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Post by nito on Aug 1, 2015 3:08:23 GMT -5
The crummy weapon problem isn't exclusive to firearms, there are plenty of bad melee weapons as well. I think the real issue is that having a wide-range armor roll on top of a wide-range damage roll creates too much variability and makes weapons with high top end damage the only real viable choice, because they've got a better chance of punching through RNGesus' attempts to screw you. Rifles and two handers seem to be doing comparable damage, so not every gun is bad. Trust me, I've had plenty of bum damage rolls using a two hander where I end up getting my damage completely mitigated by a bandit in padded armor. I've had strings of bad rolls that result in a death against an opponent I could have killed with one crit. No weapon is immune to it.
I disagree that it's a false dilemma. I think we should strive to have balance throughout; it doesn't serve to go buffing the hell out of firearms in the present if it's only going to make them overpowered at the other end of the spectrum. Sooner or later most people will have high or max attainable rank in their chosen combat skills, and then it will become a problem all over again. This is why I'm hoping for a soonish release of a public test area. It's a completely new, custom system; nobody outside of the staff can be certain how the current balance shakes out with high level abilities (some of which are potential game changers) or high level equipment. Nobody wants to settle on a progression path, spend weeks or months pursuing it, then discover it's crappy or nonviable for one reason or another.
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Post by Psionic-Entity on Aug 1, 2015 9:09:43 GMT -5
I think the real issue is that having a wide-range armor roll on top of a wide-range damage roll creates too much variability and makes weapons with high top end damage the only real viable choice, because they've got a better chance of punching through RNGesus' attempts to screw you. This keeps getting posted but it really isn't true. Weapons with the same number of attacks per round simply aren't able to have such different stats that one weapon will be a lot better against high armor and another a lot better against low armor. When comparing two weapons you only need to look at performance against armor values between the weapons' collective minimum and maximum damage. At the top of the range adding +1 armor affects both weapons equally (in ratio) because you're just adding a probability that nobody deals any damage. At the low end -1 armor is just +0.5 damage for both weapons, which just serves to drive their ratio if expected damage per round closer. For weapons with many attacks it's just a matter of getting the damage output fairly close at high armor levels because the option to have lots of attacks won't start getting that much better until you reach unreasonably low levels of armor. If you want to run the numbers yourself you can use this spreadsheet: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nuiv7G_WPLum53RQTOiQkPZFB3NNjcKeBhsvHqjCs_I/edit#gid=0Put in two weapons' stats and check the AvDmg column for their relative performance against whatever armor profile you specify at the top.
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Post by drunkensolamnic on Aug 1, 2015 9:20:43 GMT -5
EBA,
Doesn't take rank 100 with guns. At rank 18 marksmen and rank 28 2Handed, my AB with a carbine equipped exceeds my melee AB unless I'm in full armor. I'm not spec'd into guns, but this is still the case. In addition you can increase your to-hit with guns by +2 with abilities at level 20 marksmen, you have no options to make you more likely to hit with melee weapons in this manner.
Further I put to you that aside from hammers the big guns and the big melee weapons have roughly the same damage ranges. My claymore is 8-24, my carbine is 10-25. The only reason my damage is really different between the two is that I have the Carbine modded to boost AB at cost of damage, while the claymore is modded to boost damage at the cost of AB.
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Post by Fuzz on Aug 1, 2015 9:40:42 GMT -5
Personally, I think guns should be more drastically affected by number of attacks on a round, but overall do more damage or have really high crits that happen relatively frequently.
You shouldn't be able to fire a hunting rifle three times in one round because of the recoil, instead it should default to one shot a round but that shot can hit hard as hell. Same for shotguns. The rapid fire weapons would have 3+ shots a round but they'd do much less damage and the successive AB penalty on each shot should stack up quickly because of recoil.
This would allow guns to have stocks and grips as a method of reducing recoil and thus making successive shots more effective. There could also be a Rapid Fire Marksmanship talent that lets you boost the number of shots at a penalty, like Rapid Shot or Flurry of Blows, so you can fire a rifle twice in a round of the SMG now unloads 5 shots instead of 3. Add in talents for certain guns like pistols or SMGs called Spray and Pray that unload up to 8 shots in one round (or the remainder of your clip) in a cone straight ahead of you, each shot taking the same AB penalty of say, -8 or something (numbers are made up).
Bear in mind, I have zero to do with balance or code in general, my staff position is all about Plot/DM/Community organizing stuff, PE is the balance guru. I'm just throwing out some thoughts.
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Post by BlackmoreKnight on Aug 1, 2015 11:15:23 GMT -5
Then we'd be in the same position we were in with two-handers compared to other weapons. Damage > Attack frequency in this ruleset. Your three attacks a round mean shit if you don't break DR on any of them unless the enemy flubs their roll, whereas the 1 attack guy will generally always do something.
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Post by Fuzz on Aug 1, 2015 11:51:16 GMT -5
Then we'd be in the same position we were in with two-handers compared to other weapons. Damage > Attack frequency in this ruleset. Your three attacks a round mean shit if you don't break DR on any of them unless the enemy flubs their roll, whereas the 1 attack guy will generally always do something. It'd push things towards using the right tools for the job. Anyone with Marksmanship can use any gun with equal proficiency... you fighting a lot of lightly/unarmored guys? Use an SMG and area shit. You're fighting a single target that's hard to hit, and have the room to stay at a distance? Get out that rifle and start using sniper shots and called shots. You're about to go into a duel against another PC? Bust out that shotgun and a revolver, because it'll be up close and personal, and you can knock them over with the shotgun and reload while they get up, and that revolver will pack the punch you need to get through their armor while still being usable in close quarters. That would be the ideal gameplay, in my head.
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Post by Rekov on Aug 1, 2015 12:17:02 GMT -5
I would rather see a variety of different ammo types before more active abilities on guns. Gunslingers are already spending their stamina to reloading. Instead of spending stamina on an ability that has an effect, why not spend it on loading a bullet that has an effect? Admittedly there is far less that can be done with bullets, so maybe a mix of both. The Combat Reload line especially seems like it could do with a more useful replacement.
Armor-piercing - självklart Hollow point - damage against living targets Incendiary - fire damage Ballistic tip - increased range? Might not be possible in NWN2
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Post by Fuzz on Aug 1, 2015 14:44:28 GMT -5
There is no such thing as Armor Piercing in this system. It's already a complicated enough damage system without having to add in another confounding variable when you can just do more damage to bypass DR.
Personally I'd rather see bullets be mostly basic things (as they were in the 1800s) and have the shotgun shells and particularly the crossbows have all the weird utility stuff. Shells loaded with weird incendiary ammo? Real thing that has existed for over 100 years. Beanbag rounds that can cause a stun? Again, real thing that's been around for a good 30 something years. For crossbows... explosive bolts. Bolts that let off poisonous gas, or smoke to blind enemies. Flashbang bolts that blind enemies to give them AB penalties. Acid fask tipped bolts that do acid damage (a novel damage type in this setting). Coolant shard tipped bolts to do cold damage. List goes on and on.
As it is, there is very little incentive to use a hybrid weapon or crossbow over a standard gun. Variety in ammunition would become a reason.
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Post by frenzied on Aug 1, 2015 15:31:33 GMT -5
In regard to armor piercing, Charun had a really cool system that made it so that a weapon's armor piercing value was just important as its damage values. It had a pretty profound effect on when people used armor, when they didn't use armor, and what weapons they used against what opponents.
A couple fun stories from that:
When we would fight ogres and giants everyone, even our knightly people, would strip down to padded, leather, and breastplates because of the ogre's ability to just straight penetrate armor with brute force rolls. The armor penetration system made it so that you had to pick your equipment based on your situation, instead of just going out the door in maximum armor every day. Movement speed would dictate if you were able to withdraw and heal in those situations, and heavier armor actually applied a significant penalty.
On the other side of that, in situations where we were getting swarmed out the wazzoo by ~40-50 goblins at once, we would throw on our heaviest armor available and just wade into them. Armor in Charun had minimum values, which made it so that even if you had a huge armor range, large quantities of enemies like goblins with bone clubs and slings could tear you up if you didn't have a good minimum side. I learned that one the hard way because I liked using a breastplate- Breastplate in that offered 1d12 armor, compared to things like scale that offered 2d5 or 4d2. I fell for that trap, and while the people wearing the 4d2 scale could just wade through the goblins like the little filthy beasts they were, I ended up getting torn up when I would roll 1s on that breasplate.
It was a slow death of goblins breaking and cutting my unprotected arms and legs.
Another cool thing that came up from that system- Whenever PvP occured between the heavy armor wearers, you'd see them breaking out weapons like bec de corbins, halberds, and daggers to penetrate each other's armor, whereas usually those people would be wading around murdering things with battleaxes and swords. I remember at one point watching a couple of dudes who had knightly steel swords stabbing each other with boot knives because those had a better chance of penetrating armor than just beating each other with swords.
The cool thing that came up from armor effecting movement speed, the minimum values, and the armor penetration values meant that different situations called for completely different equipment. One day you would be in full plate using a polehammer to beat the heavily uparmored orc chieftan to death, the next you would be using a scimitar to lay waste to the lightly armored desert raiders that were attacking your caravan while wearing equally light armor so that you wouldn't die from heat damage. All of those intertwining systems meant that cultures using certain weapons in certain ways not only made for cool cultural things happening, but they also made total mechanical sense.
Not to bash this server too hard with that, but when you can swim just as easily, don't get heatstroke, and can run just as fast as someone in light armor, there's no reason to not be a swashbuckling pirate swinging around on a rope while wearing fullplate. The mechanics support consistent use of one piece of equipment or another, compared to a diversity of equipment choices that would be better in one situation or another.
The systems intertwining meant that you needed a diverse set of tools and tactics that would change drastically in between fights. The system that Engines has right now means that you are going to consistently use the same pieces of equipment in every situation because the skill system encourages that. It's going to be interesting seeing real PvP in this server, since high conflict is explicitly in its design goals.
With that aside, here is my on topic opinion: I kind of have a hunch that the AB bloat from firearms is going to turn into a big problem. I have absolutely no proof, but just from my system knowledge it seems that it is going to far outstrip the intended balance of guns going into superior damage output and just turn into guns just shithouse destroying everything that moves or doesn't move.
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Post by drunkensolamnic on Aug 1, 2015 17:15:03 GMT -5
There are actually penalties for swimming in armor here. Swimming requires stamina. When stamina runs out you begin to drown. Heavy armor drains this stamina quickly, medium less so, and light barely at all.
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Post by electrohydra on Aug 1, 2015 17:58:08 GMT -5
You mean exactly how it is right now?
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Post by nito on Aug 1, 2015 18:22:11 GMT -5
Another point I forgot to make earlier, in regard to soloing: while it's nice to have the option if you need cash and nobody's around, it's not really viable from an XP perspective. I've been mostly solo due to time zone and past 12 or so skill my XP has slowed down to almost nothing. So while heavy armor/melee users might have an easier time of it, it's not really doing a hell of a lot for them beyond a certain point. I'm sure people running the crypt all day with groups are clearing a lot more money than I am doing bandits. You're only one or two bad rolls away from getting murdered if you try to solo anything tougher than that, two handed weapon or not.
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Post by eba on Aug 1, 2015 18:29:20 GMT -5
Another point I forgot to make earlier, in regard to soloing: while it's nice to have the option if you need cash and nobody's around, it's not really viable from an XP perspective. I've been mostly solo due to time zone and past 12 or so skill my XP has slowed down to almost nothing. So while heavy armor/melee users might have an easier time of it, it's not really doing a hell of a lot for them beyond a certain point. I'm sure people running the crypt all day with groups are clearing a lot more money than I am doing bandits. You're only one or two bad rolls away from getting murdered if you try to solo anything tougher than that, two handed weapon or not. You can solo stealth well . >.<
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Post by electrohydra on Aug 1, 2015 18:45:34 GMT -5
I've actually thought about something today. I don't think it's possible to make guns as strong as melee when solo but not overpowered when in a group... but what if the system that determines difficulty gave lower level mobs to a solo character that was a gunner? Then they could solo, if weaker ennemies.
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Post by judicator on Aug 1, 2015 18:57:03 GMT -5
Balancing isn't meant to make every weapon a "best" option; it's meant to idealize a weapon for its role. E.g., "Handguns are bad." Bad at what? Trading in a heavy-arms firefight? Yes. Being a low-weight option against low-armor targets? No. Let's focus on what the individual weapon's job is and then see if it's performing that job.
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