Changing damage types

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Becephalus
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Post by Becephalus »

Missle is different from other pierce becaus eit damages at range (duh). It is also different from other piercign weapons in that the methods of defending against it are very different. Thus it is a good weapon for killing flying units.
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Becephalus
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Post by Becephalus »

Soliton wrote: So then propose changes to the resistances of units where you think they are non-sensical/unintuitive!
Don't forget that there is a difference between resistance and chance to hit though. You can't really say for example a horse shouldn't be weak to arrows because they would be hard to hit.


As for the split of impact and pierce damage I think we need to consider if it's worth to make the game a bit more complex to better suit some (maybe rare?) matchups that are unintuitive or not.
That's why I wanted to know what exactly bothers people with the current system. It is and always will be only an approxiamtion to reality.
Proposal 1: Spearman (who appear to have breastplates and shields at the very least) should have better resistances than mages (who appear unarmored).

Proposal 2: I agree with Noy's emphasis on keeping Armor and CTH distinct. Another problem is that I feel in a lot of cases HP is used as a substitue for armor (see spearman mage example), when high hp should be reserved for mounted units and units with special size/biology i.e. trolls woses, drakes?, dwarves?)

With this in mind heavily armored units (halberdier/swordsman etc.) should have lower DEF scores and higher resistance scores (just like a HI). Right now the units' resistances seem almost completely separate from its armor (which might make sense for say dwarves and trolls if you claim they are naturally resistant to dmg, but doesn't make sense for humans).
Last edited by Becephalus on January 20th, 2006, 12:14 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Sapient
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Post by Sapient »

I am also against crushing. Although, Kompressor is in favor of crushing.

The damage amount should already differientate between large and small impacts. A wooden club may have a different hardness than a metal club, but for fantasy-style simulations, it is best to assume that they both have the same damage type. For example, a monk's hands in a fantasy setting are on the same level as someone with a mace. So, I would like impact to stay as it is. The scenario where an evasive person avoids being crushed is already modeled by the woses and trolls' low number of attacks, IMO.

Noyga's proposal is a very realistic and interesting model. However, it does raise the complexity of damage types. Is it too complex? I'm not sure.

And I've already stated my opinion on blade and pierce damage in the previous thread About piercing attacks.
I agree that horses should be weaker to impaling than arrows, and griffons should be weaker to arrows than impaling. Does this warrant a split in the damage type piercing? Maybe. I think it would be nice.

The problem is there is a third branch of piercing damage (very thin swords). Slashing is not a damage type in Wesnoth. It is called "blade" and it is just a general term that covers everthing you do with a normal sized blade. This includes stabbing and slashing (or in the case of teeth, chewing).

Very thin swords such as a rapier should, in my opinion, be classified as piercing because they lack the properties of a normal blade. However, we would be unable to do this if we split piercing to impaling and arrows.
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Post by Noy »

Becephalus wrote:Missle is different from other pierce becaus eit damages at range (duh). It is also different from other piercign weapons in that the methods of defending against it are very different. Thus it is a good weapon for killing flying units.
First off, its how the damage is dealt. Piercing weapons deal organ damage and internal bleeding. Larger the pierce, more internal bleeding, and more damage. There isn't much difference in the problems it causes... both do similar damage, therefore the current system model similar damage effects. Resistance mark how effective a unit can resist a certain damage type.

What you are doing is mixing two different catagories up. CTH has nothing to do with how likely you are to damage someone. In reality, crush damage would by far be the most effective against flying units given that their bones are designed to be light and brittle, and would break like matchsticks against crush damage.

The rationale for making crush damage good against flyers is that they are able to avoid a crush type attack with a glancing blow. Well that has nothing to do with damage, and everything to do with avoiding an attack... ie movetype. We have separate catagories for a reason, and this would start blurring them, making it more complex and less intuitive. Ie not kiss.

Also Duh is not a sign of an effective argument... thanks.
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Post by Noy »

Becephalus wrote:
Soliton wrote: So then propose changes to the resistances of units where you think they are non-sensical/unintuitive!
Don't forget that there is a difference between resistance and chance to hit though. You can't really say for example a horse shouldn't be weak to arrows because they would be hard to hit.


As for the split of impact and pierce damage I think we need to consider if it's worth to make the game a bit more complex to better suit some (maybe rare?) matchups that are unintuitive or not.
That's why I wanted to know what exactly bothers people with the current system. It is and always will be only an approxiamtion to reality.
Proposal 1: Spearman (who appear to have breastplates and shields at the very least) should have better resistances than mages (who appear unarmored).

Proposal 2: I agree with Noy's emphasis on keeping Armor and CTH distinct. Another problem is that I feel in a lot of cases HP is used as a substitue for armor (see spearman mage example), when high hp should be reserved for mounted units and units with special size/biology i.e. trolls woses, drakes?, dwarves?)

With this in mind heavily armored units (halberdier/swordsman etc.) should have lower DEF scores and higher resistance scores (just like a HI). Right now the units' resistances seem almost completely separate from its armor (which might make sense for say dwarves and trolls if you claim they are naturally resistant to dmg, but doesn't make sense for humans).

Thats a problem for unit design... not system mechanics. You yourself are making comments on how to use the current system to make units more suit reality, which is the ultimate testiment to its application.

Also there is a correlation towards armor and movetype... Thief, Assassin, Fencer, as well as Woses, HI, Guardsmen... all show varied correlation between amount of armour and their ability to dodge attacks
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Post by Becephalus »

I agree Noy, those suggestions were a response as to how to fix things within the current system :)
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Post by Cuyo Quiz »

Maybe we need better descriptions for our damage types:

Strike: This weapon hits with the strenght of its bearer. Heavy weight and armour both reduce its effect.
Impale: This Strike weapon uses the charge of the enemy against them. Heavy weight charging units are greatly affected by it (i'm thinking cavalry and Drakes), and armour reduces the effect.
Crush: This weapon hits with great leverage and/or strenght behind it. Heavy weight reduces the effect and light-weight units get crushed, and armour is practically ignored.
Puncture: This weapon focuses the energy of the bearer in one point. Armour is partially ignored, and heavy weight reduces the effect.

Does it have more sense now?.
EDIT: Lancers puncture, as charging a large foe or a small foe is of little difference to the strength of the blow. Spearmen impale because unless they are being charged, the spear strikes as most other melee weapons. Bats and Gryphons get crushed by Woses and Trolls because they are light.
Last edited by Cuyo Quiz on January 22nd, 2006, 4:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Changing damage types

Post by JW »

The reason for having different damage types is more complicated than it seems:

Dave states the reason why Pierce must be split up:
Dave wrote: :arrow: Impaling (replaces pierce used in melee contexts): This damage type is used for long melee weapons that are designed to impale an opponent. Weapons such as pikes, spears, and lances use this damage type.
:arrow: Missile (replaces pierce/blade in ranged contexts): Units with bows use this damage type.
:arrow: I think this system would make things much more interesting. Horsemen could have a clear weakness to spears and pikes without us giving them awful resistance to bows.
I think the Missle type is bad as it referes to a range and not a damage type (said to Becephalus). Therefore it should be referred to as Pierce and should include daggers and the like of similar damaging nature. Arrows and daggers hurt in about the same way; the difference is arrows are made to be shot from a distance.

Dave then speaks of why Impact should be changed:
Dave wrote:Crushing (replaces blunt): Units that rely on very high impact to inflict damage use this damage type. Usually a unit has to be larger than humanoid size to inflict this type of damage. For instance, a troll or wose.
Dave wrote:In general the criteria for possessing 'crushing' damage is that the force must be powerful enough that a defender possessing armor or shield will be at no advantage compared to an unarmored unit. Against a wooden club, armor is likely to be very effective.
The distinction is the amount of resistance armor can give you from the two types of attacks. With respect to Crush, armor gives little to no benefit as the force is too strong. With Impact the force is not so strong that it can't be resisted. Think of a wooden door: it can be punched all day and not dent, but a ram will break it with ease.

This is where the idea of HARDNESS comes into play ala DnD. If Wesnoth had Hardness then this specific issue of split damage types would not come up. The concept is that a dorr can take, say, 10 damage before it notices it. On point 11 it takes what looks like 1 damage on a normal unit. 15 points of damage to a spearman would be 5 points of damage to a door. Hardness would be taken into account AFTER resistancies are calculated.

I would in fact very much like to see Hardness in Wesnoth. It would keep the Impact damage from being split. Pierce damage, imho, should still be split to account for the different nature of pikes and daggers/arrows. Hardness really is something that should seriously be considered. It would add greatly to the strategy without adding a great deal of complexity.
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Post by Becephalus »

It does refer to range, but in the case of flying enemies range is a very important characteristic of the dmg. Of all Dave's ideas I think making a missle dmg is the best one.

Another idea would be to make missle an ability like firststrike, such an ability would confer dmg bonii against flying units.
Last edited by Becephalus on January 20th, 2006, 1:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by JW »

Becephalus wrote:It does refer to range, but in the case of flying enemies range is a very important characteristic of the dmg. Of all Dave's ideas I think making a missle dmg is the best one.
Range is taken into account in the

range=short
range=long

option..........................................................

What you're thinking of is CTH variance, not damage type and resistance to it when hit!!
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Post by Becephalus »

Yes we are aware of that JW, but range = short range = long fails to properly represent the added benefit of ranged weapons when fighting flying units. Perhaps all units with flying movement could have a malus to attacks made against them with ranged weapons.

Lets be realistic here a bow is 10X better weapon to fight something which can fly than a sword, regardless of whether its meleeing you or range attacking you.

You could also make ranged weapons have CTH bonus against flying units (or more sensibly make melee have CTH penalty). Of course flying untis def etc. would need to be rebalanced after such a change.

But as I have said before I would much rather see things worked out within the current system (which needs a lot of work from unit design perspective IMO).
Last edited by Becephalus on January 20th, 2006, 1:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by JW »

Becephalus wrote:Yes we are aware of that JW, but range = short range = long fails to properly represent the added benefit of ranged weapons when fighting flying units. Perhaps all untis with flying movement could have a malus to attacks made with ranged weapons.

Lets be realistic here a bow is 10X better weapon to fight something which can flying than a sword, regard of whether its meleeing you or range attacking you.

yes you could make ranged weapons have CTH bonus agaisnt flying units (or more sensibly make melee have CTH penalty). Of course flying untis def etc. would need to be rebalnced after such a change.
I agree it is much easier to hit a flying target with a bow and arrow than say, a sword, when it's flying up in the sky above you. When it comes down to attack you though it enters your melee range - making it easy to hit!

I do have a problem with how flying units can be hit by melee in defense though...they seem like they would just fly out of the way...I wonder if CTH can be determined by attack/defense??
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Post by turin »

As long as we're going to completely unbalance the game (:roll:) we could create a special ability, Flying, that made a unit immune to melee attacks when defending. Or, give all Flying units steadfast (:P )

In response to the new suggestion; don't fix what aint broke. IMHO, the current resistances system works well; true, there are some unintuitive matchups, but those are better corrected by changing individual unit's resistances, not changing the system itself. In fact, in some respects, I think the proposed system is worse. It makes most melee attacks much mroe generic, leading to units taking the same amount of damage from swords and clubs and daggers.
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Post by Cuyo Quiz »

I for one, would like to see the staffs,clubs, small fists and others like that become Strike. Of course i guess a mace or flail would qualify as Crushing.
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Post by Ask_ »

Here is another crazy idea: I see the problem is that, on the one hand, there too many damage types/resistances complicate the game. but on the other hand there is a need for more types to represend different real-world scenarios.
How about rebalancing the game so that most units hame most resistances at 0%, with only a few exceptions. E.g. if we have a unit with 50HP and all resistances at 20%, make it 60HP and 0%.
Then it would be possible to display only non-zero resistances in user interface, thereby simplifying a perception. After this, more damage types can be added without "visible" complexity -- it is much easier to remember 1-2 numbers per unit then 5-6.
Thus, we can easily have separate impact, crush, impale, pierce, energy, holy etc.
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