Does JADE need more complex combat?

[F50]

Indeed those talents were weak, once you become uber at the end of the game; however we dont want uber-critical stuff for our characters at all. For instance, we dont want a neccssity of armies, nor this very DV penalty system, to become main concerns of our game.

What's with the royal "we"?

Why are you bringing the other thread into this one? It's a separate thread for a reason.

I said before, and I will say it again, I am *not* talking about armies unless you consider a handful of men (~5) to be an army.

Yes, now I see your point there. If you were first attacked by an arrow and lost some DV, and then someone attacks you in melee, do you lose the DV? I'd say yes. ACTUALLY, multiple melee attacks per round are very likely to also take some of your DV away in the exact same manner, dont you think?

It really depends on the timescale of a turn. I believe from using 'ctrl+e' a turn is something like 1/3 of a minute, thus making each turn a series of blows in melee, and enough time to reload a bow. If you think of melee attacks as *a single strike*, it makes sense to use a static penalty per strike, but its not. Because it is a series of blows, one must calculate DV penalties beforehand, and it is more realistic to implement direction while doing this. If you were to take arrows into account, then you must calculate the amount of arrows headed for the player *before* any arrows are loosed, thus making implementing direction difficult.

But for these (at least for melee), I say that the base DV penalty gets modified by things like your level, their level, and such (but not by too many factors).

Adding level as well would be nice, but it really only makes a difference between unskilled, skilled, and very skilled in comparison with the player. The DV penalty is more about numbers, the skilled people are just more likely to strike a hit on their turn.

So all this 'surrounded thingy' system can work like this, you lose some DV per each attack, and the penalty is reset once you get a new turn; avoiding the complicated calculations of angles and flanks.

By what do you call this complicated? All you have to do is take the monster adjacent to the PC, calculate the optimum angle, and multiply by the number of monsters. Calculating the optimum angle is easy (if this implementation is inefficient being a brute-force approach), for every monster, find the amount of distance necessary to travel left and visit all the monsters and the amount of distance necessary to travel right and visit all the monsters. Save and return the best result.

Also, very important, I suggest shields to use their DV INSTEAD of adding the damage stat to a shield!! If we add the damage, then shields will become a weapon like any other. Shield is a special weapon though. And what makes it so special? The fact that its damage IS calculated differently than from other weapons. I will repeat it again, damage would be derived from its DV (PLUS your shield skill bonus) because frankly, that's your shield Weaponskill.

DV sounds like the wrong attribute to base it on. Consider Brass Bracers, or the unwieldy Crystal Tower Shield.

you also seem to ignore this:

How much damage would you inflict with a shield anyways. You would be more likely to momentarily stun your opponent or push him/her of balance. Perhaps you should be sacrificing DV in return for a good chance of the target receiving a large -tohit bonus?

[reich]

How much damage would you inflict with a shield anyways. You would be more likely to momentarily stun your opponent or push him/her of balance. Perhaps you should be sacrificing DV in return for a good chance of the target receiving a large -tohit bonus?

in AdoM you can bash an enemy with *everything* - wand, whistle, large ration etc. Compared to these things, the shield should actually do reasonable damage

[Tannis]

in AdoM you can bash an enemy with *everything* - wand, whistle, large ration etc. Compared to these things, the shield should actually do reasonable damage

It really depends on the type of shield. A small shield like buckler would hit fast and more accurately, but do less damage and would be better at stunning a target or knocking them off balance. A large shield would be slower and more cumbersome, but come deliver more serious damage. Finally, you could have shields designed for offensive roles. Frankish soldiers used such shields in the 9th century: the center of the shield had a cone of metal that tapered to the point, so the shield could puncture armor and inflict mortal damage.

[Grey]

Spiked shields would be all out cool. Can't imagine many circumstances where I'd feel the need to use it instead of a normal attack though. Although... here's an idea. TB has said that he plans to have special effects from weapons at high weapon skills, like more bleeding etc. How about at a high shield skill (say level 8) you learn a shield counterattack when blocking with your shield? You deflect the blow and then quickly jab them with your shield, and the damage or effects depends on the shield used. Would be a minor thing against powerful creatures, but against small enemies it would quickly sweep them away.

[Tannis]

Spiked shields would be all out cool. Can't imagine many circumstances where I'd feel the need to use it instead of a normal attack though. Although... here's an idea. TB has said that he plans to have special effects from weapons at high weapon skills, like more bleeding etc. How about at a high shield skill (say level 8) you learn a shield counterattack when blocking with your shield? You deflect the blow and then quickly jab them with your shield, and the damage or effects depends on the shield used. Would be a minor thing against powerful creatures, but against small enemies it would quickly sweep them away.

If I understand you right, basically: With sufficient skill in shields, a successful block has a chance to inflict damage upon the attacker determined by the type of shield used and proficiency in shield skill. A master with shields could go as far as stunning the opponent. I like it.

[Ars]

Yes I'd say an angle system is complicated. In the sense that one can't really intuitively figure out how much DV loss you're going to get in a given situation.

I like the DV reduced per attack concept. It's easy to see how many attacks are coming, so you can act on more accurate information.

But I think it should be more than -1DV per attack; -2 or -3 sounds about right. The disadvantage for fighting multiple enemies in ADOM never seemed to matter too much against weak monsters, either those monsters have the muscle to hurt you or they don't.

And for the shieldbash I'd favor something different from just doing a little damage, something helping in attacking with your main weapon would be more appropriate, as the bash would be more like a diversion than a serious attempt to inflict damage with it. Also something along the lines as said about the shield counterattack, except a counterattack with a shield doesn't really make sense. More like blocking the enemys weapon into a bad position, to negate his DV gained from weapon skill for next turn or forfeiting his next attack?

[F50]

Its not that hard to do the math in your head. Its degree*monsterNum where the number of monsters is obvious and the degree is a simple visual check that shouldn't take more than three seconds. Besides, its easy to get a qualitative sense of what is going on, if you get surrounded you get hurt. The problem with a simple -DV per attack is that if you are surrounded by 8 monsters that is 8*3 which is a mere 24. That is quite simply not a significant penalty for being surrounded. Actually, it is even less if you calculate it as you are struck instead of beforehand. If the penalty is raised to, say, five (still not enough for when one is completely surrounded IMO), then 3*5=-15DV for only 3 monsters.

Counterattack sounds cool (don't have time to argue that point right at this moment).

[Elone]

F50, face it, it does look complicated the way you described it. It probably makes 100% sense to you. I'd argue about this, but right now I'm tired.

Grey, counterattacks are cool, but they probably wont be the only shield skill that you will have. A shield smite still remains an option. I'd argue about this but right now I'm hungry.

Again, F50, You're doing your hardest to make Heroes weak, you're saying that you dont get enough penalty, huh? Fine, here's some things to think about. A) Penalties are level dependant, lets say that the penalty would be 4DV. You are level 8, and your enemy is level 6. You get penalty of (4DV * 75%) = 3DV, only 75% of penalty because enemy is 75% of your level. Same forumula if enemy is actually stronger than you. B) Penalties are cumulative. First hit gives you penalty of 1DV, second gives 2DV (making a total of 3), third gives you penalty of 3DV, which with previous 3DV makes 6, and the next will give you 4DV penalty, which totals to penalty of 10DV. I'd argue much more about this, but right now I'm uhh... >.> erm, nuttin. Ahem.

[F50]

I would be glad to help you understand. Just tell me what you don't understand.

Hero's needn't be weak, but they should be human (or elvish, or dwarvish etc.).

If the formula is to be that simple though, it should be n^2. A linear function doesn't make sense since it is intuitive that situation gets worse faster when there are more monsters.

1^2-1=0 for the first monster
2^2-1=3 for the second monster
3^2-1=8 for the third, and so on

8^8=64 (max DV penalty)

[Elone]

I understand that you want the penalty to rise with the square. These are penalties that come out of all this.

1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, 36
1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128

Guess which penalty is whose formula (yours or mine).

Yours is a bit weak if there's a smaller number of enemies, but overwhelming near the end. I mean, 8 kobolds WILL instakill you if they all attack at once because each arrow will hit. Melee, too. You can get surrounded anytime, even at the very beginning of game, when you dont have more than 5-6DV. So yes, yours is overwhelming. Feedback from others, please!