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Thread: Should PV or critical hits be modified?

  1. #1
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    Default Should PV or critical hits be modified?

    To the best of my knowledge this is how PV functions in ADOM II:
    On normal hits: damage is reduced one point per point of PV
    On 80% of critical hits versus the PC: damage is reduced one point per point of PV and then multiplied
    On critical hits versus monsters (and 20% of the time versus PCs): damage is multiplied and then reduced one point per point of PV

    One problem with this system is the massive gulf between normal hits and critical hits versus monsters. Against something with high PV, you might not be able to do any damage on normal hits and kill it with 2-3 critical hits. Late in the game this leads to irritating combat, since you need critical hits to make any progress. This is exacerbated by the higher critical hit multipliers possible. Even against the PC with more favorable damage calculation, critical hits do absurd damage. It makes late game combat unpredictable to the point where you have to heal every time you drop below ~500 HP.

    I'd suggest having PV reduce damage by a percentage, rather than a flat amount. It could multiply damage by a factor like 25/(25+PV) (i.e. 50% damage reduction at 25 PV, 67% at 50 PV, 75% at 75 PV). This would at least ensure that x5 critical hits do x5 damage and not x100 damage. It has the side effect of allowing weak monsters to actually damage the PC (arguable whether this is a negative). A downside to this is that it diminishes the effect of powerful/mighty blows for barbarians (although these are absurdly risky for a PC to use currently).

    Was considering making this a RFE, but since PV is a central mechanic and my solution isn't that great, I'd be very interested in hearing what the community thinks first.

  2. #2
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    Originally, IIRC critical hit modifiers were always applied after PV. This was changed because there are monsters (fire giants) that have such high PV that it was impossible to harm them. However, I agree that the cure is worse than the disease, for the reasons explained above. Critical hits become too extreme if you apply the crit modifier before PV.

    I really like the idea of softening the PV mechanic, such that normal hits do more than zero damage even if your damage is below the PV value. I think you came up with a good idea, but I propose to modify your formula as follows (step 3):

    1. Roll dice for raw damage = D
    2. D = D * mighty blow multiplier, if applicable
    3. PV adjustment: D = D - PV * (D / (D + PV / w))
    4. D = D * critical hit multiplier (if applicable)

    The parameter w is a weight factor that determines how difficult it is to pierce through armor. When the weight factor is 0, armor has no effect at all; when the weight factor goes to infinite, the formula simplifies to D = D - PV, like it was before.

    When your damage equals the PV of the target, you will deal a fraction of 1 - (1/1+w) of your damage. For example, if w is 1, you deal half your damage; if w is 2, you deal a third of your damage.

    I would propose a moderately high weight factor of, say, 3 to 5. This would mean you would deal some 15% to 25% damage against a PV that equals your damage output. But this parameter can of course be freely tinkered with and would need playtesting.

    An attractive feature of this formula is that when PV is much lower than raw damage, the effect is almost the same as before. For example, if you deal 25 damage against a target with 5 PV, you still deal approximately 20 points of damage. This is true regardless of the weight factor w. Only when the PV of the target is close to raw damage or exceeds it, the results significantly change and you would partially pierce through armor. More armor will always reduce damage further this way, but the final damage is always greater than zero, even when PV > D.

    I hope I got the advantages of this formula across. It's not as complicated as it may seem.
    Last edited by grobblewobble; 12-31-2012 at 12:04 AM.
    You steal a scroll labelled HITME. The orc hits you.

  3. #3
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    I think your formula can be made a bit easier to understand:

    • Starting from point 3:
    • D = D - PV * (D / (D + PV / w))
    • Factor out D:
    • D = D * (1 - PV / (D + PV / w))
    • Divide the top and bottom of the fraction by PV (if PV = 0 the behavior is obvious so this step is OK):
    • D = D * (1 - 1 / (D / PV + 1 / w))
    • For added clarity let R be the ratio of damage to PV (D / PV):
    • D = D * (1 - 1 / (R + 1 / w))


    Hopefully I didn't make a mistake

  4. #4
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    Thanks!

    Perhaps it is better to use p = 1 / w as a parameter instead of w (p standing for the piercing factor). This is probably a bit more intuitive. So that would make:

    D = D * (1 - 1 / (R + p))

    The piercing factor could then be made to differ by weapon type. Most weapons should have a low piercing factor in the 0.1 - 0.3 range, but some weapon types or special weapons could have a much higher piercing factor, which would make them mostly ignore armor.
    Last edited by grobblewobble; 12-31-2012 at 09:10 AM.
    You steal a scroll labelled HITME. The orc hits you.

  5. #5
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    I plotted PV-adjusted damage as a function of the damage roll to better show the effect of the piercing parameter p.

    The character hits a monster with 20 PV. Shown are the resulting damages for p = 0.2, p = 0.5, p = 1 and p = 10. As can be seen, p = 0 corresponds to the original formula and with p = 10, armor is practically ignored.

    damage.jpg

    edit:
    I didn't realise it at first, but damage can still be reduced to zero with this formula when p < 1. This means that very low p values are actually not advisable. For normal weapons, a p of about 0.5 to 1 looks good imo. When p >= 1, damage can never be reduced to 0.
    Last edited by grobblewobble; 12-31-2012 at 04:35 PM.
    You steal a scroll labelled HITME. The orc hits you.

  6. #6
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    I think that's a nice solution. It buffs lower damage normal hits, so that PC critical hits can be applied after PV. Since PCs and monsters can now both use the same system it's fair to remove the 20% chance for an monster's critical hit to crush the PC.

    That said, I think p should be chosen close to 1, given that critical hits don't help getting through PV anymore. If you choose p = 0.2, for instance then you need to deal more than 80% of PV per hit or else it's impossible to do any damage. I'd lean towards something like 0.8 so that you only get 'fails to hurt' behavior for trivial amounts of damage (i.e. damage that wouldn't have gotten through even with the old critical hit calculation).

    edit: whoops - spent too long typing and didn't notice your edit
    Last edited by Grond; 12-31-2012 at 05:00 PM.

  7. #7
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    It's also possible to rewrite this formula as follows, separating the correction term:

    D = D - PV + PV / (R / p + 1)

    Hopefully this form is a little easier to understand.
    You steal a scroll labelled HITME. The orc hits you.

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