[CF-Devel] Item Damage idea

[Mark Wedel]

Andreas Vogl wrote:
 > in reply to Mark W.:

 >
 > 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.

  Note that was just a first approximation of how often damage occurs.  It could
certainly tuned quite a lot (damage/5 is chance of armor damage, sqrt of damage
is base, or whatever else - there is no reason this needs to be a percentage basis).

  In fact, one easy tunable to add may be the 'random' factor of how often items
get damaged.  Eg, normal may be a percentage scale (item_damage_factor=100).  A
server that doesn't want items damaged much at all could make that be much
larger, like 10,000.  A server that wants to make things really tough could make
it lower, like 50.



 > 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.

  I was thinking of adding something like that.  My thought is that as a first
tuning, it is much easier to try to tune two variables (how often items get
damage, and how much damage is done to items), than three.



 > 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.

  Note one advantage not having damage points has:

Very powerful items given to low level players will become fairly worthless to
those low level players as they could not afford upkeep.  With your change, this
item will get damaged 10% of the time, but since the player is fighting lower
level things, the amount of damage won't be as much.  But in addition, since
this item has lots of duration points, the damage it will take won't be very
meaningfull (repairing 10 points of damage to an item that has 100 total would
be 10% of the price.  Repairing 10 points of damage to an item that has 1000
would be 1%)

Fixing this 'bug' wasn't really the goal of the conversation, but if it works as
a nice side effect, I think that is good.

I have a feeling that this idea of some items being tougher will probably happen 
at some point, but IMO, ideally most all items have the same amount of HP, just 
how often they get damaged would vary.

  I've not done a thorough analays of play at high levels.  My guess is that at 
most all levels, the amount of time the player is hit is sort of constant, just 
at higher levels, those hits do a lot more damage.

You could take a very simplistic approach.  On any hit, there is x% chance of 
damage happening, and 1 point of damage is done to the item.  Trying to tie it 
to damage was to try and make it a little more realistic, as well as hit the 
higher level players a bit more than lower level.  Note that constant chance of 
damage gets sort of screwy with spells however, which is why trying to tie it to 
damage also helps out some.

As a side note, something I didn't say but which should probably be obvious - if 
you sell an item with damage, you get a proportionately lower price.  This could 
also be added as yet another tuning mechanism for treasure - those orcs, while 
sometimes having nice stuff, might not be well taken care of, and thus already 
be 30% damaged or the like.  In terms of efficiency of code, I figure only 
player's equipment would get damaged during combat.  Don't want to have to look 
at all the monsters inventory that got hit by a fireball to see what to damage!

Kevin R. Bulgrien wrote:
 > At 01:40 AM 8/28/02, you wrote:
 >
 > One way to do repairs in the field (on a weapon) is to have a "file" that you 
can sharpen things with.
 > Naturally the repair would take time (like lighting icecubes with flint & 
steel, or praying) so it would
 > not be an effective way to do things in combat...

The goal here is to chew up player money.  So while allowing field repairs 
should be allowed, it should still cost the player something to do.  One could 
argue that things like the smithery skill should also be able to repair armor, 
but same note - it should still cost to do so.  Otherwise, we don't accomplish 
anything - everyone just gets the smithery skill.


 >
 > The discussion here just blurred between weapon and armor repairs.  It makes 
little sense to me to damage a
 > weapon based upon the player taking damage.  This really only applies to 
armor damage.

  I'm trying to keep things simple.

 >
 > Weapon wear-and-tear seems more likely to happen when the opponent 
successfully blocks a physical attack.
 > Hacking away at the boss in the power plant, for instance, should wear down 
your weapon since he is
 > invulnerable to physical attack.  On the other hand, a weapon that delivers a 
magical attack (fire, etc.)
 > is really only going to wear out in a physical manner.  Perhaps this does not 
make as much sense if you
 > are looking for a money drain for high level characters, but, it seems to be 
a lot more believable.

  Dunno.  Certainly seems to me that your weapons could get stress fractures, 
blade gets dull, becomes wobbly in its hilt, etc.

  Who's to say that such things would effect the magic in the item.  Certainly, 
if the thing just completely broke, it is completely reasonable to say that it 
doesn't have power anymore.  I've played some games were an item is either fine 
or broken.  Its very annoying to go out and in the first combat, your weapon 
breaks and has to get repaired.  Hence, a scale of damage.

  Now the code could be enhanced to look at certain things, eg, attacktypes or 
whatever, and vary diminished effects on those.  Some of my idea on diminished 
effects is to also make it more noticable to the player that their items are 
damaged.

  As for weapon damage, hard to really say.  Something immune to physical may be 
immune because it is incorporeal, not because it is rock hard.  Also, one could 
argue it isn't actual hits that would damage th weapon, but swings that are 
blocked by the creatures armor.  But this starts to get more complicated than it 
probably needs to be.

Its also completely reasonable to believe that a character also uses the weapon 
to defend himself (block the opponents blows, etc), and thus would get damage in 
that regard.

 >
 > If you ask me, the armor damage will be the area that ends up being more 
"expensive"... And, I think this
 > really makes more sense anyway.

  Probably.  But magic items are typically the most powerful items, so someway 
to make them a little more balanced is reasonable.


 > I am curious to see how one will avoid reducing one's armor and weapons to a 
pile of junk in a large dungeon
 > crawl...  Especially in those dungeons that can be one-way streets where you 
can only go forward, and not
 > go back out the way you came in.

  IMO, one way dungeons are broken to start out with.

  Certainly, in very large dungeons, item could get damaged quite a lot. 
Various ways to fix this:

1) have players carry extra items around.
2) Add magic scrolls that repair items.  Perhaps something like 'scroll of 1000 
gp worth of repair', and other scrolls for differing amounts.  Such a scroll 
would cost basically what it repairs (probably with some surcharge - after all, 
you are buying portability now).


 > People already have a hard time pacing themselves to the lower level dungeons 
when their characters are low level... This is going to force low-level people 
into inferior equipment and low-level dungeons, but won't
 > really hurt the high-level character who has far more ability to find cash 
than the newbie character.

  That's not the goal.  Ideally, it won't cost the low level character much, but 
will cost the high level character a lot.  Note that cost of repair is based on 
cost of equipment.  Those low level characters typically have rather mundane 
items that aren't worth a lot, so even if they get damaged, it won't cost much 
to repair.

  In addition, as per my notes above, ideally, higher level characters items 
will tend to get damaged more than lower level characters.  After all, too much 
money doesn't become an issue until level 15+, so I'm not really trying to such 
money out of lower level characters.

  Now if a low level character wonders into a higher level dungeon, then yes, he 
may run into financial troubles.  There is no way to make the system foolproof - 
any method people come up with, I'm sure someone will be able to come up with 
some circumstance that doesn't work right.


 > Perhaps the amount of damage should consider the level of the monster vs the 
level of the player.

  This is a fairly meaningless check.  Taking a quick look through the 
archetypes, level is used very inconsistently - one reason is that it has a 
different meaning for monsters.

 >
 > Also, it's hard to see how a (giant) mouse could do damage to anything made 
of steel... and similar issues.
 > Just because you take damage while wearing chain mail doesn't mean the armor 
is damaged.  That mace just
 > busted your ribs, but the chain is fine.  And, does chain really take 
proportionately the same damage
 > as a robe or leather?  I doubt it.  So, once again, the lower level guy is 
hurt more than the high
 > level one because, realistically, the really expensive armor (Eg. mithril) is 
more immune to failure.
 > Remember, this is a fantasy game.  I suspect people are not always looking 
for something totally
 > realistic.  Maybe the realism desired is a function of the character's level?

  See note above about simplicity.  I think we could agree that a dragon should 
do some serious damage to armor/weapons.  However, it like the mouse, both have 
no weapons.  So how do you determine if one should damage items and the other not?

  One way is amount of damage caused.  The giant mouse doesn't do much damage, 
so will pretty much never damage items.  Note that even things like chain mail 
(which I think is listed as only being made of metal) still has things like 
leather straps, padding, or other bits the mouse could being gnawing through.

  I think your also missing the point of repair costs. The person wearing normal 
chain (or even +2 chain) won't have to pay much for repair, as the value of the 
item isn't anywhere close to that of mithril.

  Also, my personal experience is that players always look for the tough 
challenge.  Yes, if that level 20 guy decides he wants to fight goblins, his 
equipment will probably never get damaged, because the goblins will never be 
able to hit him and do damage.  But that level 20 guy also isn't gaining 
anything by fighting goblins.  That level 20 guy is going to fight stuff that 
gives him good challenges, and these things do damage to him - in fact, more 
damage than he took as a lower level dude (he has 150 hp now or something), and 
thus his equipment would get damaged more.