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Post by Tim on Nov 23, 2010 15:29:26 GMT -6
...since knives have those handy little talismens (that shields dont) if the character wanted I'm assuming you mean the knife specific talismen effects? You're assuming I'm not adding ones to for shields. You're also making other assumptions, like that there will still be talismen to add these effects. Just to clarify - With the "slowing" stuff, we weren't talking about slowing down XPs and leveling. We were discussing limiting the number of extra classes/skills, and the "slowing" was about the excessive stat boost coming from access to multiple+cheap skills. Kind of the flip side of a coin - increasing health point growth or decreasing damage potential - either could theoretically re-balance things from the current situation of pre-skills health point growth being overrun by skill-boosted damage numbers. Gotcha. Misinterpreted your meaning. Sorry. Good point. True, we do need to make other builds attractive, so speed isn't the only way to go at high levels. Just want to be careful that I don't over-balance and make speed worthless and some other stat the king. Yeah, I'd like for them to be about equal. Defense needs to get back on a level playing field, cuz really when there are people with defense heavy builds, taint and poison can come much more into play.
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Post by almordre on Nov 23, 2010 18:23:21 GMT -6
On the topic of attack/defense balance - block stats go up against raw damage stats directly, before the attack 'strength' multiplier comes into effect, right? Before or after defense%/damage%? I'm curious how the numbers stack up, comparing max potential block vs max potential damage available with equipment...
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Post by Crom Cruach on Nov 24, 2010 4:18:11 GMT -6
But what about stun? Wasn't that meant to be the answer to speed? I've been using it copiously during this version, and it seems to work well, even though I never got past lvl 49. I know that stun by itself wouldn't solve the matter, because people'd be forced to focus on stun just to counter other people's speed, but at least it could keep speed's power down.
By the way, Alseen did you have much speed on when you attacked me last night? Just to figure out how effective stun is.
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Post by almordre on Nov 24, 2010 9:23:23 GMT -6
Speed and First Strike always apply, and apply consistently. Stun, and Wound, too, are random - they don't always hit, and doesn't always hit hard. Because of my crappy luck with randomization, I've never really found either of those a "balance" to Speed. The only reliable way I've seen to counter Speed is to have more of it than your opponent. Again, this could have changed, though, and other defensive builds might be more viable now. Stun is a balance within itself - it's randomized, but it has higher potential effect (+6 talis, straight-up skill boosts) than Speed (+3 talis, fractional skill boosts), and it can apply each turn, instead of only at the beginning like First Strike. So, it's a great stat - but only effective if the randomization gods smile upon you. And the thought runs screaming through my head "What if Speed was randomized too?" Think kind of "lucky shot" in battle. What kind of mess could that turn into?
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Post by Tim on Nov 24, 2010 10:28:32 GMT -6
Had to go double check for myself. Good thing I did, as I was wrong on my ordering (forgot how defense% was applied; Note to self: keep armor repaired!)...
Looking at this, I might actually have to nerf defense %. That seems way to effective. Somebody should hunt down a Strong talismen of Queens set and see what happens...
Stun/Wound are meant to be a balance to First Strike/Speed, but as almordre pointed out, they haven't really shown themselves to be that effective due to their randomness. Really, they all work off the same basis (affecting player Movement and Turn Order), so I'd assume that if someone went for a Stun/Wound build it would still be fairly effective. The randomness just balances them out, where Speed is static.
Perhaps Speed should be more random too (kinda like Initiative in DnD). Maybe each turn your Movement total increases by a base speed amount +(a random number from 1/2 your speed to your full speed stat)? Would add a good bit of randomness to the battles, and definitely make all out Speed builds more risky...
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Post by alSeen on Nov 24, 2010 11:25:34 GMT -6
crom i had +6 speed, not much. and sorry for attacking ya. i was showing someone the game and u were there haha
but speed is REALLY hard to come by (except for classes) because it is so expensive point wise. if u make stun and wound less expensive point wise more people may use them and more often, causing speed to be less useful.
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Post by almordre on Nov 24, 2010 13:00:07 GMT -6
whoa. So defense% isn't applied to raw block in the same manner as damage% is applied to raw damage. That's good to know. Actually... Raw damage gets multiplied in step 2. Raw block gets subtracted in step 3. Adjusted damage gets multiplied again in step 4... Correct me if I'm wrong, but with defense gear having roughly similar raw numbers to attack gear, how can defense builds possibly compete - block never gets multiplied, damage gets multiplied two separate times... OK - The step-4 multiplier, on the lower end of the random range, does nerf the damage, so that's the only chance you have of successfully blocking. But, that random scale is arranged so that the midrange (100% hit) and higher numbers (100%+) all produce some amount of damage, so unless you're carrying enough defense% to overpower opponent's damage%, creating a negative multiplier, block can't overpower damage... It seems to me that pure-defense is at a (maybe slight) disadvantage, since more than half of the step-4 random range will produce unblockable damage amounts... what am I missing here?
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Post by Tim on Nov 24, 2010 13:12:52 GMT -6
Correct me if I'm wrong, but with defense gear having roughly similar raw numbers to attack gear, how can defense builds possibly compete - block never gets multiplied, damage gets multiplied two separate times... Yes, while technically the damage gets 'multiplied' twice, it's not guaranteed that either of those multiplications will make the damage number bigger. If you opponents defense % is bigger than your damage % or if your gear is worn and gives you a -% damage, the adjustment in step 2 could actually lower your damage. Step 4 doesn't get applied until after the defense is applied, so if your oppenents defense is greater than your damage, the number that goes into step 4 will be 0. Also, if your opponent's dodge is greater than your accuracy, then step 4 is more likely to shrink you damage than raise it.
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Post by almordre on Nov 24, 2010 13:16:22 GMT -6
(last post edited - was still thinking on it, and was adding in new bits when you posted, Tim)
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Post by Tim on Nov 24, 2010 14:12:04 GMT -6
Damage and Block cost the same Equip points wise (now at least). Same goes for Damage % and Defense %. So if 2 people have the same number of points, they should be about to build exact opposites of each other. So if I do 100 Damage and have a +10% damage multiplier, and my opponent has 100 Block and has a +10% defense multiplier, then they'll take 0 damage from my attack. 1) 100 (plain damage 2) 100 (1+0.1-0.1) = 100 (after damage & defense %'s) 3) 100-100 = 0 (subtract damage) 4) 0*x=0
Now pretty much all weapons and armor have a range for their damage/block (say 95-105 damge/block instead of 100), so in this hypothetical match up odds are some small amounts of damage will go through, but on the average hit it should do 0 damage.
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Post by almordre on Nov 24, 2010 14:34:21 GMT -6
OK, I can see how that balances out, assuming evenly matched gear.
But - after the point the gear maxes out - some of the top-end weapons (HMB, Ruby Dagger) have slightly higher damage numbers than the top armor/shields have for block. That would tilt things slightly in favor of damage, wouldn't it?
As far as the damage/block ranges - there's a randomization applied to determine where each actual number falls in the range, within Steps 1 and 3 respectively, right?
(side note - I'd always assumed that defense% applied to block the same way damage% applied to damage. Prob another reason the defense builds never seemed to work as expected. This is interesting info - I've never been this deep into the game mechanics.)
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Post by Tim on Nov 24, 2010 14:57:41 GMT -6
True, there is a slight difference in base damage of the top weapons and the base defense of the top armor (mainly because of the other bonus stats on the armor and shields), but in general they should match up pretty well level by level. It all comes down to how you choose to use your points, so until you hit level 75 or so and can have top gear in your slots (if you don't use any talismen), then there's not much difference if you try to maximize your defense. Also keep in mind that Every Single Item will be at least slight different next version. I think at this point in my planning weapons still do more straight damage than armor does block, but there will be other things balancing it out too. Really if I think about it, once you get to really high levels you'll probably be able to have MORE block than damage if you go full out defense.
(I thought the same thing; that was what I got wrong on before I double checked. I believe my reasoning for doing it like this was that most people at the time of my last changes in this area (V2) were strictly damage and only using armor as filler (many still are...). Plus defense was more expensive still, so even the 'balanced' players had more damage than block. Figured this way +% defense was just as useful as +% damage.)
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Post by alSeen on Nov 24, 2010 23:00:16 GMT -6
YES i love changes to weapons and armor (and talis). it kills every existing build and it makes it SO MUCH BETTER! haha
are we going to see unque weapons in v7? just wondering since u said something about special events
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Post by Tim on Nov 24, 2010 23:35:32 GMT -6
I said I do have some plans to do special events. Unfortunately, I don't think it will be for V7. Sorry.
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Post by alSeen on Nov 25, 2010 0:38:11 GMT -6
no prob. but we really need to stop handing out ruby daggers to everyone. i heard theyre dangerous
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