Boss resistances should be capped (random generated bosses)

[marvalis]

Boss resistances should be capped. Otherwise, what is the point of having resistances? You can just add more HP.
Right now bosses can have up to 80+ or even 90+ % resistance.

Resistances are interesting when you are forced to specialize in one at the expense of others. For example, a boss might have high physical resist, but low resistance to ice damage. This allows the player to change his damage type to match the resistance.

That means, that overall, the total sum of all resistances should be below a threshold of 50%*total number of resistances.

Code: Select all

For example, assume there is cold and fire dmg, and a 50% cap:

100% fire resistance, 0% cold
or 50 fire 50 cold
or 70 fire 30 cold

More damage types allow for more variation. You can also go negative:
-50% cold, 100% fire, 100% physical
but it would not allow the previous example

To avoid the 100% resist cap, all resistance should be capped at 70% with one exception (for example you can still have fire immune creatures).
that would allow something like
-20% cold, 100% fire, 70% physical resist.

I have no idea how bosses and their resistance is generated now, but after generation the engine should check resistances and modify them to make them capped.

The more damage types there are, the lower the average resistance should be. Some damage types would have a higher chance of having a bigger resistance. For example, physical resist would have a large random chance of being bigger, while some exotic resistances like arcane or mind would have a chance of being lower. The inverse is also true, weapons with a weapon type that is often not resisted should be rarer to find. Those two can be correlated.

Even better would be to have higher resistance be more expensive. The RNG could have a number of points it can distribute. The cost of one additional % resist goes up as the total resist gets higher. The reason is that 10% more resistance at 80% resist give a much larger benefit that 10% at 0% resistance.

[lukep]

One of the main differences between resist all and high HP is the effect that resist penetration (Wildfire, Uttercold etc...) has. Not necessarily a bad thing, but your proposal makes those skills much less powerful. Also, Feed Strengths (Doomed boost to Feed skill) also acts differently.

[marvalis]

I spend some time making a graph to explain mathematically the benefit of 1 additional percentage of resistance.

The graph means: How many turns does it take additionally to kill something when I add 1% hp given a certain amount of damage per turns and a certain amount of hit-points:

http://tinyurl.com/graphresistance

You can play with the x and y values as much as you want. Somewhere around 75% resistance the graph shouts up. That means that any point beyond this add considerably more protection and should be valued higher.

Estimated damage per turn you will be fighting against = DPS
Max_HP = HP
Resistance after adding 1 point = new_resist
Resistance before adding the new point = old_resist
old_resist = new resist +1

Code: Select all

Value = [HP / DPS / ( 1 - new_resist/100)] - [HP / DPS / (1 - old_resist/100]

By using a formula like this, and making one for negative resistance, it might be possible to generate resistances that will be naturally below 80% because of the high cost of additional points.

One of the main differences between resist all and high HP is the effect that resist penetration (Wildfire, Uttercold etc...) has. Not necessarily a bad thing, but your proposal makes those skills much less powerful. Also, Feed Strengths (Doomed boost to Feed skill) also acts differently.

Also, healing skills will be relatively less powerful when there is more HP and less resistance.

[darkgod]

Hum the thing is, random uniques can not have super high resist all.
On you summoner winner post where you linked some images, there are only 2 with super high all resist.
The first is the one that is using feed, which if he has a high enough Feed Strength talent along with it and you had some resist all yourself can very easily explain it; the solution here is simple, as with all feed'ing creatures: break LOS to break the feed
The second one is a headless horror, there is nothing special with them having near immunity, as with non unique ones, you need to kill the eyes first to drop its resistances.

The automatic resistances given to creatures never gives resist all to creartures of a rank lower than 4, random uniques have a rank of 3.5, so they never receive it. And even then, the formula is rng(0.9, 1.5) / X per level. X being 3 for a boss and 2.5 for an elite boss.
This means a level 75 elite boss would have only around 40% resist all

[marvalis]

The headless horror was killable. That first boss with feeding, even if I went invulnerable, just could not be killed. He also had dark tendrils or something like that, and he had a ranged attack (?) that could hit for a lot of damage. I am not sure if this is because of feed too.

The problem then, is feed. Feed as it is now on a boss like this is just overpowered when combined with certain other skills. It looks to me like feed is should be on the 'overpowered boss skills that need re-balancing list'.

I kinda regret not keeping a save of this guy.

Also, as a minor suggestion:
It seems like some people (including me) needed some time figuring out how headless horrors work. Maybe add something in the description about killing the eyes, so new adventurers could reasonably fast figure out what to do.

Maybe change:

Code: Select all

newEntity{ base = "BASE_NPC_HORROR",
	name = "headless horror", color=colors.TAN,
	desc ="A headless, gangly humanoid with a large distended stomach.",

To something like this:

Code: Select all

newEntity{ base = "BASE_NPC_HORROR",
	name = "headless horror", color=colors.TAN,
	desc ="A headless, gangly humanoid with a large distended stomach. He is accompanied by floating eyes that look more vulnerable.",

/data/general/npc/horror.lua

If you can put in a check for eyes in it (I don't know exactly how to code this but you get the idea ):

Code: Select all

if eye then
desc ="A headless, gangly humanoid with a large distended stomach. He is accompanied by floating eyes that look vulnerable.",
else
desc ="A headless, gangly humanoid with a large distended stomach.",

Maybe you can even let the player know how many eyes there are left by coding this in the description.

[marvalis]

Ok, check this tower stair boss:
What did I do wrong this time? :3
99% resists

[darkgod]

AHAH that's a really neat one
You can skip it

[lukep]

Good thing there's now resist penetration equipment. Hope that it transfers to summons.

[marvalis]

I have 9% physical penetration, but it does not seem to do much? My fire drake hits for 1 physical dmg.

/edit
I can confirm that penetration works for my summoner since I can hit this thing for 9 damage with a sling.
My minotaur and war hound hit for 0 damage. That means that armor penetration does not work for summons.