Removing stat requirements

[Susramanian]

The consensus seems to be that fatigue reductions should be multiplicative, as illustrated by Zonk's numbers earlier. In fact, people often call for the same thing with armor values. Smooth curves have their place in gaming, but there are benefits to avoiding them and going with systems whose curves have jumps and such. Take Sirrocco's point earlier about it being good gameplay to give classes real reasons to invest in the strength stat. Stat requirements do this... but having a multiplicative fatigue-reducing effect doesn't. Nobody's going to want to pump their strength up so they can invest in a point in a talent which overall drops their fatigue three percentage points. But if the talent knocks percentage points off instead of reducing them multiplicatively, then somebody who really wants to use some awesome piece of armor but hates the chunk of fatigue that comes with it can put a point in armor training to almost eliminate it. Even boosting the number from 10 as I said earlier to 20 might be a good idea; simply balance the game with the idea in mind that warrior types are never going to be slowed down by their bulky armor (as long as they invest in armor training), and everybody else can take a point or two to offset the penalties of one piece of hefty armor, but that's about it.

Edge's reason for wanting a smooth curve was a quite reasonable one, but I think the benefits of the mathematics I described above are also very much worth considering.

Zonk, I like the newest idea about percentage increase of all armor values. I think it definitely pushes classes in the appropriate directions.

[Grey]

Fatigue reduction should be a percentage rather than a flat rate so that you don't end up with silly situations where massive armour is less fatiguing than light armour, or anything approaching 0% fatigue. Fatigue should still be an issue with heavy armours.

As for a percentage bonus to worn armour from the talent, I'd personally suggest it only apply to the main suit of armour. Or perhaps just suit, helm, boots and gauntlets. It should be a reasonable - say start at 20% and rise to around 50%.

And for whoever suggested 10 levels of the armour talent, please no! Melee characters are already severely short of generic talent points.

[Zonk]

simply balance the game with the idea in mind that warrior types are never going to be slowed down by their bulky armor (as long as they invest in armor training), and everybody else can take a point or two to offset the penalties of one piece of hefty armor, but that's about it.

I slightly disagree with this - see, I think that even with maxed out armor training, the fatigue penalty SHOULD be there, even if minor.
Why? Well, armour will still hinder you a bit even if you're very well trained, AND I think tactically interesting if it's worth it to switch to a lighter set of armour, sometimes.
You want protection and resilience? Use the most massive armour you have.
You want endurance, as in being able to use more exhausting abilities/talents before becoming tired/having to recover? Use a slightly less encumbering set of armour.

As for a percentage bonus to worn armour from the talent, I'd personally suggest it only apply to the main suit of armour. Or perhaps just suit, helm, boots and gauntlets. It should be a reasonable - say start at 20% and rise to around 50%.

That's what I meant - body armour, helm, boots, gauntlets.
Shields and bonus armour from magical effects and rings/jewelry of protection wouldn't count at all.
I don't see why the bonus should only apply to body armour, I think adding together all the base armour and then calculating the bonus based on that is just better, it also encourages use of 'heavier' secondary armour.
HOWEVER - I still think that the +% armor should apply to to 'light' armour too.
It might be minor anyway, but it means that using a non-metal armour piece won't feel like a complete waste of a potential bonus. And mechanically, we won't need an extra variable to distinguish between 'real light armor' and 'real heavy armor', which is a slight plus.

There's nothing wrong per se with a fighter wearing a few pieces of leather armour, or even a rogue-like character deciding to get a few points in Armor Training - say they want to learn to roll with the blows or are willing to spend talents on reducing their fatigue slightly. Won't be the best use of their talents but hey, give them the option.
Now, warriors wearing a mage's robe and hat - that's just silly But we don't worry about that as these items provide no armor even now.

And for whoever suggested 10 levels of the armour talent, please no! Melee characters are already severely short of generic talent points.

But would it really leave them with less points? I mean, before you had 2 5-point talents, for heavy and massive armour, and you could have had to take both if you wanted to remain flexible.
Now yes, it's 10 points to max, but you're ALWAYS getting a benefit as long as you wear any armour.
Still, having it at 10 points isn't too important for me, I just thought it would be a nice symmetry with the weapon talents.

[Sirrocco]

Currently, you spend one or two points on armor - and then if you *really* wand an armor boost, you pick your category and spend 4 more in it, forever eschewing body armors of the other kind. I don't think anyone spends 10 in armor proficiency.

On the other hand, there are a fair number of folks out there who can deal with a bit of extra fatigue. If you wanted to crank it up to a 10 point talent, where 5 points and a decent strength score isn't going to leave you with more than about 50% extra fatigue by endgame, and 10 points with a high strength score is going to mean your fatigue is negligible no matter what you wear, then that would work fine.

but... people already walk around in clanking plate in spite of huge fatigue penalties, and do fine. In order to make "fatigue sucks" into a strong reason for people like wyrmic/cursed/berserkers to take armor talents you'd have to make the effects of fatigue a lot worse - particularly given that some builds just don't use powers all that often, since their normal melee attack is solid enough.

If possible, I'd suggest that there be fatigue breakpoints. If your fatigue is above 50%, something mildly unpleasant happens (perhaps a fatigue-based penalty to defense, or something). If it creeps above 100%,
something worse happens (a slowing effect, say). Once it passes 150% or 200%, you're overburdened and can't move. This would also prevent people with oddly nonstandard resources from ignoring fatigue altogether.

Let's also make sure that we're not depowering melee classes while we do this. After all, it's already the case that the standard cloth-wearers are considered the most powerful characters in the game. Turning "having to bump strength for armor is silly" into "mages aren't as stat-limited, and fighters are now largely required to spend points in a talent that was largely optional before but with less benefit" seems... off. Actually, what I'd *really* like to see out of the armor talent (though I'm not convinced I ever will) is the application of some percentage of the armor stat to spell and trap damage - and then perhaps some superheavy artifacts (with fatigue to match - perhaps enough that even a full-talent strength-based build might see some defense penalty) that eschew resists entirely for more armor.

[edge2054]

Still, having it at 10 points isn't too important for me, I just thought it would be a nice symmetry with the weapon talents.

I'd prefer if both of these got dropped to 5 points and scaled off stats.

The amount of generic points weapon classes have to dump compared to' magic' classes is very disproportionate already so lets please not inflate it anymore.

[Sirrocco]

Let us note, for example, that if we turn the armor generic into a 10-point talent, then maxxing that, the two weapon talents, and health will leave our mighty warrior having spent 35 generic points, out of 41 possible (and that's if he get to level 50)

[Susramanian]

I agree that armor should stay at five points and weapon talents should drop to five points as well. A character only gets about forty generic points in a game. A single talent that takes up a quarter of them is not good.

I also agree that we probably need to make fatigue values higher if it's going to be the new limiting factor in what armor you can wear effectively. Breakpoints are another interesting option.

If we make the armor talent boost armor from certain sources (body, gloves, hat, boots, whatever else we feel is appropriate) by a percent and chop weapon talents down to five points, then we free up generic points for melee classes and give heavy-armor wearers extra incentive to take the armor talent. Hopefully this doesn't nerf melee types in any way. If it does, let's find how it does and fix it.

I'll stand by my assertion that more interesting gameplay will result from not calculating fatigue reductions multiplicatively. If it's multiplicative, then the armor talent will only ever be worth investing in for heavy-armor wearing classes, and yet all sorts of classes have access to that tree. Give people a reason to think about the talent. Make them say, "If I spend a few points on strength, I can put a point into armor training which would totally eliminate that 15% mana cost penalty I've got from wearing my sweet new hat." Is spending a generic talent point and few stat points worth the elimination of a certain ability cost penalty? It might be. It's certainly worth thinking about. But if we use multiplicative calculations, then we're only talking about knocking that 15% penalty down to 12% or something. It's hardly worth thinking about, and so the majority of classes lose interest in this talent. And while it may be unrealistic for a warrior to have no fatigue difference between wearing plate and wearing mail, it doesn't feel like a big deal to me. And there are still plenty of reasons to consider lighter armors over heavy, even if there's no fatigue motivation; lots of other stats must be considered, such as resists and attribute bonuses and so forth. Oh, and I forgot to mention that this fatigue reduction is from all sources, not just heavy and massive armors. You'll never have some weird situation where it's more fatiguing to wear leather armor than it is to wear plate.

I've wanted to make armor give some sort of magical and/or elemental protection for a long time. As I've said before, if you're going to get doused by a flamethrower, it's better to be wearing steel plate than a bathrobe. Finding a way to do this would open up all sorts of possibilities, as Sirrocco hints at.

[Zonk]

I agree that armor should stay at five points and weapon talents should drop to five points as well. A character only gets about forty generic points in a game. A single talent that takes up a quarter of them is not good.

Actually - that's probably better than making armor training have 10 levels.
We keep the 'symmetry' and make the game better for warriors. Sweet.
We do need to rework these talents a bit though, we can't just lower the talent limit to 5 points.

Make them say, "If I spend a few points on strength, I can put a point into armor training which would totally eliminate that 15% mana cost penalty I've got from wearing my sweet new hat." Is spending a generic talent point and few stat points worth the elimination of a certain ability cost penalty? It might be. It's certainly worth thinking about. But if we use multiplicative calculations, then we're only talking about knocking that 15% penalty down to 12% or something. It's hardly worth thinking about, and so the majority of classes lose interest in this talent. And while it may be unrealistic for a warrior to have no fatigue difference between wearing plate and wearing mail, it doesn't feel like a big deal to me. And there are still plenty of reasons to consider lighter armors over heavy, even if there's no fatigue motivation; lots of other stats must be considered, such as resists and attribute bonuses and so forth. Oh, and I forgot to mention that this fatigue reduction is from all sources, not just heavy and massive armors. You'll never have some weird situation where it's more fatiguing to wear leather armor than it is to wear plate.

You have a point that making the reduction 'straight' would help some classes while perhaps not hindering fighters too much.
However, keep in mind that if you're worried, about mages 3% is actually 6% for spells(maybe still not very significant, but..) and non-mages would also enjoy the other armor training bonuses(-enemy crits, +armor..yes, nice for a everyone, but a mage would usually avoid melee/being attacked directly anyway).

I also assume you meant 'hat' as in 'helmet' - wizard hats have no fatigue right now(and they shouldn't. Unless it was a REALLY magnificent hat).

As for non-fatigue factors for switching armour: obviously they are something to consider too, but I think we wanted to make materials more important/different, so material(and base stats/fatigue)should be more relevant than they are now, where you might want an inferior-material but better ego too often.

And for fatigue applying to all sources - I agree except I'd say all *armour*.
There might be non armour sources that provide fatigue eventually. There's an artifact ring that gives MINUS fatigue right now, which isn't really a problem.
But if we eventually have a non armour item that gives +fatigue because it has a magical curse of exhaustion, I don't think armor training should reduce it.

I've wanted to make armor give some sort of magical and/or elemental protection for a long time. As I've said before, if you're going to get doused by a flamethrower, it's better to be wearing steel plate than a bathrobe. Finding a way to do this would open up all sorts of possibilities, as Sirrocco hints at.

I agree. Three ideas:
1)In the resistance thread, I suggested we could have different armor values for different damage types. That might be overkill though.
2)Could also have a passive that gives -damage from ALL sources and scales with Con, but that doesn't directly tie to armor.
3)Or another armor talent that lets you apply a % armor to some sources that don't normally check for it. But I'm not sure about that either.

[Sirrocco]

I find that I agree with Sus about the armor reductions being additive rather than multiplicative. If you make them multiplicative, then you basically have two groups of people - those who keep low-to-tolerable levels of fatigue and invest no points in the skill, and those that max out their points and pretty much ignore armor fatigue. Making it additive gives a much smoother curve, and makes intermediate choices make a degree of sense for a variety of character types. It becomes entirely plausible that a rogue (who wants to wear the slightly encumbering leather because that's where all the good rogue egos are and takes strength as a tertiary after dex and cunning) would take one or two points to offset the fatigue he has. The only reason I can see for going multiplicative is the idea that there's something wrong in principle with letting someone cancel their fatigue entirely... and I just don't see that as compelling from a gameplay standpoint as compared to the smoother curve.

Agree with Zonk about the non-armor sources of fatigue. It's not pertinent right now, but it seems reasonable.

With respect to armor on damage types...
- Currently, your Armor stat protects against melee damage and ranged projectile damage (bows and the like). It protects against all elements of damage from these sources (at least as far as I've been able to determine).
- Currently, there's an antimagic talent that scales with will that applies an armor-equivalent to spells. It's effective, but has some cost limitations. It would be worth making sure that it is not made obsolete by other forms of spell-armor.
- I would be a fan of a generic talent that allowed you to apply some percentage of your base armor to things like spells and traps. Perhaps a 5-slot skill with 10% per slot, so that you're getting 50% of your armor as reduction once the skill is fully mastered.

[Susramanian]

I've added a part two to the original post, in which I describe adding a new dimension to weapons (well, a new flavor, anyway). Also included an idea for breaking up the monotony of endgame materials.

[Zonk]

With respect to armor on damage types...
- Currently, your Armor stat protects against melee damage and ranged projectile damage (bows and the like). It protects against all elements of damage from these sources (at least as far as I've been able to determine).
- Currently, there's an antimagic talent that scales with will that applies an armor-equivalent to spells. It's effective, but has some cost limitations. It would be worth making sure that it is not made obsolete by other forms of spell-armor.
- I would be a fan of a generic talent that allowed you to apply some percentage of your base armor to things like spells and traps. Perhaps a 5-slot skill with 10% per slot, so that you're getting 50% of your armor as reduction once the skill is fully mastered.

Actually, we don't really need new orrevamped talent if we're willing to change some mechanics.

My idea to have an armor equivalent for each and every damage type was too much but what if a % of armor applied by DEFAULT to each element, with the % being element dependant?
Say basic damage types(acid, lightning, cold...) only subtract 33%(or 50% if you want to be generous) of armor from damage, arcane subtracts 10%(or not at all).
Note that in some cases this would increase damage to the player - you get full armor against elemental damage from melee and ranged attacks right now, like you mention, where with my proposal it would be reduced against non physical only - but overall I think its worth considering.

Alternative: The armor system applies by default to all damage types, all of the time, from any source.
Except...elemental attacks get a higher overall APR based on the source, so they might overall ignore lower levels of armor but if you're armor-focused, you still enjoy some protection.
A minor fire bolt might be weakened significantly by good armor - although not as much as a physical blow - while an engulfing fireball would ignore most if not all of it.
Some damage types could be given a nigh-infinite APR(say, arcane)if you want them to keep ignoring armor all of the time.

[Grey]

Alternative: The armor system applies by default to all damage types, all of the time, from any source.
Except...elemental attacks get a higher overall APR based on the source, so they might overall ignore lower levels of armor but if you're armor-focused, you still enjoy some protection.

This is a very good idea, I think. Elemental APR should always be reasonably high, but would be even higher for powerful spells/spellcasters. Would be nice especially if traps had a fairly low APR. Exceptions would have to be made for poison and blight - they would always ignore armour.

[Zonk]

This is a very good idea, I think. Elemental APR should always be reasonably high, but would be even higher for powerful spells/spellcasters. Would be nice especially if traps had a fairly low APR. Exceptions would have to be made for poison and blight - they would always ignore armour.

Yes.
I hadn't mentioned that because I thought it would be was obvious, but talents and equipment would interact with elemental APR.
Although such effects should be overall uncommon.

Maybe Arcane Power(the Archmage sustain, I think it's a bit meh right now) could also give +APR to all spell effects, as could some staves.

Overall this wouldn't nerf casters too much, because APR would be high by default(and improveable a bit through items, talents...), but it WOULD help people who rely on having high armor values without having them spend extra talent points.