PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: louscroo on December 28, 2011, 08:32:09 pm
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Blows from weapons should interrupt spell-casting under the following conditions:
1) The attack is either blocked or hits (with and without damage),
2) Does not miss or is not dodged,
3) The interruption is based on chance derived from the weapon skill level of the attacker against the Magic Way skill level of the caster (a constant percentage plus/minus the percentage difference in skill)
Discuss and vote on the above proposal. Maybe we can get it to be implemented for a trial period. Consider both the RP-relevance as well as the mechanical balance.
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Hi, my name is MishkaL1138 and I approve of this idea.
(http://www.threadbombing.com/data/media/22/Chuck_Norris_Approves.gif)
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You already know my feelings about it, Fine with it, long as magic gets some form of CC in return. (Makes it just as balanced, magic interrupts melee, melee interrupts magic. Though im probably describing it in a way only I understand that will just cause further argument. \o/
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I agree, as well as with Phantomboy86. Magic attack can interrupt physical one, and vice versa. However I'd propose first to focus on missing components, such as defense against magical attacks (defensive spells, antimagic etc.). Those are totally lacking atm.
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I agree, as well as with Phantomboy86. Magic attack can interrupt physical one, and vice versa. However I'd propose first to focus on missing components, such as defense against magical attacks (defensive spells, antimagic etc.). Those are totally lacking atm.
I feel like spell interruption will serve as a defense through offense sort of deal. And also, magic has its advantage through pretty much unhindered chain-damaging. Spell failures are few and far between, and the damage done from saving throws and whatnot still do more damage than weapons are generally able to.
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so what you are suggesting is that mages should be relegated to impenetrable towers where they cannot be attacked and Tank mages are verboten. If you want to make it fair then make weapon attacks take as long as spell casting or make spells no slower than weapons. Realm one could be dagger speed Realm five could be claymore speed. Then you have to allow spell casters to cast spells with both hands i.e two spells in one round subject to cast time.
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I feel like spell interruption will serve as a defense through offense sort of deal.
No, unless you have good ranged skills and use a bow to interrupt some spell. Ranged spells will deal huge damage from the distance, a disadvantage for those who can't defend from them just using their armor and shield. Therefore defensive spells / antimagic / magic resistance etc. are really needed to balance the combat.
And also, magic has its advantage through pretty much unhindered chain-damaging.
Not more than chain damaging with weapons. You can't cast two spells at a time. Weapons have delays, casting spells as well. The only difference - there are lot's of different high damage ranged spells, while there is only a bow now to counteract that factor.
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so what you are suggesting is that mages should be relegated to impenetrable towers where they cannot be attacked and Tank mages are verboten.
There 2 missing factors - 1. magic and elemental resistance & antimagic 2. defensive spells.
First can be a natural trait of some race, an effect achieved with potions, or artifacts. Second are spells as any others, learned with skill, but targeted specifically for defending against magical / mind / elemental attacks. Consider also special kind of "dispel" antimagic effects, that can remove magic buffs, disrupt area spells etc. Those effects can be also area related (natural magic drain in some areas), again achieved through alchemy and so on. There is a lot of room for giving flexible mechanisms for using various offensive and defensive tactics. So far magic is restricted to purely offensive (with no armor defense against it), and purely physically defensive (i.e against weapons), so non mages are clearly at the disadvantage atm.
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I strongly agree that this should be considered. \\o// Even the duelling considerations aside, magic is supposed to take concentration though the glyphs. Concentration would be disrupted by a physical attack... unless the mage is some manner of Zen-Force-Master. I don't think every hit should automatically disrupt the spell, but I think it's a fair consideration that a weapon striking shouldn't be dodged/blocked at the same time as a spell is being cast. Conversely, a spell should never fail if the victim is using a weapon. They simply would both be vulnerable in that situation.
I'm sure some of you programming geniuses could come up with a formula that takes into consideration weapon/armor/magic/base stats to determine the percentages of what should or shouldn't hit. Obviously realm 1 would be less likely to be able to continue casting against a physical assault. Realm 5+ probably would have some resistance, lower damage perhaps?
I don't want to see melee grossly overpower magic, but I would like to see some manner of balance here as well.
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I agree largely with what Lou's put up. It's simply unrealistic that one could continue casting a spell when being shanked in the side, or having to block a sword slash. This is already even partially implemented. When a caster moves at a run, he or she will almost always fail at casting the spell that they're in the middle of preparing. In essence, this is exactly what's being talked about here. Even more so if damage is being taken. For those of us who've grinded magic levels in unison with armor levels by standing in the middle of a group of mobs to spam cast, this doesn't bode too well, though ;)
I'll also second what Trav and Tessra have put up here. The same should be applied to the melee fighter. If you're being slapped across the face with a fist of lava, you're certainly not in any frame of mind to be slashing a weapon of someone. Think of weapon attacks as having the same sort of progress bar that spells have currently. This bar isn't shown, for obvious reasons, but if one were to be hit with a spell, it would be easy enough to simply cancel that attack cycle, as would a spell.
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It is nice to see this discussion revived with a new topic.
This task on flyspray (http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/flyspray/index.php?do=details&task_id=4644) might be an interesting read in that context. Even though I opened it more than a year ago and some things did change in the meanwhile, I think these points all still hold true. Also note Rly's comment that the functionality to interrupt spells with physical attacks actually seems intended by design and functional, but hardly ever triggers because it requires a certain amount of damage dealt. This damage is however impossible to inflict if the target has high end armor skills and the defense factor of full defensive stance while casting spells.
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If you see things from an ic perspective, the whole story is less mage friendly. Typically, a mage has no reasonable strength and can be one- or two-hit by almost all stronger mobs.
The alternative would be to run around in heavy armor - ohno, too weak. And, excessively ooc. So, I'm casting and running like hell, hoping I don't trip over a plant or stone. And, the famous sleep is not available, because my character does not like carrying around severed hands...
Just my two tria to show the other side of the argument...
PS. Pakerl is a rather low-grade Dermorian around 150 hours in game(?), lots of quests, str 70, end 80, int 106, will 110, (max red way 20, crystal 18)
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Will is supposed to let you 'continue fighting [despite] being wounded', and is referred to as concentration by Azure high mages NPCs. As such, I think the ability to keep casting while walking / dodging should be proportionate on the Will stat.
Now that stats have been made longer to train, why not give mental ones an more important role?
(And yes, please work on anti-magic soon, the whole pvp (and pvu, for player vs ulbernauts) side of the game is a big joke right now)
Extending this idea, we see characters waving their hands and moving their lips while casting; shouldn't holding a weapon (other than a wand) lower the odds of a successful casting? Can we reasonably think that high-ranker mages don't need the gestures (and potentially noisy incantations) anymore, at least for spells under their current realm?
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Consider both the RP-relevance as well as the mechanical balance.
Oh yeah, forgot to be annoying and give my nickle about that too. Any RP'ed mage not having his spell be interrupted, or at the least be wildly shot off not as intended after being shived particularly hard, should hang up his glyph sack now.
I'll also second what Trav and Tessra have put up here. The same should be applied to the melee fighter. If you're being slapped across the face with a fist of lava, you're certainly not in any frame of mind to be slashing a weapon of someone. Think of weapon attacks as having the same sort of progress bar that spells have currently. This bar isn't shown, for obvious reasons, but if one were to be hit with a spell, it would be easy enough to simply cancel that attack cycle, as would a spell.
You misunderstood me, I did not mean all magical attacks should have the ability to cancel out a melee attack. (this would be of no difference anyways, since cancelling a melee attack doesnt do much when most swings take about one second) I meant CROWD CONTROL (CC in gamertalk) spells specifically, like the Snare (Ill explain for those who don't know what CC means prolly dont know what a snare is either, Forcing someone to stop moving, without forcing them to be shut down entirely. (That would be a stun, whereas as Silence is the opposite of that, shutting down magic without shutting down movement or melee)) I know Claws Vortex is supposed to be a snare, Tuux said as much in a meet the devs.
Specific spells like that should be given the power, because even though it is realistic that a gigantic block of stone to your damned face will stop a swing, it'd also make it terribly imbalanced on the faster spells.
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At the moment spell casting is already interrupted. The interruption happens if the amount of damages dealt in a blow is equal or greater than 30% of max HP of the victim. We can tweak this value. Please note that the poll is about stopping spell casting with ANY AMOUNT of damage, even 1 hp. Does a 1 hp make a difference if you have 1000HP in your concentration?
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sure little animals! those little buggers :P
http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/3401/snaily.png
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At the moment spell casting is already interrupted. The interruption happens if the amount of damages dealt in a blow is equal or greater than 30% of max HP of the victim. We can tweak this value. Please note that the poll is about stopping spell casting with ANY AMOUNT of damage, even 1 hp. Does a 1 hp make a difference if you have 1000HP in your concentration?
That is the only reason why I did not vote yet. And thanks for the confirmation and clarification about my above comment. I would like to note that there is another value that can be tuned here: The already mentioned defense factor. If there was a state of casting spells that would yield a defense factor not equivalent to full defensive stance then it might be doable to actually deal those 30% of some 1700 HP --- wait, I have the feeling that even quality 300 reinforced battle axes with maxed skills and stats rarely ever deal 500 HP damage with a single hit. But it gets close at least.
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In the current form, I am against it. Without taking into consideration how exactly concentration works, this is a good attempt but little more.
At the moment spell casting is already interrupted. The interruption happens if the amount of damages dealt in a blow is equal or greater than 30% of max HP of the victim. We can tweak this value.
If taken into consideration that mages can wear heavy armor (and even should be able to, unless there is a general objection against battlemages), 30% of HP in a single hit might be too much (but that depends on how the HP growth, Heavy Armor Skill of the Defender and the Weapon Skill and maximal Damage value of the Attacker behave as functions) to interrupt a caster in heavy armor and too less for casters with no to little armor as Boni said before.
Please note that the poll is about stopping spell casting with ANY AMOUNT of damage, even 1 hp. Does a 1 hp make a difference if you have 1000HP in your concentration?
Which is why I voted no.
How I would do it (and why it would not work)
- Take into consideration how magic works in terms of settings: different ways, schools, spelltypes, glyphs, rituals, magical areas, spellcasting
- Take into consideration how spellcasting can be implemented in terms of engine
- Take into consideration how physical combat and combat moves work in terms of engine
- Take into consideration what combinations of skills, stats and equipment is possible or should be possible in accordance with point 1 and 2 on both the attackers and the defenders side
- Create a model with a lot of variables on how the interruption should work
Possible variables:
- Defender: Equipment used Armor skill, Way skill, Combat Stance, Combat Moves, special Skills, racial threads, applied effects, HP, Stamina, Concentration, kind of damage sustained
- Attacker: Equipment used, Weapon Skill, Combat Stance, Combat moves, special skills, racial threads, applied effects
- Environment: Area effects
Design imperatives: It always should be possible to counterattack, negate or negatively influence actions of the opponent with a good likelyhood given both combatants are within the same skill range, have the same access to items, sources of tria and pp and trainers. Compromises between offensive-defensive abilities should be possible to cover various character concepts like Battlemages, Monks etc.
Currently, the balance of items, stats and the likelyhood of getting a spell interrupted is unstable. I know that testing involves osicallating around the perfect solution at times, but I would like to suggest to use a good descriptive model before going from one imbalanced state into another. :)
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If there was a state of casting spells that would yield a defense factor not equivalent to full defensive stance...
Spell casting is equivalent to "normal stance". So you do normal damages to someone spell casting. I also think 30% is too much, we can tweak it to 20% and then test it.
Mask, I don't understand why we need all those factors for the spell interruption. To me the most important factor is damage received. Sometimes keeping things simple helps.
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At the moment spell casting is already interrupted. The interruption happens if the amount of damages dealt in a blow is equal or greater than 30% of max HP of the victim. We can tweak this value. Please note that the poll is about stopping spell casting with ANY AMOUNT of damage, even 1 hp. Does a 1 hp make a difference if you have 1000HP in your concentration?
30 percent of 1600 is about 530 HP. Your average PS character nowadays is packing exactly, or near to, the maximum amount of HP, 1600. Under previous damage modifier conditions, the 30% cancellation value would be entirely appropriate, however, with the current damage modifier, I haven't seen anyone deal anything remotely close to this sort of damage.
That being said, I agree with Talad's point. Stopping casts for only 1 HP in damage would be nonsensical. However, I do believe the value should be tweaked, as 30% is a bit high, considering how much damage characters are able to deal. Bonifarzia has already done a better job than I could in addressing this particularity of the topic, especially with the consideration of defense modifiers.
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I would suggest that gross damage rather than net damage might be the appropriate test. Just because your armor absorbed some of the damage doesn't mean the momentum of the hit was any the less. Same thing with dodge, getting out of position ought to have wonderful side effects on the spell.
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Mask, I don't understand why we need all those factors for the spell interruption. To me the most important factor is damage received. Sometimes keeping things simple helps.
Unless expanding at the combat and magic system has been abandoned, you will need to do this all over again at least once in the future, which is why I suggested a more abstract approach. Bottom-up approaches only lead so far and can generate a lot of work because of their tendency to create methods/code that becomes irrelevant later on.
Why should damage received be the most important part of spell failure? Or as was pointed out:
I would suggest that gross damage rather than net damage might be the appropriate test. Just because your armor absorbed some of the damage doesn't mean the momentum of the hit was any the less. Same thing with dodge, getting out of position ought to have wonderful side effects on the spell.
Over here (http://"http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=40553.0") is a discussion concerning the connection between armor and magic - another influence people think of as important. And there are diverging opinions about that as well. I for one disagree at some points with bilbous here and won't even try to make a proper argument on the other thread because I do not have an appropriate overview of the settings, goals and the current status of this issue.
For a quick fix, the damage received is important and relatively easy. The issue of balancing is not solved entirely, however.
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Spell casting is equivalent to "normal stance". So you do normal damages to someone spell casting.
Ah, that sounds already a lot better. Last time I played around with that, the attacked character was always forced automatically and instantly into fulldef stance while receiving the hit. This was quite a while ago, so it is good to hear this has been changed in the meanwhile.
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Spell casting is equivalent to "normal stance". So you do normal damages to someone spell casting.
Ah, that sounds already a lot better. Last time I played around with that, the attacked character was always forced automatically and instantly into fulldef stance while receiving the hit. This was quite a while ago, so it is good to hear this has been changed in the meanwhile.
full defensive is applied only after the first hit. the first hit is not under that regime
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I think my stance on this proposal is already widely documented. I do not think simply 1 damage should interrupt a spell being cast but something like 20-30% of the current hit points needed in damage by a single blow to disrupt casting does nothing to improve the situation. In extensive testing with Irec and Kisoji it was found with the changes in combat damage by weapons that damage to a fully armoured opponent who has 200 HA never exceeds a value of around 90 damage when being hit by 300q reinforced axes by a character with 200 in the axes skill in bloody stance.
So in the time it would take to slowly bring down the opponent casters health to a point that this percentage of damage to come into play, the mage would have killed the martial combatant several times with its much larger damage output.
Of course if you throw a high rank in shield handling into the mix (130+) they would block 80-90% of the opponents hits on top of this. So I think such a implementation alone is not going to be able to balance the two forms of combat but also a concept of a spell failure chance based on the type of armour worn by the caster is likely a nice approach as well, pushing many mages to ditch heavy armour, thus being able to be hit for much higher amounts of damage by a martial combatant. We did similar tests with 200 LA and the amount of damage was in the 150-350 range with all else remaining the same, thus making this failure chance by damage much more interesting in the sake of balancing.
-Ikon
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That would be why you use gross damage instead of net damage. The 90 or 150-350 range values are net after armor reduction (and whatever else,) the gross damages were likely the same all -- other factors than armor type being equal. This would serve to consider the shock of the blow instead of how much actual damage was done.
Some consideration could be made for glancing blows whether due to armor or shield skill but these could be limited to the highest range of successes in those abilities or for or for situations where the success number of the defense is significantly greater than the success number of the attack.
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I second Ikon's idea in its entirety.
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I would support the idea of maybe lowering the percentage so less damage can cause spell interruptions but only if they implement spells that affect other things then just health of an opponent. Right now we can't lower chances of someone hitting, can't slow movement, or do much else to defend ourselves with magic. If you add spells like blindness, fix ones like incredible weight, or maybe ones like haste then that would be helpful to mages and I would agree that it should be easier to disrupt their spells. By the way there is supposed to be a spell that prevents a caster from speaking at all so they can't cast but that isn't in the game yet either.