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Instead of a hidden variable I would prefer to lower the announced damage percentage of the spell, if needed for balancing reasons (my 2 cents :))

-- edited to add: Or make it transparent, like "200 % of the base damage, but not more than 60 % of the target's HP" (or any other value your hidden variable defines)

that's the code, but the reason why I don't write it in the game is that it could change 31209832 other times before the final version
We spent the weekend trying to redo it "the right way", but in the end wasn't working so we reverted back to this code... the amount of experiments/tweaks going on behind the scenes is quite crazy

edit: actually that is the NEW code, that works better. Before was <39 and the multiplier only 10% (*.1). Now I tried and is better, spells are more powerful, but still not unbalancing

So I can understand it:
[quote="jack1974"] If I read this correctly this would be in complete sentences something like>

Check if the damage is done by an elemental attack, when this is true look at the damage value: If higher than 49 take 49, add one quarter of the damage and use it as final amount.

So a damage of 50 would be result in a damage of 50+12.5=63? But a damage of 49 would stay at 49?

Yes exactly, in practice prevents damage values too high, but is not a real damage cap, since let's say if you make 100 damage is still 49+25. But of course before there are other 140983201 calculations like backrow, defense/attack, resistances etc.
If I remove it, there are some cases in which takes 1 spell to kill an enemy with less than 100hp, and sucks a bit to play if I want to make weak enemies that gets killed with 1 spell I can always reduce their HP to 50 or less (like I did with Ratmen).

This doesn't feel like a longterm solution. Besides, the ratmen thieves have over 60 and the casters over 50 health. At least when I practice fight them now.

Also I never nuke for over 49 so I don't know that it's even working.

Anyway this feels very inelegant... I hope some better formulas are in progress.

The new one works well, the damage with targets of different magic resistances is more noticeable. I'm not doing any new formula since would mean completely unbalance again the whole first act, I would need to spend 2 weeks to design it again, and the game would be out in 2050

Yes okay, I was referring to what was in place and not what we're apparently about to get gimme!

There must be a better way to include an upper limit. Any mathematics nerds present?

I can of course tweak it, as long as returns the same damage range, sorry if wasn't clear. I mean I don't want suddenly spells to do 100dmg, because it can't work. We (Anima and I) spent last weekend trying for a completely different approach but after several attempts, we had to give up.
I think the important is that the game is fun and battles are challenging

renke_ wrote:There must be a better way to include an upper limit. Any mathematics nerds present?

The system I made seems OK, I mean it still takes a percentage of the attack damage. I can tweak the percentage amount, but I can't see another solution that wouldn't mess up with what I've done so far.
In Loren I think was much worse, spells could do 100+ dmg and so on, but enemies had more HP, but then battles were lasting ages, etc. I am not a mathematician but I playtest the games and as I said my main concern is that they're fun to play. The approach I used on SOTW is less damage overall but more strategy and fun skills