[CF-Devel] Item Damage idea

[Andreas Vogl]

in reply to Mark W.:

The scheme you proposed is not bad. If you want to implement
it, certainly the main choices are up to you anyways.

However, I am somewhat concerned that with your scheme
equipment will get destroyed far too quickly for high levels
and almost no damage on low levels.
By turning damage into percent chance to hit, you make
assumtions about damage ranges which might not fit.
And it will be tricky if not impossible to tune, when
"duration points" are all fixed at 0-200.

So here's what I could think of:

Every piece of equipment has "duration points". These can be
set individually per item and work very much like a player's
hit points: There is a max value (like 100 for low level items,
and about 10000 for high level). During combat, points get
subtracted. When you reach values < 50% the item starts to
loose "usefullness", just like Mark proposed. 0 points means
the item has no use anymore. Repair works like Mark proposed.

How do "duration points" get subtracted during combat? -
For every hit a player takes, there is a constant chance,
e.g. 10%, that the hit *also* damages equipment.
If it does damage equipment, one piece of defensive gear
(mail, helmet, shield etc) gets chosen by random and
the exact same damage that hit the player gets subtracted
from this item's "duration points".

Some advantages of this scheme:
1. There are two good ways to adjust the speed at which
   items get damaged: First the overall chance a hit damages
   equipment. Second, we can balance out individual items by
   adjusting their "duration points".

2. We have a guarantee that the system stays pretty sane as
   long as we keep "duration points" in relation to expected
   hit points of the player wearing the item:
   A monster which would wreck a player's equipment
   in seconds, would in fact KILL him in an eyeblink.
   (Remember: Every damage done to the equipment occurs
   ten-fold to the player's hit points)

3. "duration points" can provide additional ways to balance
   and diversify artifacts.

Side note: Weapons can work like armour, except that they get
damaged from performing successful hits, as opposed to getting
hit by an enemy. A bit special tuning will be required there.



Now I try to estimating how it could work out for low-levels:
A typical low-level player has 50 hitpoints. If we stick him
into a room of appropriate monsters, those 50 hp will last
a good while - let's say he loosed 50 hp in 2 minutes.
That means his equipment averagly receives 5 hp in 2 mins.
This sums up to 150 points of equipment damage per hour,
distributed randomly among like 6-8 pieces of armour.
Hence, items with 100 "duration points" last a few hours
of combat-time before repair is required.

Same estimation for high-levels:
An average high-level player has around 500 hp. However,
those don't last long in combat. Usually hp get drained
quickly and must be restored with healing skills.
Let's say he looses 500 hp in 30 sec.
This sums up to 6000 points of equipment damage per hour,
distributed randomly among like 8 pieces of armour.
Hence, items with 10000 "duration points" last a few hours
of combat-time before repair is required.


Just my thoughts

Andreas