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Post by vastin on Aug 5, 2008 20:14:55 GMT -5
One thing I've been wondering about for a while:
If I have a spellcraft skill of 10, and an elementalist skill of 10, is my final spell power calculated as:
FINAL POWER = (spell power) * (casting stat) * (1+ (spellcraft *.1)) * (1+ elementalism *.2))
or
FINAL POWER = (spell power) * (casting stat) * (1+ (spellcraft *.1) + (elementalism *.2))
Big difference there, as the former encourages at least some specialization as the total points you sink into casting increases (and results in a lot more firepower overall) whereas with the latter you're mostly best off staying generalist unless you have a very specific strategy in mind, and overall spell power is lower.
The formula help doc only offers examples of pure specialization or pure generalization, so it leaves this particular question unanswered.
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Post by Variaz on Aug 5, 2008 21:01:31 GMT -5
Actually, the damages are first increased by Elemental. The final Elemental damages are then multiplied by Spellcraft.
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Post by vastin on Aug 5, 2008 22:28:15 GMT -5
Well, order of operations doesn't really matter with multiplication - but the fact that they DO multiply each other rather than adding to a final result is very important.
Up till now I've mostly been foregoing specialization as I like to use at least three spell categories (elemental, alteration, and mysticism), but with spellcraft and specialization applied as separate multipliers, it's much more important to put some points into both, at least for any category you expect to cast frequently.
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Post by Variaz on Aug 5, 2008 22:43:16 GMT -5
Yes and no. It's true for Elemental. However, Alteration works differently. Powers for calculating resistance is an addition, not a multiplication, and specializing in Alteration will be much more effective than spreading Spellcraft/Alteration. Mysticism will be more powerful with Spellcraft/Mysticism, but Harm will be easier to resist, while Mysticism specialization will be a bit less powerful, but Harm will be harder to resist. Divination is better as a speciality for the same reasons as well, as well as Diviner class abilities.
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Post by Variaz on Aug 5, 2008 22:51:29 GMT -5
For fun, let's see how much of a difference it makes! Let's say a 100 Int character, casting a power 300 spell. Scenario 1: Elemental 200, spellcraft 0. 300 * 95(100-5) = 28500 + 1140000 = 1168500 Scenario 2: Elemental 100, Spellcraft 100 300 * 95 = 28500 + 570000 = 598500 + 5985000 = 6583500 WOW! I didn't think it would make THAT much of a difference!
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Post by vastin on Aug 5, 2008 22:57:34 GMT -5
Oh definitely! That's why I asked.
But basically it seems that any ability that requires a resistance test adds your skills, while abilities that do straight damage/healing multiply them? Is that about right?
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Post by Variaz on Aug 5, 2008 23:50:27 GMT -5
Yes, pretty much. So you could say that Alteration and Divination are better specialized, while Elemental is better mixed. As for Mysticism and Conjuration, it's debatable. Specialized Mysticism will do less damages but harder to resist. Specialized Conjuration means better and cheaper summoning, but less powerful fields. All things considered, though, I'd say that Mixed Mysticism is probably better overall, while Specialized Conjuration is probably best. But I really didn't think it was that big a difference... I hope it's not overpowered...
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Post by vastin on Aug 6, 2008 1:04:19 GMT -5
But I really didn't think it was that big a difference... I hope it's not overpowered... A basic rule of thumb I apply whenever I'm designing combat systems is pretty much this: Offensive abilities (chance to hit, damage inflicted, etc) should be additive. Defensive abilities (chance to block, chance to resist, etc) should be multiplicative. The basic reason for this is that offenses scale upwards and become inordinately large very quickly if there are too many multiplying factors in play. Also, the number of factors quickly becomes more important than the scale of any individual factor in such cases. (2*2*2*2 > 4+4) Defenses that are percentile in nature are naturally approaching 0% (and as they approach zero, the defenders survivability approaches infinity). However, as long as a given set of percentile defenses multiplies each other, they can never REACH zero, wheras if they are additive, they will do so quickly. Most of the defenses in portralis are percentile in nature, and do multiply each other (though they can achieve very high individual magnitudes, which still makes them difficult to balance...) Overall Portralis has a LOT of multipliers in it, which is why all the damage numbers are so astronomically high. Finding a new multiplier to apply to your attack form is going to be much, much more effective than pouring more points into an old one! The tricky part is, because all of the real math appears to be hidden in the intricacies of each individual skill or ability implementation, it's REALLY HARD to figure out what aspects are multiplicative and which are additive! For example, your Fighting and Weapon Specs do NOT appear to be multiplicative (though I'm not 100% sure of that!) the way that spellcraft and elementalism are - though there are many AP driven melee multiplier abilities that look like they'd more than make up for that deficiency, not to mention the base die multipliers.
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Post by Gando on Aug 6, 2008 1:28:21 GMT -5
But I really didn't think it was that big a difference... I hope it's not overpowered... A basic rule of thumb I apply whenever I'm designing combat systems is pretty much this: Offensive abilities (chance to hit, damage inflicted, etc) should be additive. Defensive abilities (chance to block, chance to resist, etc) should be multiplicative. The basic reason for this is that offenses scale upwards and become inordinately large very quickly if there are too many multiplying factors in play. Also, the number of factors quickly becomes more important than the scale of any individual factor in such cases. (2*2*2*2 > 4+4) Defenses that are percentile in nature are naturally approaching 0% (and as they approach zero, the defenders survivability approaches infinity). However, as long as a given set of percentile defenses multiplies each other, they can never REACH zero, wheras if they are additive, they will do so quickly. Most of the defenses in portralis are percentile in nature, and do multiply each other (though they can achieve very high individual magnitudes, which still makes them difficult to balance...) Overall Portralis has a LOT of multipliers in it, which is why all the damage numbers are so astronomically high. Finding a new multiplier to apply to your attack form is going to be much, much more effective than pouring more points into an old one! The tricky part is, because all of the real math appears to be hidden in the intricacies of each individual skill or ability implementation, it's REALLY HARD to figure out what aspects are multiplicative and which are additive! For example, your Fighting and Weapon Specs do NOT appear to be multiplicative (though I'm not 100% sure of that!) the way that spellcraft and elementalism are - though there are many AP driven melee multiplier abilities that look like they'd more than make up for that deficiency, not to mention the base die multipliers. I really feel like you are over thinking this...Im guessing you feel the current system is broken and you want to fix it...Im not convinced it is and my feeling is the old adage "if it aint broke...dont break it." I think you need take off the "Im a game designer" hat for a while and just play the game as a "player" ...you might find that it is fun without all the math and the calculations and the figuring out if you are doing enough damage at a specific level to justify this or that skill or ability use. Just my feeling on this.
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Post by vastin on Aug 6, 2008 1:45:51 GMT -5
A basic rule of thumb I apply whenever I'm designing combat systems is pretty much this: Offensive abilities (chance to hit, damage inflicted, etc) should be additive. Defensive abilities (chance to block, chance to resist, etc) should be multiplicative. I really feel like you are over thinking this...Im guessing you feel the current system is broken and you want to fix it...Im not convinced it is and my feeling is the old adage "if it aint broke...dont break it." I think you need take off the "Im a game designer" hat for a while and just play the game as a "player" ...you might find that it is fun without all the math and the calculations and the figuring out if you are doing enough damage at a specific level to justify this or that skill or ability use. Just my feeling on this. Ah, that all just depends on what your ultimate goals are. Mine of course are to screw with spreadsheets, play with numbers and theorize about combat systems and the like. For me, that IS why I play games of this sort. ;D I'm really here because there are a lot of interesting ideas in Portralis that you guys are trying out, and I find that fascinating. The whole reason I play rouge-likes in general is because development for them is so simple that it lets people try all kinds of crazy ideas (without the need for a 20 million dollar development budget and project managers. ) If you were busy trying to keep it all streamlined and balanced, much of this stuff wouldn't be here - so from my point of view it's all good. However, for the sake of your project's longevity, you'll find that you do occasionally have to find ways to smooth things out a bit, or all the numbers eventually become so disjointed that there's no common foundation for anything new to be built on. I'm not saying that's where you are, but as Vahz just noted, the innocuous difference between a + and a * can be a 500% difference in firepower. It's also the kind of thing that becomes more pronounced as you increase the scale of the game. As the content moves into the 50's and 70's and so on, imbalances that didn't seem important early on could determine whether many builds are even remotely playable later in the game. Exactly when you reach the point where you decide you need to sit back and hold off on implementing new features in favor of re-balancing and debugging the ones you have is up to you guys and your tolerance for the whims of mathematical chaos.
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Post by Variaz on Aug 6, 2008 8:55:37 GMT -5
In this particular case, I do think that it may be overpowered, as I didn't think it would make that much of a difference, so it wasn't intended to be this way. Therefore, the skills should probably be additive.
Also, melee and ranged are additive. A Swords specialist will be stronger than a Fighting specialist, but the Fighting specialist will be able to use any weapons. Same with Shooting. So Spellcraft should be additive as far as spellcasting goes.
However, about the astronomical numbers... These big numbers creates a "powerful" feeling for the player and monsters, and reducing all numbers in general would cut the feel of the game a bit. After all, huge numbers and limitless stats and skills are becoming Portralis' signature. If the difference between a level 1 and level 10 player is 5 versus 30 damages, well, it doesn't have the same punch as saying that the difference is 5 versus 10000.
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Post by vastin on Aug 6, 2008 14:12:04 GMT -5
However, about the astronomical numbers... These big numbers creates a "powerful" feeling for the player and monsters, and reducing all numbers in general would cut the feel of the game a bit. After all, huge numbers and limitless stats and skills are becoming Portralis' signature. If the difference between a level 1 and level 10 player is 5 versus 30 damages, well, it doesn't have the same punch as saying that the difference is 5 versus 10000. Oh, I agree. I wasn't suggesting you change that - it is, as you say, the signature of the game. I was simply noting that it makes your game balancing task considerably more challenging, as a system of this sort will naturally tend to exhibit wild swings in the final outcomes based on very small tweaks in the initial values, and keeping track of all the potential multiplying inputs becomes trecherous territory. I tend to view Portralis's systems as being more binary than statistical. For example: As a rule your AC isn't in a range equivalent to what you are fighting - it is either far above, rendering you nearly melee immune, or far below, leaving you very melee vulnerable. Likewise for spell defense and so on. Offense is likewise a pretty binary concept. Most creatures in the game will die from a tiny fraction of your offensive capacity - some however are nearly (or totally) invulnerable to your primary offense, forcing you to switch to a sub-standard offensive type, which will often take you several or even dozens of rounds to kill the target. Again, it's pretty rare that you are 'on-par' with any opponent offensively, it's usually far above, or far below. The 'trick' to building effective portralis characters is essentially to make sure that you keep your offense high enough that most creatures fall into that 'dead in an instant' category, while developing some reasonable means of dealing with those that don't - and doing so efficiently enough that you can keep most of your defenses in the 'nearly immune' category. Then gameplay becomes mostly about identifying threats against which your build does NOT have the correct answers, and avoiding them like the plague. If you find you have too many holes in your offensive/defensive scheme, then you know your build is failing, cause you spend most of your time running or dying (or taking forever to kill things that aren't worth the time). This type of gameplay is quite different from most of the other roguelikes, and is interesting and unique on its own merits.
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Post by Variaz on Aug 7, 2008 8:42:09 GMT -5
I have now changed spellcraft to be additive to Elemental, Alteration and Mysticism as far as spellcasting goes. I also realized that spellcraft did not actually augment the damages of fields! So I fixed that too.
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Post by sekira on Aug 7, 2008 11:55:53 GMT -5
Hmm, as it was, spells did less damage than melee... so I'm wondering if this fix was such a good idea?
Personally I don't like it.
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Post by vastin on Aug 7, 2008 16:39:02 GMT -5
Yeah. Hard to say.
From what I've seen, it is a lot easier to pump melee damage than spell damage - and I think melee accellerates even more into the late-game as the base damage of the weapons skyrockets.
That and melee has such an easy time dealing with returners compared to spellcasters. The big advantage of casters to date is non-statistical - being able to kill creatures without ever coming into LOS - so its hard to compare the two.
But now that you can build for real survivabilty (good HP + guard abilities), I think that melee is probably going to move solidly to the fore. They no longer have to constantly fear coming into LOS of something that can just instantly vaporise them.
That being said, I don't think that the spell multiplying effect of spellcrafting x elementalism was necessarily the best answer to that issue - but it remains to be seen if a caster build can generate enough offense in the late game, or develop valid strategies for dealing with returners.
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