Weapon attack speed

[Dresan]

I know weapons are being reviewed and worked on so I thought I would bring this discussion up. I believe it was mentioned weapon weights is going down which is great for lower strength characters.

The thing with strength is that if you have a strong character  they do a lot of damage at the start as they become skills they will do more damage on top of that. Its noticable because there is no cap to damage. If you have a quick character, as you become skilled you won't see your attack speed improve. Because there is a cap.

This is why that dwarf who prioritized strength and endurance, holding that heavy maul does not attack as fast at first but over time, not only does the damage improve but the attack speed does as well.

This further skews things towards strength being very important and just finding the largest weapons (the assumption being heavier=more damage). In a game where a strong skilled dwarf can potentially two-shot people, attacking first is basically half the battle. This is not a case where agility needs to be made better or worse but rather I think attack speed, specifically the attack speed of weapon categories needs to be reviewed.

Ideally, I am suggesting weapon attack rates across the board should be lowered ontop of more attack rate differences between light, medium, heavy and two handed weapons. This means that the dwarf holding a heavy stone maul sees an improvement with how fast its attacking but my agile elf holding light weapons will an improvement as well as their skills goes up too.

[Greve]

Yeah, it's a fairly simple system that appears to check against agility, skill and weapon weight every few seconds to determine whether or not you get to swing. If your aggregate of those three factors is high enough, you swing on that tick. This makes agility look very good in the beginning, but it tapers off because with enough skill, your attack speed is fine regardless of agility and weapon weight. At that point, it's all about strength.

Strength has an inflated importance because of location-based damage multipliers. A strong character hitting you in the arm isn't such a big deal because you'll take a few extra points of damage from their strength. Then they hit you in the neck and it's a dozen points of bonus damage because the strength modifier multiplied. That leads to a situation where humans and dwarves in the upper end of the strength spectrum practically never hit for anything less than grievous on the locations that actually matter.

You're not going to die to those limb hits, it's the head/neck/wrist ones that get you before you have a chance to flee or get rescued. A human with middling strength might hit your neck for 15 damage while a strong human with the same weapon could do 30 damage with the exact same attack. In my book, +4 damage should mean every attack does 4 more damage. It shouldn't mean +12 damage when you hit the head. Things get downright comical when we then begin to talk about bludgeoning weapons and their incredible bonus to stun damage. Then we're getting into the territory of high strength tripling or quadrupling your damage.

If attack speed was more regimented, that would be easier to stomach. If the strong character hits for 30 every 9 seconds while the quick character hits for 10 every 3 seconds. But that's just not really how it works, in large part because the strong character could easily be quick as well. And once you're skilled, and especially with two-handed fighting, you eventually reach the point where you swing on almost every tick regardless.

I've always wished that stats didn't make such a huge impact on coded results. Or that stats weren't so random that one character's highest roll is Extremely Good while another gets 2x Exceptional. As a matter of fact, high-strength melee matches what I think is realistic--it's without high strength that melee combat becomes a drag as you have to nick and graze your way through fights. If you're rocking above average strength, the amount of hits it takes to kill anything is just nonsensical when you can see a similarly skilled character of high strength do the job in three or four swings. Or two. Or sometimes one, with etwo bludgeoning.

Most of the game's combat systems, including attack speed, feel like they match up with a game that doesn't have a single stat that can double the damage you deal. Armageddon's combat actually works remarkably well if you ignore that one aspect of it. Then it all falls apart when you include the wildcard factor of Exceptional+ human strength, especially with bludgeoning weapons, but even without. It simply matters too much, and the evidence for it is clear: when some joker makes a troll char to PK with, it's never an elf. It's always a dwarf or at least human with strength prioritized, and a big-ass club.

To reel in my own digression, I definitely think that it would be suitable if weapon choice had a bigger and more consistent impact on attack speed. Skill and agility should matter, but currently it's just very arbitrary. You can pick up a half-giant weapon which your super strong dwarf can just barely wield, and sometimes you'll just swing five times in fifteen seconds because the dice was in your favor, or because your skills were high enough. Or your elf can grab a dagger, but because you low-rolled, there's a twelve-second gap in your swings. It would be nice if there was a more believable rhythm to it.

[Dresan]

Thanks for posting Greve,  its always a pleasure to read your posts.

To clarify, when it comes to strength I believe we are always talking about whether the damage modifier bonus should be added before or after the hit location multiplier. One has to admit it would be a different game if like most skills it was added after the hit location multiplier instead of before. But I don't think this would be good for the game. As you mentioned I think high strength fights is more realistic and I believe it add that important fear factor to encounters with high strength character like muls or giants.

One thing I might add though is that I think hit location boxes are pretty fixed. I've had high strength character right out the box sparring with byn sergants and just smack them hard on the head with etwo. I think offense skill vs defense skills should have more of an impact on how likely you are to hit a critical area/non-critical area, maybe also size comparison, beyond whether you just hit or not, again i believe currently the chances are pretty static since my fresh out of the box high strength characters etwoing have smacked their sergeants on the head often enough.

That said what I would love to see attack speed looked at, perhaps the biggest largest weapons for the character who have prioritized strength and endurance are not the most ideal. At the same times a quicker character might see value in the larger weapon slower. Overall I feel that weapon attack rate should be lowered across the board, with more  noticable difference between weight categories. To the point where even agile elves will need to train to see the speeds  they currently gets with light weapons now, and the attack speed noticably slower regardless of other skills if you decided not to prioritize agility and use a heavy large weapon.   

I see that difference in armor selection based on strength and utility but I don't see that variety of weapon selection based on attack speed/performance.

[Greve]

I believe it add that important fear factor to encounters with high strength character like muls or giants.

I suspect this could be accomplished without making the strength potential of humans and dwarves so high. Muls and half-giants are, of course, meant to be unusually deadly. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that with the way strength scales, those two restricted races are not the only ones who can make unbalanced use of strength. Dwarves and even humans can get to the point where hitting the head with a two-handed bludgeoning weapon will one-shot almost anyone, and I think that's bad for the game.

Setting aside the fact that it's just generally unhealthy to have one-hit combat in a game like this, it's particularly bad when 0-karma races can do it. Noone's appalled when a half-giant can, because we all trust that anyone who has the karma is trusted enough to do it, and you don't run into ten HG PCs every day. Even rarer with muls. But humans and dwarves are all over the place, and I quite suspect that the fact that they can deal that kind of damage with the right stats and weapon means players are perpetually wary of it.

One thing I might add though is that I think hit location boxes are pretty fixed. I've had high strength character right out the box sparring with byn sergants and just smack them hard on the head with etwo. I think offense skill vs defense skills should have more of an impact on how likely you are to hit a critical area/non-critical area

This has been my observation as well. I can't speak objectively because I only know what I've seen as a player, but it doesn't seem to me that skill makes you hit the vulnerable locations more often. This is part of why strength alone matters too much. If you almost never hit the head/neck when unskilled, it would soften the blow (so to speak) a little. But it appears to me that it's just as traight-up random roll. Your fresh PC has the same chance to hit someone in the head as that ten-year veteran, excepting of course the fact that you have to actually land a hit, and those are the hits that matter. As I noted, noone dies from hits to the arms and legs. You die when they hit your head, neck and wrists.

That said what I would love to see attack speed looked at, perhaps the biggest largest weapons for the character who have prioritized strength and endurance are not the most ideal. At the same times a quicker character might see value in the larger weapon slower. Overall I feel that weapon attack rate should be lowered across the board, with more  noticable difference between weight categories. To the point where even agile elves will need to train to see the speeds  they currently gets with light weapons now, and the attack speed noticably slower regardless of other skills if you decided not to prioritize agility and use a heavy large weapon.

All in all, I feel that the code works well right up until you arrive at the strength factor. Then it throws everything to the wind and says "strength simply wins." Coupled with the fact that strong characters can generally use better weapons, it's just... too much. You reach a point where not only is it objectively better than any other stat, it's also practically the only way to be dangerous in melee combat unless you have such things as backstab and paralyzing poisons. If you try to rely on conventional combat with middling human strength, not counting animals that just stand there until they die, you'll know what I mean. You can't kill a sentient target if your average damage is 5, unless we've got the notorious locked door to help us.

And now I realize that I've gone on and on about strength again. Still, I think that the attack speed question is only relevant precisely because it has to be weighed against strength. I don't see a way to discuss one without the other, so that's what I'll do.

[Dresan]

I can see the high end potential of human and dwaves be taken down just a notch but at the same time the damage bonus you get from weapon skills and/or offense to be brought up by two notches to compensate.

Basically, I still would want to see characters who invest in strength do more damage and thus keep the strength stat prioritzation attractive. However, it would require a bit more investment/time in training their skills before they would be able able to one or two shot people with heavy weapons.

Still I am not completely sold with nerfing strength. Instead, I would rather have attack speed on weapons reviewed so being the strongest and swinging the heaviest, also means you are slow, at least much slower than a PC is currently. Again even agile elves with light weapons would be slower than they are now, only gaining their current speed with some training.

In addition flee without the ability to choose a direction would be a skill only merchant classes should start with at master, with lower version available to light merchatile until it drops off at survival classes. Heavy and light combat class should not get flee, instead they would get a skill called retreat starting at novice which  allows you to escape combat in your chosen route in a controled manner but doesn't stop a parting blow attempt (that why you have superior combat defense skills for anyways).

Either that or just remove the ability for flee to stop parting blows altogether to make it simple.Insta-flee takes a lot out of the game but one free attack round completely resolves it. This would also keep the use of slower but more damaging heavy weapons a viable option for people with enough skill to make it count.

[creeper386]

I've seen high strength characters do lots of damage but between not attacking as fast and/or missing still getting trounced by characters without high strength. Unless something has changed, and my last few characters indicated it hasn't, I'm not sure there needs to be much changes.

I've seen characters that can attack many times faster then other characters. If anything sometimes I think attack speed should be nerfed then damage from strength.

[triste]

I wouldn't be opposed to high agi characters getting an extra dodge bonus, particularly against untrained opponents like wild beasts. Or maybe even a special dodge bonus if you are low strength and high agi (less muscle mass in the way makes it easier to dodge)! The situation for elven warrior types can often be disheartening and I would love some tweaks that make these concepts more viable.

[Greve]

I've seen high strength characters do lots of damage but between not attacking as fast and/or missing still getting trounced by characters without high strength. Unless something has changed, and my last few characters indicated it hasn't, I'm not sure there needs to be much changes.

You say that as if there's something that causes high-strength characters to attack slower. There isn't. Of course you can find someone with exceptional strength and below average agility who's a clutz in combat, but that's just not going to be the reality for most combat-based PCs. As long as your agility is decent, and you have even a modest amount of skill (like from a year in the Byn or a season of hunting), your attack speed will be just fine even if your agility isn't outstanding.

But nothing makes up for low strength, which is the bigger issue. Even if you're so skilled and quick that you land every hit and attack at the fastest speed that the code allows, if you have no damage bonus from strength, it takes an absolutely silly number of hits to kill anything that isn't a tiny harmless critter or an unarmed child. As I've noted previously, high-strength combat actually feels realistic. It's without high strength that you feel the pain. Let's call it a pain point, for Brokkr's sake.

I've seen characters that can attack many times faster then other characters. If anything sometimes I think attack speed should be nerfed then damage from strength.

Well, there's a hardcoded limit to how fast you can attack, and it doesn't take that much to hit that limit. I can't fathom what brings you to believe that attack speed is what needs to be addressed. Are people making city elves when they want to go on PK sprees? Are the high-karma races agility-based? Has anyone ever been killed by an elf's melee swings so fast that they had no chance to react? When people grow nervous as an unknown dwarf walks into the bar, it's not because they're scared that he might have high attack speed. I've never even heard anyone else insinuate that agility is a problematic stat for combat. On the contrary, there's at least one annual discussion about how much it sucks to play an elven fighter type.

High strength can double or triple the amount of damage you deal within any given window of time. High agility doesn't come even slightly close to doing the same thing. That stat has other benefits, but when it comes to combat, it's pitiful compared to strength. Having literally one-shotted people in conventinal swing-by-swing combat on a human character that wasn't even particularly skilled, and also played several elven combat characters, I know the difference and it's vast. There comes a point when strong characters aren't even significantly slower than agile characters, but there never comes a point where agile characters hit anywhere near as hard as strong characters.

If we were to use a crass term like DPS, which is unbecoming of a game like this but nevertheless valid in context, strength makes easily twice and probably thrice the difference compared to agility, and agility has a hard limit with regards to how much it can increase your DPS while strength doesn't really until you get into half-giant levels. This is why most warrior types prioritize strength first. Attack speed is an afterthought, because prioritizing agility first instead of second most certainly won't double the number of attacks you make inside a given window of time, but strength first instead of second absolutely can double your damage per hit. Attack speed is almost pointless if your average damage per hit is in the single digits.

Strength also has various other bonuses on top of sheer damage. When we factor those in as well, it completely blows everything else out of the water.

[creeper386]

Perhaps it's something I do wrong with every character. But regardless of agility I feel there is usually a bunch of people that attack 4-5 times more often then I do. Just no matter what. Light armor, not weight encumbrance. Nothing changes it.

And this isn't just some one of elf, or anything.


SHRUG. Just my experience that a good amount of people I see attack absurdly fast, while also still dealing good damage too.

[Hauwke]

Perhaps it's something I do wrong with every character. But regardless of agility I feel there is usually a bunch of people that attack 4-5 times more often then I do. Just no matter what. Light armor, not weight encumbrance. Nothing changes it.

And this isn't just some one of elf, or anything.


SHRUG. Just my experience that a good amount of people I see attack absurdly fast, while also still dealing good damage too.

I've had this too, exceptional agility half-elf with the exact same weapons as other people and still going half as fast.

[Greve]

Skill plays a large role in attack speed, as does two-handing. It's possible that the difference you witnessed had to do with these factors.

There's also a lot of randomness involved. Even if you normally attack fast, you can low-roll and just not swing for several consecutive combat rounds. As is the nature of confirmation bias, you notice those much more than you notice your averages or high-rolls. Every time you sit there without swinging for a dozen seconds, your mind goes "what the hell, this keeps happening!"

I don't know what else might affect attack speed. For all I know, maybe your skill vs. the one you're fighting plays a part as well. What I do know is that you don't need high agility to attack fast, but you definitely need high strength to hit hard. From what I can tell, damage per hit is almost exclusively a factor of your weapon's inherent dice and then your strength. If anything else affects it, it's by a very small amount. This is why a strong character will do crazy damage from day 0 while someone with average strength simply never will, even when very skilled.

[Dresan]

The fact that it seems to take only decent agility and some training to make attack speed moot is a problem.

It a different problem to strength though and each require its own solution.

1. I still recommend decreasing the attack rate of weapons so that it agility and much more training to approach that cap. This is not just about comparing damage but about usefulness of different types of weapon instead of always going for the biggest and heaviest in ever situation especially when unskilled.

2. Add an additional increase of damage of +1 per 10 percent of weapon skill. This mean that if you max the skill you get an additional +9 damage, of course most people get stuck at journeyman or have lower weapon skill potential but even then it would be much more helpful.

3. Lower the max potential of human and dwarf by a single notch. Is strength good? Yes, especially lower at levels but is being skilled better for damage very much.

Slower attack speeds would offset the slight damage increase of character that prioritize strength, especialy for powerful two handed weapons, using these should make more sense once you are skilled enough to offset the slower speed.

I don't think anyone has problem with experienced skilled combat characters one or two shotting anyone, just not out of the box, it still makes sense that dwarves and humans would still have an edge this achievement. There is only so much damage a PC can take anyways and lets not forget that not everyone prioritizes strength or gets max roll with every character, but with the three recommendations above skill would trump stats even when the combatants are spiced out of their minds

   

[creeper386]

I've also seen people that I know have a fairly low strength. Do crazy damage just with sparring weapons. Not two handed nothing.

And it'd definitely not just "occasionally" I have characters that don't attack very fast and it's "confirmation bias". It's very much a consistent thing. I very much do not see the problem that you folks see.

[Dresan]

I've also seen people that I know have a fairly low strength. Do crazy damage just with sparring weapons.

Damage gets better as someone gets skilled but not really enough to offset the benefit of being strong. Not going to argue if you percieve an elf hitting you hard, but instead just pointing out that an equally skilled human or dwarf with high strength would be doing significantly more damage in a way skill doesn't quite offset.

[Inks]

Why is every post you make about sneakies being better, I love sneakies too but nerfs to buff bois is not the way. What if you have high str and agi too? The problem as you describe it would multiply.

Game on. If warriors couldn't get low chance head shots for high damage and stun yet more people would just play enforcers, miscreants and infiltrators (if changed).

Boo hoo that backstab weapons are less damaging in regular combat than a massive maul or sword.

The attack speed between a dwarf and an elf is already night and day, and agility is great.

[X-D]

First, Let me say, if you are making a low str, high agi race PC....Stop making wis your dump stat.

And why, because, Believe me, Skills REALLY do make up for stats. I have played delf rangers with insane agi and nice high wis who could take out established HG/Dwarf/Mul rangers and warriors, in melee combat in a very short time. And was able to do so in a rather low number of days played. (which was great BTW)

I have seen insane, untouchable celf warriors, assassins, fighters over the years and some quite recent. Not only could you not hit them, they landed more then 75% of attacks on whoever they were fighting, normally ending a fight in less then 5 rounds.

Now sure, If I have a 50 day dwarf fighter with AI str and say vg agi and you have a AI agi celf with VG str also 50 days, Odds are that the skills should be roughly equal...But guess what, the outcome of that fight would also be roughly equal and I would still give the edge to the elf. And that is mostly because of the huge swing speed difference and I assume the player, having lasted 50 days played with a heavy combat elf will be using the correct weapons.

In short, the current attack speed differences are more then enough.

[Dresan]

stuff

I am going to keep it simple and just say I disagree with you.

All in all, stats mattered less in the days we had assassin that had max stealth and max backstab. When we had warriors that had easier ways to squeeze out those misses to branch advanced weapons skills. Those classes and methods don't exist anymore, making your current prioritization and even the max potential of your stats more important. This just happens to be extra true for strength. 

For those that like their max strength human and dwarves though there is nothing to worry about, this is not something that I think would be easy to balance or change at this point. Its just an old issue that has become way more imbalanced since the implementation of classes and combat learning changes.

[X-D]

I honestly think you are seeing the symptoms and diagnosing the wrong disease and applying the wrong cure.

Having played a good share of the new classes, at least the first three "ranks" And having had, Elf, Human, Dwarf and half-elf.

I have found that about the only thing that has really changed is that wisdom is WAY more important then ever before.

While what you say about the past is essentially true, I find that currently it is not impossible, Not even all that hard....It just will take a VERY long time if you have low wisdom. Cept about the rest of your stats being more important. In the short term...Sure, high str and all that is great. But as myself and other players and even staff have said many...MANY...MANY times over the years. Stats only matter a lot in the very beginning and maybe at the very end. But by then the territory is so rarefied as to not matter much even then.

Myself, I do not order stats, But I tell you, if I ever got a human fighter with say Good str, very good agi, AI wisdom and good end...it would be the very first time anybody saw me play careful for his first ten days played in the byn. Or raider, or Enforcer. Which are the only classes that should ever reasonably expect to be "good" At combat anyway.

And again, weapon attack speed is already extreme enough. I have, quite recently watched a dual wielding elf get 14 swings to one on HG and 8 to 1 verses dwarf. And when the elf has the higher skill, it is the HG and dwarf who run away.

[Dresan]

Again, I disagree.

I think wisdom was more important in the old days when you needed to maximize the rare but valuable dodges from those low level creatures. This doesn't exist anymore.

These days, in terms of combat learning, luck and opportunity is what matters most. As long as you find a PC that is as good as you, you will learn. Wisdom can play more of a role with light and mixed classes so that you can learn combat skills more quickly but less so for heavy combat classes that already have learning bonuses built in. For most it is not a question of will you learn quickly or not, rather that a question of will they be able to learn at all.

In my opinion strength with all its current bonuses is more valuable in a game where:
1. Learning in combat is mostly based on luck and opportunity of finding same level opponents to fight with.
2. Learning still slows down after a certain point its very hard to miss anything or learn due to parry/block.
3. Outside of special circumstances, combat often only lasts (the initial attack)+(the time it takes the other person to type flee after the initial attack).

Heh, over the years I've sincerely thought some people have flee triggers since some people do manage to flee before a single round of combat after the initial attack, but i digress. To be clear, I have no issues with combat learning changes outside of gating enforcer sap/backstab skills, or with the capabilities of high strength PCs. This thread after all was originally about lowering attack speed across the board, not of anyone one class or race specifically.  However, to say the progressive changes to the game haven't made the value of high strength even more glaring is something I do just disagree with.

[X-D]

While I do not disagree with lowering attack speed across the board...Well, over all I do not, Though that sort of change tends to be very hard to deal with on the npc side of things. If you did so you would also have to make combat engagement slower and flee slower...along with other skills. Things are currently set up for the speed in which things happen now and doing so would mean a complete rebalance.

As to the rest...You are so very wrong and in fact you even state it by such things as "already have learning bonuses built in." I mean really now, would you not want to maximize and take full advantage of this bonus? And when you are even saying it is a matter of luck etc to even get the chance to learn/fail what have you, again, does it not make sense to be able to make the most of these "lucky" accurances? I mean all your statements point to it being more important not less.

[Dresan]

I guess i should have also added to my list the fact that a character out of the box can still get lucky enough to hit their sergeants on the head and reel them. Of couirse, not beat them in a long drawn out battle but can still hit them.

As to the rest...You are so very wrong and in fact you even state it by such things as "already have learning bonuses built in." I mean really now, would you not want to maximize and take full advantage of this bonus? And when you are even saying it is a matter of luck etc to even get the chance to learn/fail what have you, again, does it not make sense to be able to make the most of these "lucky" accurances? I mean all your statements point to it being more important not less.

Sure. Why not. This might eventually help you win sparing matches and make people flee first.

As long as you don't prioritze strength too low so you can still wear the most protective (heaviest) gear without penalities, use the heaviest weapons and not have to snort too much spice when its time to murder someone.

[X-D]

And what is wrong with that? A lucky shot is a lucky shot, It happens. Even tabletop has it, you know, nat 20. RL has it in every fighting sport. Or even a real fight.

As long as you don't prioritze strength too low so you can still wear the most protective (heaviest) gear without penalities, use the heaviest weapons and not have to snort too much spice when its time to murder someone.

Funny part about that one is, ALL of my long lived and feared melee PCs wore almost no real armor. Even my HG's rarely go past what would be considered medium level armor, even when they have AI str.

Even the PCs that won the pit fights were only in chitin.

[Dresan]

Unless you go with wilderness camo, all city stealth amour is heavy leather it seems, not easy to pull off if you want to remain light and have strength as low prioritzation even as a human let alone elf but I digress.

I feel the overall arguement has been derailed so let me try to clarify. The argument being made is that the strength potential on humans and dwarves is too strong due to the damage on top of the other bonuses it brings. I think the conversation of whether stats are important in a game with prioritization and spice pulled away from the original arguement. Though the answer to the latter in my opinion is also still yes, especially strength in most cases.

[creeper386]

I still disagree.

[Krath]

Yeah....Dresan, I disagree 100%. Also if you adjust the attack speeds you will have to adjust all the other speeds, if chosen not to, the game will be more unbalanced than it is now.

Lucky shots also happen RL.