Thoughs on melee, improvements for future games..

[Bonam]

So seems like the general consensus is that doing damage through melee is kinda gimped. Most enemies have much higher resistance to melee than to spells, and so melee does less damage even against single target. And of course in most fights, you will position your casters so as to be hitting multiple enemies with their spells, so that a mage will likely do at least like 10x the damage of a melee fighter in most fights.

 

Now, at first glance, one might think low damage is ok since a melee character is "tanky" and trades off defense for offense, and also since they get access to AR, giving them 3 attacks in the first round.

 

But the way the skill trees are, a spellcaster can access hardiness and even some parry if they want and be just as tanky as a melee character, and can get access to AR as well.

 

I'm not a fan of nerfing things, I'd much rather see melee get better in future games. So here's a few ideas (not necessarily all at once, pick and choose a few):

 

1) Lethal Blow: Change this skill to have the effect "When attacking a foe with a melee or missile weapon, this skill subtracts 2% per point from their armor value".

 

This will more than double the damage of an offensive melee character since resists seem to be in the range of like 80-90%, and this would drop them to 60-70%. It's far enough up the tree to be limited to offensive-focused melee/archers.

 

2) Polearms: Every polearm attack should hit all 8 squares surrounding the character, always.

 

This adds the ability to do more AE damage.

 

3) Swords: Sword attacks take 5 AP, like using an object. If haste takes effect on a sword attack, it takes 3 AP instead of 5.

 

Allows you to do 1 more attack most turns, letting you damage multiple targets.

 

4) Elemental Weapon Trails: If you are wielding a weapon like frozen blade, flaming sword, oozing sword, molten halberd, etc, your character should generate elemental trails like ice puddings and such do.

 

5) Riposte: Always activates when the character takes damage. Reflects 10% per level of incoming damage back at the source. Also works on missiles and spells.

 

Battle Disciplines:

 

1) Well aimed blow: can't miss, reduce turns to recover to 2

2) Shield breaker: does low damage, but reduces target's armor by 50% for the next 3 turns

3) Leg sweep: immobilizes all enemies in the squares adjacent to you

4) Blade sweep: same cone area effect as magical cone attacks

5) Focus spirit: Instead of curing effects, makes you immune to effects for the next 2-3 turns

6) Mighty blow: boost damage more, reduce turns to recover to 2

7) Stunning blow: cone area effect stun

8) Battle Frenzy: buffs the entire group, not just the character that uses it

 

(when used with a polearm, well aimed blow, shield breaker, and mighty blow would affect all enemies that the polearm hits)

 

And probably need to make the enemies a bit harder so that the game still stays challenging with all these changes

 

Of course, archery has even more issues than melee, but I never play an archer in Jeff's games so no comment on that...

[Mechalibur]

I think in general I'd like to see lower armor values on late game enemies. It's just not fun having 80-93% of your damage just flat out negated. Or, as you suggested, giving armor penetration would be an interesting mechanic, but since it's all percentage based, it might just seem too similar to a generic damage boost.

[Waladil]

Mechalibur is right in that "armor penetration" is effectively just "more damage" with certain armor systems. Basically, having armor penetration is only meaningfully different from a pure damage boost if there's a wide range of potential resists at any given point in the game.

 

One way to ensure it's interesting is if it reduces their resists by a percentage of the resist (as opposed to an absolute percentage): So if you get 10% armor penetration, that would be very meaningful on a target with 90% resists, they'd have an effective resistance of 90 * .9 = 81 -- a 90% increase to damage, but a target with 50% resistance would drop less: 50 *.9 = 45, a 10% increase to damage. And a target with 10% resists would only drop to 9, a tiny 1.1% increase to damage.

 

It would still only be significantly different than a flat damage boost if you could reasonably expect to fight target A with high physical resistances followed by target B with low physical resistances (or vice versa) within the same overall stage of the game.

[Necris Omega]

From where I'm standing, pole arms need a general buff overall, and swords (particularly dual wielding) needs to have a bit more linear progression.

 

Early on, I sit around scratching my head as to why I'd ever think to use two swords - the hit rating is abominable, and the result is negligible damage. My sword happy nephil is less "furry Legolas" and more "Stimpy with butter knives."

 

Later on, I sit around scratching my head as to why I'd ever bother with spears - Dual Wielding does magnitudes more damage such that my Halberd wielding Slith looks like he's constantly drifting into torpor. One Adrenaline Rush and my dual wielding warrior eats dervishes, wizards, and empire archers with the same efficiency as an industrial metal grinder, but the guy with the Halberd may as well be poking them with a broom.

 

I'd buff pole's damage and cleave capacities and lighten up on Dual Wielding's hit penalties and utterly insane damage capacities. Yes, I do think that the guy who has to carry around twice as much equipment should be doing a little better, but not so much better the role of "Spearman" is demoted to "Silver Age Comic Book sidekick".

[surplus_newt]

I doubt the engine would support it, but giving something like an AP cost reduction and damage boost for each successive strike on the same target with swords, with the same bonus for attacking different enemies in succession with polearms, would motivate some appropriate and thematic differences in play according to weapon choice. I also think melee characters would really benefit from having some actual ability to control enemy movement and attention. Maybe at certain weapon skill levels they could get a certain number of attacks of opportunity, or a higher AP cost for enemies moving through their reach, or an expanded zone of control, possibly the ability to actually pull enemies in as a battle discipline. In combination these would make combat a lot more dynamic and would leave you making more actual choices about whether you want to have your fighter standing in place to block enemy movement vs. chasing the target they would have a bonus against. You'd essentially want to have your polearm character aiming to lock a large group of enemies in place, hitting them one after the other, while sword characters are motivated to chase one big target around.

[Logrin]

I can honestly say that while I am a tremendous fan of the inventive worlds and wonderful writing/encounters throughout most (if not all) of spiderweb's offerings I've found the combat to be shallow and poorly balanced.

 

Crystal souls was yet another enjoyable but flawed offering that had me hoping it would be revamped from the ground up rather than yet another (I continue to stress--enjoyable none the less) polishing of an old gem.

 

Miss streaks, huge swaths of damage being resisted and (perhaps the greatest offender) the imbalance between melee and magic bog down what should have been a masterpiece. Combat desperately needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.

 

To that end I offer a few suggestions I think would add a new layer of tactics to combat.

 

Magic Rebalances

 

Magic should absolutely remain a versatile and lethal force in the gameworld, with high-level priests and mages devastating large groups of enemies whilst bolstering your own party.

 

However. I would also suggest treating them more like artillery, with magic never being able to miss under ideal circumstances--but most situations being far from ideal.

 

Many actions would lower your chance to successfully cast a spell. (While the skill/trait tree would expand to help mitigate this) Moving, being too close to an enemy and especially having been recently attacked in melee would all negatively effect spellcasters, making the decision to be a warmage/warpriest (by taking skills that reduce penalties) or to be a glass canon caster more meaningful.

 

Mages and priests should have specialized tools that require spellcraft or priestly magic to wield. Wizards would end up with mystical knick-knacks that grant them one passive bonus or another, usually with a competing penalty. Priests would grant a very minor buff or debuff to adjacent friendlies/foes by equipping theirs. (They could still of course opt to be a hybrid Caster/Fighter instead. As some of these would be small enough to stow in an off hand.)

 

Manaclashing could be to casters what parry and riposite are to fighters. When two spellcasters start flinging magic at each other they'd have a chance (Based on appropriate skills/traits and stats) to diminish some of their attackers mana or absorb a portion of the spell that struck them--bolstering their own reserve. These effects would of course not actually impede any actual damage or disabling effects of a successful spell mind you...that should fall chiefly to armor/wards/etc.

 

Melee and Ranged Improvements

 

Perhaps the elephant in the room it's my earnest belief that a fundamental re-imagining of mundane combat will inject new life into the series. Let's start with threatened space.

 

As is the current norm one doesn't simply skirt passed an adjacent enemy without being slowed (And I suggested above that a mage being in this zone should have trouble casting.) I'd suggest two small additions to how this works.

 

First and foremost two-handed polearms should threaten twice as many surrounding squares as smaller knives and blades, making a spearman great at slowing an enemy advance.

 

Secondly, shields should reduce how effective threatened space is against their wielder, adding the risk of enemies slipping passed swordsmen to get at mages/rangers.

 

Next I'd like to talk about mobility and the role it has to play.

 

Previously I compared mages to artillery for a reason. Magic has plenty going for it already but it lacks the simplicity of drawing a bow or thrusting a sword. To that end I'd suggest mundane actions such as physical attacks or firing projectiles always allow you the option to reposition afterwards. This would allow for a more rapid advance, fighting retreat, flanking maneuvers or skirmishing as enemies and players attempt to prioritize targets.

 

Additionally as a core mechanic sources of damage and resistances thereof should be more diverse. Meaning that enemies (And selectable character races) should be more susceptible or resistant to slashing/piercing/bludgeoning damage (As opposed to a net 'physical') while the same applies to the less mundane means by which a mage might attack his foes. While stats should certainly play a role, I feel as if what you're wearing should be much, much more important. Going by flat positive and negative values instead of a percentage to measure how effective a flavor of damage will be.

 

I'd even go so far as to suggest a lesser war-curse like debuff be attached to weapons/projectiles/spells when they hit. Such a blade making it's target bleed, blunt weapon 'winding' a foe (reduced stamina) or metal armor getting a stacking vulnerability as mages continue to heat/chill it with ice, fire and frost.

 

Shields are almost never taken over dual wielding and I'd aim to make that choice harder. For one they could reduce the effect of threatened space as I mentioned above. Another benefit they could offer would be a slew of shield specific battle-disciplines like lending your chance to parry to adjacent allies or cutting off a cone behind yourself from being targeted at range (Though AOE could still 'splash' passed you)

 

Thrown weapons, like javelins and razor-disks could have a stock of uses per engagement (Instead of just being infinite or needing to be rebought over and over) The goal here is to make bows a reliable weapon for the dedicated ranger while also allowing for powerful (but not plentiful) thrown weapons as an alternative. Gathered back up automatically whenever combat ends.

 

 

Thoughts?