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Post by junyortrakr on Jul 23, 2006 12:20:30 GMT -5
I had a few more thoughts on the layout and such. First, I like the compact town layout. It doesn't take much effort to get anywhere, which I like. Second, I rather like the fact that there are fewer, relatively balanced races. Previously, there were many races, and many of them were pretty much the same as others. Now, they're all a little different and pretty much balanced. Finally, I am wondering a little about the balance of Zulgors. IMHO, the 200% strength bonus makes them much more powerful than anything else. (Which makes for an easy character!  )The weapon degradation, not a big deal even at the beginning, almost totally goes away once tweakable weapons come into play. Unless the other 'bad' effect causes many more problems later in play, that really isn't a noticable downside, either. It seems to me that they're either meant as an easy race for a new player to use, or that a strength bonus of about 50% would make them more balanced with other races. That's my opinion, anyway. |
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Post by Variaz on Jul 23, 2006 12:56:08 GMT -5
However, the way I imagine the zulgors, they are supposed to have a strength beyond imagination(it is twisted by the chaos within them!). 50% just wouldn't represent their strength. 200%, on the other hand, does just that. Now, their biggest drawback is the fact that all their non-physical spells/abilities becomes Chaos. Cast Fire Ball? It becomes Chaos Ball. Use a rod with a fire crystal? Zap a wand of Cold Ball? Everything becomes Chaos. Even branded weapons will become chaos! Now, many of the game main quest bosses will be zulgors, so they too will be immune to chaos. Some random enemies will also be immune to chaos. Imagine a physical immune boss with 100% resistance to chaos. What can the zulgor do? Run away. The Piercing Spells ability of the Elemental Lord no longer pierces natural resistances, so zulgors are going to be in serious trouble sometimes. Considering some of the main quest bosses will be zulgors and thus will get 100% resistance to chaos, the only way to defeat them will be to use strong melee attacks, so zulgors will actually NEED that 200% strength! But right now, in the beta, I agree that they may seem a bit overpowering. The only monster with chaos resistance in the beta is that Mysterious Sorcerer! The degradation is not too bad, because abilities does not lower durability... but that may change!  |
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Post by junyortrakr on Jul 24, 2006 11:22:17 GMT -5
Oh, well if you can't do anything to natural resistance, and most of the big nasties are Zulgars, that would be different. It would tend to make everything else easier, though. Of course, in theory, anyway, they should also have difficulty doing damage to you, too.
If you did change the weapons so they could all degrade for a Zulgar, then it would be a problem.
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Post by Variaz on Aug 4, 2006 14:50:02 GMT -5
About 200% being too high... Yes, it's very high, but I did some interesting long-term comparisons to the dwarves...
I based my calculations on the following:
Base strength of 100(Dwarf will get 125, Zulgor will get 300)
Axe skill of 200(Dwarf gets 250, Zulgor gets 200)
Dragon Axe(9d9), max dam 81.
Final damages looks something like this:
Dwarf: 330329
Zulgor: 777600
As you can see, Zulgors do, on average, more than twice the damages a dwarf does. That very well represent their twisted strength. However, if we lower the Zulgor's bonus to 100%(still high, yet more reasonnable), we get this:
Dwarf: 330329
Zulgor: 356400
Barely stronger, and for like 20000 less damages, Dwarf gets more hp and more defense, not to mention an access to multiple elemental types, while the zulgor will be limited to Chaos, making them overall a better melee choice than the zulgor.
Of course, one could argue that the dwarf bonus only applies to axes, but even then... Even with equal skill of 200, having zulgors with 100% strength would give this:
Dwarf: 264263
Zulgor: 356400
That's only 26% more damages than the dwarves, and in my opinion, not worth sacrifying precious hp, defense and elemental versatility. So that's why the zulgors NEEDS their strength!
However, I do agree that 200% is really a lot, but then, Zulgors are supposed to have unnaturally high strength due to the chaos in their bodies. That said, if you can think of an extra drawback we could give them, I would certainly consider it. They already have weapons that breaks easily, and have only access to the Chaos element. Perhaps we could think of something that would make them harder to play, yet would fit well with their race description...
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Post by Variaz on Aug 14, 2006 11:59:36 GMT -5
All right, after thinking about it some more, I finally decided to lower the zulgors strength to 100% instead of 200%. One thing I forgot to consider was the bonuses of the classes, and the Warrior's Strength ability, which is percentile based. All these bonus being percentile, they would probably have given the zulgor insane strength, and that would have been too much. So they have been lowered to 100%, which is still a lot.
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)The weapon degradation, not a big deal even at the beginning, almost totally goes away once tweakable weapons come into play. Unless the other 'bad' effect causes many more problems later in play, that really isn't a noticable downside, either. It seems to me that they're either meant as an easy race for a new player to use, or that a strength bonus of about 50% would make them more balanced with other races. That's my opinion, anyway.
