New Damage and armor types and different spell resistance

[Alexander82]

It is something i've been discussing with Daniel and I think this might give more depth to the game and add more strategy.

At the moment we have two type of damage with 2 type of armors

Normal damage is the one dealt by most of the units while piercing damage is the "arrow damage"

I was thinking to change the concept a bit with different kind of weapons dealing different kind of damage.

As for many rpg games i suggest in changing the damage into slashing, piercing and blunt (or crushing). Any of these damage is generally associated with different weapons (e.g. swords and axes are slashing, spears and arrows are piercing, maces and hammers are blunt).
We might also suggest considering a different type of damage for siege and bullets (for example a stone building might have a very high armor for most of damage except for siege).

We might also use elemental damages (e.g. fire damage) that might be very effective against some units (for example trolls are very strong but vulnerable to fire and to deal with them using fire would be much better).

Also we should consider (for some future effects) to add different type of spell/effects resistance.

In games like D&D you have 3 save throwns to reduce or avoid effects of a spell. Those are will (against mind control spells or such), reflexes (to avoid spells that deal direct damage like fireballs) and fortitude (to resist to save or ie effects or to overwhelm effects that affect you physically).

I think we might introduce similar stats to work as additional kind of spell resistances and they would be calculated on other stats.

A reflexes effect might be calculated like this: speed*5 + range*3 + maxactions*10 + (all dodge summed up)/5

A Fortitude effect might be calculated like this: attack + current hp + armor*2 + p.armor*2 (this would make it a dynamic stat. The more you wound a unit the lower its fortitude will be).


What we discussed so far:

- 3 normal damage type: Slashing (swords and axes), Piercing (spears and arrows) and blunt/crushing (hammers but also some siege weapons)
- 3 normal armor related to the damage type
- 3 kind of spell resistance: The normal resistance used to avoid conversion and debuffing effects and 2 dynamic stats: Fortitude to resist physical effects and Reflexes to avoid direct damage magic.
- Magic damage that act only on magic armor (It might be related to spell resistance but it is probably something that we should give only to spellcasters or some supernatural creatures like dragons, demons and angels.
- ignore armor effects that actively ignore a certain amount of armor
- elemental damages: possibly something like fire, ice, lightning, poison, acid (some units might just get increased damage from some sources and reduced or no damage from other)
- Multiple damage type weapons (we should discuss the possibility and talk about a possible behaviour)

[Puss_in_Boots]

reflexes (to avoid spells that deal direct damage like fireballs)

Wait how will reflexes save you from a massive blast?

With so many different categories of damage we might not even need to use bonuses, but that might require massive revamping despite making json editing marginally easier. Or it could be a new way of making bonuses.

[Alexander82]

Yes. It might also be combined with bonuses but I think that bonus should be secondary.

[Puss_in_Boots]

Sure, because of the lacking damage of pole arm units think it would still need that bonus against those rider units.

[Alexander82]

Obviously. The bonus against cavalry of the polearms doesn't depend only on the damage type but also the kind of weapon (and to be honest they should receive more damage upon attacking a spearman)

[Puss_in_Boots]

Maybe they can get first strike implying that the knight is being impaled by the spear seeing as knighthood does give first strike to the knights as well. Knighthood shows they are skilled enough to avoid the thing.

[Alexander82]

Seems a good approach

[Sunrise Samurai]

Yeah, spearmen of all types should probably have first strike. All too often, cavalry just one shot them and it's done.

Anyway, armor types will probably scale relatively well. The physical armors, being the most commonly targeted, will upgrade with the same techs as before, at the same rate. Heavily armored units will probably have lower crushing armor than lighter armored units, since hammers and the like are good against stronger armor, but not as good against anyone who can get out of the way in less stiff armor.

Maybe just have static values for fortitude and reflex saves, rather than complex versions. Some upgrades (like armor or dodge) might give a set increase to them still. Not a bad idea to have different resistance values for different spell types though.

[Alexander82]

I don't know about crushing. I agree with it being lower since blunt weapons can crush armor but heavy should still protect more than light or no armor.

I'd like variable values because i like the idea that improvements would increase that too. Any way the basic concept is that nimble units have high reflexes while strong units have high fortitude.

[Sunrise Samurai]

The big problems with​ variable values are 1. I seem to remember Daniel not liking them, so I try to avoid them on that alone and 2. It's hard to display a concrete value to a player, who probably won't immediately understand how much chance of success they really have.

[Puss_in_Boots]

2. It's hard to display a concrete value to a player, who probably won't immediately understand how much chance of success they really have.

This is what turned me off from Wesnoth, the attack value is so dependent on luck there is hardly any solid strategy. It was just a game of going to the last save and returning until your luck finally won out.

[Sunrise Samurai]

Wesnoth had a good deal of strategy as far as I saw. It's just a bit more fluid than need be. My turn off was the exp system. A level 2 unit is worth 3 level 1 units, and victory usually goes to the first person to level something up. I get what you mean though, it wasn't exactly clear what you were likely to get as a combat result. At least with spells in AoF, you can see a 100% chance for most spells minus the opponents defined resistance. Even dodge in AoF isn't a life or death situation for a unit you have to invest time​ and training into.

[Sunrise Samurai]

This might be a solution to the elf archer vs quick archer difference. If we make an upgrade to change the elf archer to the "magic" damage type (for non-elemental magic based damage) it would differentiate it significantly, just by targeting a different armor type.

Along similar lines, give mages a 5 range, 8 power attack with the same damage type so they have a basic attack that doesn't hurt allies too.

[Alexander82]

The concept would be similar to the warmage magic arrow. Magic resistance might just give a % reduction to damage taken (acting as a magic armor)

I would still keep elven archers normal damage archers. We already proposed the aimed shot isn't it? That is more for a normal archer than a quick one.

[Sunrise Samurai]

I was thinking that would replace aimed shot.

The idea I had was more the d&d magic missile. A basic, repeatable attack that doesn't need a spell ability to use. Percentage based armor sounds okay, but only if the entire armor system were to become percentage based. Otherwise I'd prefer it to match other armor types.

[Alexander82]

Magic missile requires a spell ability... You must be an arcane spellcaster. Aimed shot is much more in line with the unit.

Also you already suggested a mage/archer. Let's focus on special units.

[Sunrise Samurai]

Sorry, wasn't exactly clear. I meant the mage's attack would be like magic missile. This is what I get for putting two ideas in one post.

Elf archer: enchanted arrows (d&d speak, arrow of +1) would target magic armor instead of pierce armor. This would replace aimed shot.

Human mage: give it a basic ranged attack like magic missile, that​ handles like any other normal attack, just against a different armor type.

[Alexander82]

Ok for the second one. I disagree with the first. The basic archer should remain an archer. Anyway we should return in topic with how that should work.

[Sunrise Samurai]

Ok. On the main topic. I don't know how many types you want to have before it seems complicated. 3 physical types, for sure. I think siege should deal crushing, just with enough power to punch through. Bullets, if not the current spell version that can simulate reloading, could target a never shown armor with a 0 value. We might just have siege do the same.

Magic or elemental based attacks are the big question. We need at least the general category of "magic" and some form of temperature. This could be a combined "insulation" armor value or a split between fire and ice. Electric attacks are also already present, as are poison based attacks.

This makes a potential 8 armor types so far. Enough to be mildly difficult to work through, and plenty to fill a stat page, but probably not on the level of absurd yet. If it were up to me, I would go with the 3 physical types, magical, fire, ice, and chemical. Most anything we have or haven't named can be lumped into chemical or magical as general categories, and this keeps the count down to 7 types of attack and armor.

[Alexander82]

I had more or less a similar idea, maybe with lightning too.

[Sunrise Samurai]

You know this is a major overhaul of the entire game right? With JSONs it's a matter of a few extra lines for armors for most units, with some changes in attack type. That's just time consuming. The problem​ might be getting players used to it. We need a tutorial, and some designation of attack type on each stat sheet.

Probably the biggest question of all..... Will Daniel agree to it if the forumers like it? It's his game, after all. I hope he likes the idea.

[Alexander82]

If Daniel codes the effects I can do it alone. I'm pretty used editing json.

About damage i was evaluating another possibility. Instead of having a single attack stat we might have one for every attack type.

Example:

A swordsman deal 20 slashing damage, so it will have:

20 attackslashing reduced by slashing armor
0 attackpiercing
0 attackblunt

An halberdier might deal 20 damage but shared over a mix of attack types like

10 attackslashing reduce by slashing armor
5 attackpiercing reduced by piercing armor
5 attackblunt reduced by blunt armor

The first one has an advantage against units with more kind of armor while the latter is certainly stronger against units with high slashing armor but no armor of other kind

[Sunrise Samurai]

That's quite interesting. I suppose the multiple attack types would give 1 damage per type at minimum, if all are reduced. That's more what I was picturing for elf archer anyway. Just didn't think the ability to split the damage would be available.

I'm also thinking that would be good for fire archers and poison archers to split between fire and pierce, or chemical and pierce damage.

Also, in similar lines to the human mage, it might be fun to give the elf wizard a research upgrade for a lightning attack. Image would be a lightning bolt hitting the target from above, with damage somewhat comparable to human mage.

[Alexander82]

That would solve many problems.

Let's make an example

If you research magic arrow 1 (a new tech we might add to elven archers that receive +1 magic damage to arrows and additional +1 for the other levels) you might obtain an effect that effectively increase the base damage after the armor reduction. Let's make an example:

an elven archer has 9 attack after upgrades and against an armored unit with 9 pierce armor it deal 1 damage. If we add +3 magic damage thanks to magic arrows you obtain a minimum damage of 4 (which at high levels is reasonable as a minimum damage) and you don't incurr in doing things like ignoring armor that is pretty annoying after you invest much in a armored unit.

This way it still makes sense to produce armored units (since otherwise you would take much more damage) but you avoid the problems related to balancing armor (that becomes too lowe in certain cases and to high in other).

Another option would be "transforming" part of the damage into magic damage (e.g. you still make 9 as maximum damage but 3 of those damages are magic so you still make a minimum of 4).

What do you think?

[Sunrise Samurai]

The problem with exchanging damage types is it takes multiple armor reductions. If an archer has 9 damage, and 4 of it is turned into another type, then 4 regular armor and 3 magic armor is applied, reducing it to 2, instead of the 5 damage it would have without the switch. I think 1-3 extra magic damage would probably be reduced to 1 in many cases, so it shouldn't be op.

This being said, I think we should account for this in units we choose to split damage types. They might need higher attack to preserve their average damage.

I do like the idea though.

[Alexander82]

Otherwise we should just give it a "ignore armor" function

Magic arrow 1 ignore 1 armor
Magic arrow 2 ignore 2 armor
Magic arrow 3 ignore 3 armor

This way you don't raise the damage too much against unarmored units but ensure a higher minimal damage

Having more armor it is still an advantage since having less would still get you a -3 (if you have 5 is like having 2 but if you have 10 is like having 7)

[Alexander82]

I'm also adding a summary in the first post since we might loose something.

[Sunrise Samurai]

Maybe we should go ahead and have that extra armor stat for "armor piercing" that is​ always 0. Then we can have it give armor piercing damage that is never reduced. I already considered it for gunpowder weapons, so it's easy enough to give another reason for a 0 stat for a single attack type to never be reduced. That gives an easy way to make a minimum damage dealt at least, without a mechanic for bypassing armor.

[Alexander82]

I think that would just make things too complicated. Even splitting damage on different armor should be coded. I think that an ignore armor could be useful in the future.

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't have a magic damage that isn't reduced by armor. We can have both and use them for different purposes.

[Sunrise Samurai]

Ok. I'm rather excited to see this play out. This is going to be the biggest upgrade to the game so far. How long do you think it will be before we see the beginning stages of it in the dev version?