Resistances - do they work, or should they be modified?

[Chalgyr]

Most MUDs use the flag based resistances and imm. We kept that structure on mobiles, but we created one based on numbers. 0 is no modifier, a plus value up to 100 means you take extra damage, and a negative value to -100 means you are immune.

I personally like the numeric system (I'm biased as it's one of the few things I coded in that didn't completely crash us over and over again) - but I recognize it can be flawed too (especially when fights can potentially carry on eternally if both parties are immune to one another's damtypes.

Do you generally like the numeric system?

What would you change and how, precisely?

Do you think mobs should be using it so there is more flexibility in the combat?

Thanks!

[Tylon]

Let me start off by saying that I deeply admire the work put into the resist system. You guys started and for the most part pulled off what most developers would view as a balancing nightmare. With that said, my own observations of the system:

I like having a numeric system from a character planning angle. Its helpful for min/maxing one's character. I do think, however, that it allows for some particularly extreme resistances. There should never be immunity to a damage type in a mud, even with as many damtypes as KoTL has. For starters, it tips the balance towards fighters because they have the easiest time swapping between damage types. Fortunately you as developers anticipated this and implemented brands, but even then there are some caster classes that have no brands for their primary attack spells.

An argument could be made that this was done intentionally to promote grouping with other classes that do have relevant brands, but this does not really allow for low player populations as KoTL has been known to experience.

Another consequence of being immune to damage types is the marginalizing of builder content by players. Otherworldly damage types have been used sporadically and some mobs do use brands, but this is more of a work-around of the problem than a solution. "Immune-all" characters do exist and for the most part are able to glide through content at lower levels. Balancing content against these types of characters is what I feel partially explains the gear issues players that avoid questing run into towards the later levels.

There are several approaches that could tackle the situation: Diminishing returns on resists where 100 gear resist would net out to about 75ish, hard caps for resist, etc. How it is done isn't as important as just making sure damage types are never completely immune.

[elios]

I for one find the system to be great as it is I would not change a thing  .  As for the rest if a player character falls needlessly it is because the player decided he or she did not want to put effort and time into developing their character properly that is on their heads and no one else.  As the teachers will say "Do your homework!" 

[Tylon]

I for one find the system to be great as it is I would not change a thing  .  As for the rest if a player character falls needlessly it is because the player decided he or she did not want to put effort and time into developing their character properly that is on their heads and no one else.  As the teachers will say "Do your homework!" 

Sentiments like this are precisely why new player retention is so low.

[Daklore]

I agree with Tylon ... or is more he agrees with me?

Either way, having the ability to be completely immune to everything, even if it requires a ton of time and work to do it, is kind of... hard to balance the game against. Because you have builders that are growing up with this "I can be immune to everything" mentality, who are then asking, "How can I make this area challenging -for me-."

Which has led to brand-abusing mobiles and otherworld damage. Which is great for people who are fully customed and stuff.... but then you hit the people who aren't and just explode on contact. Look at most, if not all, RPGs--even MMOs--there isn't (normally) the ability to get immunity to everything. Sometimes, sure, immunity to one element at the expense of weakness to another element, or half damage from multiple elements.

And this is usually limited to just one member of your party, or you spread the resistances around.

Most MMOs probably have some sort of scaling resistance, such as 33% resistance to fire for X seconds(skills/spells/whatever). There -should- be a cap on how effective resists can get... sure, it'd still lead to people over-charging resistances to "block" brands(which could be altered to lower the maximum resistance ability rather than the current value to still retain their usefulness... but this would make brands stupid OP for mages if their spell damage isn't looked at. And by extension almost all damage across the board(damage on skills[kick, bash, palmstrike, etc etc etc] needs to actually be toned -up- because it sucks even against low level mobiles).

Resistances are nice, but when they become a required to play.... meh. Without decent resists and some sort of sustain(which is in the form of healshield, mostly) you'll get ripped apart pretty quickly. Without healshield, and manashield/earthbarrier, Arthenon will generally chew a person apart on his melee attacks alone in a few rounds. Unless they're me, then I just cast power heal and lulz. Arthenon's melee damage is actually -good- considering his role as a legendary mobile.

Normal mobiles against a -10 resistance(the resistance to otherworld I normally have because of aura) should not be doing that kind of damage--and they can and do.

[Thalia]

note: 3 messages moved to new topic since they really were off-topic, but not without merit.

[Thalia]

I'll also toss in that I really don't like the full immunity feature either. 

Since people tend to have healshield and/or other things to improve health regen rates, even >90% can pretty much keep you alive except for a series of extraordinarily unlucky die rolls.

((And, pst, Chal -- mobs now run with "numbers" based on the immune/resist flags and their level.))

[Chalgyr]

((And, pst, Chal -- mobs now run with "numbers" based on the immune/resist flags and their level.))

True - but it doesn't quite have the full gradiant of using something like -22, right? the flags plug in a predetermined amount at certain intervals or... am I forgetting some details? which would not surprise me.

Question to Dak:

If there were this diminishing returns on the amount was blocked (right now a -50 would cut in half I believe, -100 be immune) and it was something like (-50 cut by a quarter and -100 was as far down as you could get and it would drop you to 50% damange taken)... would you want some option for being completely immune? Is it a change to the scale that is done (for example, no one could get to -200 in everything)?

Also in doing this, and we made the customs a BIT less needed, what happens from a mob standpoint? cut their overall damage in half? to a quarter? I'm just trying to see the big picture and list of changes that would need consideration.

[Chalgyr]

A piece of feedback from a player who emailed me:

i think resistances are fine. but you asked whether water and drowning are redundant? they aren't while it may sound redundant on the surface think about it this way. water lance or water bullets shooting at a person that's how i have always seen water. always doing direct damage with attacks. but with drowning i have always seen it more as a suffocation rather than water damage because in reality if you're drowning you're suffocating because of a lack of supply of air. that is how i have always seen the two types and that's how they should be viewed.

mental vs harm and poison vs disease. I suppose on on the face of the subject you could combine harm and mental and same could be said for disease. And in some cases i could be for that. and the reasons are to be honest harm what kind of damtype is harm when you do any physical damage to someone you're harming them right? well the same could be said about mental. i think harm needs to be a more defined damage. just being labeled harm is rather silly. i'll admit i think both giltian and vizantius both have harm type custom weapons. but needless to say with every other dam type you do harm to someone as long as their resists are normal even poor. but lets move on.

I think poisons and diseases need to have some new kind of random variance to each other. like if you are using a poison or disease type weapon that you could inflict the mob or player with a random type of disease or poison. each poison could make the enemy slower but hit harder, faster but hit weaker disorientate the person so that they lose a round of swings or casts. where as a random disease could be acquired through a disease weapon. such as Ebola or SARS or a bunch of varying disease. each disease would have their own ailments that would affect them differently like each different type of poisons would.

[Daklore]

Scaling resistances would, in theory, never reach 100.... but come close. But it should require a large resistance value to even get close to 90-95% resistance.

I think a better way would be to just hard-cap the maximum value. No mess, no fuss. Sort of like D2 where it's hardcapped at 75(and raises based on your gear, which shouldn't be viable in kotl).

As for mobiles.... damage overall can be hard to judge. First, I think you should look at the quality of normal gear and the game from the perspective of a non-customed character. Balance the mobile damage on that. Then move on to spells and skills in a PvP perspective and resistances from there.

Right now, the game is -very- difficult, if not impossible, to play without customs, which generally means a lot of resistances, even if you're only rolling at -50 to 10-12 elements. Normal gear, if it even -has- a resistance value, usually doesn't even hit a -10. Compared to customs which you can get a -50 in each. Normal gear needs to bridge some of this gap and bring resistance values into the frey... or just simply n*** mobile damage so you don't need resists at all and customs will just make you a god.

Edit, cause I'm amused... n*** is still censored. Ha. NARF!

[Thalia]

Normal gear is a bad idea because you'll never get your AC up to a good level.   You need that AC=50 that custom gives you. Normal gear at level 200 is still AC-wimpy.

[Daklore]

Normal gear is a bad idea because you'll never get your AC up to a good level.   You need that AC=50 that custom gives you. Normal gear at level 200 is still AC-wimpy.

Which is why people fail to be able to quest for customs when they realize customs are a necessity.

See the "need customs" as opposed to the "customs are a nice benefit" that they were supposed to be originally? >P

[Tylon]

Hello, I've been taking a break from studies tonight and I thought I'd throw some more opinions from previous years on the subject...

"You tell Someone powerful : 'As the mud stands right now there is no strategty to leveling and pkfighting except what resistances to get'" -teric, 2004 TMC

"What it mostly boils down to is this: the resistance and damage types system. A player, by making use of custom equipment, can choose the damage type of their weapon from one of 20 or so different types. Another player can choose to add a resistance to any damage type they choose, again through custom equipment. If you happen to choose the 'right' type, and your opponent the 'wrong' resistance, then you're home free. Otherwise, tough luck - it's time to spend another hundred or so hours saving for yet more custom equipment to keep playing what amounts to little more than a glorified guessing game." -Teylon, 2004 TMC

[Chalgyr]

thanks some of those I haven't seen in quite a time

I know one of the ideas I was considering had multiple parts:

- Change the res scale so it ranges 100 to -100 with an impact of 150% to 50% damae taken

- Find a way to boost AC in non-custom gear. Either through a manual fix, or something shifty behind the scenes with code like gear that's not custom gets an AC bost of times whatever

- Lower mob damage dealth by like 2/3 (just a ballpark figure)

Another bit of feedback i have had a ton of from severa players is;

* Priest heal spells should do more healing with less lag
* spelcastlers - mages in particular - are overpowered in PvE because melee fighters can't hit the mobs due ot AC
* Spellcasters - mags i nparticular - are underpowered in PvP because of players having too high of resistances

First, are there strong arguments for or against the above opinions? I've gotten them in part in some form or another by no less than 8 players over the last month or so, and coming form players from a variety of classes.

Would lowering the effeciveness of resistances help with spellcasters in PvP? Would lowering MOB AC in the background (maybe some bit of code that lops in in half, again, just af figure) help balance out the PvE for melee fighters?

*eyes Daklore* does anyone care about priests? or would raising some of the healing power and lowering lag be a good call in the opinions of others? Which spells in particular?

Lots to take in here I know, but I'm trying to think of balance while what also makes sense from a time investment standpoint and what you guys think.

[Elendil]

Well Chal,

I would say there is indeed a need to make the priest class yet another of the many attractive choices the game has to offer.  As for the question about the customs and resistances, I do think it is "all systems go", the numbers are just fine and does help those classes that do not have healing spells.