Grey
03-16-2008, 09:02 PM
We're all familiar with the various stats in ADOM, and the various ways to scum them to high amounts, and by the looks of it JADE will include them all, with perhaps a few more. Personally I don't want to see any huge deviation from ADOM, but I have some ideas for improvement, and I'm quite curious as to what ideas others have on new or replacement stats JADE could have.
The screenshots TB posted on his blog show MR and Mv on the normal screen. The former I assume is magic resistance (it's next to DV/PV) and the latter could just be number of moves, or it could be something new.
Some thoughts on stats:
Magic resistance - Well, it looks like it's in there, but how should it work? A percentage chance that a spell won't affect you? A protection value that reduces damage? A percentage reducer of spell effect, meaning a certain percantage less damage or a certain percentage less duration? Will it affect just enemy magic? What about negative spells you cast on yourself (deliberately and by accident)? Will it protect your equipment? Monsters would obviously have it too, perhaps some even being immune. Would there be ways to break through this defence?
Personally I prefer the percentage reduction system, and think it shouldn't affect magic cast by yourself (as that would be seen as willingly accepted - cast magic missile at yourself and it's your own damn fault). Tamed creatures would also have no resistance to your spells (whilst they're still tame). Status spells such as stat drains would have a simple chance not to work on you. But there should be ways for powerful monsters to break through it, and for you to do the same with enough power. Maybe each point of effectivity in a spell would give a penetration value, reducing the opponent's MR by that amount (so a 30 effectivity Acid Ball against a creature with 45 MR would be reduced in damage by 15%). Extremely powerful monsters might have the likes of 200% MR, making them almost impossible to harm with magic. Some monsters might have negative values - they're more affected by magic. It shouldn't give any protection to equipment in my eyes.
I'm guessing the stat itself will be affected by Willpower and Mana. I'd say Willpower should be the stronger of the two. Personally I think it could be interesting if high Mana actually made you less resistant to magic - the closer attuned you are to the planes of mana the more vulnerable you are to attacks from it, so you'd need high Willpower to help you deal with these forces.
Elemental resistances - In ADOM these seem to be reasonably simple. Fire resistance will mean you'll take very little damage from fire attacks, with additional sources reducing it to almost nothing. For NPCs resistance is equivalent to immunity. In JADE I'd like to see a percentage system like described above for MR, reducing damage by that percentage, to a maximum of 90% (immunity would be required for the full 100). Eating corpses would raise your resistance value, though certain corpses can't raise it above certain amounts (eg, a fire bug won't bring you above 10%, a red dragon 50% and a red wyrm can bring you up to the full 90% - all of these would reduce your cold resistance too, maybe making it negative). A ring of fire resistance would give 50% blessed, 30% uncursed, -30% cursed, with multiple sources stacking (perhaps giving a bit less than their simple sum). They would be hidden values like in ADOM - you can only view them with Revelation or potions of insight.
Stat maximums - Should these be allowed to go above 100? It's hard to hit 99 in ADOM, but JADE's a much bigger game. Would be silly if you kept maxing out lots of stats in most games. At the same time though, I don't want to see ridiculous stats. Perhaps in JADE it should be much much harder to raise stats as they get higher. Potions and other increasers would have an exponentially reduced chance to work (or would maybe raise the stat by just a fraction of a point). TB would have to make sure that the game looks at your real stat value instead of the current adjusted value when judging stat increases to stop the likes of starvation scumming in ADOM. Of course people will always find a way to scum things, but it shouldn't be easy...
Stat potentials - I'd actually like to see these done away with. I can sort of see their purpose in ADOM, and they do help to stop people training their stats too high, but I think they're an unnecessary complexity.
Like I said, I'd like to know what other ideas people have on how stats may change in JADE. ADOM has a very good system I think, but there's always room for improvement...
The screenshots TB posted on his blog show MR and Mv on the normal screen. The former I assume is magic resistance (it's next to DV/PV) and the latter could just be number of moves, or it could be something new.
Some thoughts on stats:
Magic resistance - Well, it looks like it's in there, but how should it work? A percentage chance that a spell won't affect you? A protection value that reduces damage? A percentage reducer of spell effect, meaning a certain percantage less damage or a certain percentage less duration? Will it affect just enemy magic? What about negative spells you cast on yourself (deliberately and by accident)? Will it protect your equipment? Monsters would obviously have it too, perhaps some even being immune. Would there be ways to break through this defence?
Personally I prefer the percentage reduction system, and think it shouldn't affect magic cast by yourself (as that would be seen as willingly accepted - cast magic missile at yourself and it's your own damn fault). Tamed creatures would also have no resistance to your spells (whilst they're still tame). Status spells such as stat drains would have a simple chance not to work on you. But there should be ways for powerful monsters to break through it, and for you to do the same with enough power. Maybe each point of effectivity in a spell would give a penetration value, reducing the opponent's MR by that amount (so a 30 effectivity Acid Ball against a creature with 45 MR would be reduced in damage by 15%). Extremely powerful monsters might have the likes of 200% MR, making them almost impossible to harm with magic. Some monsters might have negative values - they're more affected by magic. It shouldn't give any protection to equipment in my eyes.
I'm guessing the stat itself will be affected by Willpower and Mana. I'd say Willpower should be the stronger of the two. Personally I think it could be interesting if high Mana actually made you less resistant to magic - the closer attuned you are to the planes of mana the more vulnerable you are to attacks from it, so you'd need high Willpower to help you deal with these forces.
Elemental resistances - In ADOM these seem to be reasonably simple. Fire resistance will mean you'll take very little damage from fire attacks, with additional sources reducing it to almost nothing. For NPCs resistance is equivalent to immunity. In JADE I'd like to see a percentage system like described above for MR, reducing damage by that percentage, to a maximum of 90% (immunity would be required for the full 100). Eating corpses would raise your resistance value, though certain corpses can't raise it above certain amounts (eg, a fire bug won't bring you above 10%, a red dragon 50% and a red wyrm can bring you up to the full 90% - all of these would reduce your cold resistance too, maybe making it negative). A ring of fire resistance would give 50% blessed, 30% uncursed, -30% cursed, with multiple sources stacking (perhaps giving a bit less than their simple sum). They would be hidden values like in ADOM - you can only view them with Revelation or potions of insight.
Stat maximums - Should these be allowed to go above 100? It's hard to hit 99 in ADOM, but JADE's a much bigger game. Would be silly if you kept maxing out lots of stats in most games. At the same time though, I don't want to see ridiculous stats. Perhaps in JADE it should be much much harder to raise stats as they get higher. Potions and other increasers would have an exponentially reduced chance to work (or would maybe raise the stat by just a fraction of a point). TB would have to make sure that the game looks at your real stat value instead of the current adjusted value when judging stat increases to stop the likes of starvation scumming in ADOM. Of course people will always find a way to scum things, but it shouldn't be easy...
Stat potentials - I'd actually like to see these done away with. I can sort of see their purpose in ADOM, and they do help to stop people training their stats too high, but I think they're an unnecessary complexity.
Like I said, I'd like to know what other ideas people have on how stats may change in JADE. ADOM has a very good system I think, but there's always room for improvement...