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Need some help - ammo balance issues

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Bows & Crossbows, 3 arrow/bolt types.

arrowregbu1.png
arrowapst8.png
arrowjaggedze0.png



Regular: 1-7 damage
Jagged: 5-10 damage, if opponents' DR>2, vsDR = -5, i.e. actually increases DR to account for low penetration of jagged ammo.
Armor Piercing: 2-3, vsDR = +5

5-10 sounds like a lot and it does tear lightly armored opponents to shreds, but it's useless against armor heavier than 2 (the highest possible DR is 12: the heaviest armor, fully upgraded. Avg DR is 5-7). 2-3 is low, but it's consistent against most armor sets, and since it's easy to hit a heavily armored target, it's only a matter of time, assuming you live long enough, of course.

Then we have bows multiplier, i.e. composite bow is more powerful than short bow, etc. And that either degrades the difference between arrows/bolts or makes AP bolts uber or regular ammo useless. Here is the latest and less fucked up data.

0000001hl8.jpg


Upgrading or using Power attacks (slower, but more damaging attacks) fucks things up even more.

Any ideas? Yes, Galsiah, I'm looking at you!
 

RGE

Liturgist
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Jul 18, 2004
Messages
773
Location
Karlstad, Sweden
AP will always be über. Enemies with little armour will die anyway, so even if jagged tips would kill them faster, it's always more important to have a way to deal with dangerous enemies, namely the ones with lots of armour. Unless of course you have enemies with low armour and lots of HPs, perhaps because there's lots of those enemies in the same fight? Might be important to kill them before they do too much damage.

Have you considered having any attack that hits do a minimum of 1 point of damage? Or would that make Dodge and Parry too important compared to armour? Being bludgeoned by a hail of arrows is bound to hurt, even if they bounce off.

One common way to do AP is to have the ammo do lower damage while cutting DR in half. That way regular ammo would be good against slightly armoured targets, because it'd require quite heavy armour until the AP gains a significant advantage. It would for instance require DR10 before the AP gets +5. Likewise, jagged tips could do slightly more damage, but double the DR. Achieves a very similar effect, but gradually.

Longbow vs DR4:
Reg 0-6 (avg 2)
Jagged 0-5 (avg 1.5)
AP 1-5 (avg 3)

Well, that didn't work out. AP is still über, even against below average DR. I guess the low avg damage of 4 for regular ammo doesn't give a lot of space before a significant reduction of DR becomes more significant.

So how about just making AP automatically do 1 point of damage against any armour? That'd make it worse until the other ammo types can't even make a single point of damage. And looking at the heavier types of armour, that seems to be pretty common. On the other hand, I would probably not enjoy playing someone who has to whittle down enemies by doing a single point of damage per successful attack. Seems more suitable for providing a threat to heavily armoured PCs.

Also, it seems kind of unlikely that an arrow would do only half damage. I figure that either it bounces and does 0-1 bludgeoning damage, or it punches through the armour and continues to pierce tender flesh, doing damage that is much closer to full damage, and also continuing to do damage due to being stuck in the armour and digging around inside the victim if they try to move too much. Maybe the D&D AC thing has a point to it, eh? ;)

Oh well, maybe Galsiah will think of something. :P
 

Quigs

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My humble idea : Have arrows stick in the targets, reducing actions, and possibly dex. Standard arrows are gonna hurt more pulling out, and jagged arrows are gonna hurt ALOT more pulling out, but since AP is smooth and pointy, its gonna be pretty easy, whereas against a heavily armored target, the first two are more likely to do some bruising damage, if that, where ap still punches through, and requires you to take it out to gain full mobility.
 
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Ok....lots of things here and they probably won't help you out much at all just on the basis that my train of thought is probably running in the exactly opposite direction. Ah well, here goes.

First off, I'm not a big fan of different ammunition types that don't really have a very large effect on the playing field that differentiates them from their sharp and pointy brethren. Take for instance Fallout. Even when patched up, there really never was a compelling reason to utilize different ammo types. That's alright though, because ammo was supposed to be valuable and difficult top find, so you wouldn't have the luxury of choosing a different ammo type for each battle. And if you had to, it wouldn't have been any fun. Now take a look at Baldur's Gate. They have highly differentiated ammunition that works for certain jobs, and doesn't at all for others. Like the arrows of dispelling; they were great at turning an archer into some sort of anti-magic unit. They could dispel stuff on enemies, without taking away friendly spells and even dispel bad status effects on friendlies by shooting at them. The catch was, they did less damage than any other arrow. They were highly specialized, as were a lot more of the ammunition types (there were a few crappy ones though).

Another thing to consider is that all totally numerical systems of determining damage will easily be broken, or a "power combo" will easily be discovered. Especially considering the potential userbase of Age of Decadence. It's completely inevitable, and all the hard work put into balance will quickly go down the drain. However a few qualitative additions to the system can smooth things out quite a bit, and make things far simpler.

Now what I would do, in your position, is make some sweeping changes. First off, make jagged arrows do absolutely nothing against heavier armor. Absolutely nothing. Then make armor piercing arrows do a constant amount of damage, possibly bypassing damage resistance altogether, but make the damage far lower than normal arrows or jagged arrows. Then make arrows heavy, so one can only carry a limited amount of them, and thus make choice of arrow type on your mission more crucial. The benefits of this type of change would include simplicity, and well...more simplicity. It's completely obvious what type of ammo to use in what situation, and it should be. The drawbacks to this are that it's far too "gamey" and might not feel very real, especially with the constant damage of armor piercing. Not to mention it could take tweaking with normal arrows to keep them competitive.

If you weren't thinking of going down this road, you could playtest and try to find the overpowering combos and try to hamper them a bit by adding things such as weight, cost, or skill/attribute requirements or such.
 

Mr Happy

Scholar
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Jul 15, 2006
Messages
574
Quigs said:
My humble idea : Have arrows stick in the targets, reducing actions, and possibly dex. Standard arrows are gonna hurt more pulling out, and jagged arrows are gonna hurt ALOT more pulling out, but since AP is smooth and pointy, its gonna be pretty easy, whereas against a heavily armored target, the first two are more likely to do some bruising damage, if that, where ap still punches through, and requires you to take it out to gain full mobility.

Yeah, I was thinking something like this. Give the more jagged ammo more stopping power when left in, maybe they knock off a couple action points, interrupt a turn, or cause "bleeding damage" over time a la Jagged Alliance. Even though they would be pretty much useless against armor, maybe let them keep that stopping power, with a solid hit removing an action point for the opponent's next turn. Maybe make their wound tougher to heal as well. This might make jagged arrows better for groups: you can immobilize or slow down a few before they get to you.

Regular arrows could retain a bit of the stopping power if left in (I'm guessing removal would require some action points and some pain), maybe a one AP cost on impact, but they would still be able to get through armor effectively: good for situations when you don't know how well equipped enemies are or when they aren't homogenously armored.

I don't think it makes to much sense to have AP ammo do an obscenely low amount of damage; after all, it is still a big sharp piece of metal in your chest, and can probably go in deeper than your standard arrow anyway. But maybe you could carry on fighting with it stuck in you without the action point cost. It would have less of an action point cost to pull out as well. It is probably tougher to work this sort of thing out with the extremely quantitative system of HP; if you happen to have some sort of cripple system like Fallout, the real nasty stuff (like a broken left arm) could be the job of the jagged arrows.
 

crakkie

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2x DR for JHP, er, jagged arrows will make them useless against armor faster and make them easier for the players to understand. You could even raise the damage (along with the penalty to x3).

For the AP arrows, use 1/3 DR rounded up. They stay weak at low DR (-1 at DR1, -2 at DR4) and still have some effect on uber DR (up to 12 with a comp bow). Reducing the bonus of the bows to 0/short +1/long, +3/comp will help weaken AP rounds as well.

That's a bandaid, and you should really start over with the ammo and launchers. First decide how you want different ammo to behave against extreme, average, and 0 DR, then model the damage and penetration around that. Tweaking the existing system until it makes sense is kind of bassackwards.
 

katzenjammer

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Would it be possible to post the statistics of some other weapon types, both ranged and melee?

The more information we have, the better advice we can give on combat balance issues.
 

ilui

Novice
Joined
Aug 14, 2007
Messages
3
To answer the question, we need to know what results you are aiming for.

First you have to define roughly the damage table you are aiming for.

As it has already been said, you can give to each ammo type
a multiplier (applied to DR) that characterize the effect of armor on their damage.

but it might not solve your problem

Ultimately, if you can't find a nice formula to represent the damage table you want,
just use directly the damage table. If it's usually a pain for table top it's great to use
a lookup table for CRPG

by the way , hello everybody !

ilui
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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Messages
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ilui said:
To answer the question, we need to know what results you are aiming for.
The goal is simple. Three bolt types. One works great against light armor, but is useless against heavier armor. Another is armor-friendly, delivering a relatively small, but consistent amount of damage. The last one is in between.

First you have to define roughly the damage table you are aiming for.
Irrelevant. It could be 5, it could be 50, as long as the formulas work.

katzenjammer said:
Would it be possible to post the statistics of some other weapon types, both ranged and melee?
000002wd4.jpg


crakkie said:
2x DR for JHP, er, jagged arrows will make them useless against armor faster and make them easier for the players to understand. You could even raise the damage (along with the penalty to x3).

For the AP arrows, use 1/3 DR rounded up. They stay weak at low DR (-1 at DR1, -2 at DR4) and still have some effect on uber DR (up to 12 with a comp bow). Reducing the bonus of the bows to 0/short +1/long, +3/comp will help weaken AP rounds as well.
Thanks, I'll try it.

Mr Happy said:
Give the more jagged ammo more stopping power when left in, maybe they knock off a couple action points, interrupt a turn, or cause "bleeding damage" over time a la Jagged Alliance.
Good idea.

I don't think it makes to much sense to have AP ammo do an obscenely low amount of damage; after all, it is still a big sharp piece of metal in your chest...
But it's relatively small. It's like a bullet flesh wound. It's unpleasant in more ways than one, but not deadly. Any arrow/bolt can score a critical, hitting vital organs, disarming, or knocking someone out, but that's a different matter and mechanic. Right now we are discussing "flesh wounds" only.

Edward_R_Murrow said:
Take for instance Fallout. Even when patched up, there really never was a compelling reason to utilize different ammo types.
Which is a shame, really.

First off, make jagged arrows do absolutely nothing against heavier armor.
That's the idea as you can see from the spreadsheet.

Then make arrows heavy, so one can only carry a limited amount of them...
Too artificial.
 

somnium

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Jan 8, 2006
Messages
142
I did like to help but i really need "some" more information before i can make an judgement about the numbers you stated. Is the firing speed different per bow type and if so how much of a difference? How much of an Price differences is there between the mentioned types of bow and arrows? what kind of an effect does the armour have on your stats and what kind of penalty do the different types of armour have? How much of an price difference is there between these armours?

In short, more details please :).
 

Claw

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Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
I agree with Edward_R_Murrow that the difference between ammo types ought to be significant.
I don't suppose it'd be possible to add bleeding damage to barbed arrows? Something like the previous damage minus one every round.

I have to admit I'm a bit unsure how "vsDR" works. I assume it's as straightforward as modifying any DR > 0, but the numbers don't fit. So, do you actually make an exception for DR1 and also have several typos in your table or what am I missing?


My simplest suggestion would be to increase the max (possibly min as well) damage of normal arrows by 1 and increase the APs' vsDR to +7 while decreasing their damage to 1-2.
That way, regular arrows are more powerful and APs are more worthwhile against heavy armor while less useful against weaker armor.


PS: Oh yeah, "jagged" arrows? Really? Because they don't look very jagged to me. Barbed, yes.
 

crakkie

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Let me justify my suggestion just a bit:

Code:
Weapon     AmmoType    ModDamage   DR1    DR4    DR7    DR9    DR12

             Reg       1-8         0-7    0-4    0-1    0-0    0-0
SBow (0)     Jag       5-10        3-8    0-2    0-0    0-0    0-0
             AP        1-3         1-3    0-2    0-2    0-1    0-0

             Reg       2-9         1-8    0-5    0-2    0-0    0-0
LBow (+1)    Jag       6-11        4-9    0-3    0-0    0-0    0-0
             AP        2-4         2-4    1-3    1-3    0-2    0-1

             Reg       4-11        3-10   0-7    0-4    0-2    0-0
CBow (+3)    Jag       8-13        6-11   0-5    0-0    0-0    0-0
             AP        4-6         4-6    3-5    3-5    2-4    1-3
Ok
Changed to bonuses to the bows (0, +1, +3)
Double the DR penalty for jagged ammo.
1/4 the DR penalty for AP, rounded down (DR1-3=0, DR8-11=-2)
Raised Regular ammo damage from 1-7 to 1-8.

At DR4, normal ammo is the best. AP ammo gets better after a few more DR, but Reg ammo stays somewhat useful until you hit very high AP. Jagged ammo quickly becomes the weakest choice and by DR 7 is completely useless.
 

Helton

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Jan 29, 2007
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Vault Dweller said:

Along with reducing damage (maybe not so strong a reduction) could armor also truncate lower scores?

Say:

Code:
"Damage" = "Base Damage" - (DR/3)

IF "ammotype" = "Reg"
   If "Damage" <  (DR)
      then "Final Damage" = 0
   else "Final Damage" = "Damage"

ELSE

IF "ammotype" = "Jagged"
   If "Damage" <  (DR*3)
      then "Final Damage" = 0
   else "Final Damage" = "Damage"


ELSE

IF "ammotype" = "AP"
   If "Damage" <  (DR/3)
      then "Final Damage" = 0
   else "Final Damage" = "Damage"

It would need tweeking.

But just looking at C/Bow stats:

Code:
DR 0:
Reg: Will always do damage -- Dmg 3-12 -- Avg~8
Jag: Will always do damage -- Dmg 7-15 -- Avg~11
AP:  Will always do damage -- Dmg 4-8  -- Avg~6

Code:
DR 3:
Reg: Will do damage 9/10 times -- Dmg 3-11 -- Avg~6
Jag: Will do damage 6/9 times  -- Dmg 9-14 -- Avg~4
AP:  Will always do damage     -- Dmg 3-7  -- Avg~5

Code:
DR 6:
Reg: Will do damage 5/10 times -- Dmg 6-10 -- Avg~4
Jag: Will never do damage
AP:  Will always do damage     -- Dmg 2-6  -- Avg~4

Code:
DR 9:
Reg: Will do damage 1/10 times -- Dmg 9   -- Avg~1
Jag: Will never do damage
AP:  Will do damage 3/5 times  -- Dmg 3-5 -- Avg~2

Code:
DR 12:
Reg: Will never do damage
Jag: Will never do damage
AP:  Will do damage 1/5 times: Dmg 4 -- Avg~1

I guess it's a bit out of left field and complex. But if an arrow does damage through armor, it will do damage. Armor should block the less on mark attacks, not the most deadly ones.

Something to think about?
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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Messages
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somnium said:
Is the firing speed different per bow type and if so how much of a difference?
Short Bow 3AP, Long Bow 4AP, Composite Bow 5AP. Reload speed is 1AP for all bows, which means that the firing speed is, basically, 4, 5, and 6 AP respectively.

How much of an Price differences is there between the mentioned types of bow and arrows?
Insignificant. Obviously bigger and better designed (in case of composite bows) bows are more expensive, but the difference will not affect your choice of a weapon. Crafted weapons could be very expensive, basic weapons aren't.

what kind of an effect does the armour have on your stats and what kind of penalty do the different types of armour have?
Armor absorbs damage (DR), limits you mobility (max AP, Dodge, Stealth) and reduces critical strike chances against you. The heavier the armor the bigger the penalties. Imperial Guards' armor, for example, comes with 60% Dodge penalty, 60% critical chance reduction, 8AP max (if your AP is 10, you still will be limited to 8AP per turn), and 8 DR points. Crafting improves DR and bonuses, and reduces penalties.

How much of an price difference is there between these armours?
Reasonable. You pick what fits your combat style, not what fits your budget. As before, crafted armor could cost a fortune.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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Messages
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Claw said:
I don't suppose it'd be possible to add bleeding damage to barbed arrows? Something like the previous damage minus one every round.
It's possible. We already have poison/fire damage per turn mechanics, so adding bleeding damage checked against your Con would be very easy, if that's the way to go.

I have to admit I'm a bit unsure how "vsDR" works. I assume it's as straightforward as modifying any DR > 0, but the numbers don't fit. So, do you actually make an exception for DR1 and also have several typos in your table or what am I missing?
Explain the "numbers don't fit / typos" part.

My simplest suggestion would be to increase the max (possibly min as well) damage of normal arrows by 1 and increase the APs' vsDR to +7 while decreasing their damage to 1-2.
That way, regular arrows are more powerful and APs are more worthwhile against heavy armor while less useful against weaker armor.
We'll try that.

Helton said:
Thanks. We'll try that as well.
 

Alex

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Hi there!

I am not very familiar with your game, but I am assuming that armor penalizes the wearer when dodging.

On the armor piercing ammo, I understand that the bonus (+5) is only applied against the foe's armor, so the arrow doesn't cause more damage against an armored foe than it does against someone with weak armor. I think that, if you want to make them more useful against high end armor, you could divide the foe's armor by two when calculating damage with that armor. It probably should have a smaller bonus against armor then (say 3 instead of 5) and a smaller damage range (say 1-3). They become very useless against weak armored foes, but against say DR 8, even with a S/Bow it would still do 0 - 2 damage. If you want to make it very ineffective against unarmored people, give it a penalty (it is less aerodynamic, or something like that) so people without armor will have an easier time dodging.

The jagged ammo seems fine as it is, but obviously you need to playtest to be sure. Maybe you could multiply the effects of armor against it or give it a bigger penalty to ensure it is ineffective against armored targets. Also, I don't know how you are generating the damage (if you are giving each number equal chance or if the middle is more common than the borders), but the range for jagged arrows seems to become less distinct from the normal ones as better bows are used. If this is indeed a problem, I suggest that you narrow the jagged ammo damage range but up it a bit, so it could even have the same max damage as a normal arrow, but its mind damage being something like 75% of the max.

I hope something in this post is useful for you.
 

galsiah

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Vault Dweller said:
...So, do you actually make an exception for DR1 and also have several typos in your table or what am I missing?
Explain the "numbers don't fit / typos" part.
Presumably he means the 2-5 for S/Bow AP DR1, which should be 2-4, and the 0-9 for L/Bow Reg DR4, which should be 0-6.


One question: Is it possible to change ammo types in battle, and if so how long does it take? Unless it takes a significant time, regular ammo would be almost useless, since it's almost always worse than either jagged or AP. If it does take significant time to switch, regular also has the advantage of being ok against a large range of light/medium armoured adversaries.


I've been thinking about this for a while, but I don't think you'd like most of the suggestions I'd make. For a start, I'd be inclined to suggest having various multipliers/divisors, rather than just addition/subtraction. That's fine, but it leaves rounding errors as one of the most significant aspects of the system: the player will often then end up using tactics based on artefacts of the system, rather than game world features. E.g. with the AP DR reduction crakkie proposed, there'd be no difference in damage detween DR4 and DR7, but sudden drops from DR3-4 and 7-8. Presumably this will work both ways (NPCs use the same system), so your DR7 has absolutely no advantage over a DR4 against AP-using enemies - but a DR8 is much better than a DR7.

I like crakkie's introduction of multiplication/division, but I hate its side-effects. It's exactly the sort of thing that encourages players to optimize to mechanical artefacts rather than the game world.

I'd suggest this (though I don't think you'll like it):
Keep the multiplication and division involved - in fact you might consider adding more. For example, if bow types multiplied damage after DR, rather than adding to it, you'd be able to balance for all bow types simultaneously (damage ratios between ammo types would then be independent of the bow used).

Don't round off the answers in the conventional way with e.g. 2.4 -> 2; 2.7 -> 3. Instead, treat any 2.something as possibly-2-or-3, then decide which it is with another weighted random roll.
2.4 would mean 40% chance of 3; 60% chance of 2.
1.9 would mean 90% chance of 2; 10% chance of 1.
etc. etc.
The fractional part is just the odds of getting the extra point.

I don't think there's much problem with clarity here, but perhaps you'll think otherwise. The important point is that this type of calculation gives both players and NPCs a good reason to prefer DR5 to DR4, DR6 to DR5 etc. It's a system that allows players to make sensible decisions without noticing the numbers - i.e. based on what makes sense according to the situation in the game world. Without this sort of system, you get an artificial system which encourages the player to notice and exploit its artificialities.

Anyway, I don't think you can balance things well without multiplication/division, and once you include them you have to choose between large numbers (which you don't like), decimals (which you don't like), stupidly large rounding errors (which I don't like), and some-slightly-odd-system-to-avoid-these-issues.

If you did use the rounding system I suggested, it'd allow you to add whatever multipliers you wanted without fear of getting screwed up results. For example, you could have a certain bow a +20% to all damage, or a +50% to post-DR damage, and know that it'd always be strictly preferable to face such a bow with e.g. DR6 rather than DR4. You'd know that you weren't creating any weird min-maxers' paradise, even before you looked at the numbers.

As I say, I think the easiest way to get the ammo types balanced for all bow types would be to have bow modifiers multiply post-DR damage. However, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense: long/composite bows really ought to have more AP power than short bows, as well as more final damage (as is reflected in giving them more damage from the start, rather than after DR).
It's probably better to have them multiplying pre-DR damage. That way the ammo balance changes from bow to bow - but that can make for some interesting variety so long as you're careful.

I'd suggest something like:
Regular: 1-8; standard DR
Jagged: 5-10; *2 DR [i.e. +100%]
AP: 2-4; *0.3 DR [i.e. -70%]

S/Bow: *1.0 damage
L/Bow: *1.3 damage [i.e. +30%]
C/Bow: *1.5 damage [i.e. +50%]

That gives:
S/Bow:
Jagged best for DR 0-2; decent for 0-3.
Regular best for DR 3-4; decent for 0-6.
AP best for DR 6-12; decent for 2-12.

L/Bow:
Jagged best for DR 0-3; decent for 0-4.
Regular best for DR 4-6; decent for 0-9.
AP best for DR 7-12; decent for 3-12.

C/Bow:
Jagged best for DR 0-3; decent for 0-5.
Regular best for DR 4-7; decent for 0-10.
AP best for DR 8-12; decent for 3-12.

I think that's a reasonable balance - regular is decent over the largest ranges, and best for medium armour, but is never that much better than the others. Jagged has the smallest useful range, but kicks ass in that range. AP is pretty decent for any armoured opponent, but never does a load of damage - though it's clearly best for high DR, since it's the only ammo that works at all. I guess it's pretty reasonable that regular/jagged ammo becomes more useful against moderately armoured opponents with more powerful bows.
This gives a maximum damage range of 7.5 to 15 for C/Bow jagged DR0 - pretty close to your original value. I'll make a table when I can be bothered :).

I really do think that a smooth rounding system is important though - it replaces the incentive for spreadsheet autism with the incentive for common sense. Once the mechanic makes good sense, it's not that important that it can be understood easily/clearly in in its mechanical detail by all players - it can be understood intuitively already. 3.7 meaning "70% chance of 4; 30% chance of 3" might not be intuitive, but its implications are. On the other hand, standard rounding, where a difference of 3.45 to 3.55 becomes a difference of 1 (3 to 4), while a difference of 3.55 to 4.45 becomes no difference at all (4 to 4) has counter-intuitive implications.
 
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I dunno, this has always been the problem with hit point mechanics. I just see the cliche about a big tin can walking around that looks like a porcupine because that's the only way to bring it down. Well, really you still just need one good hit, it's just more difficult to get that hit. No, this common-sense approach is no guarantee of fun.

What if rather than adjusting damage you adjust criticals? Jagged arrows are dangerous to unarmored people because when they hit they tend to tear rather important parts of your body up. Bleeding's good, and since they're made to tear up flesh you have a larger target area for a vital organ hit, so the crit rate is significantly higher against unarmored. They'd have a really hard time penetrating armor, though, so that makes sense to dump both their damage and chance of criticals against armor. AP arrows have a better chance of piercing armor, okay. Wouldn't you want to aim for somewhere important? Maybe they do less damage but negate the armor's critical hit modifier, particuarly with called shots. If your arrow is that lucky shot that goes to the heart or the brain, the armor doesn't do jack to stop it, it just goes straight through. Since armored opponents have lower dodge, you have a better chance of hitting with your called shots, and when it does hit it hurts just like a regular arrow would, with the added bonus that the armor provided slimmer protection. I don't remember if you're doing called shots, but if not the crit adjusment would take that into account anyway.

galsiah said:
One question: Is it possible to change ammo types in battle, and if so how long does it take? Unless it takes a significant time, regular ammo would be almost useless, since it's almost always worse than either jagged or AP. If it does take significant time to switch, regular also has the advantage of being ok against a large range of light/medium armoured adversaries.

I could easily see an experienced marksman carrying different types of arrows who worked out a system to automatically draw the appropriate arrow for the selected target where it would cause no appreciable penalty. I'd imagine anyone who'd bother getting different types of arrows would arrange something like that. Maybe regular arrows have the main advantage that they're common, while you'd have a more limited selection of sellers for the specialty arrows. Arrows you loot from non-marksmen would also tend to be the plain vanilla ones.
 

galsiah

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Walks with the Snails said:
No, this common-sense approach is no guarantee of fun....What if rather than adjusting damage you adjust criticals?
I'm not sure I see how criticals are any guarantee of fun either. These mechanics work both ways - getting occasionally hugely damaged is probably going to be more annoying than getting relatively frequently significantly damaged. The latter allows more planning and prediction, and feels less like dumb luck.

If you're talking about hits that have implications beyond hit point loss, that's different. I like the idea of speed/dexterity drains or similar - anything which changes the tactical situation in interesting ways beyond you-lost-a-shit-load-of-hp. For example, anything which made it a good idea to consider changing tactics would be nice (preferably not after thinking "Shit, I'm almost dead - must act fast"). Speed drains are a clear possibility, since a slower opponent can't dictate the combat style - if he's ranged, he can be tracked down fairly simply; if he's melee, he can be more easily picked off. Dexterity/strength/two-handedness penalties are possibilities too. Anything less dull than taking/inflicting a load of damage.
I think it makes sense to have both standard damage differences and other effects though - why not? The range of different damage values could be narrowed quite a bit if it seemed preferable, but I don't see the advantage in uniformity.

I could easily see an experienced marksman carrying different types of arrows who worked out a system to automatically draw the appropriate arrow for the selected target where it would cause no appreciable penalty.
Sure. I wasn't saying that a large time penalty made sense - simply that it'd give a more significant advantage to standard ammo.
Personally I'm not too keen on the standard-ammo-is-common/cheap-but-not-as-good approach. I think it's better that it have the advantage of versatility, and be the most useful of any ammo in some circumstances.
 

Claw

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Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
Vault Dweller said:
It's possible. We already have poison/fire damage per turn mechanics, so adding bleeding damage checked against your Con would be very easy, if that's the way to go.
Well, it'd certainly be more interesting than simply adjusing the damage dealt.
My main concern with JAs is how useful they are in gameplay terms. They are quite deadly against unarmored opponents, but they are next to useless against most armor types. Adding special abilities might require reducing their damage to balance them, making them even more useless against armor.
Of course, if there's enough opponents with a DR<2, you might want to add bleeding at the expense of nominal damage to strengthen their unique traits.

Explain the "numbers don't fit / typos" part.
What galsiah said. That the JA's vsDR-5 doesn't seem to affect DR1 threw me off as well. I assume that's intentional, however. Anyway, here's an updated chart for your original values. Quite a few differences, see.

Code:
Bow			DR0	 DR1	 DR4	DR7	DR9	DR12

		 R	 1-8	 0-7	 0-4	0-1	0-0	0-0
S/Bow  JA	5-11	4-10	0-2	0-0	0-0	0-0
		 AP	2-4	 2-4	 2-4	0-2	0-0	0-0

		 R	 2-10	1-9	 0-6	0-3	0-1	0-0
L/Bow  JA	6-13	5-12	0-4	0-1	0-0	0-0
		 AP	3-6	 3-6	 3-6	1-4	0-2	0-0

		 R	 3-12	2-11	0-8	0-5	0-3	0-0
C/Bow  JA	7-15	6-14	0-6	0-3	0-1	0-0
		 AP	4-8	 4-8	 4-8	2-6	0-4	0-1


galsiah said:
Don't round off the answers in the conventional way with e.g. 2.4 -> 2; 2.7 -> 3. Instead, treat any 2.something as possibly-2-or-3, then decide which it is with another weighted random roll.
That's damn interesting. I'll remember that.
 

Balor

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I have one suggestion, one that is more about aesthetics then math - to rename 'jagged' to 'broadhead'.
a. Jagged ammo was used MUCH less frequently then broadhead ammo. And besides, it's cheesy (well, at least for me).
b. There is actually little difference in penetration and damage between 'standard' and 'jagged' ammo when it comes to impact. (just think about it).
The real difference, just like people noted already, is when it comes to pulling them out... and you DON'T pull arrows out of yourself during combat. Just break it off and continue fighting - leaving the arrowhead for extraction later, by the medics...

Therefore, jagged arrows will only make POST-battle stuff much more messy (cause they require an operation to remove). They don't provide much of a benefit during combat.
Conclusion:
You really had broadhead ammo in mind, judging by the numbers.
Unless you mean BOTH jagged and broadhead. But I think it's redundant and, again, somewhat cheesy.
 

Sarvis

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Walks with the Snails said:
I dunno, this has always been the problem with hit point mechanics. I just see the cliche about a big tin can walking around that looks like a porcupine because that's the only way to bring it down.

That's kind of how it was though, right? Platemail was designed to make it so arrows either wouldn't penetrate to the skin or would only do so superficially. A knight could take dozens of hits before going down...

That said, I like the idea of adjusting crit chance...
 

jeansberg

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Messages
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This is a great opportunity to introduce:








EXPLODING ARROWS AND CROSSBOW BOLTS!
 

Vault Dweller

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galsiah said:
Presumably he means the 2-5 for S/Bow AP DR1, which should be 2-4, and the 0-9 for L/Bow Reg DR4, which should be 0-6.
You're correct. I changed the values a few times while I was making the post, trying to find better damage ranges, but didn't update every field.

One question: Is it possible to change ammo types in battle, and if so how long does it take?
1AP. When you reload, you can select a different ammo type.

Unless it takes a significant time, regular ammo would be almost useless, since it's almost always worse than either jagged or AP. If it does take significant time to switch, regular also has the advantage of being ok against a large range of light/medium armoured adversaries.
Good point.

I like crakkie's introduction of multiplication/division, but I hate its side-effects. It's exactly the sort of thing that encourages players to optimize to mechanical artefacts rather than the game world.
Agree.

As I say, I think the easiest way to get the ammo types balanced for all bow types would be to have bow modifiers multiply post-DR damage. However, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense: long/composite bows really ought to have more AP power than short bows, as well as more final damage (as is reflected in giving them more damage from the start, rather than after DR).
It's probably better to have them multiplying pre-DR damage. That way the ammo balance changes from bow to bow - but that can make for some interesting variety so long as you're careful.

I'd suggest something like:
Regular: 1-8; standard DR
Jagged: 5-10; *2 DR [i.e. +100%]
AP: 2-4; *0.3 DR [i.e. -70%]

S/Bow: *1.0 damage
L/Bow: *1.3 damage [i.e. +30%]
C/Bow: *1.5 damage [i.e. +50%]

That gives:
S/Bow:
Jagged best for DR 0-2; decent for 0-3.
Regular best for DR 3-4; decent for 0-6.
AP best for DR 6-12; decent for 2-12.

L/Bow:
Jagged best for DR 0-3; decent for 0-4.
Regular best for DR 4-6; decent for 0-9.
AP best for DR 7-12; decent for 3-12.

C/Bow:
Jagged best for DR 0-3; decent for 0-5.
Regular best for DR 4-7; decent for 0-10.
AP best for DR 8-12; decent for 3-12.

I think that's a reasonable balance - regular is decent over the largest ranges, and best for medium armour, but is never that much better than the others. Jagged has the smallest useful range, but kicks ass in that range. AP is pretty decent for any armoured opponent, but never does a load of damage - though it's clearly best for high DR, since it's the only ammo that works at all. I guess it's pretty reasonable that regular/jagged ammo becomes more useful against moderately armoured opponents with more powerful bows.
This gives a maximum damage range of 7.5 to 15 for C/Bow jagged DR0 - pretty close to your original value. I'll make a table when I can be bothered :).
No need to. I understand. I think it's a very good idea.

...it can be understood intuitively already. 3.7 meaning "70% chance of 4; 30% chance of 3" might not be intuitive, but its implications are.
I think that it's not as intuitive as you may think. For you numbers are like lego blocks for a kid. You play with them effortlessly. I'm a bit rusty, but I understand your concepts and see the beauty in them. Someone else might be very confused though.

Anyway, would you, by any chance, have some time to discuss some other mechanics involving numbers with me? I would appreciate that. PM me your current email if you do have time.
 

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