New Weapon Stat system

[Tim]

Been slow around the suggestion board the last day or two, so I thought I'd throw out some food for thought.

This is what I've come up with so far for stats for weapons in v2. Taint and Poison still aren't completely figured out yet, so I left their descriptions off. Stun, Speed, Dodge and Accuracy will likely be the ones you'll be most interested in. Also there are a few absent that I either forgot or don't plan on using.

Have fun and let me know what you think!

admin said:

A- Attack min
B- Attack max
O- Attack +/-%
D- Defense min
E- Defense max
N- Defense +/-%
X- Speed
S- Stun
Y- Accuracy
V- Dodge
P- Poison
T- Taint
L- Life Gain
H- Damage to self %
G- Gold steal %

Attack min, Attack max, Attack +/-% = used to calculate attack damage

Defense min, Defense max, Defense +/-% = used to calculate blocked damage

Speed = Used to determine battle order. Effects rate at which the a players "speed total" increase. Player with highest speed total attacks first. Easiest way to explain the system I'm picturing is an example:

Player A has a speed of 5 and Player B has a speed of 8. Player B would attack first. At the end of Player B's turn, 5 more get added on to Player A's speed total. That makes A=10, B=8. So A attacks next. Then B adds 8 more. A=10, B=16. B attacks next. A adds 5 more. A=15, B=16. B still has the highest, so B attacks again. A adds 5 more. A=20, B=16. A attacks. And so on.

In case of a tie in speed total, the person who didn't attack last will go. If its the first attack, the person attacking will get the first hit.

Stun = lowers opponents speed total by a value of between 0 and whatever your Stun bonus is. So if for we continue with the last example, let's say Player A has a Stun bonus of 6. A attacks and stuns his opponent for 5 (between 0-6)That bumps B's speed back down to 11. B adds 8 to their speed total. A=20, B=19. A attacks again, this time stuning for only 2. A=20, B=17. B adds 8 more. A=20, B=25.

Accuracy & Dodge = Used to determine the strength of an attack. For each attack, a random number (R) between 0 and 100 is generated. This number determines the attacks effectiveness. (Note: The table below is still a work in progress and the numbers will likely need changed. Mainly this will just describe the concept)

• R <= 5: Critical miss - 0% damage
  
• 5 < R <= 25: Weak hit - 50% damage
  
• 25 < R < 75: Normal hit - 100% damage
  
• 75 <= R < 95: Strong hit - 150% damage
  
• R >= 95: Critical hit - 200% damage

Your accuracy number gets added to this number, so if you have an accuracy bonus of 5 and R=72, then your hit will be a strong one (77). However, the defenders dodge skill will be subtracted from this, so if they have a dodge of 3, that would bump it back down to a normal hit (74).

Poison = Still In progress

Taint = Still In progress

Life Gain % = Percent of your attack damage that you gain back as health

Damage to self % = Percent of your attack damage that you take yourself

Gold steal % = Percent of extra gold you steal after a battle

[Almon Crisade]

Looks good so far.

[ger]

Well, speed sounds like a too important skill, so it should be balanced well, seems even better than what is agility now...

[Tim]

As of now Speed bonus would only be on certain weapons, not present on all. All speed bonuses would be quite small. Even at high levels, I don't forsee anyone being able to get more than 3 times the average person, and that being if they devote all their resources into boosting speed. Stun is meant to be a balance to speed. Stun bonuses would generally be larger than the speed ones, since they stun for a random value.

[malorian]

Nothing is better than agility is now. We are just a bit too low a level for our skills and items to give that full on 80-90% agility that makes defending yourself nearly impossible.

I could be misunderstanding how speed will work, but it seems to give attacks more like AD&D used to. Couple people fighting with weapons. 1 gets an attack per round, the other gets 3 attacks every 2 rounds. 3 per 2 is dealing out 50% more damage if the weapons used were the same damage wise, but no more 3-7 hits in a row before the defender gets a swing in.

[ger]

Well, thats not how it works, if you have much more agility, you get do a lot of attacks before your opponent, if in your attacks you even have stun, then your opponent may never attack you...

[Tim]

Right on, Mal. AD&D is actually what gave me the idea. I was originally thinking of making it like initative, but realized that would get a little too 'dicey' (pun intended). It will be something like knives are faster than swords, but do less damage. That kind of thing.

Perhaps I'll throw in a fail safe that if one players speed is more than 3 time greater than his opponent, it will be set equal 3 times their speed.

[Tim]

Forgive the double post. Started my last before Ger posted.

Ger, if you have high agility(80-90%), your opponent very likely could not get an attack in. A speed and stun combo could be quite effective, but there would be a balance as they would quiet likely do a lot less damage then an opponent without.

[ger]

i know, i just wanted to alert about the possibility, so it gets balanced... ie, dont allow situations where one person is the only that attacks, because if thats the case, even without damage you will win if you started with more health...

[Tim]

Good point, Secon. This is why I posted this: So you guys can find all the flaws I didn't think of before I implement it and realize just how bad an idea this could be.

As for how low I was thinking for numbers, I was thinking +3 speed as being the most you'll see on a base weapon, with probably 2-3 as most on talismen (we'll say 2 for now). So I guess under the current equipment set up, if you managed to have a 2 weapons and armor with +3 to speed (not that I'm saying this would definately be possible) and equiped all with 2 +2 talis, you could get +21 from you equipment alone. I was also planning on skills that boost it, but we'll leave those out of the equation for now.

So to keep things from getting completely out of hand, I'll say the average speed for a starting character is 10 (might vary slightly between different classes, but not much). Was thinking 5 before, but that would be too low. Also keep in mind that weapon level will be decided on its stats in the new system (not just arbitrarily like current system), and speed boosts aren't gonna be cheap. So therefore someone with pure speed would likely do a significant amount of damage less than their opponent.

Another thing I didn't take into account was the 10 turn limit. Like you pointed out, the right speed differences could weight things extremely in the other's favor. Will have to think of a way to adjust for this. I would just do away with the limit, but then we could end up with infinite or at least ridiculously long battles, which ain't good. Will think on it.

[Tim]

I'm still thinking of better ways to balance it, but a really simple way: Just add a '-10% damage' to every talismen that boosts speed, so if you put 6 of them on that'd give you -60% damage. Probably not the best idea...

EDIT: And while 23 and 25 would give the same result against someone with 10, that likely wouldn't be the same with 9 or 11 (too lazy to do the math to make sure, but you get my point).

[Tim]

Right. That's what I plan on doing for determine item level. So many 'points' makes an item a certain level. The trick will be determining how many points each stat is worth. Speed will probably be one of the more expensive ones...

[Tim]

Yeah, I saw it. Sorry for not commenting on it before. Was dealing with all the v1 release and such. I'll be doing something similar, though it will likely be more complex than that. Some problems I see with what you have:

• Level 1 weapon would do 2 damage.
  
• Talismen don't effect weapon level at all. That's where your margin of error comes in with the percent damage.
  
• Taint and Poison need a little work. Even in the current system, 1 point taint/poison doesn't directly translate into 1 damage.
  
• Gain life is hard to quantify, as it's affected by how much damage you do.
  

Really, there's a lot of factors to take into account. Don't worry though. I love doing that kind of thing.

[Tim]

Sept 11, 2008 20:15:50 GMT -6 secon said:

Trolloc Blade, which is level 2, only has 3-5. (average 4) damage. Same as my system. So does sling.
Short sword, level 4, 6-8 (average 7) mine would be average 8.
I just don't put in damage ranges cause if you want that you just subtract two from the number and let that be the start range, and add two to the number to add end range. Or whatever you want the range to be.

True, but that's actually one of the problems I have with the current system: There are no level 1 weapons. This needs to change.

As for talismans.
That might very well be the case, but I didn't want talismans to add to the level of the weapon, rather I wanted them to require a certain level item to be put on. Since the ease with which such a system allows for the creation of talismans, you could have a lot more, which means level specific talismans. Or at least the item would need to be a minimum level. (Same level as that of the talisman)

Edit: Oh yeah, I see what I did there. Doh!

The problems with this are
1: it limits what talismen can be used on what items. For someone who's a big fan of lots customization, I'm suprised you're suggesting to restrict things.
2: it makes weapon level not directly influenced by it's stat. A plain level 10 sword would be the same level as that sword with 2 good talismen on them. That would throw off my basing xp based on the toughness of the opponent.
3: People will pretty much only use the highest level talismen they can. If I have them effect level, it will give people reason to uses the weaker ones even at high levels, as they won't effect the weapon's level as much.

The poison and taint costs were from the second versions of the stats that I suggested, and 50 taint (8 points) 16.5 damage. (8 points = 16 pure damage) I wasn't too far off.

As for life gain, my gain life was changed into a point based stat. As an alternative to block for those classes that wouldn't wear heavy suits of armor and such. I think I mentioned it in the health thread. So I gave that the same cost I did for block.

(I know I know, I wrote a lot those two days. )

Ah that explains your numbers a bit then. Not quite sold on your taint and poison ideas, but they've got me thinking it (which is why I haven't listed them here. No where near set). I don't like the static health idea (I believe I said so in the Health thread) Yeah, it's probably more realistic, but we are playing an RPG here and increasing health is a standard. If you keep health static, we may as well do away with the stat at all and just base wins off total damage done.

The problem is with the way you're doing speed. Since it's effectiveness is based not only on your own speed total, but that of your target. 1 point of speed does not provide a set percentage chance of striking your target two times. If both of you have 10 speed, the advantage to you is nothing. It only becomes beneficial when your opponent has less than you.

If you have 20 and your target has 10, that's a 240% increase in damage for you. Total over the whole battle.
(My math on that number might be a bit fuzzy, it's getting late.)

Edit: Also, 10 vs 20...still 7/3.

True, the effectiveness of speed is based off your opponents speed, but I like that aspect of it. If your opponent is just as fast as you, you shouldn't be pulling off multiple hits in a row. I know I need to do something with the turn issue. If you're twice as fast, you should get at most twice as many attacks as your opponent, no more. I have a feeling the formula for how many point that one is worth will get quite complicated. Probably more so than the gold one is right now. In the end though, the too will lkely be almost, if not excatly, the same.

And another thing you need to keep in mind is that while upping speed provides opportunity for a lot more attacks, others who aren't putting effort (meaning talismen or skills) into speed could be upping their accuracy (more criticals), dodge (lots of attacks won't help if you keep missing your opponent), taint/poison (more damage), or pure damage. This is the counter to speed.

I think the problem you're having is that you're thinking of speed as too closely to agility right now. The current weapon system really has no balance at all. Weapon level are completely arbitrarily set and have very little relavence to their actual power. You can load up a weapon to boost 1 stat to riduculous levels and it doesn't change the weapon's level by more than a level or two. This will change. Trust me when I say that having +10 to speed for anyone is something that won't be able to happen until higher levels, and if you want it without a drawback, then we're talking quite high. I know there will be balancing issues to make everything fair, but I can't really get that completely settled until it's implemented and we can test what's unbalanced. If speed turns out to be completely overpowered, then I'll bump it down. Just have a little faith.

[ger]

Tim, its ok to make talis to add lvls, but dont go too far with that, i think that one category (usually 3 or 4 lvls) for a tali should be the max that should add, that means that a weapon with 2 good talis would require at most 7-8 levels more than the base weapon...
The last time i played, there where talismans that added as much as 20 lvls to a weapon, and i think even more... and was no fun...