Percentage based damage reduction is AWFUL!!!

[Cryomancer]

I just don't get why so many games uses it. In nutshell :

• It works not differently than increased HP
• It homogenizes the damage source and makes easy to find the "best DPS"
• It kills the sense of progression
• It is nonsensical.

Now point a point.

1 - It is no different than increased hp. If the enemy has 50% cold damage, he can just have 2x hp vs a cryomancer and that is it. While in a game where he has X DR, the same enemy could be immune to low level cryomancy and his armor be almost worthless vs high level cryomancy.

2 - It homogenizes the damage source. With flat damage reduction in fallout new vegas, you have large caliber firearms and armor piercing rounds like the .45-70 lever action brush gun and the bolt action .50 BMG armor piercing anti materiel rifle being amazingy to deal with supermutants, deathclaws, armored robots and so on, despite being relative low damage per second weapons. If FNV din't had flat damage reduction, a .45 ACP SMG would be the most efficient weapon in the game, regardless of enemy armor.

In Skyrim, there are no reason to use "expert" destruction spells when apprentice destruction spells can dish more damage per mana and no reason to use a warhammer over a sword.

In Dragons Dogma, you have shortbows and longbows. Longbows can OutDPS shortbows vs heavier armor at larger ranges and shortbows at low range vs lighter armor. If the game had flat damage reduction, shortbows would be objectively better in any situation. Killing the "ranger" profession. Same with warhammers vs swords for fighters.

3 - It kills the sense of progression.

While I was playing Gothic 2 - Returning as a Necromancer, there was some enemies which just could't be damaged by my dark magic. A lot of powerful demons don't take damage from circle 3 spear of darkness and even circle 4 deathball, they soak a lot of damage. Low level dark magic just can't do anything vs a archdemon. Only high necromancers(circle 4+) could damage then.

Before becoming a high necromancer, I had to resort to scrolls, summons or other strategies to deal with some enemies and now I can deal with then. That gives a huge sense of progression. If I could as a circle 1 necromancer kill a archdemon, all sense of progression of getting newer spells will be lost. You go from no damage to a bit of damage to a lot of damage(when become a archmage) without a ridiculous number inflation. That is only possible with flat damage reduction.

In normal unmodded Gothic, each upgrade in armor means that less enemies can damage you. That gives a huge sense of progression in end game.

4 - It is nonsensical.

Imagine power armor from fallout universe. How a .22 LR hollow point can deal any damage to it? Arrows vs armor, or the arrow has sufficient power to pierce(and hit in a adequated angle) it or not. The idea that a plate armor would be equally effective vs a children's toy bow or vs a siege ballista with bodkin arrow and would just reduce the poison and piercing damage by X is ridiculous.

 

[anvi]

Yea

 

[Nutria]

And it means that low-level armor will give you something like -10% damage, which really isn't enough for the player to even notice. So it's not until you get pretty far into the game before you find armor that you even care about.

 

[BING XI LAO]

I think there is still room for % reduction at times, but it should play second fiddle to flat-value reductions.

 

[Rilmani404]

So the biggest problem is implementation. When it is supplied by a character’s armor:

1. The armor can’t be destroyed (removing the damage reduction$ in a meaningful amount of time or with reasonable resources.
   
2. The effect exists before then fight begins. So its activation cannot be prevented by a creature’s moves. It also cannot be interrupted in such a way that all moves/spells in the same school are locked/penalized for a time.
   
3. It does not present information to an attacker (ie like a Pokémon move saying “not very effective”). If a fiery shield or an icy shield popped over someone’s head when they activated it, I might realize “I should try X damage type instead!”

If a game developer didn’t like invincibility frames, they might implement percentage damage reduction instead, right? With the percentage corresponding to where and how a creature actually suffered contact while dodging.

Games where the difficulty setting just changes armor effectiveness or enemy hit points though should be shoved onto a spit for a thorough roasting though.

 

[lukaszek]

why not both like in underrail?

 

[Humbaba]

A lot of powerful demons don't take damage from circle 3 spear of darkness and even circle 4 deathball, they soak a lot of damage.

Ok wait so do they take damage or not?

 

[Cryomancer]

A lot of powerful demons don't take damage from circle 3 spear of darkness and even circle 4 deathball, they soak a lot of damage.

Ok wait so do they take damage or not?

Arrow of Darkness - Circle 1 = No damage
Spear of Darkness - Circle 3 = No damage
Deathball - Circle 4 = A bit of damage
Cry of the Dead - Circle 6 = A lot of damage

Simple as that. Fire Mages in other hands can deal considerable damage vs creatures of darkness like demons in circle 3

I think there is still room for % reduction at times, but it should play second fiddle to flat-value reductions.

Yep. Like UnderRail.

why not both like in underrail?

Agreed.

 

[Humbaba]

Arrow of Darkness - Circle 1 = No damage
Spear of Darkness - Circle 3 = No damage
Deathball - Circle 4 = A bit of damage
Cry of the Dead - Circle 6 = A lot of damage

Simple as that.

Right. Why is that a bad thing though? High level enemies should be hard, even after becoming relatively powerful. Having everyone in the end game be bitch-made wouldn't be too much fun probably.

 

[Cryomancer]

Arrow of Darkness - Circle 1 = No damage
Spear of Darkness - Circle 3 = No damage
Deathball - Circle 4 = A bit of damage
Cry of the Dead - Circle 6 = A lot of damage

Simple as that.

Right. Why is that a bad thing though? High level enemies should be hard, even after becoming relatively powerful. Having everyone in the end game be bitch-made wouldn't be too much fun probably.

I'm not saying that is bad. I'm saying that is great and gives a sense of progression. Making each new spell fell more impactful and game changing. I'm praising it, not saying that is a bad thing.

 

[Humbaba]

Arrow of Darkness - Circle 1 = No damage
Spear of Darkness - Circle 3 = No damage
Deathball - Circle 4 = A bit of damage
Cry of the Dead - Circle 6 = A lot of damage

Simple as that.

Right. Why is that a bad thing though? High level enemies should be hard, even after becoming relatively powerful. Having everyone in the end game be bitch-made wouldn't be too much fun probably.

I'm not saying that is bad. I'm saying that is great and gives a sense of progression. Making each new spell fell more impactful and game changing. I'm praising it, not saying that is a bad thing.

I see, my mistake.

 

[Raghar]

Also it depends on what do you mean by HP. Of course in exponential system n^21 aka STR 21 The STR bonus to damage does a lot when STR goes to 23. So, what actually HP do? Is it a resilience against One hit kill? Or is it ability to survive repeated damage? And if cat scratch does 1 HP, why would cat need only 7 scratches to knock out a wizard? (The catch is an unarmored body has threshold until damage is lethal. Which most games either don't simulate at all. Or they simulate only a damage higher than that threshold. Most games don't bother to simulate anything.)

Normal real world armors are flat damage reduction. Under certain threshold projectiles do squat. Above certain threshold, armor is paper.
Mathematically percentage reduction is bogus. If armor is pierced and reduces damage by n. Why would damage by 1 kg projectile be reduced the same as damage by 10 kg projectile?

 

[lukaszek]

Mathematically percentage reduction is bogus. If armor is pierced and reduces damage by n. Why would damage by 1 kg projectile be reduced the same as damage by 10 kg projectile?

it makes more sense when considering electric shock and having armor being as effective as someone touching the wire besides you, resulting in absorbing half of the shock?

heat resistance can be weirder. x heat over y seconds? I guess energy shield concept works better to create a model for it. Shield keeps going down and its not very easy to recharge it while taking damage.

 

[Reinhardt]

Nigga, you should play more games. gothic 2 and new vegas every time you start new thread is boring.

 

[J1M]

Percentage reduction also makes healing more effective and encourages threat/tanking mechanics.

I think it's a real shame that damage types haven't been explored very much in RPGs.

For example, you go to the new expansion of an MMO and the enemies hit you pretty hard initially because they all do "frost" damage. As you explore and get upgrades in the new area you pick up armor with frost resistance. An alternative to "all numbers go up".

 

[Cryomancer]

Nigga, you should play more games. gothic 2 and new vegas every time you start new thread is boring.

Any good recommendation?

BTW, I mentioned a lot of games here.

I think it's a real shame that damage types haven't been explored very much in RPGs.

For example, you go to the new expansion of an MMO and the enemies hit you pretty hard initially because they all do "frost" damage. As you explore and get upgrades in the new area you pick up armor with frost resistance. An alternative to "all numbers go up".

That is explored. Recently I did a Telvanni Cryomancer pure RP build in Morrowind and had a hard time in Solstheim due the abundant of reflect magic + frost resistance. I ended using way more unenchanted axes over my magical axe which can deals 100 pts of frost damage + 40 of physical(with my max STR, I can dish 160 damage per swing) thanks to it.

Morrowind would be better if had flat damage reduction, so really powerful spells like "chill of death"(which I created, it deals 100 pts of damage during 5 seconds or 500 damage) could still be useful vs powerful ice resistant creatures. Not creatures of pure ice like a Frost Atronach, but you got the idea.

 

[Faarbaute]

You could argue for % DR for balance reasons or realism and stuff but whatever reasons you have, I just find the end result so boring.

I don't want 10% damage reduction. I don't want +5% resistence to blunt damage. I don't want incremental, for all intents and purposes, meaningless bonuses. Shove that shit up your arse.

I want 20 DR to slashing on my belt and to destroy those sword wielding bandits who thought they could shake down the Hero of the Realm.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

why not both like in underrail?

Classic Fallouts also have both. You have DR to represent soft armor and DT to represent hard armor, if I remember right. DT could only be pieced by some weapons using the "Weapon Penetrate" perk and Armor Bypass criticals. DR could be pierced with AP ammo (even if the way the ammo tables were made was kind of wack for the most part).

Wans't perfect, of course. Fallout 1/2 had too many armor bypass criticals.

Van Buren was also going to do something interesting, where resisted damage would go to your character fatigue, to represent your character still feeling the effect of an attack without being hurt. So you can't just "no sell" attacks forever. Van Buren was also going to go with partial armor bypass criticals in place of full bypasses.

New Vegas also goofed by introducing that lame-ass mechanic which allows 5 chip damage even if the armor DT resists the projectile fully. I suspect it was partly to prevent heavily-armored players from stomping, but it also helps players to cheese it through armored enemies they have no business beating.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Generally speaking, the OP is correct. I remember being very please when 3E moved that direction. It does require much more thoughtful balancing on the designer's part though and can be tricky not to feast or famine with it.

 

[almondblight]

To be honest armor is almost always boring in games. Usually it's just putting as much damage reduction/avoidance as you can on yourself without hitting any penalties. Starcrawlers did something sort of interesting with shields, where lighter shields block less damage but have the ability to recharge over time. This potentially presented a somewhat interesting choice (optimizing your team for a battle of attrition vs. a more berserker strategy), though I'm not sure the shields were important enough for it to matter in the end. If the choice is just "reduce damage by 5% but move 5% slower" - or worse, "reduce damage by 5%, with no downsides" - then I don't really see much point.

 

[Rilmani404]

To be honest armor is almost always boring in games. Usually it's just putting as much damage reduction/avoidance as you can on yourself without hitting any penalties. Starcrawlers did something sort of interesting with shields, where lighter shields block less damage but have the ability to recharge over time. This potentially presented a somewhat interesting choice (optimizing your team for a battle of attrition vs. a more berserker strategy), though I'm not sure the shields were important enough for it to matter in the end. If the choice is just "reduce damage by 5% but move 5% slower" - or worse, "reduce damage by 5%, with no downsides" - then I don't really see much point.

In tabletop games I’ve seen personal shields which can block high-velocity and high-energy projectiles, but are useless against swords and arrows. In addition reducing damage taken from futuristic projectiles drained a battery. In the web serial Worm, one hero has an invincible personal shield, but any real amount of damage (great fall, gunshot, melee weapon) ends the shield. After which she was a normal squishy human. The amount of damage blocked determined how long it took to reassert itself, with standard bullets taking it down for a second.

I could see shields (physical and energy-based) working like that. For tabletop games and turn-based RPGs, they’d be worded as “the first attempted attack rolled above X is deflected, after which your shield bonus to Armor Class is reduced by Y until the start of your next turn.” So if someone meets a threshold with one hit, they have an easier time injuring you with follow-ups.

I really don’t expect to see that for typical enemies… though bosses occasionally work like that, visualized in video games as a vulnerable red spot flashing on the creature.


So we have 1) energy shields (scifi or magical), 2) ablative barriers which fall apart (cover or some effects), 3) physical shields, 4) physical armor, and then 5) a creature’s durability. Ignoring agility/dodging and critical hit variables. I think that 5 needs to take into consideration whether or not a game has Wounds in some fashion- can a blow reduce your stamina recovery or flat-out drain your stamina? Are your defenses lower when on your last dregs of stamina? Can a wound reduce how often you can attack?


I was going to differentiate wounds from conditions (poisoning, blindness, concussion) but everyone here knows the effects I’m talking about. Back to 1 through 4: a game could give different options different kinds of protection. A space marine’s armor may have an ablative layer when they first make planetfall which, for a time, would completely block chip damage and crumple to reduce some damage from a significant blow. After weeks of hard fighting they might lose said protection and be stuck with normal armor, their agility, and so-on. With that idea in mind, each game just has to describe how their ablative armor, energy shields, physical shields, physical durability and armor “work,” with the expectation that different combinations are more effective in different games depending on how the numbers shake out.

So for most humanoids in RPGs, giving them damage resistance from their physical durability due to something like a level difference feels weird. But giving the high level creature buckets of hit points makes sense. And normally they wouldn’t run around naked, so they’d be quite capable even if “physical durability damage resistance” doesn’t exist.

I don’t have a conclusion to put here, I just think arranging defense into 1 through 5 followed by condition resistance, agility/dodge, and then more esoteric qualifiers should be a game developer’s mindset. I approve of active defenses (supercharging shields, using a button to bring your shield up at the right time…) just so long as you don’t have to juggle too many active/reactive/proactive-short-duration abilities.

 

[Black Angel]

New Vegas also goofed by introducing that lame-ass mechanic which allows 5 chip damage even if the armor DT resists the projectile fully. I suspect it was partly to prevent heavily-armored players from stomping, but it also helps players to cheese it through armored enemies they have no business beating.

Huh, this is new to me. I vaguely remembered having high DT allow me to just stand there and facetank puny pistol shots, knives, and punches, so trying to attack high DT targets like Deathclaws with a 10mm pistol also leave practically no scratch at all.

 

[Cryomancer]

That is why many games that are more loot based will have the equipment get bigger numbers while the skills/perks are more likely to be percentage based (whether percentage damage reduction, or X skill does Y% of base DPS or Base Damage). That can make it so a skill/perk that requires a permanent investment from your character build can remain relevant even as the numbers from equipment continue to grow.

That is IMO a downside. It makes ridiculous number inflation easier to happen with percentage damage reduction.

WoW or Diablo 3 style number inflation can't happen in a game with flat DR. And flat DR also makes easier to do math. The unique armor system worse than percentage based DR is ... DOS2 armor. DOS2 also has stat stickie itemization which is the worst of the worst itemization.

"reduce damage by 5% but move 5% slower" - or worse, "reduce damage by 5%, with no downsides" - then I don't really see much point.

 

[Peachcurl]

WoW or Diablo 3 style number inflation can't happen in a game with flat DR.

I don't follow. Why? I'd say that the number inflation in these games has very little to do with flat vs. percentage reduction. The reason for the number inflation is that developers want to create an unending power fantasy to keep players motivated, without actually making the game trivial.

With that motivation in mind, flat DR would just go into an arms race with produced damage numbers.

I don't disagree with your main point in this thread, but flat DR won't save any game that's designed like that.

(btw. Bards Tale IV is an excellent example of how flat DR can work quite nicely.)

 

[Cryomancer]

n unending power fantasy

With flat damage reduction, armor becomes worthless if you include ridiculous multipliers in everything. And in this games, is not as if they are power fantasies. Your char is nothing, 100% of his power is in his gear.

but flat DR won't save any game that's designed like that.

There is any gear farming cooldown managing generic wow clone with flat damage reduction?