New Damage and armor types and different spell resistance

[Alexander82]

I think we should start from having Daniel's opinion

It mostly depends on him but that would be also a great way to differentiate AoF and AoS making them 2 different games with a common engine and not just one a reskin of the other

[Sunrise Samurai]

Well..... Daniel? What say you?

[Stratego (dev)]

sorry, i will need a final summary of the idea - ther were a lot of conversations

[Alexander82]

I summarized it in the first post

[Sunrise Samurai]

I think the first phase of this should be the armor and​ attack types, with the ability to split damage among multiple types and to have some damage ignore armor entirely. If Alexander could put up a simple list of the final attack/armor types it would be greatly appreciated.

We can do the spell resistance as phase 2, once we've gotten the attack/armor types implement.

[Alexander82]

To be honest i'd go for spell resistance first. The reason is that different spell resistance might grant us the chance to code some of the new effects we need (e.g. the ranger entangle spell)

also i think it should be the easyer to code

[Sunrise Samurai]

Ok. Either way, I'd actually say it might be worth doing the two separately, rather than all at once.

[Alexander82]

As a practical matter I agree but as a whole picture i think we should plan them together since physical effects must act on armor while magical effects might be influenced by magic armor (e.g. the magic missile).

[Sunrise Samurai]

I can understand that. I'm not sure how to summarize for Daniel though. It seems like we have it more or less worked out though.

[makazuwr32]

1. I don't like idea of "reflexes" that will just give random chance to aviod magic.

Instead i think we could use Magic armor addition (same as others armors, but lowers magic damage only), or Magic damage resistance that will work in almost same way of spell resistance but lowers incoming damage by its %.

Because i don't like idea of "avoiding" of for example fireball/earthquake/other area-type spells.how in reality you can avoid for example explosion on flat area?
Espesially when you are in the epicenter.

Also this "reflexes"-type resistance is bad for elves because if it didn't work then you are still doomed. And this is crucial for elven druids, elven wizards and woodshapers, who can't get any dodge.

I personally think that magic damage shoud be unavoidable for all units. They can only get lesser damage from spells (up to complete immunity for dragons.)

2. as for elemental damages: if for spells then yes, i agee - they needed.
As for regular attacks - no, i don't like this.

3. Can we add 4th type of attack - Magic damage?
For casters and maybe some more units (for example to give casters ranged attack with magic-type damage. Maybe for elven dragons also.)

4. i suggest to avoid completely immunable units to any non-damageable magic. just give unit for example 60% -80% resistance and if you want that they couldn't be affected by for example fear, then just remove from "Effects" on unit you want this effect.

[Alexander82]

1. I don't like idea of "reflexes" that will just give random chance to aviod magic.

Instead i think we could use Magic armor addition (same as others armors, but lowers magic damage only), or Magic damage resistance that will work in almost same way of spell resistance but lowers incoming damage by its %.
.

Magic armor is something we were discussing already and it can live in the same system with reflexes

1.
Because i don't like idea of "avoiding" of for example fireball/earthquake/other area-type spells.how in reality you can avoid for example explosion on flat area?
Espesially when you are in the epicenter.

We should choose what can be dodged. A magic arrow can be dodges while an explosion damage might only be reduced if you prepare in time. In D&D it is a standard ability for rogues. I would also say that if you are equipped with a shield you might definitely reduce damage by hiding behind it.

Also this "reflexes"-type resistance is bad for elves because if it didn't work then you are still doomed. And this is crucial for elven druids, elven wizards and woodshapers, who can't get any dodge.

Elven units would be dead anyway (you can't simply give 10 magic armor to any 2 turns unit. The idea of dodging magic for them might be the best one since it make every infantry unit a higher chance to survive and avoid being annihilated with a single spell. Elven magic user can always be stored in parapets and wagons (when they will be put in game) while the real weak point for the elven army is their weak infantry (aside from the sentinels)

I personally think that magic damage shoud be unavoidable for all units. They can only get lesser damage from spells (up to complete immunity for dragons.)

I disagree with that. and, again, both effect can coexist.

2. as for elemental damages: if for spells then yes, i agee - they needed.
As for regular attacks - no, i don't like this.

It is simply a way to add more strategy and vary the behaviour of different armies (for example humans, dwarves and orcs will have different kind of weapon damages and resistances so it might be required more planning into choosing what kind of units you need to produce to win).

3. Can we add 4th type of attack - Magic damage?
For casters and maybe some more units (for example to give casters ranged attack with magic-type damage. Maybe for elven dragons also.)

Magic damage is ok for spells but the normal attack should generally be a physical attack. No need to give casters a standard ranged attack. They can attack with their staff if they are attacking a unit almost dead but their meant to use spells.

4. i suggest to avoid completely immunable units to any non-damageable magic. just give unit for example 60% -80% resistance and if you want that they couldn't be affected by for example fear, then just remove from "Effects" on unit you want this effect.

What are you talking of? I think i've lost this one. Do you mean units like fire elementals being immune to fire damage (it seems common sense to me).

[makazuwr32]

about "4":
I suggest to avoid 100% spell resist units.

About Casters:
Who said that they'll have 10 or 20 points of attack? i thought about 2-3 range of attack with 2-4 attack damage of magic type.

About magic armor in total:
i DON'T suggest 10 points of magic armor for elves.
I actually suggest to give them 6 at most by researching 3 tiers of "Enchanted armor" upgrade. this will need 18 turns in total.

[Alexander82]

6 armor for basic units is way too much...

remember that those units only cost 2

To stay in line with other basic units they might have no more than 1 or 2 armor that would end up making no difference in the end.

Casters should stay as they already are: casters.

If you make them able to cast and fight they will basically become the center of any strategy. You should use them for how good their spells are and not for a ranged magic attack that wouldn't be reduced by any non-caster

[Alexander82]

About 100% resistance units I don't see any problem with them.

If a unit has 100% resistance you just kill it with something that is not a spellcaster.

Anyway with the new system every value of attack and defence would probably checked and rethought

[makazuwr32]

I just don't know how even to kill basic olog hai with elves.
If he can be targeted with spells even with 20-30% chance of success elves can try to immobilise it with slowness and then shoot to the death. but without i just don't know how. he deals full damage to air units.

About magic armor:
6 armor ONLY to defend from magic and spell damage. All others will do full damage. And this upgrade is different from base armor.
Ofc they cost 2 turns only but you need to get these 6 points of magic armor 18 turns in elven craftsman. and this means you can't research in that craftsman for example normal armor or bowcraft.

[Alexander82]

Use fire archers to get rid of trolls (olog are trolls)

About magic armor i've already answered you. It is ok for costly unit or spellcasters.

[makazuwr32]

Maybe 3 points of anti-magic armor (1 per level of upgrade)?

Also i'll be happy to do that but they don't do enough damage to them to kill. and with cover of uruk archers and troll shamans elfs have nothing able to fight with them good enough.And even more - they are both expencive and not good enough to fight with basic olog hai's. and with upgraded ones... well if you elf, you can just give up.
Nothing can stop them, nothing can slow them.

[Alexander82]

Have you checked the fire damage dealt the following turns? The damage is very high at the moment.

You should, however, dispose of the shamans first.

The introduction of the transport will help with moving archers anyway. I'll ask Daniel if we can put it in without a vote.

[Sunrise Samurai]

Since this topic got resurrected, any ideas on when we can do it? I know it's a big job, so probably going to be a while.

[Alexander82]

I'm not sure about implementing (it is mostly a cloning of other functions already in game).

The real work will be adjusting values for every single unit

[makazuwr32]

Exactly.
this will become hell of pain to balance it after...
I tried once make a map with new races in WC3 and that was a huge pain to balance them against each other and against basic rases...

Also i don't think that we need some new attack and armor types unless magic attack and magic armor.

[Alexander82]

Editing values is something I can do. What's important is Daniel being able to implement thr basic system.

[Sunrise Samurai]

@Mak

The point of adding more attack and armor types is to ease the problem of too much or too little armor. If we have many armor types, we can have a 10/10 armor tank that takes almost 0 damage from most attacks, since it could be bypassed by a third damage type. For example, a ship would probably have high armor against melee/ranged damage, but have no armor against fire damage.

[makazuwr32]

This can be adjusted with bonus %.
Also i meant that we don't need more attack and armor types for normal creatures - no need of crushing damage and especially of crushing armor.
Elemental-based attack could be exist but in addition to their base attack type.
For example fire archers of elves must have fire-based elemental attack in addition to their base ranged damage.
Also one more why i'm against it is because for now AoF is good because it is easy to understand mechanics compared to for example WC3 ones.

Also i think that we definately need more resistances.

[Alexander82]

@Mak

The point of adding more attack and armor types is to ease the problem of too much or too little armor. If we have many armor types, we can have a 10/10 armor tank that takes almost 0 damage from most attacks, since it could be bypassed by a third damage type. For example, a ship would probably have high armor against melee/ranged damage, but have no armor against fire damage.

I agree with that

[Alexander82]

This can be adjusted with bonus %.
Also i meant that we don't need more attack and armor types for normal creatures - no need of crushing damage and especially of crushing armor.
Elemental-based attack could be exist but in addition to their base attack type.
For example fire archers of elves must have fire-based elemental attack in addition to their base ranged damage.
Also one more why i'm against it is because for now AoF is good because it is easy to understand mechanics compared to for example WC3 ones.

Also i think that we definately need more resistances.

I don't think is that complicated.

Of course the difference among different kind of physical damages must be slighter that the difference of elemental damage but that would add more depth to the game and make it even more different from AoS (that is one of the problems AoF has). Also we are going to add dwarves and scalefolk and we should differentiate more those races (especially dwarves that will have a high melee component).

Using bonuses is not an easy way to adjust damages. I tried many times to balance the arrown and fire damage of the fire archers against trolls and it is still a problem because at the moment the bonuses are applied after the armor reduction. If i raise the bonus too much we'll have a too high damage against headhunters and shamans while if the bonus is too low Ologs won't be scratched.

We can still set individual bonuses but it is a pain to give a unit a bonus damage for every single other unit in game.

A system with different damage types, once set properly, will make anything easyer giving less issues for balance.