Goblin Squad Member
|
Diminishing Returns are my two least favorite words when put together. One thing that is killing diablo for me is that getting from 65% damage reduction to 70% requires the same amount of armor points.
I don't want to see another game where you start with 100 hit points and end up with 100,000 in the later stages of the game.
I want to see evasion, blocking, and armor strength to play a large role in combat.
Someone in beefy plate mail will not be damaged by small weapons and arrows. As and example: A chest piece has a denting resistance of 106 and breaking resistance of 150, you need to provide 106 psi to dent(damage) and 150 to break(remove benefit). You either need to have super high strength with a dainty weapon, or moderate strength(so you can hold it) with a heavy weapon. If you aren't using brute force, you need high dexterity to find weak spots, or remove the armor(reminds me of Zelda: Windwaker mini-bosses that where impervious from the front, you had to dash around behind them and cut the bands holding its armor on). Wielding heavy armor would also come with it's downsides, you would be very slow, and have to carry a heavy weapon to do damage.
The end result I want to see is a fight really coming down to 2-5 good blows that hit the character. Swinging a heavy weapon at a fast target may take them down in 2 hits, but those will be 2 very lucky hits. A fast character may make 20 attacks, 15 removing armor, and 5 finishing the job.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
This is something I really wanted to see in Mortal Online. The people in the heaviest armor moved the slowest and ended up dying easily to the faster opponents who could keep out of melee range and hurl spells/ranged attacks at them all day long.
I would really like to see heavy armor pay off in the form of weaker weapons just bouncing off them.
One of the huge things that allowed Thermopylae pass to happen beyond the superior skill of the Greeks (especially the Spartans) was that the Persian weapons were simply incapable of penetrating their armor (Especially that massive bronze shield.)Since they hailed from desert regions where heavy armor could kill you via heat stroke, and brought no long-range siege weapons with them they simply had nothing capable of breaking that Greek line without flanking them. I would fully support that if you are a halfling ranger armed with a sling or even most forms of bows, going up against a dwarf in full plate with a massive steel plated tower shield, you shouldn't be able to damage him. At all.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Diminishing Returns are my two least favorite words when put together. One thing that is killing diablo for me is that getting from 65% damage reduction to 70% requires the same amount of armor points.
I don't want to see another game where you start with 100 hit points and end up with 100,000 in the later stages of the game.
I want to see evasion, blocking, and armor strength to play a large role in combat.
Someone in beefy plate mail will not be damaged by small weapons and arrows. As and example: A chest piece has a denting resistance of 106 and breaking resistance of 150, you need to provide 106 psi to dent(damage) and 150 to break(remove benefit). You either need to have super high strength with a dainty weapon, or moderate strength(so you can hold it) with a heavy weapon. If you aren't using brute force, you need high dexterity to find weak spots, or remove the armor(reminds me of Zelda: Windwaker mini-bosses that where impervious from the front, you had to dash around behind them and cut the bands holding its armor on). Wielding heavy armor would also come with it's downsides, you would be very slow, and have to carry a heavy weapon to do damage.
The end result I want to see is a fight really coming down to 2-5 good blows that hit the character. Swinging a heavy weapon at a fast target may take them down in 2 hits, but those will be 2 very lucky hits. A fast character may make 20 attacks, 15 removing armor, and 5 finishing the job.
So, armor just adds DR instead of any actual AC bonus? Does that also mean chain mail really only works against slashing weapons and is virtually worthless against piercing and bludgeoning weapons to keep with realism?
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
It would be great if combat involved the comparisons of skills of the relative fighters. So for instance two swordsmen of equal weapon skill (One lightly armored and the other heavily armored) face off against each other. Because their weapon skills are so evenly matched it may be hard for either of them to actually strike the other. If there were other combat skills beside just hitting then these could come into play.
For instance the lightly armored fighter switches to full out defense and parry incoming attacks. The one in heavy armor switches to full out attack (not parrying at all) and instead relies on his armor to blunt most of the blows received. Again because they’re both evenly matches so no real damage is done.
If this type of fight goes on for long enough then fatigue begins to settle in. The heavily armored fighter begins to quickly tire, so his weapon skills begin to reduce due to his fatigue. While the lightly armored fighter grins and continues to parry the other fighters attacks until the heavily armored fighter can barely lift a weapon. The lightly armored fighter wins because he was able to outlast an equally skilled opponent.
The above is just an example, and I have no idea how the actual skill system will work. However, it would be great if we could dynamically shift the ratio between attacking (hitting) and defending (blocking/parrying) during combat.
I’m also a big fan on [u]not[/u] having huge hit points. I loved the variant rules in 3.5 for wound points and vitally points. Therefore if a goblin go a critical hit on his crossbow a level 20 fighter (with 18 wounds) could be severely injured. One goblin may not be a threat, but 30 could!
Goblinworks Executive Founder
|
With regards to Thermopylae, in the over-used example of Agincourt, the flower of French knights in glorious plate armor were butchered in hand to hand by lightly armed and armored bowmen.
Realism may not be the best thing to draw from when making a game. Both battles are amazing examples of how complex the relationships between armor, firepower, terrain, weather, disease, logistics, and maneuverability really are. Even the best wargame chokes up a bit on these things, and I am not sure if an MMO can deliver that feel.
Also, a lot of folks would be rather surprised at how things worked against plate armor. A slashing sword would often be half-sworded to be used to thrust, or reversed like a great cudgel, changing how it would impact against a foe in armor which could resist the cutting edge. Likewise, slim daggers were lethal against armored warriors if the wielder was in a clinch with them. European knights and samurai alike trained extensively in grappling and close-in fighting with such weapons simply because often, their heavier arms didn't get the job done. Finally, wound dynamics would shock people. A quarter-sized hole from a rapier which penetrates three inches would likely collapse a lung. That's the source of Tybalt's (?) lament in Romeo and Juliet about how his small wound was mortal - without modern surgery, a popped lung is a death sentence. Audiences in that time would know it, but people today likely would think, "That's it?" Likewise, the manner with which the Legion wielded their swords meant they dealt devastating wounds, impaling multiple organs, despite being little "short swords." Crossbows, which PFRPG players think of as a second-rate substitute if your class cannot use bows, were reported to have been banned by the Roman Catholic Church for use against Christians. "Light weapons" do horrific damage.
I think aiming for realism is generally a bad idea, as realism would upset everyone who has a different idea of "realism." Despite that, I like Valkenr's idea for some types of games, but I am unsure if this is the game for it. If it is, then grappling should then be a big part of the game against foes in heavy armor.
@ Greg Reece: Hopefully, no. See above: death to realism.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Realism in an MMO just isn't an option. And nor is it really applicable to most games. Dying to sepsis from a 4 inch wound to the abdomen is just not really fun, even if you can continue to run around at diminished strength.
And to that point I'd like to say that in the comparison between a halfling with a sling, and the dwarf with the armor; The halfing should do damage, if the halfing is good enough with the sling. The dwarf should be hammered by pebbles all day, particularly if that dwarf isn't good at wearing armor (heresy i know!). The point of a combat system shouldn't be to lend realism, or as The Doc points out, perceived realism, but to provide an easily understood method of resolving conflict. Too much defense, you get sloggy combat dominated by tiny numbers and is arguably not very exciting. Too much offense and you get insta-gibbed piles of bodies. Also somewhat boring. The key is to find a system that allows for understandable amount of damage, that allows for fallible defense in the face of that offense.
I think one of the keys to this is to severely limit the inflation of key stats, like HP and Damage. Some sort of Armor as Damage Reduction or %damage Absorbed would be required. Vulnerability and Resistances to energy effects, also a must. In my opinion the real key is that every one of these stats must be effective. When you make an attack, it should either miss, or do damage. When you load up on defense, it should block some damage, but not all. We'll have to wait for the details to really dial in these key balance points, but I think at the end of the day (at launch) we might be looking at a 50pt hit as being amazing (much like the tabletop, around level 6-8).
put another way... every hit DOES have to do damage. but not every swing has to hit.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
With regards to Thermopylae, in the over-used example of Agincourt, the flower of French knights in glorious plate armor were butchered in hand to hand by lightly armed and armored bowmen.
Realism may not be the best thing to draw from when making a game. Both battles are amazing examples of how complex the relationships between armor, firepower, terrain, weather, disease, logistics, and maneuverability really are. Even the best wargame chokes up a bit on these things, and I am not sure if an MMO can deliver that feel.
Also, a lot of folks would be rather surprised at how things worked against plate armor. A slashing sword would often be half-sworded to be used to thrust, or reversed like a great cudgel, changing how it would impact against a foe in armor which could resist the cutting edge. Likewise, slim daggers were lethal against armored warriors if the wielder was in a clinch with them. European knights and samurai alike trained extensively in grappling and close-in fighting with such weapons simply because often, their heavier arms didn't get the job done. Finally, wound dynamics would shock people. A quarter-sized hole from a rapier which penetrates three inches would likely collapse a lung. That's the source of Tybalt's (?) lament in Romeo and Juliet about how his small wound was mortal - without modern surgery, a popped lung is a death sentence. Audiences in that time would know it, but people today likely would think, "That's it?" Likewise, the manner with which the Legion wielded their swords meant they dealt devastating wounds, impaling multiple organs, despite being little "short swords." Crossbows, which PFRPG players think of as a second-rate substitute if your class cannot use bows, were reported to have been banned by the Roman Catholic Church for use against Christians. "Light weapons" do horrific damage.
I think aiming for realism is generally a bad idea, as realism would upset everyone who has a...
I referred specifically to slings and regular bow. I am well aware that you don't need a massive two handed hammer to break heavy armor and that crossbows, flails, or a dagger in the right gap can do the trick.
However there are certain weapons which are nearly entirely ineffective against heavy armor, especially combine with the use of a large shield.
The entire point of the crossbow is that it can be loaded with two hands or cranked into position allowing it to be far more powerful than a bow which is drawn/aimed with one and steadied with the other, and required the weight to be held while aiming until the fairly recent invention of compound bows. The point of the flail was that you could swing it around to build up considerable centrifugal force which you then use to smash your armored opponent.
Slings, most bows, throwing knives, daggers, etc. are either going to be entirely ineffective or require you to hit a weakpoint in the armor. Likely they won't even damage the armor itself. Swords, polarms, axes etc. are going to do some damage but they will allow the user to survive a lot of "would have been fatal" blows.
Of course a bow is going to be incredibly effective against mages or lightly armored soldiers, giving some justification to it's existence. I wouldn't expect to see too many units of soldiers with heavy armor and tower shields as they would be expensive to equip, require a lot of coordination, and have a hard time with harsh climates, rough terrain, and water.
The Romans and Greeks proved this theory correct for centuries.
No offense but I'm not going to consider the French as a good test of what competent soldiers in heavy armor can do since they tend to fail on one of those criteria.
|
Goblinworks Executive Founder
|
@ Ravening: Those systems originally came from SW d20, if I am not mistaken, and there they created a very ugly situation where all fights came down to whoever scored the first crit with a lightsaber. After a few levels, a Jedi instakilled anyone who took a saber crit. Thanks to multiple attacks and improved critical feat it basically meant that by the end of the first round, someone was dead. The effects were the same in D&D when those rules were in effect.
There is a PFRPG option in UC to do something similar for your own games.
The problem with those systems is they grossly increase the random factor in combat. Whether this is a problem for PFO depends on the other systems. Hit points are not a direct representation of toughness, but a mix of toughness and plot armor. The Wounds/Vigor system really is a barely-there covering for it. I'd check out WoD Wound Levels, ShadowRun, or even old WEG d6 SW for different ways to handle injury and death without HP. Do any of those systems have promise in an MMO context?
If any, I'd think Health Levels might find a way to work out online. In such a system, wounds pile up to drop a character through a variety of conditions from, "Bruised," to "Crippled," with the character coming closer and closer to mortal injury and suffering bigger and bigger penalties are their injuries piled up. Some games gave you X points of damage before you dropped down a health level (Decipher's LotR game, ex), while others just used the levels (ex - OWoD). Would any of these systems fit your ideas?
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Realism in an MMO just isn't an option. And nor is it really applicable to most games. Dying to sepsis from a 4 inch wound to the abdomen is just not really fun, even if you can continue to run around at diminished strength.
No but realism has been the inspiration for many fun game mechanics and can continues to do so. See the wound system in Wurm Online which makes severe wounds get worse as opposed to healing over time, or the crafting system of the same game which requires a considerable time and effort being out into turning raw iron and wood into a sword rather than a ten second timer per item.
The trick to putting realism into a game is balancing it with fun. Fun and realism are not always opposed to one another. Realism only needs to be scraped in the cases which it is opposed to fun.
Most MMO are balanced around one limited aspect of the game which is 1vs.1 combat. As fun as 1vs.1 can be it's not the most important factor in an Open World PVP sandbox. Group vs. group with generally non-even numbers is.
I don't necessarily see a problem where when one character sees another of the same level with certain training and equipment that there best course of action is to run away. As long as that class that had to run away serves a valuable role on the battlefield that can be served by the class that made them run, that is perfectly balanced in my opinion.
I think there is a lot of inspiration that can be drawn from real life to make the game more fun to that end.
|
Goblinworks Executive Founder
|
No offense but I'm not going to consider the French as a good test of what competent soldiers in heavy armor can do since they tend to fail on one of those criteria.
Then I must respectfully suggest you read your military histories more thoroughly. A Google doodle joke is not an argument, nor are images of testudos and phalanxes. The stereotype of the French as cheese-eating surrender-monkeys is a modern conceit, and really only after WWII. For most of Europe's history, France was a powerhouse. We could argue about the weapons, which I don't think is anything but an aside. I'm not ceding the point, but I do think it's not relevant.
The PFRPG complicates this by collapsing about 2,000 years worth of weaponry into one setting without any real thought about what that would mean if you tried to think about it realistically - or, worse, "realistically." Then, all the armor is essentially from the Late Middle Ages. The question is what is better for a game, and I've stated my "screw realism" argument already.
The armor as DR idea leads to a specific problem. From RPG Net:
(also called the Metallic Armor Problem or Damage Resistance Problem)
A problem that can arise in games where armor reduces the amount of damage inflicted on a target. (This type of armor is called resistive armor, as opposed to ablative armor which protects its wearer by being blown off in lieu of anything important.) This type of armor has the difficulties that a) worn by an enemy, it can leave one or more players incapable of inflicting damage on the wearer, leaving them nothing to do in that situation in the game; and b) worn by a player character, it can mean that any enemy capable of wounding that character will be able to devastate any character not wearing similar armor in a single hit.
Related is the Glass Jaw Ninja - a dodging defense means either a character is never hit or is plastered into paste.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Resistive Armor Problem:
(also called the Metallic Armor Problem or Damage Resistance Problem)
A problem that can arise in games where armor reduces the amount of damage inflicted on a target. (This type of armor is called resistive armor, as opposed to ablative armor which protects its wearer by being blown off in lieu of anything important.) This type of armor has the difficulties that a) worn by an enemy, it can leave one or more players incapable of inflicting damage on the wearer, leaving them nothing to do in that situation in the game; and b) worn by a player character, it can mean that any enemy capable of wounding that character will be able to devastate any character not wearing similar armor in a single hit.
You make one assertion here that really makes a huge difference.
You are basically arguing all realism, or no realism. If a weapon can penetrate heavy armor it has to one hit non-armored targets because logically a weapon with the power to penetrate heavy armor will inflict fatal damage.
In realism this is true, but in game mechanics it's false. Like I said you keep realism in ONLY where it is fun. You can easily make it so a weapon has the ability to penetrate armor without increasing it's damage against non-armored opponents. This is a CRITICAL advantage if you include armor penalties to movement speed, swimming, climbing, jumping, and movements through certain types of terrain.
With a system like this heavy armored troops would function much as they did. The tanks of the ancient world. Practically indestructible, but if you get a heavy hitting weapon capable of harming them their slow movement and lack of maneuverability can really screw them.
You assert certain people not being useful in certain situations is a problem. I assert that it isn't. The mentality of "I should be evenly matched against everyone! Combat shouldn't be rock-paper-scissors!" has kept 1vs.1 PVP fun for a long time but really held back large scale tactics and making groups well rounded. There are plenty of games with awesome 1vs1 PVP, this game is going to have awesome large scale combat. Why not make that the main combat focus of the game?
This tends to lead to a lot of features that can't be implemented because they would unbalance 1vs1 that would really make things more interesting in group combat. A bomb throwing alchemist does not need to be balanced vs. light cavalry because that cavalry is going to have to run screaming vs. that phalanx but the bomb throwing alchemist may be just what you need to force them to break formation.
This leads to an interesting problem in PVP. Your wizards, alchemists, or balistae that can break up that phalanx are going to get torn apart by cavalry or archers. Those cavalry cannot charge a phalanx and expect anything other than death.
So then how should you respond if you have a mixed army fighting a mixed army?
The answer of course is tactics. You need to try to get each type of soldier to where they will give you maximum effect while protecting them from enemies that are effective against them.
Of course it isn't straight rock, paper, scissors. A unit of barbarians wielding axes, throwing axes, hammers and flails in scale and chainmail vs. a unit of hoplites with spears and javelins might go either way, or perhaps be very slightly skewed to one side.
Sure some people will cry. "Boo-hoo! I was playing my sorcerer and I got killed by a ranger before I could even do 20% damage to him!!!" but I think a lot of other people will really appreciate real authentic combat.
Besides everyone always has the option to be the fighter with medium armor, a halberd, a bow, and some flasks of alchemist fire so that they can have ways of fighting heavily armored troops, cavalry, and squishes. Guess they still would get slaughtered by an expert archer.
Ever read a description of ancient gladiatorial combat?
The main types were long sword and buckler; trident and net; and heavy shield and short sword. The guy with the heavy shield didn't move much, while the guy with the long sword was always stabbing and testing the defense of the others. It was a waiting game as much as a test of skill.
Heavy infantry tend to use short stabbing weapons to minimize the amount of work they have to do. They get in close and massacre people, they don't fence with them. If they are using a two handed weapon, they use reach to their advantage, and force the other person to jump around.
The French lost at Agincourt because of the GROUND. It was muddy and sloggy, bogged down their horses and then them. They fell down and literally couldn't get back up. Of course they were slaughtered. In a normal engagement they would have butchered the archers straight out...and the English KNEW it. So did the French...they read the ground wrong when they were lured out to ride the archers down.
The Spartans picked their terrain, and the enemy didn't have anything to deal with a spear line of heavy infantry, the deadliest military foe in that day and age. Spears and shields were the kings of the battlefield for thousands of years. In an open field, they would have been flanked, swarmed and died.
They won because of the terrain, not because of their heavy armor.
And FYI, sling bullets of lead are actually more effective then arrows against most armor, because the weight and impact can snap a neck and break bones right through an armor or shield. The ancient Romans valued good slingers higher then archers, but the view of the sling as a 'peasant weapon' eventually took them out of style...plus it required more training then using short bows or crossbows to be effective.
==Aelryinth
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
The Spartans picked their terrain, and the enemy didn't have anything to deal with a spear line of heavy infantry, the deadliest military foe in that day and age. Spears and shields were the kings of the battlefield for thousands of years. In an open field, they would have been flanked, swarmed and died.
They won because of the terrain, not because of their heavy armor.
So I'm assuming based on what you just wrote, that they would have held that terrain just as easily using wicker shields and padded armor like the Persians.
I'm also assuming that the only battle in which the Greeks slaughtered the Persians while highly outnumbered was Thermopylae. Right???
Don't be snide.
The Spartans were 300 in number against tens of thousands. Open ground would have slaughtered them. Period.
A militant spear line against a loose line of conscripts, professional soldiers against militia, in an open field with well-drilled military, can offset numbers, as Alexander proved time and again.
But Thermopylae was the ground. The SPartans used it as a force multiplier that meant the Persians could not bring their superior numbers to bear...which is why defending a pass is such a key defensive point.
What happened as soon as the army got around them? They died.
==Aelryinth
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Don't be snide.
The Spartans were 300 in number against tens of thousands. Open ground would have slaughtered them. Period.
A militant spear line against a loose line of conscripts, professional soldiers against militia, in an open field with well-drilled military, can offset numbers, as Alexander proved time and again.
But Thermopylae was the ground. The SPartans used it as a force multiplier that meant the Persians could not bring their superior numbers to bear...which is why defending a pass is such a key defensive point.
What happened as soon as the army got around them? They died.
==Aelryinth
My point is that if they would have been wearing light armor the Persians would have stormed through Thermopylae pass like it was a worn down road bump. The only reason they couldn't bring their numbers to bear is because their archers were ineffective against the Greeks. Otherwise they could have just rained arrows on them until they fled. Their archers were ineffective because of heavy armor/shields. As were their foot soldiers
My point is also that while heavy armor can only allow 300 Spartans + a few hundred or so allies to hold out against an army of tens of thousands, Thermopylae itself was in revenge for a campaign where the Greeks slaughtered the Persians as they were trying to disembark from their boats, and drove them back to sea. And when their army finally did break through it was still eventually defeated by the much smaller Greek forces.
This is because with lightly armored troops flanking with archers was about the only option the Persians had to beat the Greeks.
So the point that heavily armored troops are nearly invincible against lightly armored troops with weaponry not designed to counteract heavy armor stands.
|
Goblinworks Executive Founder
|
You make one assertion here that really makes a huge difference.You are basically arguing all realism, or no realism. If a weapon can penetrate heavy armor it has to one hit non-armored targets because logically a weapon with the power to penetrate heavy armor will inflict fatal damage.
Three points. First, I am not making a false dichotomy by labeling something that makes weak-tea attempt to emulate reality as unrealistic, and something which matches a popularly-believed but untrue vision as realistic-with-scare-quotes. Realistic means committed to emulating reality. Second, that logic is false. Armor-piercing bullets, for example, have decidedly inferior capacity to wound a target than hollow-points, which have far inferior armor penetration (all other things being equal, of course). A club would transmit much of its force through mail, injuring a man wearing it. A sword might fail to penetrate the mail at all. Yet the same blow from both weapons on an unarmored man might result in fractures and an amputation, respectively.
That's what I mean by "realism." It sounds so true that armor penetration must mean deadlier wounds. But it isn't true. The capacity to penetrate armor does not inherently in any way make a weapon more lethal against an unarmored target.
Like I said you keep realism in ONLY where it is fun.
:D Yes, as I said, screw realism. What makes a better game?
With a system like this heavy armored troops would function much as they did. The tanks of the ancient world. Practically indestructible, but if you get a heavy hitting weapon capable of harming them their slow movement and lack of maneuverability can really screw them.
But the capacity to penetrate armor was not "weapon weight." Light warhammers and picks, slim, tapered arming swords, the English longbow, crossbows, firearms and pole-axes were developed to fight plate in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. Those weapons run the full range. The Romans fought the heavily armored Greeks with the same pilum-scutum-short sword combination they fought everyone else with, and decimated the heavily-armored hoplites.
You assert certain people not being useful in certain situations is a problem. I assert that it isn't.
Then we have to agree to disagree.
The mentality of "I should be evenly matched against everyone! Combat shouldn't be rock-paper-scissors!" has kept 1vs.1 PVP fun for a long time but really held back large scale tactics and making groups...
I never said -that- at all.
So the point that heavily armored troops are nearly invincible against lightly armored troops with weaponry not designed to counteract heavy armor stands.
But that's a very different point than the ones that I had brought up in the first place.
Edit:
My point is also that while heavy armor can only allow 300 Spartans + a few hundred or so allies to hold out against an army of tens of thousands...And when their army finally did break through it was still eventually defeated by the much smaller Greek forces.
Eight thousand Thracians, and the real winner of the battle was the Athenian navy. The Spartans were eventually overrun, and had the Athenians not won, Greece would have been swallowed up easily. Nor did the Spartans push the Persians anywhere; if they moved from this one special spot where they could hold long enough for Athens to win the naval battle, an Athenian victory would have been a moot point.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
But that's a very different point than the ones that I had brought up in the first place.
So the point that heavily armored troops are nearly invincible against lightly armored troops with weaponry not designed to counteract heavy armor stands.
But it is prettymuch the entire basis of this topic.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Like I said you keep realism in ONLY where it is fun.:D Yes, as I said, screw realism. What makes a better game.
Mine. It only sacrifices realism where fun is concerned so in the end you have a more immersive title without any less fun.
Don't knock realism until you have tried it. Trying to patch the wounds of badly hurt people who ran to my farm for aid before they could bleed to death on Wurm Online is some of the most fun I have had in any MMO.
|
Goblinworks Executive Founder
|
At this point, it's sophistry. Go back and read the first post I wrote in the thread. I've been discussing nothing but how weapons were actually used. That would be the opposite of "knocking realism." If you wish to use the word realism so it means, "Anything I want to see in the game," then the word winds up without meaning. If realism is optional in favor of fun, that's exactly what I called for.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
If that is what you want I don't see why we are arguing. I want armor piecing for weapons that could pierce armor and attacks that did bounce of it to bounce off it.
This can pierce armor. This cannot. This would, if you have the strength and training to use it.
This would be very effective against an armored opponent. This would take a hell of a lot of work to get anywhere. This is going to do squat unless you can survive long enough to get in close and jam it in at a weakpoint like the neck. Easier said than done if you aren't in heavy armor yourself.
This is going to pierce through a heavy shield and make it far less effective. This is not. This doesn't much give a damn if you have a shield or not. Go home.
I think if the weapons design team goes through the weapons and armor they can easily determine which would logically work against which, and then skew things a bit so none of the weapons are rendered entirely useless or godlike (So probably no Mongolian bows).
I think if we have it so our heavy shield/armor wielding troops can shrug off most attacks unless they are designed to take out heavy troops or they are flanked we will have a better game because of it.
The fact that most classes can face of against most other classes in most MMOs is a problem. I don't want every character to be a Swiss army knife that can adapt to every situation. When your ranger who specializes in killing lightly armored targets and thus uses a bow designed to get off a lot or arrows quickly comes up against dwarven defender I want him to turn around and run. Not use snaring shot and super arrow of armor penetration.
If you want to be a solo adventurer just go jack of all trades and accept the fact that you can't fill a specific role on the battlefield as effectively as someone who specializes.
I personally would way rather see situations where if an army leaves itself open to a flank, it archers exposed to the enemy cavalry, or fails to bring anti-armor characters to a fight where the opponent is decked out well that they get slaughtered.
I also wouldn't mind seeing an army composed of heavy infantry and cavalry dominating on the open field and getting slaughtered in the jungle, or marshes.
---------
Finally just to throw in a change of pace, I think Pirates of the Burning Sea has an idea worth looking at. In there system there is a green bar called balance or something of the sort, and a red health bar. Hits are usually directed at your green bar, the farther down your green bar goes the more chance that they will strike through and hit your health. While the green bar is up there is clashing and clanging of swords, once it is down and you are taking hits to the red bar, there is blood flying. Oh and the green bar actually regenerates pretty quickly.
That could easily be a system worth looking into. It would help balance more agile classes like rouges and monks vs. a heavily armored fighter as logically those more agile classes are going to have a larger and more quickly regenerating balance, or focus, or whatever you want to call it bar.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
The entire concept of every hit not doing damage is core to the tabletop game. It's already calculated into the AC of foes. If they're wearing plate mail, most of the time you're missing, you're hitting the opponent, but not damaging the opponent.
I think PFO could use a similar system where the game compares attack and defense scores and assigns a percentage chance for damage being dealt, maybe with a system where you do more damage based on the degree of success and comparable scores.
And Table 52 of the AD&D Player's Handbook has modifiers for different weapon types compared to different armor types. How hard would it be to use a similar system where specific weapons have a greater chance of dealing damage depending on the type of armor your opponents are wearing. It'd be easy enough to adjust this for monstrous humanoids and other environmental foes. Certain weapons would have a greater effect against scaled enemies like lizardfolk, and an entirely different effect on enemies with thick hides or tough skin like giants. Things actually get quite interesting when you fight lizardfolk wearing hide armor, or giants wearing chain or plate.
There could be entire strategies involving damaging the armor first, and then moving in for the kill. The tabletop game supports this with the Sunder ability and feat tree, which would be a great addition to the game in any case.
I plan on playing some type of rogue character myself, and I'd hate it if I could never do any damage against certain foes, though, due to the ineffectiveness of my rapier against their plate armor. There should always be some mechanism in the game to allow a player to deal damage when he attacks, at least some of the time. Again, the tabletop game does this with a natural 20 always being a hit.
I agree with the opening post, though. If we see massive Hit Point inflation in this game, and it becomes similar to Final Fantasy or WoW with regards to attacking and dealing damage, I will be sorely disappointed. Not every swing of your sword should do damage.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I think the easiest way to deal with this is to have certain weapons do "bonus damage" against their best target type. Arrows do extra damage against lightly armored foes, etc. That way, everyone can still be active in combat, but folks have already specialized just by picking a weapon. Meaning everyone has a role they should be playing to maximize their effect. And it also means that the group that picks the right weapons and armor for the situation will end up having a nice edge.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
For the sake of convenient discussion, a "hit" should be analogous to beating an opponent's AC. No need to argue semantics, as even in the PnP game that is the term typically used. The reason I propose a hit should do damage, even if its minimal, is that upon a Hit the attacker would feel robbed and ultimately dissuaded from playing if this Hit did zero damage. You can see this effect rapidly frustrate players on the table in the case of Golems (and to a lesser degree constructs). Everyone rolls their eyes at hitting and doing minimal damage, and the casters are basically reduced to 1 spell per person. Run an entire campaign like this (analogous to playing an MMO for a couple of months) and you'd find this ends up being terribly irritating.
A Hit should have meaning, and should get you closer to defeating your opponent. Maybe a lucky dodge makes the difference, maybe their armor/resistances keep the damage manageable, but even heavy armor Turtle Dwarves should be defeated by consistent physical attacks from a halfling with a sling. This is just as much about fun as it is fairness.
The academic discussion of historical battles, tho entertaining to a degree, really doesn't do anything to progress the actual discussion of game mechanics. By the very essence mechanics are an abstraction of the real world, because we're not in meatspace swinging metal at each other. When you get down to the nitty-gritty of combat, equipment accounts for some of the chance for success, as does skill (far more than gear IMO), as does luck and circumstance (more than the other factors combined, in the case of large scale battles). Also, the results of a game combat don't involve pain, or suffering or any semblance of consequence. In the real world, combat is just as often as not results in an instant (or close as doesn't matter), horrific and permanent death. People die all the time from a single fist to the face, from a relatively unskilled opponent. Its just not really worth getting into too much of a biased intellectual debate, when the vast majority of gamers are willing to look at the stats provided in the basic Pathfinder Core book and have a hard time complaining about the balance of the abstractions presented.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Every "hit" should do damage, but not every "swing" should be a "hit". I think the degree of success of the "hit" should have an impact on the damage, too. I hate it in the tabletop game when I roll a threat, can't confirm, and end up doing minimum damage.
Also, speaking of, let's see critical hits in the game too. Isn't Pathfinder without lucky crits. Would be even better if some sort of random critical effect happened every time you crit, a la the critical hit deck from the GameMastery line, but maybe that's asking for too much.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Every "hit" should do damage, but not every "swing" should be a "hit". I think the degree of success of the "hit" should have an impact on the damage, too. I hate it in the tabletop game when I roll a threat, can't confirm, and end up doing minimum damage.
I said essentially this pre-historical debate.
|
Goblinworks Executive Founder
|
The academic discussion of historical battles, tho entertaining to a degree, really doesn't do anything to progress the actual discussion of game mechanics.
Thank you!
Realism is entirely subservient to making a game fun, and actual study of many of these topics would shock folks away from many preconceived notions. It's happened to me in just about every field I ever started looking at.
Valkenr's question is actually important. I think a common language to discuss these systems might help. I didn't make these up, but I do think this will clean up some of our ideas.
Most game systems have only one of these three: "breakthrough/resistive armor" (armor as DR, like Diablo and World of Darkness), "ablative armor" (armor lost before HP, like Goldeneye or Battletech), or "find-a-chink armor" (higher AC, ex PFRPG), and none of those is perfect.
Some games use a mix of ablative/resistive, such as Doom.
Some games have an Armor Pen(etration - AP) stat for weapons, such as Dragon Age. In these games, sometimes armor pen is simply the ability to ignore X amount of armor points, such as in Dark Heresy. In some games, X% of armor points are ignored. In some games, a weapon either completely punches through armor, or has no ability to punch through the armor, making AP an all-or-none affair (WH 40k). In some cases, the strength of the hit changes the amount of AP along with weapon type (WFB).
Now, what's best for PFO? My main objection to leaning too heavily on resistive armor is the Resistive Armor Problem of above. I kind of like the ablative/resistive hybrid as a workable idea, which I think comes closer to Valkenr's first post, though it's not exactly the same. If weapons must have an AP value, then at least vary it by armor type.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
if you factor in damage to armor/weapons as integral to the economic model (your stuff breaks, you need to buy new stuff), then we already have a sort of passively Ablative system. One thing I see in the development in these systems is an affectation towards non-useful complexity (SW:TOR I'm looking at you), or systems that add subsystems only to remove the unnecessary complication later (WoW). To me, particularly in the case of defense, simpler is better. Armor as % damage reduction, where that % never drops a hit below 10-20%. Avoidance characteristics ranging from absolute (dodge/parry) to ablative/DR (shield blocks, etc). And importantly, a significant inherent miss chance for martial/physical attacks. A nice balance should be struck between these factors to make sure you never hit all the time, never dodge/parry every attack, never deflect all the damage, and if hit, always take at least 1 pt of damage.
With magical attacks we get into the details of comparative action economies and resource management. One thing I really like about the tabletop game, is many of the magical attacks have an automatic amount of damage, that has a much wider value range than being hit with a weapon. A fireball will always do damage, but that damage could be minimal or substantial, and the defenses of a victim always have a chance of making that damage anywhere from trivial to minimal. The trade off for this is in the cost of such an ability; you only get so many fireballs a day, whereas someone with an Axe gets to just keep swinging. Quick sidenote: in no way am I advocated limited use spells, just an example derived from such a system.
One could say that spell timers and cooldowns represent a delay in the action economy of an attack, and if something is more expensive (takes longer, more vulnerable to misses/interruptions) then it should hit harder. This can be a dangerous proposition the moment you add any sort of slowing or root effect, and can quickly unbalance a system towards casters/ranged attacks. If a physical attack happens on a quicker cooldown, but has far less variability to it, is that enough of a balancing factor to accomodate the more variable, but higher potential damage of a spell?
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I really want big, slow, realistic plate wearers in the game. The I'll roll up my gunslinger and demonstrate the historical reason why that armor went away.
Sure. If guns make it into the game I'm ok with that as long as they are highly inaccurate (as they would be smooth-bore at this time period), three rounds a minute, just straight up won't work if it's raining or you somehow get your powder wet, and have a chance to blow up in your face. Because you're going to get slaughtered by any competent archer. And any competent archer isn't going to be able to deal with heavy armor unless they have Mongolian style bows.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I really want big, slow, realistic plate wearers in the game. The I'll roll up my gunslinger and demonstrate the historical reason why that armor went away.
Realism is boring. Let's ask them to make a fun, balanced game.
Actually if I recall on the mythbusters paper armor episode, I believe they tested old grade guns on armor, and the armor held up pretty darn well against early guns. I can't remember off the top of my head where the line was that guns advanced past armor, to where that reaches on the pathfinder firearms.
Of course, we are nowhere near the areas in golorean where gunslingers existed, and in lore they are intended to be too rare to be a regular class for PFO in the river kingdoms area IMO.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I'd like to see combat resolved based on which side most effective employs synergy between allies.
A lone fighter, regardless of armor or weapons should be likely to lose vs. 3+ opponents who are even marginally competent (of course, they may not like the effect on themselves either...)
I'd hope that 1 on 1 confrontations would be very rare. My gut tells me that they'll either be lopsided splats, or tedious, or mutual suicides. But that's just based in a general opinion of what happens in MMOs, because there are no combat mechanics yet for Pathfinder Online.
Just remember our goal: "Maximize meaningful human interaction" for a guide to where we'll likely go in designing the combat system.
I'm all for realism but not in Pathfinder Online. When magic is involved, realism goes out the window. Let's hope Goblinworks focuses on making a fun game.
I agree that 1v1 battles are likely to be few in number but I'm intrigued by your statement regards numbers like 1v3. How do you anticipate small bandit gangs working out. In Eve you could have 2 competent pilots that can take out a small gang. Should we expect for things to have to be on a more even footing in PFO?
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
In Eve you could have 2 competent pilots that can take out a small gang. Should we expect for things to have to be on a more even footing in PFO?
If there's one area where I expect Pathfinder Online and EVE to be very different its in the combat system.
Positioning is almost irrelevant in EVE (there's some nuance to distance based on weapon type and transverse speeds but that's about it). There is no terrain. There's no cover or concealment. Most ships do one kind of attack and have one kind of defense. And EVE's system heartbeat is about 3 seconds, so there's no "twitch" factor.
Also, EVE ship size is extremely meaningful. Battleships vs. Frigates is not a fair fight unless the Battleship pilots are really inexperienced. I don't think we'll have anything that matches the ship hull selection in EVE where the same character could potentially swap a fast, light, small combat platform for a slow, heavy, huge platform almost at will.
RyanD
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Just out of curiosity when you are talking about positioning are you thinking purely out of context of like "You need to be facing this way to hit, if you are a rouge you can get extra damage from a backstab."
Or are you envisioning any deeper mechanics that will lead to things like flanking maneuvers on the battlefield such as shields only having shields and evade/parry mechanics work on attacks coming from infront of you.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Just out of curiosity when you are talking about positioning are you thinking purely out of context of like "You need to be facing this way to hit, if you are a rouge you can get extra damage from a backstab."
Or are you envisioning any deeper mechanics that will lead to things like flanking maneuvers on the battlefield such as shields only having shields and evade/parry mechanics work on attacks coming from infront of you.
I also second this, to a large extent, most current adventure MMO's also offer little to no support for terrain, cover, concealment, high ground etc... In general in most MMO's there is, close range for melee, line of site for range, you can either hit at full potential, or you can't hit at all.
If PFO actually has depth to support things like flanking, facing direction, terrain advantages, higher ground etc... This would put PFO head and shoulders in tactical gameplay above any MMORPG I have ever seen.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Just out of curiosity when you are talking about positioning are you thinking purely out of context of like "You need to be facing this way to hit, if you are a rouge you can get extra damage from a backstab."
In EVE, your position relative to a target has no effect on anything. In fact, you can shoot right through other ships and anything else in the battlespace. Everything has line of sight to everything else. Nothing has a facing (that is meaningful, I mean the models do, but the direction you're facing doesn't have any effect on what weapons you can fire or what targets you can hit).
In a human-scale combat, facing, positioning, terrain features, cover and concealment should have some impact.
But since there's no combat system design, I can't say what those would be or how they'd work.
I expect a tech demo to be exactly that; a demonstration of the technology purchased to give us, the fanbase, the chance to see what the game is liable to look like come release. As they will be purchasing middleware, I imagine things like basic animation and physics will exist but the gameplay mechanics will not.
Ryan, further to my earlier point, do you then envisage that combat will need to be on a much more even footing? I have some concerns that if an enormous alliance is created, they could feasibly rampage across the server.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I expect a tech demo to be exactly that; a demonstration of the technology purchased to give us, the fanbase, the chance to see what the game is liable to look like come release. As they will be purchasing middleware, I imagine things like basic animation and physics will exist but the gameplay mechanics will not.
Ryan, further to my earlier point, do you then envisage that combat will need to be on a much more even footing? I have some concerns that if an enormous alliance is created, they could feasibly rampage across the server.
Well with little officially anounced (and I know this is hoping for a reply by Ryan, but there is a bit that can be pointed out).
They do intend clearly to have differences in character level be less significant. Ryan mentioned not wanting the equivalent of a level 1, to always lose to a level 20 (note the emphasis is on always, he isn't saying they should be even matched, just not so lopsided that it isn't rationally possible in any circumstance).
I would imagine the game will have similar checks and balances to eve. Namely travel distance being a huge disadvantage, and the inevitable ability of groups to work together if a foe is getting too powerful.
Say in the hypothetical situation, Chartered company X has 20% of the population in the game. Chartered company Y has 10%, Chartered company Z has 15%, A, B and C have 5% each. X runs over A, Y starts seeing a threat, contacts the leader of X and offers an ultimatim. X continues on conquest. Y cuts deals with Z A and B, and the 4 smaller guilds gathered together push back X into his origional territory.
As well simply travel time, and multiple fronts, can be huge balancing factors. A large map, and large territories with no instant travel means the more area you control, the less you can actually control it, pushing foward to the east, involves less defence to the north, south and west sides. More territory = larger borders to patrol. Unless a guild actually gets 50% or more of the games population, things should work themselves out.