[Crossfire-wiki] [Crossfire DokuWiki] page changed: user:mwedel:skills

Wed Feb 2 00:31:52 CST 2011

A page in your DokuWiki was added or changed. Here are the details:

Date        : 2011/02/02 00:31
User        : mwedel
Edit Summary: add dodge ideas.

@@ -86,23 +86,58 @@
  One thought is to break down the weapon skills some - instead of the basic breakdown of one handed, 2 handed, and missile weapon (ignore the various hand to hand skills), do it more functionally - axes, clubs/maces/hammers, swords, spears, bows/crossbows.  From the basic table above, it is likely that different classes may have a different mix on cost here.
  
  For example, fighters may be able to get all of those at cost 3.  But clerics, following AD&D tradition, might be clubs/maces/hammers at cost 4 (they are still not as good as fighters), and the other weapon skills at cost 5, and perhaps some at cost 6.  Paladins might get swordsmanship at cost 3, but higher cost for all the other skills - perhaps bow being cost 6, since paladins should really meet their foes in face to face combat.
  
- This revised system overall is based on AC/WC going away - that is too difficult to balance - otherwise, at some point, that level 20 (in weapon skill, but maybe level 40 overall) will just never hit something that the level 40 fighter (level 50 in weapon) is hitting.  Now that level 20 character should be less effective in weapon, but that would be controlled by lower damage (30 level difference would be 6 damage) and weapon speed.  Thus, it takes longer for that first character to kill the same creature as the fighter, but unless that creature has good regeneration, is still quite possible.
- 
- In order to balance the system, one must think about what the advancement of the weapon skill is.  Off the top of my head, this is what I've thought of - at first level, a character does damage around 10 @ speed 0.75.  Weapon speed will peak at 2.0 - exactly when that happens could vary on a lot of factors - if the character is not wearing armor, they may get that speed much sooner, but there is clearly a disadvantage there.  Weapon damage should peak around 25 for the weapon itself (note, there are many above that) - at first level, weapons the character is likely to find should be less than 10.  A characters skill, at level 100, might give another 25 damage points, and strength 25 more.  So that is a damage value of 75 @ 2.0 speed.  That is a very big swing, but one also has to figure that at first level, the characters they are fighting have 0 armor, and at level 100, everything should have 75% armor.  So that first level character 3.75 damage/tick on the actual creature, at level 100, the character would average 18.75 DPT to the actual creature - 5 times as much - but that opponent is also going to have a lot more hitpoints (probably closer to 10 times as many), so would take longer.
+ In order to balance the system, one must think about what the advancement of the weapon skill is.  Off the top of my head, this is what I've thought of - at first level, a character does damage around 10 @ speed 0.75.  Weapon speed will peak at 2.0 - exactly when that happens could vary on a lot of factors - if the character is not wearing armor, they may get that speed much sooner, but there is clearly a disadvantage there.  Weapon damage should peak around 35 for the weapon itself (note, there are many above that) - at first level, weapons the character is likely to find should be less than 10.  A characters skill, at level 100, might give another 25 damage points, and strength 25 more.  So that is a damage value of 85 @ 2.0 speed.  That is a very big swing, but one also has to figure that at first level, the characters they are fighting have 0 armor, and at level 100, everything should have 75% armor.  So that first level character 3.75 damage/tick on the actual creature, at level 100, the character would average 21.25 DPT to the actual creature - 5 times as much - but that opponent is also going to have a lot more hitpoints (probably closer to 10 times as many), so would take longer.
  
  Unfortunately, doing the math, a 1000 hp creature would be brought down in 53 ticks, or a bit under 7 creatures.  IMO, such a creature should be epic (not a huge number of level 100 creatures about.  Increasing armor or hit points would increase the time, but one should not have super well defended creatures.
  
  However, a lot of this is also based on character hit points - a high level character could have ~750 hit points if they really tried.  I'd personally like to even out the con bonus so it is for all levels, not just the first 10 (a level 10 character with 30 con could conceivably have 500+ hp - how can one balance that when a more typical character is probably at ~120?).
  
-  So if hit points is changed so that each level (all the way up to 100), they get a die roll of 1-10.  So with lots of improvement potions, character now has 1000 hp from that.  With maximum con, give them another 500 (5/level), for 1500 total.  If one says it is reasonable for really tough (eg, epic boss creatures) to double character hit points, that give that creature 3000 hit points - now that is 160 ticks, or about 20 seconds, assuming creature has no regeneration, that character can constantly keep on the creature - not bad.
+  So if hit points is changed so that each level (all the way up to 100), they get a die roll of 1-10.  So with lots of improvement potions, character now has 1000 hp from that.  With maximum con, give them another 500 (5/level), for 1500 total.  If one says it is reasonable for really tough (eg, epic boss creatures) to double character hit points, that give that creature 3000 hit points - now that is 140 ticks, or about 18 seconds, assuming creature has no regeneration, that character can constantly keep on the creature - not bad.
  
   One effect of evening out the hit points for characters is that it improves balance.  The level 10 creature is likely to always have 130 hp or so (characters start with 30) - a high con will give them a few more vs low con, but not nearly so drastic as it is now.
  
- This is starting to get off topic from skills - main point was to try to determine a maximum damage rate for that maximum character with melee weapons - from there, one can then start to figure out what reasonable value for other spells are - for example, with an 18.75 DPT for melee weapon, one can also figure that a spell should do 18.75 DPT also at maximum level.
+ This is starting to get off topic from skills - main point was to try to determine a maximum damage rate for that maximum character with melee weapons - from there, one can then start to figure out what reasonable value for other spells are - for example, with an 21.25 DPT for melee weapon, one can also figure that a spell should do 21.25 DPT also at maximum level.
  
  A note on balance here (again) - if we assume the character has 1500 hit points, and that the DPT for unarmored is 75 (you go into an arena, or other person just attacks you), that is still 20 ticks (2.5 seconds) before you are dead - not a lot of time, but perhaps enough to do something.
+ 
+ **Dodge**
+ 
+ == AC/WC ==
+ 
+ Originally, I had mentioned the idea of getting rid of WC/AC, as these are to hard to balance.  The basic reason is that AC for players can vary wildly - a character that is lucky and finds a few +2 items, such that their AC increases by 6 points is a major gain.  On a d20 system, one might think that is 30%.  But if one starts on the basis that maybe the monster hits the average AC creature 50% of the time, the improved AC creature gets hits 20% of the time, which is a 60% reduction.
+ 
+ Likewise, WC has a similar problem - if one goes on the basis that a good fighter might hit creatures 50% of the time, this really makes life hard for mages - they are likely loosing a few points from strength, and several more from not improving weapon skills.  While they should not be as good as fighters, at some point it becomes hopeless - if they are just down to hitting 10% of the time, there probably is no point for them to try - better off going to another map, waiting 5 minutes to get back SP, and then come back (my main thought here is the wizards and other classes may choose to fall back to weapons when fighting some less dangerous creatures to let their mana recharge).
+ 
+ In terms of balance, at level 50, one could expect both a mage and fighter to have a similar quality weapon - lets same damage 15.  The fighter is going to be faster (due to increasing weapon skill) and do more damage (weapon skill again, plus more likely to increase strength) - this could probably make the fighter 2-3 times better than the wizard - a big gap.  But this is still not nearly as bad as 10% vs 50% hit chance (5 times better, and even then, damage and speed are still likely to be better in that model, so fighter is actually a lot better).
+ 
+ == Dodge Skill ==
+ 
+ Getting rid of the AC/WC all together does have issues.  What do mages do for protection?  They really shouldn't wear armor, and robes shouldn't provide that much protection.  Lack of AC/WC also means that all attacks hit, which means monsters are effectively easier unless their armor and/or hp are ramped out.
+ 
+ My solution to this is adding a dodge skill.  Unlike WC/AC which is a contested roll, dodge is purely on the defender.  If the defender has 25% dodge, 25% of attacks against them just miss.
+ 
+ It is worth noting that under this system, a dodge of X% is the equivalent of armor of X%.  Eg, a character with dodge 25 but 0 armor would over the course of a combat take the same amount of damage as a character of doge 0 but 25 armor.  This makes it easier to figure balance.
+ 
+ I figure a hard cap of 75% for dodge would be needed - no matter what, 25% of attacks are going to hit you.  Starting characters may be in the 15-25% range - dexterity should improve dodge, as well as improving the dodge skill itself.
+ 
+ Wearing armor would incur a penalty to dodge.  For example, chain mail may have a 40% dodge penalty, so if the character puts it on, his armor goes up, his dodge goes down, and balance is retained.  This could make decisions about armor a little trickier - does adding armor actually help you out?
+ 
+ As noted earlier, there is the idea of an armor skill also - increasing that should decrease dodge penalty.  Eg, if you are max level, may be the dodge penalty is just 1/4 the original penalty (so that chain is now 10%).  The penalty would be applied after the 75% dodge cap, in other words, at best, wearing that chain armor, you are at 65% dodge.
+ 
+ The reason I note that is like many bonuses, it would be possible to get above a limit.  For example, with both dexterity and dodge skill increase dodge, it is reasonable to suggest that a character with level 100 in dodge would have a 75% dodge rating, regardless of dexterity.  Likewise, a level 50 dodge with maximum dex might also achive that 75% dodge rating.
+ 
+ Dodge would have some pluses and minuses vs conventional armor:
+ 
+   * If character is paralyzed, their dodge rating would drop to 0% (can not dodge if you can not move)
+   * Likewise, slowed character would incur some penalty.
+   * Blind characters would also have a near 0% dodge rating.
+   * Characters that are invisible or hidden and attacking would bypass the dodge rating of the defender - once again, character can not dodge what they can not see.
+   * The one plus is that it is reasonable that dodge could be used to avoid certain spells (bullet, bolts, but probably not cones or exploding balls which encompass everything in the area)
+ 
+ I am concerned about a character that maxes out both their dodge and armor skills - such a character could have very good armor rating and also have a very good dodge rating.  But perhaps that is reasonable - if a character focuses on that, they are probably not focusing on as many weapon skills or perhaps other useful skills, like possible survival skills which give some elemental resistances.
+ 
  
  === Loose Ends ===
  
  The examples here really just focused on the 3 main character archetypes (fighter, cleric, mage).  Crossfire has many more than that, and I think this also helps them out.


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Old Revision: http://wiki.metalforge.net/doku.php/user:mwedel:skills?rev=1296456552
New Revision: http://wiki.metalforge.net/doku.php/user:mwedel:skills

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