crit cap

[Mukami]

When the heavy tanked characters can crit just as often as any other character then it really sways the balance for the more defensive guy since the offense is so capped.

[The Crazy Animal]

When the heavy tanked characters can crit just as often as any other character then it really sways the balance for the more defensive guy since the offense is so capped.

Let me start with this, what does a critical hit represent?
A critical hit represents a strike that is landed on a sensitive area of the body there for negating the benefits of the armor of the target. Further this type of strike is one that is either landed by luck or by learning the vulnerable strike zones of an opponent.

Now this is an also an odd question since the majority of the tanked characters happen to be the ones with higher combat ratings. So lets narrow this issue down a little. Ranger vs paladin both are combat 4 magic 1 classes however they have different armour types.  Should a ranger crit more then a paladin even though they are of the same combat rating?

[Hagrid]

When the heavy tanked characters can crit just as often as any other character then it really sways the balance for the more defensive guy since the offense is so capped.

Let me start with this, what does a critical hit represent?
A critical hit represents a strike that is landed on a sensitive area of the body there for negating the benefits of the armor of the target. Further this type of strike is one that is either landed by luck or by learning the vulnerable strike zones of an opponent.

Now this is an also an odd question since the majority of the tanked characters happen to be the ones with higher combat ratings. So lets narrow this issue down a little. Ranger vs paladin both are combat 4 magic 1 classes however they have different armour types.? Should a ranger crit more then a paladin even though they are of the same combat rating?

I think it might be that heavy armor reduces your speed, agility, strength(?).  So by that they cant do the more complex or accurate moves, so then luck would come more into play(and levels).

Shawn
Hagrid

[The Crazy Animal]

I think it might be that heavy armor reduces your speed, agility, strength(?). So by that they cant do the more complex or accurate moves, so then luck would come more into play(and levels).

Shawn
Hagrid

So are you saying that you would like the encumbrance penalty to be increased when dealing with crits?

[Hagrid]

I think it might be that heavy armor reduces your speed, agility, strength(?). So by that they cant do the more complex or accurate moves, so then luck would come more into play(and levels).

Shawn
Hagrid

So are you saying that you would like the encumbrance penalty to be increased when dealing with crits?

Like it no.  But it does make sense.  It balances it out.  Like 1H should do more crits(maybe enc plays a factor) over a heavy 2H.
I picture some guy in full plate that can barely move and a guy with some silk on.  I dont think the plate wearer is gonna be too accurate. :)
Same with weapons, maybe go by the weight of it which determines the accuracy, crits, etc.

[The Crazy Animal]

Like it no. But it does make sense. It balances it out.

I chopped and pasted your post a little to make it a little easier to answer.

Like 1H should do more crits(maybe enc plays a factor) over a heavy 2H. Same with weapons, maybe go by the weight of it which determines the accuracy, crits, etc.

That doesn't really make sense but because people don't like when I make huge posts explaining stuff I'm just going to skip the in detail explanation. One of the shorter reasons is because encumbrance is a across the board factor everyone has it so it needs the treat players the same way. It wouldn't make sense to have the heavy 1 handed player critting more then the heavy 2 handed player but If you want crits across the board though to be reduced by enc then that would be fair.

The problem with with crits accuracy and 1h, 2h weapons really has more to do with the overall weapon design then it does tanks and lighter armour types.

To really fix the problem in terms of the data fields in weapons the first thing that makes sense to do is move to have both a min strength and min agility field on each weapon rather then just str. This would make it so ill balanced weapons would carry some penalty that can only be overcome based on the characters agility. The bonus or penalty amount to accuracy or crits would then be based on the gap between the characters agility and the min agility listed on a weapon. If they have a surplus of points above that gap then they would start to get the bonuses if they have less then they start to get penalties. However I would suggest that we also use an average of these two stats to create a portion of the penalties since both extreme agility and extreme strength should be able to compensate to an extent.

Also I don't really think the problem is how often you crit with a 1 or 2 hander but it has to do with the amount of damage all weapons deal when they crit. How it makes sense to fix this is to provide a way to reduce the percentage of max and min extra damage done by a crit rather then reducing the amount of crits. I would suggest doing this based on no less then these three factors weapon hand type and min max damage of the weapon using a formula to dynamically reduce the crit damage percentages.

The desired effect generated by this would be that all the harder hitting weapons would then still crit but the damage done by each crit hit would be closer to their average min max damage then the weapon that does less damage. However this would generate one slight issue at higher levels that would need to be kept in check. The issue is that the higher level restricted weapons tend to do more damage which with these changes if unchecked by a balance system could effectively devalue their crits in comparison to low level weapons. To compensate for this the amount of reduction given to crit min max dmg percentage could increased based on the minlevel ability given on the weapon.

Personally I really think that alone should fix the majority of the balance issue but doing these two things would be a much more balanced way to do it since we do want there to be benefits to using some types of weapons over others.

I picture some guy in full plate that can barely move and a guy with some silk on. I don't think the plate wearer is gonna be too accurate. :)

Well there's your problem to start with your one of the myth believers about the weight of plate armour. The myth of a guy in full plate armour not being able to move very well was first documented being used as a satire by Mark Twin in his novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court published in 1889. Its really not true though. The historical weight of a complete set of steel full plate armour was recorded to be as light as 40 pounds with the typical full suit made from of iron or steel weighing between 40-60 pounds. Iron armor tended to be in the higher end of that range. Second the heaviest armours available ever made available were reserved for jousting and this was to provide extra safety to the knights or nobles taking part in the sport. However even in the heavier jousting armour there are records of some well trained knights being able to mount their horses by running and vaulting onto their mounts backs. If the weight of a full suit of armour ill effected movement or weighed that much their effectiveness in battle would have been greatly diminished and we wouldn't have seen their over 300 year use. We also know that plate wearing knights were be very accurate too with their weapons this is because the German swordsmanship schools were trained to be able to hit between the joints of the armour. These are not huge gaps either most of them are smaller then a fist.

[Hagrid]

Yeah, im still stuck on majormuds limited programming.

The way you described would balance it out alot better.  So the mud is going to be more like the diku/merc. 
I always like the way they did it.  Where many factors can come into play and not just 1 or 2.

[The Crazy Animal]

Well its going to be like mmud from the stand point of looks and feel but be coded better because we have more competent people working on it then metro does:) However beyond the issues of look and feel though the code is really open to better ways of doing things.

[Hagrid]

You talking in real life armor.  It was made light, thin steel, etc to be LIGHT.   Who said you have to make it like that?

Now lets see how you move with thick steel?  Thick iron?  You can make armor as light or as heavy as you want.  The heavier it is, the slower you are going to move even with great strength, since like I said, you can make some VERY heavy armor.

The guy in silk is going to move a helluva lot smoother, faster, and be a bit more accurate.

[The Crazy Animal]

The reason they went as light as they could in real life is because if heavy armour restricts your movements too much you could easily end up dead. We can feather that type of effect a bit in the game but we still would have to have a better idea of where the breaking point would be. Any idea of where that breaking point would be?

The other problem this would make is most of the plate armours in mmud are already heavy enough to keep a stealth race/tank class from wearing them. Making more of the armour heavier would further divided those portions of the class away from the regular tanks. DC and I have talked about part of the class race match-up problem a couple of times in the idea forum. They don't get played as much as they use to but I think the game would be better off if more people did feel able to play them at near the same level as the normal tank or stealth match-ups.

Personally I think we need to lower the normal rate of crits and maybe even their damage range to begin with though across the board before we bother with looking a whole lot at the other stuff that can have an effect on them. Right now enhanced crits don't mean a whole lot because everyone does it so much. There's also a lot that can be done using weapon skills that can change the way characters are perceived to fight. Like tanks becoming more hack and slash oriented while the lighter armoured classes become more finesse oriented.

[Hagrid]

The reason they went as light as they could in real life is because if heavy armour restricts your movements too much you could easily end up dead. We can feather that type of effect a bit in the game but we still would have to have a better idea of where the breaking point would be. Any idea of where that breaking point would be?

The other problem this would make is most of the plate armours in mmud are already heavy enough to keep a stealth race/tank class from wearing them. Making more of the armour heavier would further divided those portions of the class away from the regular tanks. DC and I have talked about part of the class race match-up problem a couple of times in the idea forum. They don't get played as much as they use to but I think the game would be better off if more people did feel able to play them at near the same level as the normal tank or stealth match-ups.

Personally I think we need to lower the normal rate of crits and maybe even their damage range to begin with though across the board before we bother with looking a whole lot at the other stuff that can have an effect on them. Right now enhanced crits don't mean a whole lot because everyone does it so much. There's also a lot that can be done using weapon skills that can change the way characters are perceived to fight. Like tanks becoming more hack and slash oriented while the lighter armoured classes become more finesse oriented.

Yes, the breaking point could be a human.
A half-ogre, giant, half-giant, etc can wear much heavier then a human.
A dwarf is smaller but stronger then a human, so could carry heavier armor.
A halfling isnt as strong as a human so cant wear as heavy.

It should be up to the player whether they want mass ac/dr/etc wearing heavy armor or more accurate/crits wearing lighter armor.

[The Crazy Animal]

Your thinking break down not breaking point but that?s ok cause I didn't take the time to explain it very well. By breaking point I meant where the effect of this game mechanic would become detrimental to the character.

I was down stairs last night and had a bit of an epiphany about this. This is a little long winded just to warn you but I think it would have the desired effect. What if we base the required Str field of weapons on the amount of strength left after subtracting the amount of encumbrance used? By doing something like this if you have an enc total of 50% you would then only have 50% your available str in which to put towards your weapons use.

This would make it so if you?re a dwarf with 6768 enc and you fill 84% of your enc up on the best armour available then you only have 16% of your total str left that?s a whole 17.6 str available str to use if they were at max str. A Halfling thief with best leather ac dr combo gear would use about 73% of their encum leaving them with 27% of their total str. Which would equal out to about 16.2 str left available. Which is really nice because if you look at the available str totals there is only a 1.4 str difference between the two which would give them very similar weapon choices as far as weapon efficiency goes which normally the physically weaker character normally would not have had. If we look at a dark-elf ranger with max str in its best ac/dr combo which is closer to the norm in comparison to a tank we can see it would have about 46.8 str left which in comparison to the dwarf is a lot more left.

The next step in this is really to change how the required str field works on weapons. This will really require sitting down and rethinking the lay out of how much str it takes to wield weapons because a character could have a range as great as 0 to 150 str to work with. Each group of weapons would need to be keyed in for specific armour ranges. By planning this out well we could get so that the heavier burdened well armored players are keyed into a weapon selection that does a over all lower dmg range in comparison to those of the not so armored player. Also Armor would then have to have a steady enc gain in par with the avg str increases of a character as they progress through the levels in order to keep it in step with the weapons. Here are few mechanics that should be looked at while thinking about this:

1. Acc based on the amount of str left for weapon use
2. Crit Acc based on the amount of str left for weapon use
3. A damage modifier based on the amount above or below the req str of the weapon.
4. Alter the swing calculations to work using the remaining str vs str req of the weapon rather then str via enc %.

We still need to figure out where that breaking point is in order to plan out where each weapon group would need to be placed. Doing that insures that the weapons are damaging but not to the point of putting the opposing character design at an unfair disadvantage or vise versa. However I think it would be a much more balanced system in all and worth giving some time to exploring it further.

What do you think about this for a solution?

[Hagrid]

That is pretty interesting!  :o

It sounds good, and gives more options.  The strength left over, would be on a scale i assume to reflect the lower numbers?
If there are caps tho, it might now work?

OFF TOPIC:
Have you guys talked about the combat ratings, if you guys are going to do it.  They are worthless in mud right now.  Poor WH's with combat 5 suck ass.  Maybe make it so you get xtra acc/crits/damage or something with each higher rating?
Just one of my pet peeves in mud. :)

[The Crazy Animal]

Well I?m sure exactly what type of scale you mean but I think I might know what you?re getting at.

The left over str would need to be on a scale based on enc totals of suits of armour for particular level ranges vs the avg str of characters in that level bracket. Then since all the characters would be functioning using the lower numbers we would need to adjust down the req str for most if not all of the weapons to work along side that however super heavy weapons like tree trunks though shouldn?t see much change. This basically makes it so if the avg left over str for a well armored warrior was say 16 ? 24 you would probably find something like a broadsword around that spot.

As far as caps go they are needed to keep things balanced. Especially when dealing with the extremes of characters like Halflings and Half-ogres. It?s a given that we don?t want to see a Half-Ogre dominate the game because all he?s wielding is a dagger. However we?d really need to look at any of the math involved before really know the extent of what would be need as far as caps go.

Now we just have to talk Vitoc and DC into it hehe :)

OFF TOPIC:
Combat ratings will be affecting weapon skills other then that we haven?t talked about it much at all:
http://www.greatermud.com/wiki/index.php/Idea:Weapon_Skills

(This is currently in revision again)

We should probably try to keep this on topic though so if you want to make a combat ratings post I?d be happy to share my views on it there. :)

[rootc]

This is a great discussion and probably the most important balance issue I've seen so far.

The crit problem is caused by the crit cap. Ninja's (cloth wearers) hit the crit cap about 10-15 levels earlier than plate classes. The ninjas combat ability doesn't get much better. Yeah they can use bigger and better weapons and maintain their crit average but limited quantity of quality weapons puts a halt to this bonus around level 65. I guess the scalabity of the game starts to break down at level 50 or so.

.
- Anyway, here is an idea to address the scalability problem
- Remove the crit cap. No soft cap, and no hard cap.
- Add in a crit defense. Players and mobs get a crit defense level.

Example:
Player vs. Monster

Player
Crit level - 75

Monster
Crit defense - 40

Crit level - crit defense = actual crit level.

Both players and monsters would get a crit defense level. For the first 40 levels or so a monsters crit defense would remain below 10 or so. After level 40, or when crits start to play a larger role the crit defense can be raised according.

The primary problem with this idea is that the high level characters would just decimate low level monsters. Power leveling would be a bigger problem than it is already. Easily solved by removing experience points if the monster level is 15 - 20 levels below your own level.

There is definately a lot of room to play and adjust to make sure the balance is accurate. Perhaps the best advantage of a system like this is the pvp possiblities. It could reduce the crits during pvp down to a realistic number. High level pvp won't be 1 or 2 lucky rounds. By reducing the crits the rounds could extend to 5 or 6 rounds or more. This could really add in some significant complexities to pvp. A healer could heal. A damage over time spell could be useful. A magic user could gain some footing in the area of pvp.