concerned about any big monster encounters, dragons and the like, having very high armor in addition to high defenses otherwise.

 

Possibly even worse for casters, as they have less options for increasing penetration than melee chars, really. No weapon modals for them; hope you really enjoy those spells with naturally high penetration!

 

Obviously the numbers, and even the current class/build options we have, aren't final; just saw that sawyer tweeted out changing priests to no longer having restricted spells, which is great. And I do like the idea of armor being relevant to large amounts of damage, so that it's more universal. But I feel like getting the current system balanced is going to be very tricky.

 

There's an Inspiration (Tenacious) that specifically grants Penetration. I assume there'll be some buff spells that can also do this.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Anyone else concerned about how armor is going to scale on enemies, compared to penetration? On a non-devoted martial character, the only way I can think of to increase penetration is weapons with modals, or naturally high penetration. That doesn't feel... great, to me. At the moment each enchantment tier adds what, +1 pen? And baseline weapon pen is 5. So if you're using a non-pen weapon, at exceptional, you'd be at 7. Compared to the lagufaeth that are what, level 7-8 enemies, that have 9 base armor? I felt like in pillars 1, when characters needed to switch weapons to get a different damage type, it was usually against enemies who had much higher resist against one type of damage, and a lot lower to others. In this scenario, using any of the non-pen weapons, and with the upcoming pen changes, you're doing half damage.

 

I feel like my main problem with this is that penetration doesn't feel very easy to come by. If accuracy ended up being much more important than anything else, you can at least build characters with high perception. But for armor pen... what do you do as a rogue, or a ranger? Or really anything that isn't a devoted fighter. Building accuracy can help, with crits giving that 50% bonus, but I don't feel like that's enough. I'm especially concerned about any big monster encounters, dragons and the like, having very high armor in addition to high defenses otherwise.

 

Possibly even worse for casters, as they have less options for increasing penetration than melee chars, really. No weapon modals for them; hope you really enjoy those spells with naturally high penetration!

 

Obviously the numbers, and even the current class/build options we have, aren't final; just saw that sawyer tweeted out changing priests to no longer having restricted spells, which is great. And I do like the idea of armor being relevant to large amounts of damage, so that it's more universal. But I feel like getting the current system balanced is going to be very tricky.

 

 

It's a legit concern I think. There are some monsters in the beta that have VERY high armor ratings (I've seen 12 piercing, for example), and some that have very high Pen ratings (highest I've seen is 11).  No weapon or armor available in the beta matches either of those; the only way to cope is to stack buffs / debuffs. Still both are manageable if you have alternate strategies etc.

 

I think it's going to be *really* important to have an alternate damage type weapon, so that might be an issue for some priests if they rely too much on their deity weapon.

 

Still it's definitely something that can be managed through balancing and I'm sure Obsidian's aware of the potential dangers, so we'll kinda have to see how it plays out.

Edited November 23, 2017 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[Katarack21]

Again, the party is undergeared. Console some plate armor onto your tanks and that problems solved.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Again, the party is undergeared. Console some plate armor onto your tanks and that problems solved.

 

Not quite -- exceptional plate has an AR of 11, which the Skulking Terror can penetrate.  On the other side, even an Exceptional arquebus isn't enough to penetrate against a 12 piercing AR, not without some kind of help. 

[KDubya]

When you factor in damage buffs the balance between penetration and damage changes.

 

Consider an Estoc and a Great Sword.

 

Estoc 11-16 damage 9 pen Avg = 13.5

 

Great Sword 19-25 damage 5 pen Avg = 22

 

Add in some damage buffs like 15% Might, 15% two handed and 50% Soul whip for +80%

 

Now in a case where Estoc penetrates but G Sword doesn't you get 13.5x1.8 = 24.3 for the Estoc and 22 x (1+.8-.7) = 24.2 damage for the Great Sword. In all cases the Great Sword is as good or better, not only more damage but two damage types as well. This is with the current -70%, change that to a mere -25% and its even more in favor of the Great Sword and you don't need near as many buffs.

 

 

 

EDIT - MATH IS WRONG, its not additive but multiplicative.

 

With the new 25/25/25 system the Great Sword is better except when it is missing penetration by 2, 3, 4 and 5. Except for this band of armor values the Estoc loses out, sometimes by a bunch. Even when only the Estoc over penetrates it is still less than a normal damage Great Sword at 13.5x1.3 = 17.6 vs 22 for the Great Sword.

 

Unless the majority of enemies fall inside this narrow armor band the Estoc is not as good as a choice. This is not even considering that the great Sword has two damage types. If slash is lower than pierce then the four specific armor values where Estocs are better disappear.

Edited November 23, 2017 by KDubya

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

When you factor in damage buffs the balance between penetration and damage changes.

 

Consider an Estoc and a Great Sword.

 

Estoc 11-16 damage 9 pen Avg = 13.5

 

Great Sword 19-25 damage 5 pen Avg = 22

 

Add in some damage buffs like 15% Might, 15% two handed and 50% Soul whip for +80%

 

Now in a case where Estoc penetrates but G Sword doesn't you get 13.5x1.8 = 24.3 for the Estoc and 22 x (1+.8-.7) = 24.2 damage for the Great Sword. In all cases the Great Sword is as good or better, not only more damage but two damage types as well. This is with the current -70%, change that to a mere -25% and its even more in favor of the Great Sword and you don't need near as many buffs.

 

 

Are the bonuses and penalties additive or multiplicative? I'd been assuming that the penetration penalty / bonus was "multiply all damage by 1.3" or "multiply all damage by 0.3", not "add 30% of base damage to total." If it's additive you're correct, if it's multiplicative I'm not sure might or other bonuses would matter -- they'd get multiplied down or up just like the rest of the total.

[KDubya]

 

When you factor in damage buffs the balance between penetration and damage changes.

 

Consider an Estoc and a Great Sword.

 

Estoc 11-16 damage 9 pen Avg = 13.5

 

Great Sword 19-25 damage 5 pen Avg = 22

 

Add in some damage buffs like 15% Might, 15% two handed and 50% Soul whip for +80%

 

Now in a case where Estoc penetrates but G Sword doesn't you get 13.5x1.8 = 24.3 for the Estoc and 22 x (1+.8-.7) = 24.2 damage for the Great Sword. In all cases the Great Sword is as good or better, not only more damage but two damage types as well. This is with the current -70%, change that to a mere -25% and its even more in favor of the Great Sword and you don't need near as many buffs.

 

 

Are the bonuses and penalties additive or multiplicative? I'd been assuming that the penetration penalty / bonus was "multiply all damage by 1.3" or "multiply all damage by 0.3", not "add 30% of base damage to total." If it's additive you're correct, if it's multiplicative I'm not sure might or other bonuses would matter -- they'd get multiplied down or up just like the rest of the total.

 

 

I fixed my math in the original post.

 

For fun lets compare an Estoc and a Sabre. SPOILER - The Estoc is only better when the Sabre misses penetration by 2, 3, 4 and 5. Other than that the Sabre out damages an Estoc. These are the same armor values where a Great Sword beats an Estoc.

 

 

 

Using my Fighter/Cipher example again you'd have +15% Might, +15% Two Handed Style, +50% Soul Whip and the Sabre gets +20% but misses out on the Two Handed style.

 

Estoc is 11-16 with pen 9, average of 13.5

 

Sabre is 14-19 with pen 5, average of 16.5

 

With full buffs you get 24.3 for Estoc and 30.5 for the Sabre.

 

When over penetrating Estoc gets 31.6 compared to 30.5 for Sabre

 

At -25 you get 24.3 vs 22.9 for the Sabre

 

At -50 you get 24.3 vs 15.25 for the Sabre

 

At -75 you get 24.3 vs  7.6 for the Sabre

 

At -25/-75 you get 18.2 vs 7.6 for the Sabre

 

At -50/-75 you get 12.2 vs 7.6 for the Sabre

 

At -75/-75 you get 6.1 vs 7.6 for the Sabre.

 

The Estoc comes out better than it did against the great Sword but still loses at the high end and when both penetrate. 

 

But what about the extra talent? What if we add single weapon style to the Sabre? Single weapon gets +12 accuracy and 10% miss>graze

 

Using accuracy = deflection for the Sabre so we can ignore criticals, you get:

0-15 miss but 10% of them get grazes so its 0-13.5

13.6 - 50 graze for 50% damage

51-100 hit for 100% damage

 

This gives a unit damage of 0.5+0.365x0,5 = 0.6825  (without single weapon style it'd be 0.675, so Single Weapon style adds a wopping 1.1% damage) 

 

Let's assume we were smart enough to not take Single Weapon style, so we'll use a unit damage of 0.675

 

Now the Estoc:

0-27 miss (this accounts for the +12 accuracy that the single Sabre gets)

28-62 graze

63-100 hit

 

Unit damage of 0.38+0.35*0.5 = 0.555

 

Now normalized for accuracy base damage is 24.3x0.555 = 13.5 Estoc and 30.5x0.675 = 20.6 for the Sabre

 

Over penetrating Estoc is 17.6 so less than the Sabre

 

At -25 you get 13.5 Estoc vs 20.6x.75 = 15.5 for the Sabre

 

At -50 you get 13.5 Estoc vs 20.6x.5 = 10.3 for the Sabre

 

At -75 you get 13.5 Estoc vs 20.6x.25 = 5.2 for the Sabre

 

At -25/-75 you get 13.5x.75 = 10.1 Estoc and 5.2 Sabre

 

At -.50/-75 you get 13.5x.5 = 6.8 Estoc vs 5.2 Sabre

 

At -75/-75 you get 3.4 Estoc vs 5.2 Sabre

 

So the Sabre is better except when missing penetration by 2, 3, 4, and 5 which is the same as how the Great Sword did....

[AndreaColombo]

If estocs were given a slight damage bump, that should even things out? This is right up Dave Williams’s alley; isn’t he the one with the spreadsheets that calculate relative damage and stuff?

[Kelstrom]

The problem here is the threshold IMO. Isnt it better to just remove the threshold flat numbers and use percentages instead?

Like for instance, the numbers are just for the sake of the idea.

robes / clothing have 15% armor mitigation at most.
Light armors have up to 30%
medium up to 50-60%
heavy (plates) up to 70%, even 80%?
Or mixed mitigation based on damage type (piercing, slashing, elemental etc...)

And then you have penetration bonuses- something like:

estoc (highest pen a weapon can have) = 50%
club (lowest pen a weapon can have) = 10%

Then you have:

estoc vs clothing: 50-10 = 100% damage done +40% extra damage
club vs clothing: 10-15 = 95% damage done

estoc vs plate: 50-80 = 70% damage done
club vs plate: 10-80 = 30% damage done

You can add some fluff to this system by making the penetration random, for instance estoc can do from 40-60% pen, club could be 5-20% pen.

Then you can have skills/spells with bonus to pen or penalty to armor that have an actual effect even if its a 5%.
 

Edited November 23, 2017 by Kelstrom

[KDubya]

The problem here is the threshold IMO. Isnt it better to just remove the threshold flat numbers and use percentages instead?

 

Like for instance, the numbers are just for the sake of the idea.

 

robes / clothing have 15% armor mitigation at most.

Light armors have up to 30%

medium up to 50-60%

heavy (plates) up to 70%, even 80%?

Or mixed mitigation based on damage type (piercing, slashing, elemental etc...)

 

And then you have penetration bonuses- something like:

 

estoc (highest pen a weapon can have) = 50%

club (lowest pen a weapon can have) = 10%

 

Then you have:

 

estoc vs clothing: 50-10 = 100% damage done +40% extra damage

club vs clothing: 10-15 = 95% damage done

 

estoc vs plate: 50-80 = 70% damage done

club vs plate: 10-80 = 30% damage done

 

You can add some fluff to this system by making the penetration random, for instance estoc can do from 40-60% pen, club could be 5-20% pen.

 

Then you can have skills/spells with bonus to pen or penalty to armor that have an actual effect even if its a 5%.

 

 

How would you take into consideration the club doing blunt damage and works well against plate that stops piercing really good?

 

I think they just need to think about raising the damage of the high penetration weapons a little. Another balance pass at the various modals would be good as well, having Sabers do the most damage plus have a modal for extra penetration if its needed is a little too good. 

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

If estocs were given a slight damage bump, that should even things out? This is right up Dave Williams’s alley; isn’t he the one with the spreadsheets that calculate relative damage and stuff?

 

1) One change you could make would be to set the penetration falloff thresholds at 40% for the first point, then 20% , then 10%.

 

Then at 6 AR, the Greatsword and Estoc are doing roughly the same damage (some slight differences, but pretty close; estoc has a point higher max, GS has a slightly higher min). 

 

2) Past that, I suspect that the majority of enemy armor ratings do fall within the range from 6 to 10 where the Estoc is superior. That can all of course be pushed around with debuffs though and the GS has an extra damage type and that matters.

 

3) Finally though there's an additional consideration that I'd have to tally up the math for: how much better is the greatsword or estoc at each damage value? Thing is, for a lot of AR values, while the greatsword is better, it's not better by that much, whereas for the armor values where the Estoc is superior, it's dramatically superior. For example, at AR 4, according to my original chart, the Estoc is doing from 14.3 min to 20.8 max damage, while the GS is doing from 18 to 29; in other words, the Estoc is doing 80% min damage and 71% max damage vs the greatsword (due to overpenetration). Meanwhile, at AR 9, the GS is doing 5.4 damage min and 7.25 max damage, or 49% of the Estoc's min damage and 45% of its max damage. 

 

Those are of course base values only but the describe an important differential: when the Estoc is bad, it isn't as bad, and when it's better, it's better.