Damage Types & Mitigation - Slash Pierce Hack Bludgeon

Arkethos

Hello AoC friends!

I had recently asked for info on this in the Q&A forum and got some excellent feedback from Margaret (very kind of her to reply so quickly too!).

Below is my original post, and basically I am wondering if this is the sort of detailed mechanic that people want to see in an MMO, or is it getting too granular?

Damage Types
- Will there be differing damage types, beyond just physical/magic, that will have different levels of effectiveness against different armor types? Basically, more sub-types of damage such as Physical-Piercing or Physical-Bludgeoning? Magic-Fire vs Magic-Ice?
- If so, will these damage types be bound to weapons or actions? For instance could a sword be effective with a "Flat-Blade" type blunt attack as well as Slashing and Piercing attacks?
- Further, will different damage types (and sub types) be more effective against different mobs in PvE scenarios? Fire vs Plants or Lightning vs Fish? My experience FFXI weighs heavily on mechanics like this, where as it felt less impactful in other MMO's.

Mitigation Types
- I thought I heard in one of the Q&A sessions w/ the Intrepid team that some armor will do better against physical vs. magical damage, but does it get more granular with successive sub-types such as Mail vs Plate vs Leather, when it comes to damage types?

Example Damage/Mitigation
- Slash | most effective against cloth | least effective against plate/heavy
- Pierce | most effective against mail | least effective against leather
- Blunt | most effective against plate/heavy | least effective against cloth
- Hack | most effective against leather | least effective against mail

With magic, a circular hierarchy along the lines of:
Fire > Ice > Wind > Earth > Lightning > Water > Fire

I am currently working on the specifics of a system like this for a small, turn-based RPG, but was wondering if this is applicable to an MMO such as AoC as well? If it is within the scope of the game design, I'd be glad to hear it. This sort of detail to combat adds a lot of flavor and depth to potential encounters.

Thanks!

Margaret's reply:

Hi @Arkethos !

This is a fairly hefty question, and would be a great topic to discuss in our General Discussion forum section instead of the Support section of our forums, but I'll answer a small bit here for ya to get you started.

So far, we have let folks know that we will have a variety of damage types and these will be mitigated by defensive stats on different types of armor.

For example:
- Magic damage is mitigated by cloth armor
- Physical damage is mitigated by plate armor

In regards to sub-types of damage, we have talked about elements (like air, fire, water, and lightning) each with their own resistances which will be affected by seasons and environments.

For example:
- Frost abilities may be stronger in the winter than in the summer.

----
Hope that gives you a general idea of damage, damage sub-types and mitigation. We have not released all the details on specifics in regards to some of your more detailed suggestions and questions, but it might be a neat topic to discuss with the community in a General Discussion thread!

Hope this helped you out! I'll close this thread, but if there are any further support issues we can assist you with, don't hesitate to reach out!
p99zmvjuvb3u.gif

Damokles

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Resistances

There we go!

Arkethos

I did see that page but was hoping for more details with regard to the possibility for physical damage types. It seems that this game has great potential for that sort of depth & detail, but I don't want to hype myself up for something that may already be confirmed to be out of scope for the dev team.

I get that Plate armor is mentioned as reducing physical damage, but is physical damage all lumped into that qualifier "type" without sub-types such as piercing, slashing, bludgeoning, etc?

Along those lines, will different armor types modify a characters stats in a negative capacity? Full plate making you a little slower (unless you have XX strength) or restrict evasive passives such as dodging? If not, what you wear doesn't matter really... and if Plate is best for [all] Physical mitigation, end of story, then will Rogues be wearing plate? Is the "type" of armor just a number for calculating the amount of damage reduction, or will it have more depth to it? That's what I'm curious about.

SamuraiWindu

The last bullet of the original post here https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/45827/illusion-of-a-living-world addresses this idea. The post here https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/45322/damage-and-effect-tags suggests how this could be implemented.

Arkethos

SamuraiWindu wrote: »

The last bullet of the original post here https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/45827/illusion-of-a-living-world addresses this idea. The post here https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/45322/damage-and-effect-tags suggests how this could be implemented.

This is great! That first post w/ the last bullet point really touches on what I'm curious about. And I agree w/ the PvE vs PvP part to a degree... I think it may be fun to test it both ways, but balance is important. I'm just hoping for more "flavor" when it comes to weapon and armor selections... more than just cosmetic choices that have little to do with baseline functionality.

As an example, I didn't like the way Diablo 3 made "stat-sticks" rather than compelling and meaningful choices. I'm hoping AoC does not follow the D3 path. When you deal 1-5 damage with a sword and 1-5 damage with an axe, but the end result against any target is the same, then its cosmetic. But if you deal increased damage with a sword versus living targets that are lightly armored, and your attacks are more likely to cause some sort of bleed effect, then that's interesting. If the axe choice allows you to hack through plant-type creatures with ease, then you'll probably want to swap to that weapon for that sort of scenario. And as you suggested, @SamuraiWindu, using blunt damage against the undead for added effect.

That's the RPG level of equipment choices I'd like to see.

SamuraiWindu

PvP has been described as a trinity system. This is accomplished by giving certain archetypes abilities that focus on dealing either physical damage or magical damage, and encouraging those archetypes to wear certain types of armor by granting access to passive abilities linked to wearing full sets of those armor types. Players are free to wear whatever armor they like, allowing the player to subvert convention and player expectations, but this comes at the cost of having benefit from those passive abilities.

In general, archetypes are structured like this: Fighters and Tanks deal physical damage and wear heavy armor, which is strong against physical damage and weak against magical damage. Rangers and Rogues deal physical damage and wear light armor, which is weak to both physical damage and magical damage but grants access to damage enhancing abilities. Mages deal magical damage and wear cloth armor, which is weak against physical damage and strong against magical damage. Clerics deal a mixture of physical damage and magical damage and wear medium armor, which is mediocre at mitigating both physical damage and magical damage. I’m not sure where Bards and Sorcerers fit in this system.

Using a similar notation used in the original post, Fighters/Tanks > Rangers/Rogues > Mages > Fighters/Tanks
Clerics are neutral, and Bards and Sorcerers are yet to be verified.

While granting armor types inherent resistances and vulnerabilities to different weapon damage types (such as Bludgeoning, Hacking, Piercing, and Slashing) would add depth to combat, such a system would subvert the trinity system intended for PvP.

Yuyukoyay

You can use any weapon or armor as any archetype. Even in cases where they might suck with them. So depends on if there are any downsides to the armor types for using them. Like if you move slower with heavier armors. If certain armors have better magic defense vs physical defense. If there is a set debuff for using all the same type of armor in response to a strong buff.

They can literally do anything so I'll have to wait for more information. There may even be passives that encourage certain classes to use certain weapons and armor.

Arkethos

I'm especially curious to find out if creatures will have elemental assignments, that will impact the effects of spell types on them.

Example:
Fire Drakes - Highly resist (or immune) to fire; bonus damage from water/ice. Perhaps fire damage even gives them some sort of buff or HP return, so some thought would be put into the approach & strategy for combat, rather than someone just spamming fire bolt mindlessly through every encounter, regardless of the target.

Is there any official word on what elemental types will be present in the game?

Recommended Types & Hierarchy:
Fire > Ice > Wind > Earth > Lightning > Water > Fire
Nature <> Arcane
Light <> Dark

Emmzaa

I can't really picture how Ice beats Wind or how Wind beats Earth. Maybe I'm looking into it too much but if I see a big earth golem I don't think of wind as being effective.

If you remove Wind then Ice beats Earth which seems more realistic to me. Water entering cracks and then freezing causes the crack to expand and the rock to break apart which is a real world phenomenon.

Tyrantor

Arkethos wrote: »

Is there any official word on what elemental types will be present in the game?

Recommended Types & Hierarchy:
Fire > Ice > Wind > Earth > Lightning > Water > Fire
Nature <> Arcane
Light <> Dark

My estimate based on recent interviews with Steven and his explanation of how a Fighter/Mage might combine skills he has specifically said that the fighter may imbue the weapon with lighting (or other elemental damage). I would hope that a Fighter/Cleric may gain access to Life/Light magic that could do the same general thing.

It seems like the Fighter may not have the ability to start casting a fireball, but if he can add passive or mana dependent damage to his weapon/armor to augment damage and be more DPS oriented by choosing a path that allows that is pretty cool.

However based on the dash/blink ability described maybe if the warrior has a weapon throw or some ability like that would give them a damage spell they could "cast"/Throw similiar to how the dash/blink transforms into a blink once the secondary class is selected/points allocated.

lunarsky

Emmzaa wrote: »

I can't really picture how Ice beats Wind or how Wind beats Earth. Maybe I'm looking into it too much but if I see a big earth golem I don't think of wind as being effective.

If you remove Wind then Ice beats Earth which seems more realistic to me. Water entering cracks and then freezing causes the crack to expand and the rock to break apart which is a real world phenomenon.

@Emmzaa

Via the process of erosion wind and water shape the earth all the time by picking up little pieces of it and blowing it away gradually. If you took it to an extreme a tornado can reshape the earth around where it lands.

Emmzaa

@lunarsky

Wind can affect earth as it effects many other things, but I wouldn't say it's especially good at it compared to other elements. The hierarchy being a looping chain of advantage and disadvantage. Whilst earth as an element can extinguish fire, it's not as efficient or commonly used as such in the real world as water is. Which is why water is strong against fire in many forms of media.

I think if you either made wind a part of lightning as in creating electric charge through manipulation of weather, or as a neutral subtype which could applify other elements it would be much improved.

Fire + Air = Oxygenated fires and explosions
Ice + Air = Blizzards or extreme cold
Earth + Air = Sandstorms
Lightning + Air = Thunderstorms
Water + Air = Mist or rain

lunarsky

@ Emmzaa

I disagree. The only element that arguably is as effective against earth is water but the more obvious pairing with water is fire for advantage and lighting for disadvantage so it's placed there appropriately. There are plenty of examples of wind erosion shaping rock formations and dunes throughout the world.

I don't think wind would need to be diminished into some offshoot of lightning which is a pairing that doesn't make much sense IMO when wind is one of the primary elements on its own. Ice, for example, is just frozen water so I could see it being consolidated but for wind. I agree with Light/Dark being split off as they're own pairing separate from the others however.

You could reasonably pair (almost) any of the elements together and get something. For example:

Earth + Fire = Molten Rock (DoTs/CC) or metals (Dmg/Stuns)
Earth + water = Nature based attacks (Plants (CC/Heals), vines (CC), wood, Mud/landslides (CC))
Fire + water = Steam (DoTs or Blinding Effects)

In my mind, the most basic elements are Fire, Water, Earth, and Air so they stay regardless. Light/Dark are also a good addon for heals/dots etc. The others are some variation of those basic elements and thus are less important to emphasize though I like to see them included as well.