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Different Types of Melee and Magical Damage
McShave
Member
What do you guys think of the idea of magic damage being in many forms, like fire, frost, nature, dark, light, and then melee can have many forms of damage as well, like cutting, smashing, piercing.
This comes to mind because I think of damage type and how to mitigate them. I would like a system like Vanilla WoW where you had different resistance stats for different types of magic damage, like fire, ice, and arcane. Complimentary to this you would have stat increases on gear like "+fire damage".
I do understand the appeal of having simpler stats like "magic resistance" or "physical resistance". This kind of system would make building your character a lot easier, and would be a lot easier to balance from a game design perspective, but leaves out a bit of the nuance that makes character builds truly unique (IMO).
Would you guys prefer the more complex version or the more simple version of stats? Do we know what Intrepid is planning yet, or is this still open for debate?
This comes to mind because I think of damage type and how to mitigate them. I would like a system like Vanilla WoW where you had different resistance stats for different types of magic damage, like fire, ice, and arcane. Complimentary to this you would have stat increases on gear like "+fire damage".
I do understand the appeal of having simpler stats like "magic resistance" or "physical resistance". This kind of system would make building your character a lot easier, and would be a lot easier to balance from a game design perspective, but leaves out a bit of the nuance that makes character builds truly unique (IMO).
Would you guys prefer the more complex version or the more simple version of stats? Do we know what Intrepid is planning yet, or is this still open for debate?
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The devs have said we'll be able to stack Frost Damage and Radiant Damage and Bleeds, etc.
I do agree with this. It might be too much like rock-paper-scissors when it comes to PvP combat. If you have your fire resist gear on and they do frost damage, then you are screwed and that doesn't feel very good.
However, what about the idea where if your group knows you are going into a fire dungeon or raid, then you would enhance your gear with fire resistance to help survivability?
So, seems likely gear will also have an effect.
https://discord.com/channels/256164085366915072/256164085366915072/773036169163440158
Steven: holy/radiant damage are modifying energy types that have corresponding synergies and resistances.
As to the original idea, I like it. It goes back to optional combat rules from old 2nd Edition AD&D in the early 90s. They drew a distinction between blunt, piercing, and slashing damage (pretty much identical to your idea). I could see slashing damage causing someone to bleed, or blinding them to reduce their accuracy and/or damage output. Piercing damage might get through defenses more easily (ignoring armor) and having a higher change to crit. Blunt damage might cause a concussion leading to slowing someone's movements, or temporarily stun them, or knocking them back or down.
Then again, I think this sort of thing might better be accomplished through the weapon skill trees, where you gain these sorts of attributes through attacks made by those weapons based on the skills you level up. And you could combine them, like a Mage using ice magic gaining even better crowd control using a blunt weapon like a staff.
I think McShave probably meant Physical instead of melee.
Looks like they haven't played Alpha 1, so probably isn't familiar with precise terms for Ashes.
And, yes, I think blunt, piercing and slashing would be via Weapon Skills.
Seems like the hammer of Judgment, the spear of Divine Censure and the whip of Castigation would all be Radiant Damage, rather than blunt, piercing or slashing.
Something to take a look at. Especially once we have Weapon Skills.
In AC (released '99) there was blunt, piercing, slashing, fire, frost, acid, and electrical damage.
A melee weapon could be found, or created (semi-crafted semi-quested) to inflict any of the elemental dmgs. Weapons as bare melee weapons had different characteristics depending on the weapon. Dagger was piercing, for example.
Spells were also available to inflict each of these damages, including the physical ones.
Arrows and crossbolts could be bought but were generally player crafted, and these too could be crafted to inflict either physical or elemental damages.
Armor styles/types had different protection characteristics. A robe crafted from the hide of a mattekar (snowy mountain beast) for instance, had below average fire resistance but exceptional cold and electrical resistance.
With Item Magic and Creature Magic players had the option to bolster any and all resistances.
How will it translate to active skills?
Will it look better to the eye? Will it be balanced?
If not, why bother? Just so that people can play with calculations?
Personally I want to see a shift in focus to active gameplay, instead of spreadsheet copy paste gameplay and theorycrafting mania.
Fire mage ice mage (or knight), etc etc.
But people are greedy, and they want to play as the all powerful all knowing pijama boy that can cast all spells.
I agree
But wanting to use every element is like a weapon master wanting to be able to use slashing, piercing, crushing weapons all in one fight
You know, I think there is a very strong case to simplify the stats as you say, it would lead to easier barrier to entry and might be more fun over all. I will always be a fan of more options, however. I'm excited to see what Intrepid has planned for this game.
Lots of RPG players have fun mixing classes and the Ashes design allows that to be viable.
Easy enough to have fun doing that even without players focusing on the maths and calculations.
Which is why I said...
I am really looking forward to Weapon Skills. We had a spot for them in Alpha 1 but there weren't any actual skills to learn. I think they'll make a huge difference, maybe as much as augments will. I guess we'll see!
This is why I don't want something really simple. Let's say you have cloth, leather, and metal armor, and you have slashing, piercing, and blunt damage.
A blunt weapon does double damage against leather which offers no padding, half damage against cloth (which cushions the blunt damage) and standard damage to metal armor (which it rings like a gong).
A piercing weapon is doubled against plate since it is precise enough to get through chinks in the armor, half damage against leather which has no such chinks and is tough enough to deflect it, and regular damage against cloth which is thick enough to slow it down but it can still get through.
A slashing weapon is doubled against cloth armor that it shreds, only half damage against metal armor which deflects it, and regular damage against leather which it can cut through only with time.
All very logical, easy to understand, and extremely boring. That's why I suggested that you have some kind of special effect from the weapon type rather than simply doing different numbers.
Also, I have no idea what you mean about "active gameplay" versus "spreadsheet copy paste gameplay and theorycrafting mania". Active gameplay can only happen when we can actively play a game. Maybe you should just come back in year or two?
There is a suggeation here for physical damage to be divided into pierce, blunt, slash.
In eso stamina (physical dmg), came from max stamina stat, penetration stat, weapon dmg stat.
You could spec all you wanted, swap gear, swap blessing boons, invest in passive stats (champion points), and there, your build was gear towards penetration.
You still had the same active class skills slotted, the same weapons skills slotted, the same bow slotted.
What changed in ACTIVE GAMEPLAY? Nothing. You just changed your option of stats behind it.
Visually, nothing changed.
So again I am asking, how would this suggestion that divides physical dmg into pierce, blunt and slash translate into active gameplay?
Would hammers have blunt dmg and bonus against plate?
Would swords have both slashing and piercing, leading to less against plate?
Would piercing be any different than slashing really?
Would daggers have blunt dmg??
Would axes have both slash and blunt dmg?
Or
Would blunt damage be found only on crashing (stun-like) active abilities?
Would pierce damage only be found on thrust abilities?
Would swords have access to weapon stun or would it say "incorrect weapon/damage type. Action cancelled"?
What is the point of splitting physical damage into 3, if it doesnt translate into active gameplay?
Is it worth locking people out of skills based on dmg type?
Do we need an extra layer of rock paper scissors "are you lucky to face an opponent whose gear you counter todat?"
I dont think we need blunt pierce slash dmg.
I think it should be a no brainer that you cant stun with a dagger and that a hammer would be easier to bypass any stun resistance.
I think it should be fair that heavy armor takea less dmg, a leather is more mobile with aggressive stat bonuses and robe is for mages that focus only on spells for attack and distance for defence.
That would be a really interesting way of implementing it. So you would have to focus more on certain abilities in a fight against a certain target rather than always using the same rotation.
Would you still have access to all those types with the same weapon though? Or would having a 2h hammer exclude you from piercing attacks?
Is it worth to split physical dmg just for the sake on invisible stats and numbers or are we going all in.
Will it be fun if we go all in?
Just like a mage wanting to choose fire magic against plant monsters. A fighter may want to use slashing moves against plant monsters vice piercing ones. Or something to that effect.
And as I said if nothing else it disrupts having a set rotation...
Ashes game design offers tons of variety. It's more about playing the way you like to play - but, you do have to be somewhat aware of how the stats relate to each other.
What does that have to do with invisible stats and back end math theorycrafting, versus meaningful damage type allocation on weapons and active abilities?
At a fundamental level the three armor types are geared towards damage mitigation from (Heavy) physical bias, (Medium) physical-magic balanced and (Light) magic biased, as I understand it.
I don't have an issue with breaking these down further, in principle:
Melee: Bash, Slash and Pierce
Magic: Elemental types
If permitted, enchantments that give "resist all +%" (or "resist several types +%") would become the dominant META and could make the additional breakdown (i.e. into elemental types) pointless if not handled correctly. Diablo2's issue of Diamonds (resist all +19%) vs. Rubies (resist fire +40%) springs to mind.
IMHO Ashes should avoid "resist all" enchantments but allow resistance enchantments of different types to co-exist without using up item enchantment capacity. That way you would be able to collect all flavors of resistance enchantment over time in your gear. That fact that initially you can only collect, say, fire resistance and have lots of questing (teamwork, profitable endeavors!) to gather the mats to add more shouldn't be an issue for most players.
I would consider placing poison resistance in the Melee group, because 1) poison is resisted by constitution and 2) heavier armor, with less points of entry, makes it more difficult for it to be applied.
Rolemaster tabletop RPG: They have something like 26 elemental types. Please do not go that far.
4-8 is okay with me (Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Light, Dark with a couple more for this setting Planar? Aether?).
So, if the Devs do all of the above, the only pre-combat question you have is do you want to wear your best heavy armor, your best medium armor or your best light armor? That seems acceptable to me.
I don't think attack enhancements for the different damage types should be allowed to co-exist in the same way, I can't see any clear solutions for that issue!
In my imagination, you wouldn't gather a stat called "penetration", "slashing", or "blunt", but you would gather points in "strength", "agility", or "endurance". Ideally you would need a combination of all 3 to be an effective physical combatant with any weapon, but some weapons would benefit more from different stats. Then, each damage type would deal more damage to different creature or armor types, and can increase effectiveness of abilities like stun and bleed.
For example, lets say you have a 1h sword. The base damage is not that high compared to a 1h club, but it has the potential for faster attacking. So if you get more agility, then you will be attacking faster with maybe more potential to crit, but you also still need strength to increase the actual damage of each attack. Also, a 1h club would benefit more from strength so that each hit hurts more, but you would need some agility so that can have more swings during an encounter. Piercing weapons would require a balance of both agility and strength because you need to be strong and nimble with those kinds of weapons.
In this theoretical combat, I would have endurance be a stat to determine how many swings in a row you can do before the time before swings increases (or damage decreases), but this is historically not a thing that MMOs do. It would be a stat for 2H weapons and shields so that you can swing/ block more over the duration of an encounter. This would probably require some sort of stamina meter, and this is probably more a thing for pure action type games.
It would be consistent with the way the active class skills work too. For example, when I played a Mage, you put one point into the Fireball spell and it shoots out a ranged fire attack. If you increase the rank to 3, it now does damage over time as it sets an enemy on fire. For me that changed the way I used the spell; to maximize the DoT I would make sure to use the spell first so that the damage ticks off my enemy as I cast other spells.
Maybe a slashing attack with a sword can gain a bleeding DoT with enough ranks like the Fireball spell.
I could also see other weapons diversifying too. A bow user might have different arrow types represented by skills. A blunt arrowhead might stun an enemy, while you could use a cutting arrowhead to slash.
Maybe a staff only gives blunt damage options, but instead you can diversify by using it for defense, or use it in a pole-vault fashion for a movement skill. I'm just speculating. And yes, these would be active skills, not just passive damage changes.