Feedback on Those Sweet (and Bitter)Skills --Act 2

[jack1974]

Ah yes now I remember, I did that to avoid the problem that if a target had 100% resistance against a specific element, would become immune to those element's attacks

[renke_]

but I don't get your rationale of splitting magical and mundane elemental attacks - why is it useful to make normal elemental attacks much more powerful than magic elemental attacks?

wouldn't it be feel better if you define resistance below 50 % as malus for all attack types?

something like

Code: Select all

self.dmg=0.5*self.dmg+(0.5*self.dmg*(50-tmp_elemental_modifier)/100)

=> half of the base damage is always set, the second half is in- or decreased by the resistance

[jack1974]

I don't remember right now honestly, probably my reasoning was lost in one of the thousands posts buried in this forum beta thread
Ah now I remember: because yayswords complained about having elemental weapons, said that nobody would use them if they were worse than normal ones. So I made them do at least the damage of a non-elemental weapon and then adding the elemental damage as "bonus".
Mages have already the big advantage of being able to attack anywhere on the battlefield without any position penalty, so I think as it is now should be fine.

[renke_]

I'm am not convinced :) But good to know that elemental weapons are at least 50 % better than normal weapons (with the exception of mage staffs)

[yayswords]

For the record my opinion on elemental weapons is that they shouldn't exist at all, not that resistances should work like x and y to make them good. It is a pretty big paragraph in my Loren 2 megapost even.

renke: What does the orcish say? How much better is an elemental weapon than a normal weapon given various levels of resistance? And doesn't defense factor in?

[renke_]

shit, I just realized I was wrong...

currently magic elemental damage does <base damage>+<base damage reduced by resistance> = 100-200%. normal elemental weapons do <base damage>+<base damage reduced by resistance-50> = 50-150%.

my actual proposal (with 1/2 base dmg + 1/2 base dmg / resistance) would be look in Orcish* a little bit different but would result in 75-125%.

yayswords: the defence calculation is identical for all attacks, both normal and elemental

*) better would be Reptilian, as renpy is based on python...

[yayswords]

yayswords: the defence calculation is identical for all attacks, both normal and elemental

But there are two calculations AFAIK. First attack vs. defense to determine if you hit at all, then attack vs. defense again to determine damage. Are both identical? I was theorizing the damage check would be made against resistance only.

normal elemental weapons do <base damage>+<base damage reduced by resistance-50> = 50-150%.

Base damage reduced by (resistance-50) or base damage reduced by resistance-50? Meaning, are the resistances weakened, or is the attack weakened after checking against resistances. I'm not sure how it arrives at 50-150 the spell damage seems very much in line with my observations.

Or maybe I do get it. Against a 50% resistance target, the respective elemental weapon would be just as good as a normal one, yeah?

[renke_]

But there are two calculations AFAIK. First attack vs. defense to determine if you hit at all, then attack vs. defense again to determine damage. Are both identical? I was theorizing the damage check would be made against resistance only.

File under: Arcane. I believe you're generally correct, but this part of the code is spread across multiple functions and includes out-of-the-hat constants and random multipliers.

Or maybe I do get it. Against a 50% resistance target, the respective elemental weapon would be just as good as a normal one, yeah?

yes, exactly.

In pseudo-orcish it looks like: dmg + (dmg * (50-resistance)/100)

[yayswords]

File under: Arcane. I believe you're generally correct, but this part of the code is spread across multiple functions and includes out-of-the-hat constants and random multipliers.

Hahaha. I gotta keep this quote if anyone asks why the combat mechanics aren't transparent :D

yes, exactly.

Okay, thanks I will stick to normal damage weapons then, other than a frost hammer in act 1.

Anyway what we can conclude here is that resistances aren't intuitive for neither spells nor attacks. If we divide all displayed numbers by 2 they're perfectly intuitive for spells though.

Also this means the magic resistance trait is horrendously weak compared to the +magic one unless you're absolutely terrified of elemental attacks - but does any monster use those? And +defense would probably help more anyway.

I want to talk about DoT's though. I don't know the mechanics but it usually seems to me that however the damage is determined, it uses a % of the target's HP, rather than a flat amount of damage that is capped at 5% the target's HP. I think it's a little silly I could shave 94% health off a 100 HP monster if I'm strong enough but the DoT is forbidden to deal more than 5 HP/turn. Now I'm not saying I want all DoT's buffed (or nerfed), I just would like the cap removed. If that is too much work, the formula still can't be using % of target's HP. As in, let's say Vaelis has enough attack to get "max" bleed on his Throwing Axes given a certain amount of defense on the target (I assume attack:defense ratio factors in). That's gonna be problematic if we try "really high health" bosses, because the bleed is gonna do 5%/turn still, and then maybe some other DoT's...

This is of course not a problem if the mechanic doesn't work like that, but it's hard for me to know. If it's already something like: Mob has 300 HP. Vaelis uses Throwing Axes. According to the formula - whatever it is - he should be getting a 25/turn tick, but it's capped at 5% so it goes down to 15. Then it's "fine" in the sense that DoT's won't screw over megahealth bosses and nothing needs urgent change, even if I think DoT caps are wrong to have. I'm just getting the impression - seeing how easily Chalassa got max tick on her Bleeding Strike even against the fire demon - that the calculations arrive at something between 0 and 5% target HP per turn.

[renke_]

just one note: Vaelis' bleeding is different to Chalassas' bleeding is different to bomb's bleeding ;)