Derakon's combat revamp

[Mikko Lehtinen]

This new combat system will make finding good weapons much more dependant on luck than before. In the current system, most any good weapon will do; after the change, you will have to find a good weapon that is suitable for your combat style.

I've clearly noticed this effect in Fay.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Example weapons, off the top of my head:
Finesse: dagger, rapier, scimitar, spear
Power: club, mace, hammer, halberd, scythe
Balanced: shortsword, longsword, executioner's sword, glaive

If you need to add a weapon to fill a niche, take a look at EyAngband weapons! Eytan had to invent lots and lots of new weapon names for light/medium/heavy weapons of all power levels.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

If you have a finesse-oriented weapon then you're better-served with a Ring of Finesse rather than a Ring of ...er, Power.

Why would you want to have Rings of Finesse and "Power" in the game if the main effects of STR and DEX are exactly these two? I'd say only rings of STR and DEX are needed.

[Estie]

As for having power not impact criticals, I would like each stat to have a use beyond just influencing your weapon, to give you some utility from boosts to that stat even when you're using an "opposed" weapon type. It seems clear that weapon finesse would have an impact on your ability to hit enemies, and weapon power would have an impact on your ability to hurt enemies; hit chance and critical quality seemed like the natural mechanics to insert, therefore. Do you have a better suggestion?

Even more so than criticals for damage, I would avoid touching to hit chance for this purpose. To hit is way too important; basically, everyone who uses weapons for fighting (as opposed to, say, a mage who might be supposed to use spells) should reliably hit, otherwise the play becomes frustrating. So we are talking about a very minor effect of, for example, getting to hit chance from 90% to 92% or so, which wont be very game relevant or noticable.

If the aim is to ensure that an increase in the "opposite" stat of finesse/power has an effect, the simplest solution would be to limit the spread on weapons to something like 80/20.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

If the aim is to ensure that an increase in the "opposite" stat of finesse/power has an effect, the simplest solution would be to limit the spread on weapons to something like 80/20.

Even simpler would be to not have items that boost Finesse or Power, because boosts to STR and DEX are roughly the same thing. STR and DEX already do interesting things besides helping heavy/light weapons.

I'd actually prefer to not have skills for these two at all. Why not let STR and DEX to do all the work? Having finesse and power slowly increase with levels is not very interesting. If we wanted to differentiate the classes and races further, we could have bigger bonuses/penalties to STR and DEX. This approach works very well in Ey/Fay.

[Estie]

While it's true that everyone will have maxed their STR and DEX by the endgame, that doesn't mean that those maxima will be the same for each character. Assuming maximize mode is on, there's a big difference between, say, a dwarf warrior (18/150 STR, 18/100 DEX) and a hobbit paladin (18/90 STR, 18/120 DEX).

While they arent the same for each character, they will be after equipment bonus. At least I cant recall many ladder warriors who only got 5 blows with Ringil.

Anyway...my question was, if this differentiation between finesse and power is going to have effect throughout the game, AND str/dex affects it, but wont differ by alot come endgame, how exactly will this gap be bridged, or what kind of numbers will the extreme characters have (lets call them hobbit rogue and troll warrior) ?

[Derakon]

While they arent the same for each character, they will be after equipment bonus. At least I cant recall many ladder warriors who only got 5 blows with Ringil.

That heavily depends on how available stat boosts are. In my recent v4 games, the answer has been "not very". Artifacts have been a lot less common, and without them you really can't get all that many stat boosts. My last winner didn't max (18/***) any stats until right before the endgame, when he found a melee weapon with +4 STR. If you'd handed him Ringil, he wouldn't have gotten 5 blows/round with it because his DEX would have been too low.

Of course, if artifacts become more common then that changes.

Anyway...my question was, if this differentiation between finesse and power is going to have effect throughout the game, AND str/dex affects it, but wont differ by alot come endgame, how exactly will this gap be bridged, or what kind of numbers will the extreme characters have (lets call them hobbit rogue and troll warrior) ?

This is going to be something that will require extensive playtesting, I suspect. Assuming we want to have strong class differentiation, that means that the stats that derive from class have to be differentiated, and that pretty much means initial skill and skill growth changes.

Mikko: there's two concerns I have with ditching Rings of (Accuracy/Damage) (a.k.a. Rings of Finesse / Power) in favor of the existing STR and DEX rings, and doing likewise across the entire game.
* STR and DEX impact much more than just finesse and power. It's nice to be able to have an item that has a big impact on one thing without also increasing the other -- a big Ring of Strength also significantly improves your carrying capacity, for example.
* Stats do cap. While my aforementioned winner didn't cap his stats very well, he would have if he'd worn a big Ring of Strength or Ring of Dexterity instead of a Ring of Damage. Removing the stat caps would be a big change in and of itself and I'd rather not fold that into this change if at all possible.

[Estie]

Even simpler would be to not have items that boost Finesse or Power, because boosts to STR and DEX are roughly the same thing. STR and DEX already do interesting things besides helping heavy/light weapons.

I'd actually prefer to not have skills for these two at all. Why not let STR and DEX to do all the work? Having finesse and power slowly increase with levels is not very interesting. If we wanted to differentiate the classes and races further, we could have bigger bonuses/penalties to STR and DEX. This approach works very well in Ey/Fay.

Because we arent allowed to let a troll have a higher str score than a hobbit lategame, in a way that matters for combat.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Because we arent allowed to let a troll have a higher str score than a hobbit lategame, in a way that matters for combat.

Seems like the stat system is broken, then. This would be easy to fix directly: just increase or remove the caps. It's possible that changing the combat system is a more difficult and less elegant route.

EDIT: I was a bit unclear here. I like the combat system that Derakon proposes! I just don't like the idea that you have to side-step a broken stat system. Even in Derakon's original idea, having end-game STR and DEX really matter would be excellent.

Also, changing the stat system to make stats more relevant would be easy for a single developer, perhaps not for a committee.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Derakon, are you planning that there would be four combat skills: Melee, Bows, Power, Finesse?

I find it a bit unelegant that Melee, Bows and Finesse all increase to-hit chance.

[Derakon]

Derakon, are you planning that there would be four combat skills: Melee, Bows, Power, Finesse?

I find it a bit unelegant that Melee, Bows and Finesse all increase to-hit chance.

My intention was to replace Melee with Finesse and to add Power as a separate skill. Bows should probably remain their own skill so that rangers can be amazing archers without also being amazing dagger fighters.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

My intention was to replace Melee with Finesse and to add Power as a separate skill. Bows should probably remain their own skill so that rangers can be amazing archers without also being amazing dagger fighters.

OK, that makes sense.

Half-Trolls will obviously have the best Power skill. What about Finesse? Are you planning to change the game balance by making elves and halflings excellent melee fighters?

That's not bad, it's just different. And it's balanced by low hitpoints.

Should a halfling with a, say, rapier be about equal in combat to a half-troll with a maul? That would make the halfing better in combat overall because he's also an excellent archer.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

How about this for combat skills:

Finesse (affected by DEX)
Power (STR)
Archery (DEX)
Throwing (STR)

Archery would basically be finesse for ranged weapons. All bows would be pure Finesse weapons.

Throwing would be Power for ranged weapons. All thrown weapons (and perhaps slings too) would be pure Power weapons.

[Estie]

To hit stat has only a minor effect on dpr and thats a good thing (noone uses to hit rings). Not hitting should be reserved for the cases where other options (spells, ranged (?)) are available.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Sorry for flooding, I just like combat systems.

Having just two combat skills, Power and Finesse, can be made to work too. In general, Power would need to be more important in melee, and Finesse in ranged combat.

Most if not all ranged weapons would depend on pure Finesse. Only a small subset of melee weapons would require pure Finesse. A vast majority of melee weapons would require either pure Power or both Power and Finesse.