Changing damage types

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Cuyo Quiz
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Post by Cuyo Quiz »

Darth Fool wrote:As for the whole missle issue, I do like having different types of missles do different damage. I like having arrows be ineffective against skeletons while having slings and boulders be more effective.
A sling does add a good amount of leverage by the rope/strap, so i guess it would be crushing damage (slings did break bones and heads in reality). What i would like to avoid is the fact that a staff can be extra effective against undead, since breaking bones with a staff is not common, and if you are a feeble mage, it shouldn't happen. I'll take the HI flail and troll fist as good vs skeletons, but not an untrained staff.

deserter's proposal makes me fearful by the same reason Noyga's proposal does... more resistances types. I think trying with the less complicated forms first is at least worthwhile.

Okay, i need someone to guide me to an explanation on how to mess with resistances and cfg, i want to understand what i am rooting for, and maybe think the thing out.
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Post by JW »

I really don't think that adding one more damage type will rock people's worlds in such a way that Wesnoth becomes a cold a heartless place in which to play video games. I only think one additional damage type is necessary to resolve the only major issues there are regarding resistancies; the issue are these:
:!: Mounted units, which are weak to long, thrusting melee weapons are not actually weak to arrows, which are currently under the same damage category.
:!: Rapiers and daggers which are traditionally thought of as piercing weapons - which in fact they are - are classified as blade damage.

This second point I only just remembered was discussed in another thread about the fencer and why he uses blade. The reason given as to why his attack was blade was because he was not to be overpowered against mounted units as a rapier cannot impale a horse as a pike can. This was the only reason given to justify this and it was a gameplay only explanation. It didn't address the fact that the Pierce damage type was befuddled and a new damage type was actually needed.

So, in order to reconcile these issues, Pierce and Impale should be split into 2 seperate damage types. It would make a great deal more sense (easier to chunk information - meaning not harder to remember), and the only issue would be the rebalancing of units - which is a major undertaking I understand.

Nevertheless, this is the only logical way to proceed given the circumstances. Yes, the issues can be ignored and put to the side - and it would be easy to do - but is that really how we want to deal with flaws in gameplay logic?

Regarding Impact + Crush:
The realism of the idea seems to be best justified with Hardness, and I will split the discussion here.

Regarding flying units:
There are some faults with the current system as I see them now regarding the flying system, but that could just be a problem with the description of what's actually occuring. Discussion split here.
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Post by Cuyo Quiz »

JW wrote: Rapiers and daggers which are traditionally thought of as piercing weapons - which in fact they are - are classified as blade damage.
My take right now is that most of them would be transferred as Strike damage. The main reason for this, according to my personal definitions of the concepts, is that a Pierce/Puncture weapon are not only designed to pierce through armor, but also has more than just the common swing or thrust of a person.

A bow for example, has both arms working into a light piercing proyectile. Nimble dagger usage, as expected in thiefs, and untrained blades usage, as expected in archers, don't have this extra push of strenght. For a dagger to be considered Puncture/Pierce instead of Strike, i would expect it to be thrusted with full body force downwards, and the opportunity for such a hit is already well represented by the backstab ability IMO. We could say that an Orcish Assasin, since it only has one attack, does such strikes, and give him Pierce/Puncture.

Rapiers are tricky though, since they were used with full body thrusts, although this was only one technique, although i doubt a rapier was meant to go through armour, which wasn't widely used in the 16th century. It was more a matter that a cut could be healed in those times by medical science, but a deep wound was pretty much sure death. I guess those could be Pierce/Puncture, as to represented the skill of a Fencer by giving them a better chance vs armoured units.
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Post by Casual User »

Well, as one could guess, I am strongly in favor of splitting pierce.

I don't really think daggers should be the same damage type as arrows. I mean, we can argue about how good a sword is against a huge flying gryphon, but can we agree here and now that a bow would be best and that a tiny knife would be total crap...

As for impact vs crush, it's always struck me as a little weird for a bandit's club to be less penalised against heavily armored guys than others, but I'm not sure it's necessary.

I like renaming blade to slash, if nothing else because very short spears or pitchforks could be made slash (no real reason for them to be good against cavalry) with no conscience pangs.
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Post by JW »

Cuyo:

my proposal involves no Strike damage. Pierce resistance would belong to all armored units now (bows, rapiers, and daggers), so a foil going through armor is a moot point.

If that doesn't satisfy you however, I also think that Hardness would be a great addition to the game that HI and other units could greatly benefit from. See the link in my above post.

-edit-

Casual User:
short spears could very well be included in the new Pierce (not Impale) - which armored units would have resistancies against. Also see the thread on Hardness with regards to Impact v. Crush.

As for daggers v. arrows against flyers, please post your ideas for a solution in the flyers thread, linked above. I will post my ideas there shortly myself.
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Post by Cuyo Quiz »

I see, we were thinking in differents systems. I apologize for my unnecesary trampling. Even then, i think that a dagger would be more accurately represented by Blade (which was supposed to be replaced by Strike), except in the cases i presented.

I have posted somethng about flyers in your split, which i think it is a fair compromise, but i don't like the idea of Hardness, since it owuld add third level/variable to the combat damage equation, and for a game like Wesnoth, i prefer to stick with a simple two level/variable equation.
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Post by turin »

Casual User wrote:I don't really think daggers should be the same damage type as arrows. I mean, we can argue about how good a sword is against a huge flying gryphon, but can we agree here and now that a bow would be best and that a tiny knife would be total crap...
This would be much better resolved by changing the nature of flying (give flying units a defensive special on melee) than by messing with the resistance types. (Not that messing with them isn't good in other ways, but this is NOT a reason to do it.)
Casual User wrote:I like renaming blade to slash, if nothing else because very short spears or pitchforks could be made slash (no real reason for them to be good against cavalry) with no conscience pangs.
You don't think that a short spear would be better against a horseman than a sword? I do...
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Post by Dave »

Casual User wrote:but can we agree here and now that a bow would be best and that a tiny knife would be total crap...
That is why a Rogue with a knife does 4-3 damage, and an Elvish Marksman with a bow does 9-4 damage.

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Post by Cuyo Quiz »

I copied Wesnoth and then changed it to a Strike/Impale/Crush/Puncture system. The basis for attacks types were the next:

Strike: Swords, clubs, staffs, daggers, axes, maces, fangs, claws, fist, nets. Some exceptions are HI(Crush), Fencer line (Puncture), Orcish Assasin line (Puncture).
Impale: For spears, pikes, halberds, tridents in melee. Doubts about tridents eing good vs horses/big charging units.
Crush: Big fists, morning star, Drake/Wose slamming, slings.
Puncture: Arrows, lances, ranged spears.

I have many doubts on magical attacks as Faerie/Naia Touch, Water Spray, Thorns, Entangle. Most changed to Strike, except the Touches(Crush), to give them some of the intended Undead bludgeoning factor, wondering if the same should be done to those other cases (bone-breaking roots or hgh pressure water?).

As for resistances, i tried to keep loyal to existing Wesnoth res and it went something like this:

Strike: Same as Blade res.
Impale: cavalry/big units resist this less than Puncture. Mostly used the Pierce res in those cases. Ended up equal to blade res in other cases, Drakefly got 120 though, for their added arrow invulnerability.
Puncture: For small units, used pierce res. For biggies, a compromise between blade and pierce was in order, since arrows shouldn't be as good as spear vs cavalry/biggies, sometimes ended up equal to blade res.
Crush: used impact res. As Crush is less common than impact, the effects of impact in general matchs were reduced.

After some reckless games vs AI, my first impressions:
- Yep, archers vs cavalry/biggies are partially effective, but Impale works just as expected from an spear.
- Undead seems to have more trouble with cavalry now, since they lack Impale units. Although they are also harder to "crush" now too, since clubs, staffs won't have enhanced effect.

I will keep going by trying to find changes among Outlaw/Dwarven/Naga/Mermen usage, and then add EP's energy ideas to the mix, see if it keeps being interesting. This will be my own unstable version of Wesnoth.
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Post by Noyga »

A few things seems inaccurate in your system :
- why would a net, club or staff would be as effective as an axe or sword versus a wose ?
It doesn't sound logical. I believe that those weapons should not be in the same category
- the sling doesn't fit crush damages ... A sling projectile would likely be stoped by shield and woud be affected by armor (just like maces in fact, altrough maces usualy make more damage), unlike your other 'crush' weapons
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Post by toms »

Ahem...

There are about 200 main units and surely 200 custom ones.(if not even more)
Who changes all the unit files? I don´t. :?

Holy doesn´t seem to be a problem for me. It doesn´t crash religions because it´s cleansing light and also no religion is for undead (I don´t count the vodoo magi here :P )

And it destroys something other, but I could live with this:
Wesnoth uses hexes
6 main races
6 damage types
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Post by Noy »

JW wrote:I really don't think that adding one more damage type will rock people's worlds in such a way that Wesnoth becomes a cold a heartless place in which to play video games. I only think one additional damage type is necessary to resolve the only major issues there are regarding resistancies; the issue are these:
:!: Mounted units, which are weak to long, thrusting melee weapons are not actually weak to arrows, which are currently under the same damage category.
Actually they are, since it is very difficult to armour a horse effectively, so arrows and (later muskets which made the traditional knight obsolete) are pretty good weapons against horses. since a horse stands 90 degrees from its side, its a lot easier to get a piercing hit on a horse rather than a human (where curved mail can deflect hits) Furthermore since they are a larger target to hit, there is more that can go wrong by any hit (pierced artery, organ ect). and the horse is likely to buck and throw its rider once hit... not modelable, but its a problem. Thus I believe -20 might be acceptable. Moreover there is a clear distinction between the two damage types: Spears do ALOT of damage (especially when retaliating on charge), while arrows do less so. It feels intuitive to me, and I don't see a problem.

Nobody complained about this before, and all of a sudden everybody claims that the current system is all whacked. Sorry, I don't buy it. The whole rapier debate on the fencer had to do with balance, plain and simple. Whatever the earlier rationale, when we came to balance we noticed that it would be rather bland to have another piercing unit, so we kept it as a blade attack.

There isn't a real case for separating this damage because they have the same physical effects on a target. I think most of the points while genuinely trying to add realism to the game do so via awkward rules that increase the complexity of the game, AND/or at the loss of realism at other areas. Making something like "strike" for small scale attacks reduces realism, and makes combat at the low end of the damage spectrum rather bland. In MP this is where the bulk of unit to unit combat takes place.

If you want keep debating it, go ahead. Personally, I remain unconvinced and negative to these proposals, and I think deep skepticism remains among the other devs I've spoken to. The current system works quite well and is intuitive, and most of the problems identified are rectifiable via better unit design, which we've been working on.
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Post by toms »

Why has everything to be changed??!?!!!?

WINR. And the attack types are currently OK. So it doesn´t need a change wich crushes the whole current system of units and ideas.

All players would have to re-learn the resistances of units and all units have to be changed,
wich is much work. I won´t do this. (I know that I´m repeating me :? )
Please, let this be :( I think, I´m far not someone from a little group wich doesn´t want this.

I would hate the game then and would have two options: Stay at the stable 1.0.2 version
and enjoy this game limitedly or look for another good free game!
:evil:
Don´t start the "we make the game for us" prayer again!! :evil:

And I don´t make a difference because the idea is from you, Dave. :( ( :evil: )
I just posted my engaged opinion. :?
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Post by JW »

I've actually completely scrapped the idea of trying to implement new damage types as it actually is rather silly. Hardness I believe could be implemented though. It's hard for me to believe that 4 arrows from an Elvish Archer do the same damage to a horse as 3 stabs from a Spearman. That just doesn't make sense to me.

I was just getting ecited when Dave opened the door to the damage type idea because I thought I could help implement some change to the game. The problem is that those new damage types don't really make a lot of sense as they are really the same damage types at different strengths.

Now, the reason Wesnoth is set up the way it is in terms of damages is for balance. Heavier hitters do more damage in less swings - frontloading their attacks. This is good to finish with, but it isn't good at breaking defensive probabilities (eg Elvish Archer in woods). For that it's better to have a unit with more swings - and with that comes less damage (eg Duelist).

The system is actually pretty darn good. I think that's obvious otherwise there wouldn't be so many people playing the game. I'm just wondering if another element coulnd't be added - Hardness that is - to alter some of the realism of the game. It seems odd, slightly, that a horse would be as hurt by 4 arrows as it would by 3 spear thrusts. This is just my opinion though, and it's obvious to me that some, if not many, disagree with me.

Hardness would basically be a threshhold which damage must overcome in order to damage the target - there are two instances where Hardness would be realistic:
:arrow: Thick skinned creatures such as trolls: Once their skin is broken it is unlikely they would resist any more damage from the weapon.
:arrow: Armored units: Same as thick skin

Now, I'm beginning to realize the problems of implementing this idea, and I realize it more than likely won't happen. I would like someone to acknowledge that hardnes may in some instances be more realistic. I can live without it being implemented, but I'm starting to crazy with no one believing that it's a good idea. If nothing else I'd just like a sentence saying:

"Good idea, impractical, discussion closed."
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Post by Tomsik »

Hardness is nice idea IMO, but...
1. Somebody would have to code it.
2. Somebody would have to set initial values for it, for all units.
3. Somebody would have to balance it.

And obviously idea should be accepted first.
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