Poll: Damage Types
 

I'm curious about the spread of opinions.

Re: Poll: Damage Types
 

Ha, I was the first one this time. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Poll: Damage Types
 

"They would be interesting and beneficial, if designed carefully to have moderate effects."

That's what i voted for. If balanced and well thougth out, the system would/could/will be good.
It's all about balance.

Re: Poll: Damage Types
 

Bah, don't want it !
It'll add eventually +3% gameplay for +20% micromanagement, at the dev cost of 5 patches that could be used for MUCH better improvements http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif !
It'll be mostly a waste of resources, forget about that .. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Poll: Damage Types
 

I think it might be a system that the developers could use to make sure there is balance in the game. But it doesnt need to be something that the players HAVE to work with if they dont want to. It could all be background stuff for the discussion of the addicted people the way the number formulas were for Dom 1.

If different weapons had different attacks, different armors had different defense bonuses, different sizes, mounts, forms (mist, ethereal, etc) all had different things which affected at different levels then the variety might help keep any ONE strategy from getting out of hand.

Of course everything would damage everything, just at slightly different levels. Plus they could insure that each race had a variety of pluses and minuses, but not covering everything.

Gandalf Parker

[ October 14, 2003, 21:58: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: Poll: Damage Types
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yup.

Re: Poll: Damage Types
 

"They would be interesting and beneficial http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif , if designed carefully to have moderate effects."As long its BALANCE.
Thats what i voted for too.

Re: Poll: Damage Types
 

"The system might be nice, but there is such a high chance of ruining a good game with it, that I don't want it in Dom2."

I'm against this. Firstly, it replaces attack and protection with six new stats (at least). Secondly, it requires that certain kinds of armor are made arbitarily weak against certain kinds of damage, for example, plate armor being weak against crushing, even though the only real difference between armors is the protection, weight and cost, which the game already models.
Thirdly, there are already differences in the way that different weapons and armors interact, which provide far more flavor for much less complexity.

Re: Poll: Damage Types
 

Heh, I was hoping more people would vote for making it moddable, that's what I voted for. Give the players the tools to improve or destroy the game, always more fun that way http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Poll: Damage Types
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hmm this isnt my area but Im not sure I agree with this. As I remember such things in other games platemail was usually great against crushing, but slightly susceptable to piercing weapons that came in thru the chinks. Chainmail was better vs piercing but more susceptable to crush. Both had some armor defense against everything, just slight advantages vs some.

Re: Poll: Damage Types
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That is an excellent idea licker, but I doubt that it will happen, because modding that would require heavy scripting more than likely.

Re: Poll: Damage Types
 

You know, if weapon damage types were integrated into the game - and especially if dual/multi type weapons were allowed - then the magic weapons could be made more interesting, as well. For example, even if crush/slash/pierce were not used, a magic fire sword could still be dual-typed fire/physical. Then, for example, Caelean armor could be tagged to provide full protection from physical damage, but half protection from fire damage, so a fire sword would cut through them like buttah. Against fire elementals, physical damage would be dealt. And Undead could also be given reduced protection versus fire (or bonus damage from fire) so that they would take extra damage as well. In fact, I think this (undead taking bonus fire damage) is important, after hearing that Banishment has been weakened.

Currently, some weapons are scripted to do bonus damage against certain enemies (miget masher, flambeau) but damage types would allow a more generalized and complete system.

A complete system would have an array for each unit/armor, like this:

fire | ice | elec | gen.magic | crush | pierce | slash | gen.pyhsical

Then, in each Category there would either be an integer, with a protection modifier:

.f | .i. | e | m | c | p | s | gp
0 | -3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 0

In other words, versus ice, the armor would give 3 less protection, and against pierce, 3 extra protection, and so forth.

...or a floating point damage multiplier:

.f | ...i.. | e | m | ..c | ..p. | ..s.. | gp
1 | 1.5 | 1 | 1 | 0.9 | 0.8 | 0.7 | 1

(the extra dots were added for formatting reasons)

In this case, the creature would take 50% extra damage from ice (150% total), and only 80% damage from piercing weapons.

Weapons would simply have a Boolean array, checking each valid damage type, so a Caelean ice lance would look like this:

.f | .i | e | m | c | p | s | gp
0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0

In other words, it would be dual-typed ice and pierce. Against Winter Wolves, which are immune to cold, it would have to resort to physical pierce damage, and thus Caelean weapons would no longer ignore the etherealness of Winter Wolves, but they would for the other 3 spirits.

-Cherry

P.S. In the unit stats screen, only all the active armor modifiers would be shown. So if the entire protection array was 0, no icons would appear. But if the array was all zero except for a -3 ice and +3 pierce, the creature would gain two icons, an ice vulnerability (-3) and a pierce resistance (+3). These would show along with all the other icons (regenerating, trample, mindless, and so forth).

[ October 15, 2003, 17:33: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

Re: Poll: Damage Types
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Even if I accepted that plate armor is worse against 'piercing' than chainmail (which it isn't), what about the fact that most plate armors were worn with a secondary layer of chainmail underneath? Are we going to give all knights two armor Ratings?