Defense nerf explained?

[Delstro]

I agree with X-D.

[elvenchipmunk]

Sorry, 30 day meaning relatively long lived. Maybe 20-25 days. Relatively long lived.

And I have seen assassins/rangers that long lived get hit for a large portion of their hp/stun within a few rounds of combat against a new warrior.

[Jenred]

I sense this thread getting locked or moved.
Last time damage, damage percents and other things deemed "intricacies of code" were discussed it was closed.

[Eloran]

Totally different discussion. On a slight derail, I don't see what the big fucking deal is about discussing modifiers and their place in the damage scale, but hey, that's just me.

[Riev]

I have enjoyed the work it takes to build up this "defense" skill. Get hit hard, learn how to NOT get hit that hard again. Fail-based etc etc.

I do -not- agree with the fact that a 20+ warrior can sit there for 5 minutes against a relatively new assassin, and almost never get hit, and then initiate his attack and end the fight in two prompts.




End all be all. I'm glad that EVERY guild doesn't have access to parry. It is an advanced technique to begin with, and while "anyone" can sneak around, it likely will never work. Parry should have not worked as often as it did. I'm for the change, but against some of the other changes that have gone in. (Combat Skill Reversal taking stam? Nothing like engaging three characters and being unable to flee due to disarm spam.)

[Is Friday]

I do -not- agree with the fact that a 20+ warrior can sit there for 5 minutes against a relatively new assassin, and almost never get hit, and then initiate his attack and end the fight in two prompts.

So you're for the "hard work" of building up defense but don't want it to have any reward?

[Vessol]

meh, the discussion of the metagame or mentioning it always serves to kill the magic of Armageddon a bit more for me every time, reminding me that it is just another online game :\.

[Veges]

Reading is optional.

[Jenred]

Reading is optional.

Not everyone expects a topic to degrade into code explanations when they are reading through it.

[Eloran]

Not everyone expects a topic to degrade into code explanations when they are reading through it.

Reading the title of a thread can impart useful knowledge. In this case "defense nerf explained" is, I think, pretty self explanatory that code might be an issue. 

[Reiloth]

Not everyone expects a topic to degrade into code explanations when they are reading through it.

Reading the title of a thread can impart useful knowledge. In this case "defense nerf explained" is, I think, pretty self explanatory that code might be an issue.  

After this change -- I have noticed that characters i've played with exceptional stats just -take longer-. While I am not one to obsess over code, when something unrealistic happens due to a code change, I fail to see how that is 'business as usual'. A warrior with Below Average wisdom and exceptional everything else learning another language before branching anything at all related to combat. What? How does that make any sense at all? The language code is nearly impossible to overcome as it is -- But for a Warrior that should by all means be a god amongst men to learn something academic before learning how to beat ass harder?

Quite confusing.

[Agent_137]

well, I didn't know rangers have shitty shield skill. That's kind of disappointing, but I guess I'd have figured it out eventually. Better now, because I don't really see that as some 'neat secret' that i'll be so excited to learn. Instead it leaves me feeling hollow and sad. Is shield/spear not the most logical choice for fighting much larger creatures/beasts? Why is that not represented? Especially now that defense skills actually -matter.-

[Riev]

well, I didn't know rangers have shitty shield skill. That's kind of disappointing, but I guess I'd have figured it out eventually. Better now, because I don't really see that as some 'neat secret' that i'll be so excited to learn. Instead it leaves me feeling hollow and sad. Is shield/spear not the most logical choice for fighting much larger creatures/beasts? Why is that not represented? Especially now that defense skills actually -matter.-

Shield is still one of my favorite defensive things to take in this game. If you thought, somehow, that a ranger's shield use was on par with a warriors, you were already jaded from the start. This should not be news to make you hollow or sad.

We should get a listing of how people feel about the change itself, and not so much combat in general. Combat is WAI, so saying that combat sucks doesn't help.

[Jingo]

Yeah. I'm just going to say that I trust the staff have things worked out the way they want.

I have some reserves about newbies with heavy strength. But that's about it.

My one wish is that stats would somehow factor less in combat.

[SMuz]

meh, the discussion of the metagame or mentioning it always serves to kill the magic of Armageddon a bit more for me every time, reminding me that it is just another online game :\.

Hah, I sort of like the metagame. Being an engineer, knowing the mechanics of something actually helps me get deeper into it.

Shield works great, IMO. Rangers with shield/spear would do about as well as you'd expect a hunter with shield and a spear to. He's not going to face down a lot of other warrior/hunters, but he should be able to take down some nasty critters. Even with the 'nerf', I really like it for a lot of non-warriors.

[Fathi]

My biggest problem with this change to combat is how it ended up effecting combat emoting.

Before the parry fix, combat was a lot slower-paced. A lot more blows weren't going through, which meant sparring matches and 'real' combat alike were stretched out more, leaving both parties waiting for someone to finally break past the other's defenses and land the blow(s) that would end the match.

Because combat was slower, the likelihood of combat emoting was greater. I was playing a warrior during this code change and before the change, I don't recall any situations she got into where she was attacked by an opponent that didn't emote through the fight, even during assassination attempts.

After the parry nerf, it seems to me like a lot more people--especially non-warriors--drop an initiating-the-attack emote but otherwise keep their fingers hovering over the flee keys. Which makes sense--I'd rather not lose a character to not being able to flee 'cause I was in the middle of typing up an emote.

At the same time, though, I miss how it was. Combat has sorta become the "engage, anxiously wait, then flee" dance.

[RogueGunslinger]

[derail]

I, personally, find it disturbing how easy it is to roll up V. good+ strength if you want to. With strength being such a deciding factor, it certainly colors how I go about the application process.


[/derail]

[Northlander]

For me, I like Arm with deadly combat, but I would rather we weren't entirely as easy to hit as we are now. I envision a golden middle path between 10-second and 10-minute sparring rounds, but with an emphasis towards the former. That would allow more room for combat emoting and also give warriors a reason to use their delaying skills even at low levels, another implication of the change.

[SMuz]

Combat is pretty damn tough to balance. Compared to other games, it seems OK. Except for that early 2 days where you can get torn to bits by a "harmless" animal.

[Solifugid]

Combat is pretty damn tough to balance. Compared to other games, it seems OK. Except for that early 2 days where you can get torn to bits by a "harmless" animal.

I'm not certain any animal on Zalanthas counts as 'harmless.'

[Eloran]

Lord knows them damn tregil would be ruling Zalanthas otherwise.

[Olgaris]

Here are a few things I've observed:

1. It takes much, much longer for a warrior to become nigh untouchable, because now you have to actually increase your base defense to be defensively capable, and this seems to proceed quite slowly.  However, it is possible to achieve such a high base defense that you can box dangerous critters to death completely unarmed, and not be injured.

2. It takes much, much longer for weapon skills to increase by sparring your peers (e.g. runner vs. runner), because now hardly anyone ever dodges anything, until they've increased their base defense, which takes quite a bit of time (or some serious powergaming).

3. Once you start hitting the upper ranges in weapon skills or base offense, you have to resort to some fairly ridiculous training methods, because your clanmates typically will have such weak defense that reasonable sparring is no longer even marginally useful.  Note that you tend to reach this point long before the weapon skill in question is "maxed" or even branched from.

4. Because it is so difficult to become defensively untouchable, strength is the big winner in combat now, at least over the short and medium term: since even very experienced warriors can be hit, it means they will be hit.  The only question is: how hard?  That's where strength factors in.  (Not to mention the recent changes to encumbrance penalties.)  I suspect this may hold true even over the long term, given the compensation effects I'll discuss below.

5. Having low agility is actually sort of helpful in this regard:  since you initially gain no agility bonus to defense,  you are hit harder and more often, which allows your base defense to improve more rapidly.  Due to this compensating effect, agility is useful primarily in offense, as it regulates attack speed. (Note that agility also affects to-hit, but the same compensation effect applies to its modifier here. Also note that I'm not taking into account anything other than melee combat, here.)

6. Because the compensating effects have a lag period, if you have a character with high agility, over the short-term, you will seem to be quite the badass, as long as you have decent strength to go along with it.  However, as your peers increase their base offense and defense to compensate for their lack of agility, you will slowly but surely lose any advantage you had when you and they were newbies.  Additionally, you will improve your relevant combat skills slower than your peers, because you are the "hard target" to hit, while they are typically easy targets for you.  The only way to avoid this is to spar exclusively with more experienced PCs or to resort early on to the previously-mentioned somewhat absurd training methods.

7. Over the medium term, classes that do not start with parry actually have a relatively large advantage in the base defense game:  since they don't have parry to compensate for their lack of defense, they get hit harder and more frequently, and their base defense goes up much more rapidly.  Then, once they branch parry, they have a very strong base on which to improve.  Of course, this means that they actually have to survive to branch, heh.

8. There is no compensating effect for lack of strength, which again, makes strength the #1 deciding factor in melee combat over the long term.

9. I suspect that, given two equally skilled warriors with entirely maxed offense and entirely maxed defense, that the one with higher agility would win.  However, given the nature of the compensation effect, it is much more likely that the warrior with lower agility will actually be more skilled.

My verdict so far is: Agility is useful over the short-term and for some non-melee related issues.  Also, defense is nerfed over the short-term, but every class can become just as defensively badass as pre-defense nerf, it just takes much, much longer.  This makes the game tough on newbies, and it makes it rather difficult to improve beyond mediocrity for folks who aren't extensively analytical about skills .

All true.

Actually, not by a long shot. But since we prefer to leave you guys in the dark as to how it actually works, can't blame a guy for trying.