Stun resistance

[teachu2die]

i generally agree with mithril, and think the speed reduction stun would probably be worth at least trying out.
but at the same time, don't disagree with dervis, and some of these changes might not require as major an overhaul as imagined. and like the stairscumming issue, the issue might not be so much fixing a broken element as it is creating a more interesting gameplay mechanism in its place.

how about this:
there is a stun meter, similar to the air meter that appears when one is underwater. every stunning attack increases the stun meter a certain percentage - more powerful stunning attacks increase it a greater amount, and stun resistance reduces rate at which the stun meter increases, as per susramanian's suggestion.
the percentage on your stun meter is the percentage by which one might fail to do an action - using abilities, drinking potions, reading scrolls (perhaps scrolls should be unreadable with any percentage of stun). the stun percentage also reduces movement/action speed, perhaps at half the percentage (so 70% stun would result in 35% reduced speed). normal movement and normal attacks have no increased failure rate. when the meter reaches 100%, the player or enemy is 'knocked out' for a number of turns.
the stun meter normally reduces at say, 1-2% per turn - perhaps an increased rate depending on certain stats, physical resistance, or abilities.
(edit: upon rethinking, stun meter should probably reduce at a rate closer 5-10% per turn, with the same factors possibly increasing the regen rate)
to compensate, reduce the cooldown on stun attacks, as well as their stamina consumption.
i would imagine that, with zero stun resistance, it should take approx 2-3 stun attacks to reach a fully 'knocked out' state.

specific numbers and mechanics are just vague suggestions, but the general concept is there. and this is obviously a much more complex solution than susramanian's, but maybe working towards something that is ultimately more balanced (for both player and enemy), as well as more tactically interesting....

[yufra]

First a summary. overtrix made an excellent point that the root problem many have with stun is unavoidable insta-death (if you don't have stun resistance). I believe this question should be addressed independently.

I think Sus' suggestion has some merit. Some effects have a power associated with them (poison, slow, confusion, etc) whereas some are all or nothing (stun, blindness). I am in favor of modifying effects (stun, blindnes, etc) to have a graduated scale. Stun resistance could reduce the reaction speed penalty (Sus' suggestion) and the perform complex tasks penalty (Mithril's suggestion I think).

[Mithril]

Just to make clear my personal opinion is that Susramanian's idea is great. In most cases when attacking monsters, when the monster does not have stun resistance and gets paralyzed, it will work just like the current system which is good for classes depending on stun attacks.

I imagine that all player can get at least partial stun resistance after a while which means that the instant death syndrome for players can be avoided. There is no longer an absolute, or almost absolute, requirement to get 100% stun resistance so problems such as stability being the only worthwhile armor and its possible non-appearance are not severe problems anymore. At the same time, while not being instant death, monsters and players that have a partial but not 100% stun resistance will be greatly affected by a partial stun so attempting to get as high stun resistance as possible still very valuable.

Also for monsters there is less need to have 100% stun resistance in order to avoid a cheap, quick death of the cool bosses due stunning. Less 100% monster stun resistances is good for the classes depending on it as their main tactic against tough monsters.

teachu2die's idea above is complex and somewhat vague so I feel it is hard to evaluate. IMHO Susramanian's idea is the best yet.

[Grey]

Sus's idea is elegant and simple, which is what I like best.

[teachu2die]

to be clear - i also like sus's idea a lot, and am pretty sure i prefer it to the way stun works currently.
my suggestion is (perhaps needlessly) complex, i agree, but what about it is so vague?
simplified: stunning attacks put points on a stun meter, which both increases failure rates for abilities/item use and decreases action speed. at 100%, the player or npc is knocked out.
i'm not necessarily sure if this is better or worse than sus's more clean and simple suggestion, but i suspect it would contribute to a more tactically complex and interesting game. with sus's suggestion, you get stunned by a boss, you phase away or quaff a FA potion. if you stun your opponent, you simply bang away on them in the same fashion that stun works now, getting a few free turns.
with the stun meter, choices aren't quite so clear. you are stunned at 30% - do you attempt to phase door away, or do you slug away at the opponent using basic physical attacks until the stun is gone? and it results in a more complex tactical approach to stunning ones opponents - attempting to get in a series of successive stunning attacks to knock them out. things could get increasingly interesting when two stunned opponents are in combat: say you're stunned at 30% and your opponent is stunned at 70% - do you risk performing another stunning blow in an attempt to knock out your enemy?
and this still produces the desired effect of making stun resistance very important, but not absolutely essential at 100%.

[Mithril]

to be clear - i also like sus's idea a lot, and am pretty sure i prefer it to the way stun works currently.
my suggestion is (perhaps needlessly) complex, i agree, but what about it is so vague?
simplified: stunning attacks put points on a stun meter, which both increases failure rates for abilities/item use and decreases action speed. at 100%, the player or npc is knocked out.
i'm not necessarily sure if this is better or worse than sus's more clean and simple suggestion, but i suspect it would contribute to a more tactically complex and interesting game. with sus's suggestion, you get stunned by a boss, you phase away or quaff a FA potion. if you stun your opponent, you simply bang away on them in the same fashion that stun works now, getting a few free turns.
with the stun meter, choices aren't quite so clear. you are stunned at 30% - do you attempt to phase door away, or do you slug away at the opponent using basic physical attacks until the stun is gone? and it results in a more complex tactical approach to stunning ones opponents - attempting to get in a series of successive stunning attacks to knock them out.

Since you do state any numbers for how many points an attack put on the stun meter and how fast these points regenerate is is hard to evaluate and likely to balance.

I think it could easily be problematic for the classes depending on stuns attacks. When attacking monster without stun resistance, the usual case, it will in effect nerf stun as compared to now since monsters are not longer paralyzed. At least not initially. This may, for example, make it impossible to kill Bill for a low-level rogue/warrior. The effect on monster with partial stun resistance is hard compare with the current system without starting calculating probabilities and average damage and so. Same effect obviously, that is no effect, on monsters with 100% stun resistance.

I would say that also with Sus's idea, if you speed is reduced by 30%, fighting it out may be possible depending on the monster and your health.

It is still MHO that Sus's idea simple, clear, and solves the problems with the current system without creating new ones.

[Mithril]

There is one thing unclear with Sus's idea. Is the reduction in speed cumulative? That is, if you got a 30% speed reduction from a monster attack, will a new successful stun attack on you just reset the duration of the penalty or will it also increase the penalty to 60%? In the latter case on must keep track of the duration of each stun attack separately. It will obviously also make stun attacks more dangerous compared to the first alternative and it may eventually knock you out even if you have partial resistance and do not take counter-measures. It may even paralyze you in one turn even if you have partial stun resistance if several monster with stunning attacks attack in the same turn. Personally I feel no cumulative stunning may be a somewhat preferable alternative.

[teachu2die]

Since you do state any numbers for how many points an attack put on the stun meter and how fast these points regenerate is is hard to evaluate and likely to balance.

obviously this would take work to balance, so i wasn't going to suggest hard numbers.
but i did state some approximations - regen at something like 5-10%, 'knocked out' might be achieved in 2-3 successful stuns, so, counting in for cooldowns and stun recovery, a normal stun might put 50-60% on the stun meter. this could vary depending on the talent type (dirty fighting, for instance, would probably put more on the meter than stunning blow) and the talent level.

I think it could easily be problematic for the classes depending on stuns attacks. When attacking monster without stun resistance, the usual case, it will in effect nerf stun as compared to now since monsters are not longer paralyzed. At least not initially. This may, for example, make it impossible to kill Bill for a low-level rogue/warrior. The effect on monster with partial stun resistance is hard compare with the current system without starting calculating probabilities and average damage and so. Same effect obviously, that is no effect, on monsters with 100% stun resistance.

i think a substantial speed reduction plus failure rate on abilities would be powerful enough to deal with most non-stun resistant mobs, as well as low-level bosses, and it would make combat against the mid and higher level bosses and those that can stun much more interesting. but you're right, it might be problematic in the case of a low-level rogue vs. bill, who has a powerful physical attack and not much else. but i often don't take bill on with my rogues anyway (or i stairscum...*blush*)...

I would say that also with Sus's idea, if you speed is reduced by 30%, fighting it out may be possible depending on the monster and your health.
It is still MHO that Sus's idea simple, clear, and solves the problems with the current system without creating new ones.

it doesn't solve the problem that stun is a relatively predictable, tactically one-dimensional mechanism in the game. most bosses are very dangerous and can easily kill in 2 turns, so even in sus's system, facing a boss while stunned in any regard is still extraordinarily risky. while a 30% speed reduction against normal mobs like orcs or hatchlings is basically trivial and could be happily ignored. there's no real middle ground in this scenario.
additionally, it might make stun quite useless against enemies and bosses with large amounts of resistance. a boss with a 30% reduction in speed is still an absolute threat - you might as well not waste your turn on attempting to stun. a slowed-down boss with a chance to fail to use their uber-insta-death attack, however, is brought down to your level - or closer to, at least.
and even with sus's idea, there would still have to be a fairly substantial overhaul of NPC inherent stun resistance, and possibly even enemy damage output. really, any adjustment to stunning is going to involve some pretty major game rebalancing.
the stun meter idea is not complete, and would obviously be complicated to implement, but i think it's well worth considering.

but the easiest solution of all is just to make stun resistance more widely available, really.

[Grey]

Since you do state any numbers for how many points an attack put on the stun meter and how fast these points regenerate is is hard to evaluate and likely to balance.

obviously this would take work to balance, so i wasn't going to suggest hard numbers.
but i did state some approximations - regen at something like 5-10%, 'knocked out' might be achieved in 2-3 successful stuns, so, counting in for cooldowns and stun recovery, a normal stun might put 50-60% on the stun meter. this could vary depending on the talent type (dirty fighting, for instance, would probably put more on the meter than stunning blow) and the talent level.

The easiest way to look at transfering to your system is to consider a stun meter from 1 to 10 instead of in percentage terms. You recover at 1 per turn and attack which currently stun for x turns now stun for x on the stun meter.

This way terminology wise we could even switch to the very simple notion of stuns stacking and the character falling unconcious if stunned for more than 10 turns.

[Mithril]

it doesn't solve the problem that stun is a relatively predictable, tactically one-dimensional mechanism in the game. most bosses are very dangerous and can easily kill in 2 turns, so even in sus's system, facing a boss while stunned in any regard is still extraordinarily risky. while a 30% speed reduction against normal mobs like orcs or hatchlings is basically trivial and could be happily ignored. there's no real middle ground in this scenario.
additionally, it might make stun quite useless against enemies and bosses with large amounts of resistance. a boss with a 30% reduction in speed is still an absolute threat - you might as well not waste your turn on attempting to stun. a slowed-down boss with a chance to fail to use their uber-insta-death attack, however, is brought down to your level - or closer to, at least.
and even with sus's idea, there would still have to be a fairly substantial overhaul of NPC inherent stun resistance, and possibly even enemy damage output. really, any adjustment to stunning is going to involve some pretty major game rebalancing.
the stun meter idea is not complete, and would obviously be complicated to implement, but i think it's well worth considering.

but the easiest solution of all is just to make stun resistance more widely available, really.

I guess that Sus's system is at least as easy to do as as making 100% stun resistance more achievable. Does not see why it should require any general game adjustments since mainly removes that instant death scenario for players while leaving the situation largely unchanged for stunning monsters. Optionally, and unlike with the 100% resistance solution, it would be possible to reduce the 100% stun immunities for monsters to something lower since in Sus's system also cool monster bosses are protected from cheap, instant death. This would improve the situation for classes dependent on stunning who lose the ability when they most need it currently. Another advantage with Sys's system is that it makes stun resistance something that you do not need to have 100% of which allows more choices rather than automatically selecting stun resistance before anything else in order to get 100%.

A 30% reduction in speed is nothing? In the right place with good movement possibilities this mean that a monster with penalty will never get get a chance to attack if you move back at the right time while having the penalty is in effect. Advantages such as this in fact make Sus's system highly tactical. A speed reduction, once it has occurred, is something you can depend on. On the other hand, a percentage chance for the non-ocurrence of a special attack that will kill you otherwise is certainly not something that you can count on so it is of limited use for tactics.

IMHO Sus's idea is clear, simple, solves the problems, and creates no new ones.

[Sirrocco]

I'm going to toss my voice (as faint and reedy as it is) in with the "agree with Sus" crowd - both for the recent "effects of stun resist" suggestion and the original "every class should have some sort of otherwise interesting stun resist talent" suggestion.

...or at least if there are any classes that don't, it should be seen as a deliberate (preferably intentional) limitation of the class - like if you really wanted to drive home the "Archmages are supposed to be fragile" theme or "You're an alchemist. Your stun resist is standing next to you with a two-handed weapon" or something.

[edge2054]

Since you do state any numbers for how many points an attack put on the stun meter and how fast these points regenerate is is hard to evaluate and likely to balance.

obviously this would take work to balance, so i wasn't going to suggest hard numbers.
but i did state some approximations - regen at something like 5-10%, 'knocked out' might be achieved in 2-3 successful stuns, so, counting in for cooldowns and stun recovery, a normal stun might put 50-60% on the stun meter. this could vary depending on the talent type (dirty fighting, for instance, would probably put more on the meter than stunning blow) and the talent level.

The easiest way to look at transfering to your system is to consider a stun meter from 1 to 10 instead of in percentage terms. You recover at 1 per turn and attack which currently stun for x turns now stun for x on the stun meter.

This way terminology wise we could even switch to the very simple notion of stuns stacking and the character falling unconcious if stunned for more than 10 turns.

I like teach's suggestion the best. It needs to be fleshed out some more for sure but making stun just a 100% slow is kinda meh.

[darkgod]

Care to explain it in details ? I'm not sure I follow you

[Vee]

I'll try to summarize, correct what I got wrong:

• It is agreed, that stun needs to be nerfed, or resistance made easier.
• Easier resistance is easiest to implement, but generally not the preferred solution.
• Both primary discusse solutions (Sus's and teach's) build on the concept to make stun not binary but gradually.
• Sus:
  • 1 stunning blow adds 100% stun effect.
  • Resistance deducts directly from the blow, so 40% resist lead to 60% stun per blow.
  • Partiall stunned Actors are slowed by this percentage. A 70% stunned Bill will move at 30% his normal speed.
  • Still open to discussion: How do stunning effects stack: a) stack, with each blow tracked individually. b) just reset the stun-timer but stay at the percentage calculated by the resistance.
• teach:
  • Stunning blows add to a Stun-Meter similar to the Air-Meter when drowning.
  • Abilities and item use failure rates are affected by this meter.
  • Action speed is reduced (similar/same as Sus's idea)
  • At 100% the Actor is knocked out. (just as stun works now every time you get hit.
  • Suggestion for balancing: 2-3 stunning hits should knock out an actor (w/o resist?)

Unclear to me is how resistance effects teach's solution.

Personally I think both solutions work, teach's seems more interesting, although harder to imagine the overall effect. BOTH solutions will need some serious balancing, so I don't think that is much of an argument, but that's what we are still in beta for, right?

Vee

[darkgod]

Sus idea has the merit that it does not nerf classes reyling on stuns. Since monsters are usualy either 0% or 100% resistant to stun it changes nothing for them but makes the player betetr able to protect herself.

Teach idea sounds nice but this means almost to class can actaully stun something (3 stuns in a row is a lot of time and not many have that many available at hand).
Maybe if we take teach idea dn make stun resist modify the number of hits it takes to amx out the stun ?
A 0% resist actor would be stuned in a single blow.
a 50% resist would need two
a 66% resist would need three
and so on.

This lets classes that rely on on stuns to rely on stuns, makes the player less vulnerable to stuns (obviously at 0% resist this is stil lethal but then, you deserve it IMO). And this allows to design NPCs taht have stun resist but not immunity that works well.
I like!