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Author Topic: A57 Fighting/Class Balance Changes
samsyn
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OK, here is where I am documenting actual changes to the fight engine balances. You are right to fear anything you see here, and please provide (pleasantly-worded) feedback.

Nothing is cast in concrete until A57 actually ships, and I will be trying to keep this post up to date as I go back and forth, freaking you out all the same.

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MY AGENDA:

I want the game to be fun. As challenging as possible, with as little tedium as can be managed. With every player given an equal opportunity, without every player being identical.

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COMMONLY ACCEPTED ISSUES:

* monsters magic attacks are out of proportion to their physical attacks. (engine issue)

* spells fail too frequently (engine issue)

* dart and bow users suck. (evergreen issue)

* magic users have disadvantage to non-sucky physicals (evergreen and engine issue)

* there aren't enough monsters of each level. (evergreen issue)

* maps have too wide a dynamic range of monster levels. (evergreen issue)

* randomness of attacks is too high a range (well, only LGH has formally complained about this, but she's mentioned it like a hundred times )

* magnificent attacks have too wide a range.

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WHAT I AM CHANGING IN A57

(and refer to this post from time to time as this will probably change moment by moment until A57 ships)

if I mark something [engine] then it affects ALL worlds. Otherwise, it's just an evergreen thing.


* [engine] STRENGTH IS MORE EFFECTIVE. Having maximum strength will benefit your physical attacks more. In general, this makes maxed-out physical users (and monsters) even stronger than before.


* [engine] WISDOM IS MORE EFFECTIVE. Having maximum wisdom will give you more leverage with your spells than it did before. In general, this makes all maxed-out magic users stronger than before. It also makes wise monsters more dangerous, but read below.


* [engine] MONSTERS HAVE LESS MAGIC-RATIO. Monsters used to get 100 for both hand and magic ratios. The change is that now a monster has a lower magic ratio than before, but that monsters with higher wisdom will have a higher magic ratio. Result: Most monster magic attacks will be weaker than before (on average, a monster with 255 wisdom will now have a magic attack which is about 30% stronger than its physical attack... instead of the 4x we had before).


* [engine] RANDOM DAMAGE LESS RANDOM. Before there was a 50% variance allowed in damage. That is to say if a base hit were 100 hit points, the random effect could make that anywhere from 75 to 125 (plus or minus 25% the base)

I have tightened that to 20% (plus or minus 10% of the basis), so a base hit of 100 units might deliver from 90 to 110 actual damage points.


* [engine] MAGNIFICENT ATTACKS LESS MAGNIFICENT. A hero's magnificent attack used to multiply the damage delivered by a multiple of 4x to 7x. (I mean, randomly within the range). Hence a base hit of 100 might be boosted to anything between 400 and 700. That's admittedly a pretty freaking huge range. I have lowered that now to 2x-4x, so the base hit might get upped from 100 to anything between 200 and 400, which is still pretty magnificent.

Monsters also get magnificent hits, but they only get 2x-3x (boosting 100 to something between 200 and 300).


* [engine] SPELLS FAIL LESS, BASED ON TRAINING. Before, your spell failure probability was implied entirely by you magic ratio and could never be improved. Now you can reduce your failure probability by training in the element in question. With maximum training in the element, you can reduce your failure rate by half. So, a crappy magic class (like fist user) normally has spell failures at the 50% rate. Now, with max-training in an element, they can reduce that to 25%


* MOST CLASSES HAVE NEW MAX_HP LIMITS. So as to reward a weaker attack by more HP, so to speak. This can't be thought of as 'fairness' per se (if you want FAIRness, then only fight people of the same class as yourself). This accomodates 'variety' of classes.

For example, dart users do NOT have the strongest attack, but they are (now) wiley little devils that can take quite a beating before they die). Scavengers are frighteningly powerful (highest hand and magic ratio of all classes), but they are also fairly brittle (lowest HP of all classes)

[This message has been edited by samsyn (edited 07-06-2001).]


Posts: 10638 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998  |  IP: Logged
samsyn
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EDITORIAL:

Magic-Ratio, Hand-Ratio, and maxHP - the holy trinity of character classes.

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In spite of people repeatedly yelling at me about it, I think I have historically underestimated the influence of maxHP values and classes.

I usually think in terms of: "well, he's no good with swords, so I'll make him good with magic"

And neglected: "Well, he's no good at attacking with swords OR magic, but jeepers he has a lot of stamina."

A57 brings a bit more of that into the existing classes.

As much as it is possible to say so, I believe I made ALL the classes more powerful one way or another. So hopefully everyone will feel more of a swagger after the upgrade.

And yet, specific pairs of classes bashing each other will see a difference in the amount of damage they wield. Some people are going to see their hits get smaller, and they will write angry letters.

I must steel myself against their rude onslaught, and yet not rigidly ignore valuable data. This is the role I have chosen for myself, so pity me not.

But I *do* get to ignore any comments which include swearing, or 'leet-speak


Posts: 10638 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998  |  IP: Logged
Coeus
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I like the changes, except the stronger physical attacks for physical classes but I suppose that couldn't be avoided so i won't complain.

Oh and I did complain about randomness too awhile ago but my post probably got lost in LG's flood of randomness complaints

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I must steel myself against their rude onslaught, and yet not rigidly ignore valuable data. This is the role I have chosen for myself, so pity me not.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

HAW HAW!


Posts: 1420 | From: NZ | Registered: Dec 1999  |  IP: Logged
JLee_Bly
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Well, Dan... A favor I must ask of you...

Is there any way we (meaning you... ) can make a chart of these advantages / disadvantages, or verbally say them so I can make a chart? I would like to see what the strengths / weaknesses of ALL of the classes compared to one another are...

Such areas as Physical Attack, Mental Attack, Max HP, Max MP, and so forth...

I'm one with the zen of math, that's why I'm asking...

Jerad

[well, there is that chart in the topic called.. um.. the one that has COE, CACTROT CHECK THIS OUT at the end. There are two tables in that post (both for A56, and I will post the A57 version soon enough) the DETAIL table is particularly long and impenetrable, while the SUMMARY table is not too bad if you want to ask the question "considering class X, how does it stack up to all the other classes" -s]

[This message has been edited by samsyn (edited 07-07-2001).]


Posts: 92 | From: Morgantown, West Virginia, USA | Registered: Dec 1998  |  IP: Logged
zimzap
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1. When you say maxed wisom will be more effective, does that mean 255 wisdom gives more pp a hit?
2. Nevermind

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Lady Griffon
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Even though you said "nevermind" I believe he meant that Wisdom will affect spell damage at a greater ratio than it does currently (at least that's the way I read it ).

LGH


Posts: 1463 | From: Myzan | Registered: Dec 1999  |  IP: Logged
samsyn
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Yes, humans with high wisdom will be more powerful magically than they were before.

Monsters with less wisdom will be less powerful magically than they were before.

Humans & Monsters with high strength will be more powerful physically than they were before.

Overall, monsters will be less powerful with magic and their maximum magic attack will only be 'somewhat' stronger than their best physical attack.

In general, all else being equal (if I can say that) a magical attack will have more raw power than a physical attack, but will occasionally fail (to make up for the benefit). Though this paragraph is probably meaningless when everything else is taken into consideration. Still... a magic-users biggest attack (543) will be bigger than a fist-user's biggest attack (514). They both can miss, but the fist can never fail. Also, the fist user gets more HP.


Posts: 10638 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998  |  IP: Logged
Shon-dahre
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lol here's my smart comment:

what about 'human' monsters like cutthroats? heheh kiddin :p


Posts: 12690 | From: Australia | Registered: Jan 2001  |  IP: Logged
samsyn
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Yeah, I need some better words since, also, many of the players probably can't be considered to be humans either
Posts: 10638 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998  |  IP: Logged
   

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