Weapon Damage Flattening, Balance, Automation

[Halaster]

Alluded to in the last release I have kicked off a project to "fix" weapon damage and as promised to Krath here's some more details.

We have a set of tables, basically a type of style sheet, that tells staff what are the proper values for weapon based on size, weight, material, etc.  They are a manual process are aren't the easiest thing in the world to follow.  Over the years staff have added weapons that don't conform to those standards.  Typically it has been through not understanding how to use them, or general mistakes.  Those weapons then get copied as the person copying it doesn't realize it's bad. Now, some (checks watch) nearly 30 years later we have a LOT of weapons with incorrect values which cause imbalance and inconsistencies.

So, I've started a project to fix that by removing most of the work required by staff to set the values of a weapon.  The new system will mean they only have to set the weapon category (longsword, mace, dagger, etc), the material, and the quality.  Then the game does the rest for them.  This will enforce consistency across the board, meaning if you have a bone longsword that is average quality, you can count on it to be the same as any other bone longsword of average quality.  And this consistency is the ultimate goal.

This also gives us the ability to showcase that certain groups (Salarr) make the best, by having only them craft the highest quality.  And quality will loosely determine the weapon's performance.

So far I've made the code work, which isn't the hard part.  The hard part is converting existing weapons over to a new system, mostly because determining quality is somewhat subjective.  But with the system being in place already, we can work on moving weapons over on whatever time frame we want.

So how does this affect my weapons?  Most weapons shouldn't see any significant - if any - change to their performance.  Some weapons may start doing a tad more damage, some may start doing a tad less.  The real changes are going to be staff side and creating new weapons while holding to our standards.

[MeTekillot]

Does weight factor into this?

[Inks]

It says it does in the first paragraph aye.

[Halaster]

Does weight factor into this?

Yeah.  Staff won't need to set weight, it'll be calculated for them, but it does factor.

[Riev]

So the idea is that like... maybe a light wooden sword isn't going to be as damaging as that heavy glass and mek-handled sword, but its not up to a staff to say "Hm, Wood is 1d4 but BIG GLASS IS 2d6 YEEEEEE". The system will basically say "all swords are 1d6 unless you can get a higher quality one".

What determines "quality"?

[Halaster]

So the idea is that like... maybe a light wooden sword isn't going to be as damaging as that heavy glass and mek-handled sword, but its not up to a staff to say "Hm, Wood is 1d4 but BIG GLASS IS 2d6 YEEEEEE". The system will basically say "all swords are 1d6 unless you can get a higher quality one".

What determines "quality"?

Close.  All wooden longswords are x damage as a base.  The only factor staff would have to determine damage directly is quality.

Quality will be based on skill of the crafter/seller - still a system that has yet to be written for weapons fully.  The exactly details of the system (crafting v quality) is still being hashed out.

[mansa]

Weapons templates, then.  Cool!

How easy is it to create new weapon templates?

[BadSkeelz]

Will PCs be able to generally assess the quality of a weapon through something like the Assess or Value commands (even if you don't have the latter skill)? Or will we need to rely on context clues in the mdesc, which as I'm sure you aware can be... misleading. I like to think that one obsidian blade that compares itself to steel twice in its 3 line description is really good, but suspect that it's more an artifact of 20+ year old writing.

[Brisket]

If PCs can assess weapon quality, can we please have it based on both/either (relevant weapon skill) and (relevant crafting skill)? 

It doesn't make sense if Amos, swordmaster, has no idea how well made his sword is to me.

[Dresan]

I like the idea of standardizing weapons damage.

However, I feel like heavy weapons not only do the most damage but they seem plenty fast especially after some training despite low agility.

This might be a good time to consider balancing weapons speeds so there is much more of a trade off by going heavy damage with strength stat versus lower damage but faster delivery with the agility stat.

It sometimes feel like straight melee combat and bash can become am equally viable assasination alternative than backstab.

[creeper386]

How do you determine the difference between day two stone head hammers when one has a larger handle and head then the other if staff doesn't assign weight?

[Krath]

If PCs can assess weapon quality, can we please have it based on both/either (relevant weapon skill) and (relevant crafting skill)? 

It doesn't make sense if Amos, swordmaster, has no idea how well made his sword is to me.

I think there are two pieces to this:

1. Master Crafted Blades (which should be the highest quality) should only be attainable by someone who has master swordmaking and master slashing weapons.
    -Reasoning: The person making the blade, should also know how to use the blade in order to understand the weak and strong points of said weapon
2. Assessing a weapons quality should be based on Either Weapon Skill level or Weapon crafting skill level.

[Inks]

I like the idea of standardizing weapons damage.

However, I feel like heavy weapons not only do the most damage but they seem plenty fast especially after some training despite low agility.

This might be a good time to consider balancing weapons speeds so there is much more of a trade off by going heavy damage with strength stat versus lower damage but faster delivery with the agility stat.

It sometimes feel like straight melee combat and bash can become am equally viable assasination alternative than backstab.

I have seen you request this again and again, all it does is break the game, nice try halfbreed.

[betweenford]

Finesse weapons would be cool when you're like weaker than a small child but still wanna use a rapier or a dagger.

[wizturbo]

So far I've made the code work, which isn't the hard part.  The hard part is converting existing weapons over to a new system, mostly because determining quality is somewhat subjective.  But with the system being in place already, we can work on moving weapons over on whatever time frame we want.

Having the value skill tell you vaguely how high quality a weapon is would be an amazing addition to the game, assuming it was tied to that coded "Quality" rating you're referring to.

[wizturbo]

1. Master Crafted Blades (which should be the highest quality) should only be attainable by someone who has master swordmaking and master slashing weapons.
    -Reasoning: The person making the blade, should also know how to use the blade in order to understand the weak and strong points of said weapon

Disagree with linking crafting ability to weapons skills themselves, beyond maybe a small bonus.  To say you need to be a master of a weapon in order to craft it would be like saying Mikhail Kalashnikov needed to be an award winning shooter in order to build the AK-47.  As far as I'm aware, there are virtually no historical examples of master weapons makers also being renowned warriors or specialists of the weapons in their own rite.  For instance, master swordsmiths building Katanas in Japan were not part of the Samurai class, and were not even allowed to wield a sword of their own, let alone get good at using them.

This extends to virtually all crafts...  Clothiers are not models.  Armorers are not warriors.  Paint brush makers are not painters.  Pilots are not aircraft engineers. 

All realism aside, it isn't even good game design.  You want to make a crafter character, but you're forced to spar for RL years in order to get good enough to mastercraft a good weapon?  Seems bad to me.

[Inks]

Agreed on weapon skill being unrelated to crafting. TA.

This is a fantasy trope from some fictions where they are blacksmith but also master swordsman.

I respect a pc who is both though!

[Halaster]

In my mind I was thinking that if you have the weapon skill (only), then you can assess it and get a general idea of quality.  Maybe like poor, average, good.  If you can craft it, then you might get more of a breakdown, like poor, below average, average, good, very good, master.  Or something like that.

[Inks]

That's baller, yeah. Yes please!

[wizturbo]

This sounds really awesome.   Even better than using value skill imo.

This would unlock an entire economy around weapons, as players will seek out the best gear, and weapons crafters will be able to actively hunt for the best materials to deliver on that.  Makes being a mastercrafter even cooler.  You don't have to just make a fancy looking weapon, you can make it a BAD ASS weapon, that everyone KNOWS is codedly bad ass.   Would love for armor to receive a similar treatment someday too, however I think there's less inconsistencies with armor from my experience.

[Inks]

Armor was fixed fairly consistently not long ago, yeah.

Am excited about this even though it just means everyone will use the heaviest best material weapon possible. BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL.

[Dar]

In my mind I was thinking that if you have the weapon skill (only), then you can assess it and get a general idea of quality.  Maybe like poor, average, good.  If you can craft it, then you might get more of a breakdown, like poor, below average, average, good, very good, master.  Or something like that.

I like it. This is where the Elven Margin comes in play as well.

A human brute warrior assesses a weapon and gets, "This weapon is of exquisite quality."
A shrewd craftsman assesses the same weapon and gets, "This weapon is of extremely good quality."

The avg. component cost between the two is 150%. Difference between the two price wise is 600%. One is Salarri made, the other is made by some elven craftsman who's playing the 'keen eye' differentials to send his quality goods.

[Brisket]

In my mind I was thinking that if you have the weapon skill (only), then you can assess it and get a general idea of quality.  Maybe like poor, average, good.  If you can craft it, then you might get more of a breakdown, like poor, below average, average, good, very good, master.  Or something like that.

this is a way better idea than randomly requiring salarri crafters get master weaponsskills like Krath said, and more what I was hoping yes.

[wizturbo]

If we really want to get deep on this, you can include a random modifier on each crafted item that determines quality, influenced by skills and tools.   This would encourage repeat crafting and stimulating the economy...  Also would mean that you could have "mastercraft" quality versions of existing recipes without it being a custom craft only thing.

Example 1:   Let's take a crafter with maxxed out skills who makes a bone sword...

Base skill = 100/100
Tools bonus of +5 (basic tools)
Random roll of 1d50:  5 (bad luck)
End result:  You make a 110 quality bone sword, which translates to "Good" quality when assessed.


Example 2:  Our crafter feels like they could do better, and gathers materials to try again. 

Base skill = 100/100
Tools bonus of +5 (basic tools)
Random roll of 1d50:  40 (good luck)
End result:  You make a 145 quality bone sword, which translates to "Great" quality.  Just shy of the 150 threshold for "Exceptional" quality.  In theory if he rolled a 45+, he would have gotten there, it's within his potential results!

Example 3:  Our crafter is recruited by House Salarr, gaining access to their secret tools and workshops.

Base skill = 100/100
Tools bonus of +12 (Secret Salarri tools)
Random roll of 1d50:  40 (good luck)
End result:  You make a 152 quality bone sword, which qualifies for "Exceptional" quality due to that bonus from secret Salarri tools.  In theory, if he had rolled a 48+ he could have made a "Masterwork" quality 160+ weapon even without using a "custom craft"...a truly extraordinary feat and a major perk of having access to special tools and workshops.


Players would never see their exact rolls, but maybe they'd get a message that indicates critical failure, failure, narrow success, success, and critical success via messaging.  They could "Assess" their own work of course to see what quality item they managed to make.

A system like this would really flesh out crafting to be an exciting pursuit, with the potential to make valuable weapons that encourage an economy around materials gathering as crafters would want to build multiple copies of a weapon to fish for high quality versions they could sell to nobles/wealthy mercs/or give to their friends or tribe members.  Even if this added quality only makes a small difference in performance, having an assessable "masterwork" weapon is going to be a goal that any warrior worth their salt will want to pursue. 

[Barsook]

I like that idea ^^^.

[Brokkr]

Pretty sure Quality loads from the template, rather than something being saved item by item (we have like 3 different ways you can expect items to save).

I would still expect the very best weapons to be Salarri, hard stop.

Only to be outdone by, of course, relic/supernatural.

[Inks]

Unique mastercraft should be on par at least with salarri non unique. Handcrafted but without the ability to mass produce.

[Krath]

1. Master Crafted Blades (which should be the highest quality) should only be attainable by someone who has master swordmaking and master slashing weapons.
    -Reasoning: The person making the blade, should also know how to use the blade in order to understand the weak and strong points of said weapon

Disagree with linking crafting ability to weapons skills themselves, beyond maybe a small bonus.  To say you need to be a master of a weapon in order to craft it would be like saying Mikhail Kalashnikov needed to be an award winning shooter in order to build the AK-47.  As far as I'm aware, there are virtually no historical examples of master weapons makers also being renowned warriors or specialists of the weapons in their own rite.  For instance, master swordsmiths building Katanas in Japan were not part of the Samurai class, and were not even allowed to wield a sword of their own, let alone get good at using them.

This extends to virtually all crafts...  Clothiers are not models.  Armorers are not warriors.  Paint brush makers are not painters.  Pilots are not aircraft engineers. 

All realism aside, it isn't even good game design.  You want to make a crafter character, but you're forced to spar for RL years in order to get good enough to mastercraft a good weapon?  Seems bad to me.

This is logic I cannot disgree with. Appreciate the view point and agree with your opinion on the matter!

[Dresan]

Finesse weapons would be cool when you're like weaker than a small child but still wanna use a rapier or a dagger.

I am not suggesting anything as complicated as finesse weapons. Rather simply suggesting that the number of attacks per round of ALL weapons feels a tad high right out the box. The game might benefit from having the attacks reduced across the board, with some weapon categories being reduced a bit more than others.

Lastly, it would be nice if PC crafters had the ability to actually make weapons and armor that players wanted. With Salarr just topping them by also being able to craft the quality of stuff nobility and templars would buy at very high prices. I am hoping this new balanced sheet allows the weapon crafter lists to be reviewed so that indie crafters have more of a role in the game other than just selling to shops.

[wizturbo]

Lastly, it would be nice if PC crafters had the ability to actually make weapons and armor that players wanted. With Salarr just topping them by also being able to craft the quality of stuff nobility and templars would buy at very high prices. I am hoping this new balanced sheet allows the weapon crafter lists to be reviewed so that indie crafters have more of a role in the game other than just selling to shops.

This is partly why I suggested a random craft variable on quality above.  Indies should be able to make nearly the same quality as Salarr, but it should cost them substantially more by virtue of needing to try more times and waste more materials in the process by not having access to the tools and workshop bonuses Salarr has.

[Halaster]

My thinking on crafting weapons and quality is...

Let's say for argument's sake that 'exceptional' is the highest quality that can be crafted by normal means.  Salarr would be the only group who can craft exceptional for ALL weapons, period.  Some clans would be able to craft exceptional on specific categories.  Maybe the Dune Goobers, a clan of desert elves, can craft exceptional daggers.  And the Bunny Killers, a clan of tribal humans, can craft exceptional longswords.  So those clans become known for making that one thing really great, rivaling Salarr.  But Salarr is still king in that they can do it ALL as exceptional.

Indy's, meaning people not in Salarr or one of those tribals, would only get up to "very good".

[Dar]

As long as roleplay allows for alterations to the rule.


An old salarr master quitting and using the lore he learned to open his own shop.  Obviously Salarr will murder him for this, but thats besides the point.

[Dresan]

I am okay with Salarr and only a handful of others clans being able to craft exceptional stuff. As long as that exceptional stuff is actually rare to see and equally expensive to buy.

This will open up the game to actual useful variety in the economy.

After all, even though armor was standardized, there are only a handful of useful sets sold by either salarr or kurac that you commonly find people wearing depending their combat preferences.

[najdorf]

I would recommend something like below for the design mechanics, for simplicity. I think currently damage uses a dice like 2d2 for both min and max. With this new overhaul, assuming a number of 16 weapon types, 5 materials, 7 qualities, there will be a lot of combinations. You can drop the dice concerns and use numbers instead, and with just one table, you sort all out. For any weapon type, the quality vs material damage bonus/penalty should linearly scale with addition of a modifier.

So you'd only need to define below, where base damage is the dead center of the table below: obsidian + above average. And the quality vs material matrix will be auto populated & used in the moment of damage calculation.



For poleaxe, 4.25 is base damage (for obsidian + above av. quality). Since material damage modifier is 0.85 per material, above average + shell poleaxe will be (4.25 + 2*0.85) since it is 2 material better. Exceptional shell poleaxe will be (4.25 + 2*0.85 + 3*0.57) = 7.66
Achieving fractional damage is via: Take flat base, add fraction via a probability randomizer to add +1 damage such as:  if (rand(1,3) == 1) damage++; achieving 0.33 damage on average.
Since randomization is also important, and although is best achieved by a dice on min and max, when material and quality come into play, you cannot achieve it effectively unless you define dice on all those combinations. Therefore, you can use a -50% - +50 flat range across the board. So, assuming 7.66 avg damage is calculated for exceptional poleaxe, 50% of 7.66 is 4.60, therefore it should damage between 3.06 and 12.26. Then find rand(306/1226)/100 and use flat + fractional addition via randomized ++

[Tuannon]

Be interesting how you balance the composite material weapons then. I suppose it'd be fairly simple for most but as with Arm there is always a snowflake making things difficult for everyone.

Example that springs to mind is the Tor issue bastard swords that have an ivoury or bone 'spine' and obsidian striking surfaces.

[Halaster]

If we really want to get deep on this, you can include a random modifier on each crafted item that determines quality, influenced by skills and tools.   

As an Idea I really like this and was thinking along similar lines.  Someone maxed on swordmaking would -usually- make very good quality items, occasionally messing up and making lower quality.  To achieve Salarr-level exceptional quality, they would be using Salarri tools to give that boost.  That's how you can limit Salarr to the best while not having to deal with "How does someone forget how to make X when they leave?" (altho that's a different issue).

[Brisket]

Would 'using Salarri tools' be 'crafting in a specific work room'?  Because room-based bonuses could be a good way to lock it down to the Clan.

[Riev]

If we really want to get deep on this, you can include a random modifier on each crafted item that determines quality, influenced by skills and tools.   

As an Idea I really like this and was thinking along similar lines.  Someone maxed on swordmaking would -usually- make very good quality items, occasionally messing up and making lower quality.  To achieve Salarr-level exceptional quality, they would be using Salarri tools to give that boost.  That's how you can limit Salarr to the best while not having to deal with "How does someone forget how to make X when they leave?" (altho that's a different issue).

I have been asking for "tools" to be more useful, in this sort of a way for years. Most especially because it could mean that Salarri tools could be 'stolen' or otherwise acquired, and give people in Salarr a REASON to hunt down that little crew who seems to be making REAL good daggers these days.

[Halaster]

Would 'using Salarri tools' be 'crafting in a specific work room'?  Because room-based bonuses could be a good way to lock it down to the Clan.

Still working that out.  That is certainly one way to do it, and in fact is "a thing" now.

[Lotion]

making it a room bonus isn't as cool as having it be an item which can actually be stolen. even if a stolen +10 legendary salarri dildo sharpener will last a very long time they'd have to make sure nobody tries to take it back

[Inks]

Since nobody responded I'll just say it again, I would only like this if unique indy MC weapon is equivalent with Salarri highest quality non unique weapons.

The indy took part of a year to lovingly handcraft something that Salarr can churn out the equiv of en masse, sure, but it isn't like they do it again, if you don't make this a thing, weaponcraft on any non salarri pc will only ever be used to churn out vendor trash. And weapon variety will end up the same 4 (1 for each damage type) Salarri 40 lb monster weapons on all warrior pcs

Unique Salarri master level MC obviously being the highest grade above this (apart from relics and such as previously mentioned)

EDIT: (Also in case nobody has talked about it yet since this is a blanket change it will further increase the damage gap of Dwarves, but especially of HGs and Muls over all other races.)

I am still very much for this idea though but worth working through these issues before implementing!

[Brokkr]

I kind of like making noble/Templar weapons the very best, so if you want the best, kill one off and then deal with the authorities always being after your good weapon.

[Inks]

Yeah just as kemen is only for nobles if there was a "noble grade" quality marked on the weapon somewhere (within the salarri symbol) and triple the price of the unique only for nobles that would be cool too.

But with so many quantifiers......I worry about just how high weapon damage will get. I hope that most levels of quality just improve the upward random range slightly, and at higher qualities the minimum damage starts to improve.

[wizturbo]

Since nobody responded I'll just say it again, I would only like this if unique indy MC weapon is equivalent with Salarri highest quality non unique weapons.

Making it possible for indie crafters to achieve Salarri quality results is a good thing, but making it wildly inefficient compared to specialized organizations is key. 

Having some indie use 25 mekillot bones and months of time gathering materials to make one exceptional bone sword, where Salarr is able to produce one a week with only 4 bones, would underscore the inequality that the setting is trying to set up better than making it outright impossible for the indie.  The struggle an indie faces helps establish how powerful Salarr really is, whereas taking the quality completely out of reach just virtualizes their power rather than making it oppressively in the face of any merchant character in the game. 

All of this can all be achieved through tuning the probability tables for success with and without specialized tools/workshops from Salarr or tribal specialty items.  For instance give a maxxed out character without specializes tools a 2% chance to hit exceptional, but someone with those tools has a 20% chance.  Having a 1/5 chance to hit the crafting lottery vs. a 1/50 is a dramatic difference.

As for one-time mastercraft items, I would recommend we reform this process to require you to provide an "exceptional" crafted variety of the weapon you're looking to make as part of the mastercraft ingredients.  If you have an exceptional quality obsidian longsword, you can mastercraft a bunch of rubies and fancy shit on top of it, but the base weapon had to be crafted using the RNG established above.  This establishes the "exceptional quality" economy as something that must be earned in-game, rather than rely on a guaranteed monthly custom craft to get there.  It also makes exceptional quality items from ultra rare materials even more legendary in nature.  Having a very good Ankheg sword is rare and awesome, having an exceptional one is truly legendary given how difficult it would be for even Salarr to make it.

[creeper386]

How do you determine the difference between say two stone head hammers when one has a larger handle and head then the other if staff doesn't assign weight?

Just re-asking this. Seems a weird issue if weight is only determined by type and material to now allow for variations such as size?

[wizturbo]

But with so many quantifiers......I worry about just how high weapon damage will get. I hope that most levels of quality just improve the upward random range slightly, and at higher qualities the minimum damage starts to improve.

Actual coded damage from an exceptional item is kind of besides the point.  I wasn't envisioning this system to create weapons that are any more codedly powerful than some of the items that already exist out there.  The key here is the game codedly saying "this item is exceptional" so players can treat it that way, instead of being left to their own subjective opinion on whether a wall of text description of an item makes it good or not. 

The way things are right now, someone's expensive Salarri weapon may not even be as good as some random tribal hatchet they bought for 250 sid at Luirs market.  There's no real way to distinguish this at present, and most of us are forced to roleplay that the Salarri weapon is better even when we see it being noticeably less effective.

[Dar]

How do you determine the difference between say two stone head hammers when one has a larger handle and head then the other if staff doesn't assign weight?

Just re-asking this. Seems a weird issue if weight is only determined by type and material to now allow for variations such as size?

one is a hammer, the other is a Greathammer?