Current situation
There are 4 types of elements:
Note that the damage caps are for breaths only, not spells and that some side effects are avoidable by protections (pStun avoids stunning from Sound, etc).
So a player who double resists the basics or poison faces about the same damage from those as from the unresistables; damage from high elements can be greater.
What should change?
Suggestions include:
My opinions
My response is, as usual, to remind everyone that the code restructure happens first (maybe that should be my sig).
After that, I like buzzkill's idea of displaying percentage resistances on the character sheet, regardless of whether the system changes at all. I was going to also recommend adding detail to the help, before going and having a look and finding that it's already there.
I am not in favour of changing to incremental or percentage resistances - yet. I'd like to see how some other things play out first.
As far as consistency goes, I think the important thing is to make effects make sense. Looking at ice for example, it is cold, hard and spiky. So cold effect + cutting seems like a reasonable outcome.
One thing that I am very much in favour of is ensuring that the elements remain distinct from each other. I believe this is fairly well done at the moment, but there are a few places where the effect is not very distinctive - force and plasma are the obvious culprits here. Hounds are quite a good barometer for this issue - every kind of hound should make the player feel different.
I am also rather a fan of the concept of unresisted or powerful attacks having extra side-effects - for example (from O) strong unresisted cold draining CON, or strong dark attacks inducing fear in the absence of pFear. Or disenchantment removing magic effects like haste
There are 4 types of elements:
- The "basics": Acid, Electricity, Fire, Cold. Damage cap 1600, temporary and permanent resistance available, each of which cuts damage by 2/3 (stacking to 8/9 with both). Immunity also available.
- "High" resists: Light, Dark, Sound, Shards, Nexus, Nether, Chaos, Disenchantment. Damage caps 500ish, permanent resistance available cutting damage by a variable amount (can be as little as 1/7). Some side effects (Light and Dark cause blindness, etc), all prevented by the resistance.
- Poison: Damage cap 800, temporary and permanent resistance like the basics, no immunity, side effect poisoning.
- Unresistables: Time, Force, Inertia, Gravity, Plasma, Water, Ice, Mana. Damage caps 1-200, no resistances, some side effects.
Note that the damage caps are for breaths only, not spells and that some side effects are avoidable by protections (pStun avoids stunning from Sound, etc).
So a player who double resists the basics or poison faces about the same damage from those as from the unresistables; damage from high elements can be greater.
What should change?
Suggestions include:
- It should be simpler to understand
- It should be more consistent
- Permanent resistances should stack in some manner
- Unresistables should be reduced or removed
- It should remain possible to get a "complete set of resistances"
My opinions
My response is, as usual, to remind everyone that the code restructure happens first (maybe that should be my sig).
After that, I like buzzkill's idea of displaying percentage resistances on the character sheet, regardless of whether the system changes at all. I was going to also recommend adding detail to the help, before going and having a look and finding that it's already there.
I am not in favour of changing to incremental or percentage resistances - yet. I'd like to see how some other things play out first.
As far as consistency goes, I think the important thing is to make effects make sense. Looking at ice for example, it is cold, hard and spiky. So cold effect + cutting seems like a reasonable outcome.
One thing that I am very much in favour of is ensuring that the elements remain distinct from each other. I believe this is fairly well done at the moment, but there are a few places where the effect is not very distinctive - force and plasma are the obvious culprits here. Hounds are quite a good barometer for this issue - every kind of hound should make the player feel different.
I am also rather a fan of the concept of unresisted or powerful attacks having extra side-effects - for example (from O) strong unresisted cold draining CON, or strong dark attacks inducing fear in the absence of pFear. Or disenchantment removing magic effects like haste
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