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Darmo

Alternate Weapon & Armor Damage System

9 posts in this topic

Have you read, understood, and followed all of the rules listed in large text at the top of the suggestions forum?(Yes/No):   yes

 

I thought I'd make a suggestion for a possible alternate way of dealing with weapon and armor damage, in view of the fact that TFC2 will have procedural metals that may go on for awhile.  Right now in TFC1, these things are handled simply by weapon damage going up each tier, and armor resistance being (1000/(1000+X))*damage being dealt, with X being the reduction value of the armor.  This results in weapons swiftly being able to 1-shot many unarmored mobs.  It also leads to sort of inconsistent armor progression, where your maximum gains average across all damage types are at leather, wrought iron, and especially black steel, and your minimum gains at the other metals.  The incentives to upgrade in certain areas are not very high, though other factors can play a role.

 

THE BASIC IDEA

What if instead of being about absolute numbers, the system was about relative tier of weapon vs armor?  So in this scenario, maybe weapon tier does not affect the absolute damage and defense numbers.  Those are affected by other things, and then the difference between armor and weapon tier provides the final reduction.   So say you have a bronze sword, and you attack an armored foe.  They have leather armor, no prob.  If weapon tier exceeds armor tier by 2 levels, full damage.  If they have copper armor, maybe 75%.  Or 66% or something.   If they have equal tier of armor, 50%.  If their armor tier is higher by 1, maybe 20%, and if 2+ greater, 0 damage (or maybe 10 or so if you want to always have at least some damage).  So your important levels are:

 

Weapon Tier 2 or more levels above armor = 100% damage

Weapon Tier1 level above armor = 75%? damage

Weapon Tier = armor tier = 50% damage

Weapon Tier 1 level below armor = 25%?

Weapon Tier 2 levels or more below armor  = 0% (10%?)

 

The numbers are of course malleable and you could even make a greater spread of effective tiers, but this makes each tier upgrade of armor and weapon have a consistent improvement.  It seems like this might fit better with the procedural intent of TFC2, and the notion of compelling the player to improve their weapons and armor between islands.  Because as things currently stand, going from copper to bronze armor only nets you a bit less than a 5% improvement in damage reduction, which is not significant.  If fact you have to go all the way to steel tier to get a 50% damage reduction.  This vs tier system makes damage reduction much steeper. 

 

I think that a vital part of this tier vs tier system, is the missile weapons.  Because I do feel that currently missile weapons are rather OP.  Now this may change some in 1.9.  I'm not sure if mobs can effectively use shields or not.   But that aside, I'd say that missile weapons NEED to be tiered.  No more of this flint covers all arrows forever thing.  The player needs to craft tiered arrow heads imo.  And in fact I'd go so far as to more drastically reduce the arrow damage compared to melee, when faced with equal or greater tiers of armor.  There could be an introduction of bodkin arrows vs broadhead.  Bodkin arrows effectively acting 1 tier greater than their base metal, but at reduced damage vs a broadhead.

I'd also suggest to have arrows break if they miss a mob and hit a stone (or other very hard) block.  Or at least have a chance to break.

 

As for the damage type variables, those could be incorporated into the tier system with slightly different reductions by metal type possibly, or, TFC2 could actually split out entirely different armor types.  So at equal tiers weapon vs armor, plate armor might have 40% piercing slashing reduction, but  50% crush reduction.    Chain mail might be best at slashing.  And Brigandine best at piercing.  With all taking similar materials costs and time.   Or, you could have progressively better types of armor within a tier, with chain being good at slashing, ok at the rest, and plate armor being very effective against all types.    But plate takes a lot more materials and time.

 

now in addition to the damage calculations, higher tier weapons will do more durability damage to lower tiered armor.  And conversely hitting high tier armor with a low tier weapon will damage your weapon more.  Further incentive to tech up.

 

ON CRAFTING OF ARMOR TYPES

If there were to be many types of armor within each tier, it would probably be best to sort of move to a system where instead of just a 2-stage crafting of each piece, maybe the player crafts chain mail sections, heavy chain sections, armor plates, and heavy armor plates, and combines them in the crafting grid with the main piece.  This would allow for a much greater spread of materials and time costs, with without requiring tons of graphics for each stage, I think.  You could still keep many of same things, breast plates for instance being done in two stages.  The graphics are there so why not?  But instead of doing the last weld and smith and being done, you do that and have to craft it in the grid with added chain and leather.  THEN you get the final wearable piece.  Requires one more stage, but can probably use the same intermediate graphics  with just 1 new item Id.   So then, the player could maybe craft a chain shirt with similar effort to the current situation, or a brigandine shirt for more, or a plate armor for a TON of effort and material. 

Also please note, I'm not going to argue about what is or is not a valid historical armor type here, nor the fine points of damage reductions by type (though others can if they want).  I know history/D&D geeks (like me) can get into big discussions on that, but I just picked some names and used them for this example.  I don't really care what any given style is called in the game.

 

ON BEASTS AND MONSTERS

Now, some mobs won't have armor.  Beasts, and monsters.  They would need to have an 'innate' armor tier built into them.  Wild game animals like deer and birds would have tier 0 of course.  But perhaps most big animals, like bears, have at least tier 1 armor.  Exceptionally large and thick hided animals or monsters might have even higher effective tiers of armor.  If there were ever plans for animal armor, they would presumably use whichever is better; their natural tier, or the worn armor tier.  And similarly, their natural attacks may need to have an effective tier, in order to continue to be a threat to the player. 

As far as natural animals go, this tier vs tier system would allow them to be a threat much longer than they probably would be under a strict numbers system.  For instance a bear should be dangerous to the player even at upper tiers, but presumably they could show up even on tier 0 islands.  You don't want them one-shotting players(?).   By giving them a tier 4 attack that does, say, 250 damage, they'll be a threat to the player all the way up through tier 4 armor perhaps, but they'll do the same damage the whole time, so they can be a uniform threat.  You don't have to have higher tier bear every island, or have the bear quickly become a non-threat if they don't increase in power each island. 

By giving them tier 1 hide, the player could (at my example values) barely affect them with stone weapons, be able to hunt them somewhat effectively with tier 1, though at high arrow cost (and probably not want to face-tank them), and with tier 2 arrows be able to reliably take them down from a distance safely. 

Assuming there's beastly monsters at some point, they will of course have a tier of hide appropriate to their threat level.

 

So I hope I communicated my idea clearly.  I think that a system more based on tier vs tier, and less on ever-escalating weapon damage and armor damage reduction, might help mobs maintain a threat level vs the player better, and make weapon and armor tiers more meaningful, and uniform in their benefits.

Edited by Darmo
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This IS an area that I've been pondering on, in regards to progression. The current scaling used in TFC1 clearly isn't satisfactory.

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 One of the basic problems I see in the way we play Minecraft/Terrafirmacraft is the Death penalty. Unless death caries some more severe penalties we will never create an incentive big enough for the player to upgrade.

Suppose you are a father buying a helmet for you Football  player son. If you can afford you will buy the most expensive Helmet, for double the price even if it is only 10% more effective. Why? because you cannot replace your son, so 10% more protection is reason enough to pay double the price.

I have no idea in real life how much better a bronze armor would be compared to a copper armor, but I know that the way the game goes today people wear armors more as a status symbol then for actual protection.

Another issue is how easy it actually is to make armors, Is just not about how much better the higher tier should be, is about how long does it take to make the armors.

I understand we cannot make the game really realistic, but in the end we base it in real life. In real life death is permanent, is the ultimate penalty.

As for Arrows they are also OP in real life, If you get shot by an arrow you die, most of the times instantly, I think the secret is about the fact that you cant wear heavy armor and a shield and a long sword and at the same time be able to shoot arrows. 

I think is OK for arrows to be a bit OP, as long as the player cannot wear any armor higher then Leather.

Another aspect is about how fast the player can craft arrows, again lets take for base real life. there is a head that if made of stone will need to be knapped and polished, also the shaft needs to be straighten out, is not like you can get any stick and it would work as an arrow.

Arrows are OP? only because in real life if you try to kill a lion by yourself with just bow and arrows the lion will kill you before it dies. Arrows should deal damage, and kill mobs, but not fast enough that you can do it by yourself. Unless you use some tricks, like going up a tree and shooting from there, or having 4 players shooting at the same time. 

When I hear about balancing, I think how balanced real life is.

For a smith to make a sword in real life is a lot harder then to make a pickaxe, no mater the material used. The same should hold true in game. 

It took months for a smith to make a full set of armor. Again is all about cost benefit, armors are hugely beneficial, but it should take time to make one.

Time is the ultimate coin, in real life and in any game. Balancing should be about how long does it take to get an advantage.

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Death penalty is kind of a different subject.  I agree it could use some tweaks possibly.    Comparisons to real life only get you so far.  I don't think most people want to be 1-shotted if they get hit in the head.  Because make no mistake, if you get hit in the head with arrows and swords in real life, you're going to be either killed, grievously injured, or just have a flesh wound.  There's not a lot of in-between.  People want a challenge, but they need to be able to have a chance to recover from bad rng. 

 

I would say the OP nature of missile weapons stems from the player being much faster than most mobs, which affords plenty of non-risk shots. They're less OP in caves, due to the tight quarters and long draw time of TFC.  I don't think the crafting speed has much to do with it, though I'm not against adding shaft related mechanics.  The player will have arrows, and being able to recover arrows helps them a lot.   Making crafting them take longer will mainly serve to force the player to spend more down-time.  It's not going to change combat balance, imo.  At the same time, you can't just make every mob faster than the player.  That's no fun.

 

But in the system I proposed, the player would very soon be required to start smithing arrowheads in order to stay effective against armored foes.  The quantity of arrowheads gotten from a given ingot could easily be tweaked to the desired supply level.  1 ingot = 4 arrow heads, you're going to value those arrows.  1 ingot = 16, not so much.  1 ingot = 1 arrow head would probably draw a lot of complaints.  And when the player moves to the next island, their old arrows will become less effective, eventually being obsolete.  That's the beauty of the tier vs tier system.  Even if the game has the same derpy slow mobs, it will force the player to upgrade in order to keep up with the damage curve. 

 

Right now in current TFC, Flint arrows will still be effective against bronze armor, and still do 50% damage vs steel armored foes, which is still plenty effective for slow mobs.  In the tiered system, flint arrows would be tier 0, so vs tier 0 leather armor they'd do 50% damage.  That's right off the bat.  Now maybe in TFC2 having no armor is tier 0, and leather is tier 1.  That'd let flint arrows (if considered tier 1) be ~75% effective against game mobs like birds and deer, since flint arrows would be 1 tier, above the mob's (lack of) armor.   But if they bring those tier 1 flint arrows against a goblin in tier 2 copper armor, they'll be doing ~25% damage, which will start to eat up arrows.  And flint should be utterly ineffective against wrought iron for sure.

 

Similarly, it's very easy to make a bronze sword currently, and that'll last you forever against mobs.  It's pretty effective and can be done without any smithing.  But in a tiered system, it would swiftly not only lose effectiveness against higher tiered armor, but possibly also be heavily damaged if used against that armor.  Requiring more frequent replacement.

 

An aspect of the tiered system I didn't really elaborate on, is that it allows, I think, for a more controlled experience with mobs.  Because in the tiered system, a basic mace for instance, could just do 200 damage.  Through all tiers of metal, it remains the same.  The player has to upgrade to maintain damage output vs armored foes.  So even with extremely high tier mace, you could still have a bear have 2k hitpoints, and know that even a very well armed player is going to have to spend a lot of time fighting that bear.  This is as opposed to currently, where in order to make higher tier weapons worthwhile, they must have quite a bit more damage output, with the result that low tier mobs quickly are dispatched in 1 or 2 shots.  But if mace damage is always 200, even a 750 hp zombie would always take 4 hits (external factors aside).  The player's armor will reduce the mob's damage output though, making the battle less risky.   This allows other factors to play the role of enhancing damage.  Smithing skill for instance, or pattern welding, and of course magic.  And their enhancements can be very significant, without risking breaking the balance, because there'd be no damage curve to consider.  You could design a boss mob and have a good idea of the time it will take the player to kill it regardless of player tier, because the damage output would not be skyrocketing at high tiers.

 

Now it would be great if mobs could have more than just damage to offer.  A zombie for instance might have a chance to infect the character with a disease.  Large animals might have a chance to knock the character prone, or stun them, reducing the player's damage.  Goblins might be able to throw nets at the player, slowing them, tangling their weapon and reducing the damage.  Some mobs might do extra damage to armor.  In these ways, even mobs which have very inferior attacks vs the player's armor could still pose some threats aside from pure hp damage. 

 

It's interesting, the current game treats maces and swords as basically the same.  I presume that there was historical evidence presented of cast swords, which is presumably why it's allowed.  But I agree it would be good to see swords take additional smithing through several steps.  This could play into a class system, if there is to be a martial class, and would make smiths more valuable.  Anyone can cast a blunt object, but swords should require some smithing, imho.  So then, blunt objects could overall be less powerful, but easier to make. 

 

And I absolutely agree it would be great for armor to take more time, and especially if there were several grades of armor, taking progressively more time and material.  This would again, play into a class/trade system where spending more points in a smithing track could allow the player to make better and better armor and weapons. That mainly depends on if the devs want to spend that time though, I think, on the extra graphics and item ids.  Though personally I'd be fine with lower tier armors like chain or brigandine using the same graphic, just with different colors.  As opposed to the very fancy plate system where every tier has a different style.

 

It's unfortunate that MC has a pretty lacking combat system, but I think 1.9 will be better, and I think more attention to weapon/armor damage/resistance, along with better mobs, will play the most important role in improving the situation.

Edited by Darmo
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1.9 is the reason why I'm holding off on creating anything related to combat atm. Once I see how the code changes, I'll have a better idea on what is and is not possible within the confines of MC. As far as the tiers, I like it. Originally, i was just going to have damage/health double every tier, but its easier for everyone if we keep the numbers small and use multipliers based on tiers. 

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This idea is fantastic. 

I suggest that, if further balance is needed, the state of durability of a tool affect damage of the weapon or damage reduction potential of a target's armour.  Let's say durability reflects sharpness.  Bronze vs. steel vs. stone vs. whatever material blades (or pointy features of the business end of "blunt" weapons) do have a difference in "damage" potential in real life in terms of how sharp an edge they can hold for how long, and edges can become surprisingly dulled slicing through even bare skin if we are talking about materials encountered in TFC.

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I like it in general.

However, most of that doesn't sounds like it plays nice with other mods.

 

I feel like there should be configuration options at least, so this crazy chainsaw or that one rocket-powered hammer doesn't default to a tier0 weapon, rendering it pretty much useless (absolutely useless, if considering the costs).

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However, most of that doesn't sounds like it plays nice with other mods.

I think TFC in general doesn't play nice with most other mods.  Personally I'm fine with that.  TFC is far superior to most other mods, imho. 

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