[crossfire] Getting rid of AC/WC

[Mark Wedel]

Nicolas Weeger wrote:
> Hello.
> 
>>   With the recent discussions on spells and this or that, tossing out this
>> one - get rid of AC and WC (one goes with the other really).
> 
> <snipped>
> 
> 
> So what is the rule for hitting/defending?

  Basically like spells - if you aim at something, you hit it.  Aim in this 
context may just mean standing next to a monster and moving in that direction. 
For arrows it would be a lot like bullets, etc.  One could think of it like 
always rolling a 20 on the attack roll (there is special coding that a 20 always 
hits right now).  There isn't really any defending, but right now, there really 
isn't any defending either.

  There has been talk about redoing things so you have various attack options 
and defense options.  With a slower combat method, one could make a greater case 
for these - in a sense, they might be like spells but for warriors - you do an 
action and your next attack does something special.  You do more damage, but 
your armor rating is lower (and there could be actions that are reverse of 
that).  Or an attack takes longer, etc.   But removal of AC/WC doesn't really 
change the attack options and need to implement them - it just changes what some 
of those actions might be.

> Will there still be sword+2? +3? what about armor?

  Right now the pluses for the weapons/armor do more than just AC/WC.

  For both types, it makes the item lighter.  This means for weapons it also 
makes them a little faster.

  For weapons, the magic of the weapon is also used as a bonus for damage.  For 
armor, this increases the armor rating slightly (+1 armor/plus).  that increase 
is fairly insignificant since the armor rating might by +30/+40, so adding +5 
more from magic of your various items doesn't make much difference.  But that 
could be adjusted to make it +2 or +3 per plus.

> What is the difference between a chain mail and a plate mail?

  Right now, they do have different armor ratings.  Plate is +40, chain is +30 IIRC.

  In getting rid of WC/AC, I'm not advocating getting rid of the armor ratings - 
in fact, I'd consider those much more important as that is the only thing that 
will give you protection.  However, it is much easier to predict/control what 
those values are, especially because it uses the method of diminishing returns 
(2 +40 items don't give you +80,they give you .64).

  However, with this change, the usefulness of many items that give trivial 
armor ratings lack much meaning - those boots at resist physical 3 don't get you 
too much, same for non artifact gloves, etc
> 
> 
> 
> And if we go this route (which seems good as long as we simplify the rules), 
> let's enforce the separate attacktypes damage for weapons - there is a 
> skeleton for that, not sure it really works.

  Yes - attacktype should go away and be replaced by the discrete damage types. 
  Even if it is simply writing a script that updates all the archetypes.  Doing 
a grep, while there are 541 references to attacktype, the vast majority appear 
to be setting a single bit, so are trivial to convert - the ones that have 
multiple attacktypes are harder.

  The discrete attacktypes do work, but have a limitation.  IIRC, they are set 
up to emulate the existing attacktype logic - thus, if you have something like:

dam_physical 10
dam_fire 5

  It will see what attacktype would do more damage to your opponent, and use 
that one.  That emulates existing logic, but suppose in that example above, you 
want to note it is a flaming sword - that the damages are additive.  There isn't 
any way to do that right now, and that is a missing piece.  There are ways (not 
too difficult) to do this - having a bitmask to denote which ones are bonus 
damage types wouldn't be hard to add (and one could limit things such you can't 
have a damage type that is a bonus to an attacktype that is also its base) - in 
that way, one could just do something like add a + to denote it is bonus damage. 
  So if we had:

dam_physical 10
dam_fire +5

  This means it does 10 physical damage and 5 fire damage.  And the example up 
above means it does 10 phyiscal damage or 5 fire damage - whichever is better. 
But I don't really like using the plus sign, so maybe having something like 
'dam_bonus_fire' is better.