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Nate
12-23-2012, 10:07 AM
In addition to the new skill trees and race balancing/tweaks the Fight Engine has also undergone some changes to balance things out. Here are a couple of the more notable changes:

1) Rounds are a little shorter. This means endurance and bleeding can/will play a larger role in the fights. This also means 2 round stuns are staying as the shorter rounds makes stuns sting less.

2) The majority of weapons have had their speeds modified. The slowest speed is still a 1 and the fastest is a 4 (instead of 3 as it is now). For the most part they are all pretty similar to what they were with slight modifications. The fastest weapons like the dagger are now a speed 4. The slowest weapons are still 2H and Pole Arms which are a 1.

3) 2H weapons have had their damage reduced and number of attacks increased. This was to help them be more consistent instead of being all or nothing. Agility based weapons get to use their agility to help boost damage instead of their strength.

4) Armour plays a much bigger role in its ability to reduce damage with heavy armour receiving a pretty good bump. As a result many fights will see a good spread of level 1-5 crits even at the higher levels and overall damage dealt with each hit will be less than you see now. (Apoc's biggest hits section will likely need to be closed and a new thread opened for the new hits so it is relative to the new engine).

5) Medium armour is slightly heavier and more encumbering and heavy armour is A LOT heavier and the majority of gladiators dressed in all full plate will be encumbered (with the bar at least in the yellow, often in orange and red for some). This will have implications ranging from using more endurance, attacking less, having a slower initiative, etc. This is the price for being a tank that absorbs the bulk of the damage inflicted upon your gladiator. Offensive and defensive gladiator builds are still viable.

5) Shields wielded with skill offer a lot more protection and as many have noticed there are skills that can help even more. This in combination with the changes to armour will no doubt give rise to new builds of gladiators who aim to make their opponent run out of endurance rather than health.

6) Counter Attack has been changed to where it will only attack as often as the opponent even if they could attack more and they will always attack last in true counter attack fashion. If the opponent can attack more, the counter attacker will only attack as many times as they are able.

7) The key attributes of a skill have the ability to push the effects of a skill up past what just the skill level offers more than they do now. So two gladiators with a 10 in a skill might see different results in the effects (e.g. Hamstring might reduce the attacks less or more than the other gladiator based on their attributes).

8) Low health and endurance have more of an effect in regards to your number of attacks, to hit, etc.

9) There have been some modifications to built in bonuses for fighting style vs armour matchups. The following matchups offer a slight advantage to the attacker regarding to hit and damage:

- Slashing vs light armour
- Bashing vs medium armour
- Lunging vs Heavy armour

Fighting styles like berserk, kill shot, tank, counter attack etc do not get the bonus, however, slash/bash/lunge and parry-x do. This advantage is not huge but might be enough to make the difference in a close fight.

10) Smart gladiators (i.e. gladiators with a high intellect) will use their skills more often than dumb gladiators (i.e. gladiators will a low intellect). Dumb gladiators will still use skills though, they aren't THAT dumb!

11) Any and all of the above items (and any not listed) are subject to change at any time for game balance reasons. (Great realm lawyers require me to state this). ;)

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

Cynaidh
12-23-2012, 12:40 PM
Nice changes! Been looking forward to that agility change for awhile!

Prinny
12-23-2012, 12:52 PM
For the majority this comes over to me as some awesome changes Nate and I can't wait to see them!
Now for the questioning!

2) Can we get a list of new speeds for the weapons?
5) So upon the change of making our gladiators more encumbered with 1 of the previous updates our gladiators will be even more encumbered? That makes me a sad sad panda :/
5) This is a big blow to offensive wars because this means they are far in the yellow/orange if they want to make use of their comfortable homes during fights. That makes Laharl a sad panda :/
10) How big is this difference exactly Nate between lets say a 75 Int and a 100 Int gladiator?

On a side note, How big would the encumbrance be for a gladiator that has 157 Strength, 125 Size and a total equipment weight of 65? :D

Cynaidh
12-23-2012, 01:03 PM
Don't forget Prinny warriors have "Light as a feather" to counter this weight increase, makes that skill more important if you want to get all of your potential attacks per round i'd guess.

Prinny
12-23-2012, 01:09 PM
Still makes me a sad panda seeing as I was thinking of expanding to Rage/Theatrics to pull an off war^^

Cynaidh
12-23-2012, 01:20 PM
wow i missed this:


7) The key attributes of a skill have the ability to push the effects of a skill up past what just the skill level offers more than they do now. So two gladiators with a 10 in a skill might see different results in the effects (e.g. Hamstring might reduce the attacks less or more than the other gladiator based on their attributes).

HOL Slaves just became gods.

CaineDeSoulis
12-23-2012, 03:19 PM
6) Counter Attack has been changed to where it will only attack as often as the opponent even if they could attack more and they will always attack last in true counter attack fashion. If the opponent can attack more, the counter attacker will only attack as many times as they are able.

YAY! no more theatric/humanoid blenders

7) The key attributes of a skill have the ability to push the effects of a skill up past what just the skill level offers more than they do now. So two gladiators with a 10 in a skill might see different results in the effects (e.g. Hamstring might reduce the attacks less or more than the other gladiator based on their attributes).

I think the KO skill already had this sorta thing

9) There have been some modifications to built in bonuses for fighting style vs armour matchups. The following matchups offer a slight advantage to the attacker regarding to hit and damage:

- Slashing vs light armour
- Bashing vs medium armour
- Lunging vs Heavy armour

Crude, I thought this was already true >.<. Also purely from a logical/realistic standpoint Medium armor consists mostly of chain/scale mail armor which was essentially padded cloth/leather armor wrapped in chain,ring or scale. which were difficult to slash through and relatively good at absorbing impact thanks to the flexible links and great deal of padding. Making it vulnerable to stabbing/thrusting weapons. where as the deflection angles on plate armor made it nearly impossible to directly stab someone in it. ! Suddenly had an idea for several weapon types I'll pm you about them Nate.

Anyway TL:DR version of the above paragraph.

- Slashing vs light armour
- Lunging vs medium armour
- Bashing vs Heavy armour ???

Apoca1ypse
12-23-2012, 08:45 PM
these changes please me more than the skill tree!!!

1) I like that bleed got an indirect buff :) Speed rage with GV is looking appealing

2) This intrigues me. could make for some interesting bleed builds with speed 4 weapons. I'm curious to see what other weapons got tweeked. did the bastard sword get changed so that it's speed got increased to match it's damage reduction a while back?

3a) The changes to 2H weapons please me. I like the idea of swinging more :) Now to see how severe the damage debuff is...

3b) Agility changes are nice. Bruce approves. Is strength still being used to calculate some of the weapon damage though?

4) Can openers still gonna open cans :D I will need to update the thread then get it locked once the update is out.

5) Finally! I was sick and tired of having 1/5th the armor and no real advantage for it. If theatrics and wars want more initiative, rock out some chain or leather guys. If you want to be offensive, you'll need to sacrifice some of that defense. with the new war skills, you should get a lot of mileage out of some medium armor... just saying...

6) Sweet jesus I have wanted that for a long time. Probably my fav part of the update! It should still have a viable place, just a more defensive one, rather than to out-aggro ragers... Bruce also approves of this :)

7) I thought it already functioned like that. either way, Now I need to find a STR/CHI version of Ahhnold.

8) This is good as should help defensive glads more. Does make my pure offence stable a little sad, but yeah, we needed a boost to defensive glads.

9) Interesting. Not really sure what to think of this yet.

10) Int getting more of a place is nice. Maybe I shouldnt have passed on the 100int glads I saw...

11) probably for the best :P

Dainoji
12-24-2012, 06:16 AM
Looking forward to the update, looks like there are some interesting changes in there.

Will strength help a weapon like a dagger or is agility the only stat that will matter?



7) I thought it already functioned like that. either way, Now I need to find a STR/CHI version of Ahhnold.

I'm pretty sure the skills already worked this way but it sounds like stats are going to mean a lot more now which is pretty cool and makes each gladiator different even if they have the same build.

Lunarion199
12-24-2012, 07:00 AM
7) The key attributes of a skill have the ability to push the effects of a skill up past what just the skill level offers more than they do now.


HOL Slaves just became gods.


Hmm.. Now it's not just a matter of extra 15-30 base-stats; the effect of those stats is going to get further magnified.

So, are there now any strategic ways by which a non-HOL slave may still dream of getting freedom awarded?
- maybe placing stat-caps?

AngryVermin
12-24-2012, 09:28 AM
So, are there now any strategic ways by which a non-HOL slave may still dream of getting freedom awarded?
- maybe placing stat-caps?

I was the original outspoken skeptic of myself being able to get an HOL slave... I was really worried about that before - but I am not so worried now - after living it. I just started playing in August...

I now believe that you can win alot of bouts - maybe even stay out of primus until you get the correct amount of fights. Then by really tracking who you can win against - and only fighting them - you can win 55%, the promote to Primus only at the end, and get your ONE HOL slave (I originally thought you open access to All HOL slaves forever). I was very skeptical, but I know now that it can be done. It can prob be done with a less than awesome glad - but you have to keep up with everyone you fight....

Apoca1ypse
12-24-2012, 05:52 PM
I got Kholek up from a 49% w/l to 54.5% w/l ratio in about a month. I havnt gotten much further because I have not had the time to bother with carefully selecting matches. also I figured that with imminent changes having him as a test bed would be nice for once i get another HoL slave.