dang - grumpf - grummel

[Tibarius]

The game tricked me into death ... argl. That is if you do not know enough

What happened? I was fighting Tarasque with Cold and Fire immunity. And i had resistance disenchantment.

I had around 360 HPs. I look at the Tarrasque and all three breath attacks Show (in green colour): fire (1600), cold (1600), disenchantment (500).

All green i thought ... great then there is no danger of getting one-hitted. A FATAL thought ... the Tarassque breathed disenchantment and i died with -11 HP.

I guess the code just checks if you have resitance => yes, Show the breath attack in green colour. It should better be the way that red colour indicates instant death danger.

[PowerWyrm]

The problem with the Tarrasque is that it has a TON of hitpoints. Usually, when you soften a monster a lot, its breaths become harmless. The Tarrasque on the contrary can still breathe disenchantment for the full 500 damage until down to a couple stars. And resistance only cuts the damage by 10-50%, so with an unlucky roll, you still can get breathed on for 450.

[Magnate]

This is also a nasty case of death by variable resistance. If we're going to keep variable resists (I vote we don't), the monster recall colour should be based on worst case - so he should have seen disen in red due to hp, even with resistance.

[Derakon]

This is also a nasty case of death by variable resistance. If we're going to keep variable resists (I vote we don't), the monster recall colour should be based on worst case - so he should have seen disen in red due to hp, even with resistance.

Does anyone like variable resistance?

The one issue I have with color-coding by instadeath potential is that it does "leak" information about the health of the monster in potentially higher resolution than the healthbar does. But this is a pretty minor quibble to have!

[Tibarius]

re: colours

I will backup Magnate in both Points. If different resistances work different for the available damage types it is very hard as player to have them all in your mind. Obviously i was too much thinking in the 1/3 and 1/9 category of the base resistances. (At the time of playing i was not Aware, that breath attacks are bound to the monster's health - so i thought it can breath for max 500 damage without resistance. And i had around 2/3 of max damage so i thought resitance will reduce damage to an amount i can heal afterwards. And the green colour somehow boosted that thinking. If it had shown the 500 disenchant breath in red colour this would not have happened. Then i would have spend the time to think about why it could kill me with resistance on

There are - as usual pros and cons for handling resistances in the same way for all attack types:

pro:
+ it is much easier for the Player to estimate possible damage
+ it is much easier to understand the game mechanics of resitances

con:
- the factor of uncertainness gets lost

I think leaving resistances as they are would be ok - IF the colour codes in the Monster recall Information would be changed:
red colour = death danger because of one-hit
green colour = you will take no or minimal (Maximum of 10% of max hp) damage
yellow colour = everything that is not red or green

The Information should take permanent and temporary resits into consideration (and maybe even the monster's health). That would eventually reveal something to the Player that he cannot know of - but for playabilities sake i would vote pro for such a Change.

P.S. I think if you get killed by an attack it should always reveal the attack type and max damage in the Monster Memory, even if you was not able to see what hit you. If a Player "pays" for this Information with a characters death i find it ok ... so you can learn about the Monsters powers without a rod of probing, just the hard way!

[Timo Pietilä]

Does anyone like variable resistance?

I do. I would like to make that even fuzzier than it is now, and remove fixed resistance altogether. With damage caps of course and certain minimum % resist granted. Maybe more variable "only best counts" non-stackable resistance items too, so that überresistance armor gives ~90% resistance while low level "better than nothing" gives only ~10% resistance.

[Jungle_Boy]

I do. I would like to make that even fuzzier than it is now, and remove fixed resistance altogether. With damage caps of course and certain minimum % resist granted. Maybe more variable "only best counts" non-stackable resistance items too, so that überresistance armor gives ~90% resistance while low level "better than nothing" gives only ~10% resistance.

It sounds like you are talking about different items having variable resistance (which I think would be fun), rather than the current system where resistance grants varying protection but does not tell the user that until too late. Of course I'd like to make them stack to a certain cap. The thing I don't like about the current system is that your resistance may give you plenty of protection against one attack and get you roasted the next time, even against the same monster. I'd rather know how much it's gonna hurt. Even if we keep the current system it would be nice to see the percentage resistances in the character screen so we don't have to try to remember the various formula used.

[Timo Pietilä]

It sounds like you are talking about different items having variable resistance (which I think would be fun), rather than the current system where resistance grants varying protection but does not tell the user that until too late.

Both actually. There is a lesson to learn about high resistances: you only need them to prevent side-effects. They are nice to have but for example dwarves don't need light or dark resist at all because they have inherent pBlindness.

To prevent this current mess with two totally different types of resistances I would prefer every resist being somewhat unreliable. Current system causes a death trap to newbies where they think they are safe with nether resist when facing heavy nether breather because that previously prevented half of the damage. Next time not so lucky.

Maybe fixed % resist, but much bigger randomness on monster breaths? Not always max power but something between max and half of the max resulting the same effect? Then you can rely on resist, but can't tell how bad next breath will be?

[Tibarius]

re: Timo

I like the idea of having fixed resists - so the Player can calculate if a single hit can kill him in an easier way (if he uses the Maximum breath possible). This would also allow the Monster recall Information to Show red. (The Player must be Aware of the fact that more than one breath from different Monsters can kill him anyway, even if each breath alone would not insta-kill him.)

I also support the idea to vary in breath power ... even tho, why should a Monster breath less than it would be able to?

[EpicMan]

I've never liked the varying resists and usually change them to fixed resists if I'm building from source. In the current system it is misleading to new/unspoiled players to label them "resistances" since they are primarily "protection from status" with a bonus sometimes reduction to damage taken (sometimes because reducing damage by 1/7 isn't noticeable, but reducing it by 50% is).

I do like the way breath damage is now (other than the inconsistent caps between the high elements); the same mechanics make the Tarrasque behave differently from most dragons just due to the high HP.

[Timo Pietilä]

I do like the way breath damage is now (other than the inconsistent caps between the high elements); the same mechanics make the Tarrasque behave differently from most dragons just due to the high HP.

[nitpick] Tarrasque is not a dragon, and main reason why it is so much more dangerous than others is that it uses its breath weapon way more often than other big breathers.

[EpicMan]

[nitpick] Tarrasque is not a dragon, and main reason why it is so much more dangerous than others is that it uses its breath weapon way more often than other big breathers.

I know it's not a dragon; I just compared it to the dragons as they both are primarily about breath attacks.

Now that you've mentioned it the % of time the Tarrasque breathes is a much more significant difference than its durability, though.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

I know it's not a dragon; I just compared it to the dragons as they both are primarily about breath attacks.

Now that you've mentioned it the % of time the Tarrasque breathes is a much more significant difference than its durability, though.

Oh, I think its durability is also quite significant. With other breathers, when they're down to 20% or 30% hit points their breaths are much less dangerous. With the Tarrasque's huge hit point pool, even at 20% hit points its breath is still powerful.