@Celina: Again, I think we can tweak all of the numbers and balance speeds and whatnot, but I'd also note that you can presently shieldstun+hit for free as a similar effect.
I suggested adding a new skill to cure wounds with power based on one of your earlier comments, in that you presently have to run away and spend time just applying health to recover. But I think that also gives a means of survivability against devastating critical effects while sacrificing some offense by power reduction. I think that this would be the general replacement for green lock, since warriors won't be able to give anorexia (and I've gotten rid of double hemi.. I think).
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Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
Yeah...but you can't actually kill anyone with shieldstun + one hander. You give up a lot of your offense just to keep the stun.
Yeah...but you can't actually kill anyone with shieldstun + one hander. You give up a lot of your offense just to keep the stun.
It's somewhat apples and oranges, but you'd be able to shieldstun for the prone and hack down for a free insta attempt. You can even shieldstun+impale/pinleg train. I think some people were even able to make the stun last long enough to recover arm balances, too. I'd agree that it was situational and maybe not sustainable, but I'm just saying that it does presently exist.
The other concern would be weapon stats and how they figure into things, especially if it's a set # of wounds per hit vs a variable number.
In Kelly's suggestion, precision becomes worthless and people will max speed/damage for instance.
Why is that any worse than today, where people max precision/speed and damage is worthless? I don't really see having two sets of weapons for people to deal with, (one for hunting, and one for PK) to really be such a great thing. Also, I don't think weapons have much uniqueness to them anymore outside of their descriptions. Seems every time I forge, I'm giving the same stats to the same basic need. The only question is how many times I have to call the command to get the stats right.
The other concern would be weapon stats and how they figure into things, especially if it's a set # of wounds per hit vs a variable number.
In Kelly's suggestion, precision becomes worthless and people will max speed/damage for instance.
I deleted the paragraph before I hit the post button last night, but I wanted to suggest deleting weapon stats and just giving them all some baseline damage/speed. Then have each weapon have a unique effect, maybe like broadswords do more damage, rapiers have quicker balance, scimitars have a chance to do an extra wound, longswords give.. more poison chance? etc... And then artifacts might become a bonus effect that the weapon does not inherently have, I guess. Celina suggested something similar earlier in the thread.
How much extra damage does the sensitivity affliction currently give? I thought it was more than 20%? If not, then change my number to be about about comparable to sensitivity, but not so much that when stacked together the numbers are crazy.
Hmm, what if "open wounds" increased damage sensitivity by 5% per level, and "bruising" increased healing time by 5% per level? Or is that still too weak on its own to be much use to anybody? i.e. 20% extra damage at level 5, and 0.5 second increase to use a curative at level 5. (And yes, I'm purposefully, suggesting things which I think in general, would synergize better with the opposite weapon type, so that it becomes handy in group combat, but not so powerful one on one)
I started thinking along these lines, having some increasing effect with wound level, but that's a pretty boring mechanic IMO and it gives you nothing to really strive for.
Hmm, what if "open wounds" increased damage sensitivity by 5% per level, and "bruising" increased healing time by 5% per level? Or is that still too weak on its own to be much use to anybody? i.e. 20% extra damage at level 5, and 0.5 second increase to use a curative at level 5. (And yes, I'm purposefully, suggesting things which I think in general, would synergize better with the opposite weapon type, so that it becomes handy in group combat, but not so powerful one on one)
I started thinking along these lines, having some increasing effect with wound level, but that's a pretty boring mechanic IMO and it gives you nothing to really strive for.
But wouldn't this be in addition to the things you wrote in your original post, not instead of?
Hmm, what if "open wounds" increased damage sensitivity by 5% per level, and "bruising" increased healing time by 5% per level? Or is that still too weak on its own to be much use to anybody? i.e. 20% extra damage at level 5, and 0.5 second increase to use a curative at level 5. (And yes, I'm purposefully, suggesting things which I think in general, would synergize better with the opposite weapon type, so that it becomes handy in group combat, but not so powerful one on one)
I started thinking along these lines, having some increasing effect with wound level, but that's a pretty boring mechanic IMO and it gives you nothing to really strive for.
But wouldn't this be in addition to the things you wrote in your original post, not instead of?
Oh, well, why do you want something more? We can tweak things up or add things if we need to, but I think the more effects you give to higher wound states, the more potential it has to be this runaway train that the victim can't overcome... sort of like how current monks can just wreck you once they reach 5-mo.
The other concern would be weapon stats and how they figure into things, especially if it's a set # of wounds per hit vs a variable number.
In Kelly's suggestion, precision becomes worthless and people will max speed/damage for instance.
Why is that any worse than today, where people max precision/speed and damage is worthless? I don't really see having two sets of weapons for people to deal with, (one for hunting, and one for PK) to really be such a great thing. Also, I don't think weapons have much uniqueness to them anymore outside of their descriptions. Seems every time I forge, I'm giving the same stats to the same basic need. The only question is how many times I have to call the command to get the stats right.
Because things are currently balanced around people tending to maximize precision. In todays world, the most wounds per second setup is actually max speed, but because there are numerous things that will hinder and slow you down, people max precision to make each strike maximize wounding for when they do hit. Maxing precision slows attack speeds down, which means that warriors are getting their wounds and afflictions at the slower rate.
If you eliminate the need for precision, then people will maximize speed, which will probably bring most people into the 1.6-2 second range for each hit (I know as an aslaran, I would sit right around 2.2-2.5 sec at 230-240 speed). I'm sure a more current warrior can verify those numbers. It's going to increase how fast you can build wounds, especially in a situation where you built a set number each and every time Combine that with ice being 1.5 second balance and the only way to cure wounds in the proposed setup, 1.5-2 seconds per 2 wounds means you're going to easily outpace curing unless they are spending quite a bit of time hindering you. They start throwing out 3 second stuns that are proposed and other general hindering, wounds are going to be pretty crazy.
Even with all that said, I just said that weapons stats would need to be reconsidered on how they fit into the whole deal, I didn't say it was necessarily a bad thing. They just need to be taken into account on how they fit into the new system. Numbers can be tweaked and adjusted to be more balanced, but the current setup won't work too well.
Kelly's idea is better, but I think if we really want weapon variety, have to eliminate any kind of inherent speed bonuses in a weapon spec, because speed is king and will always trump other specs.
Hmm, what if "open wounds" increased damage sensitivity by 5% per level, and "bruising" increased healing time by 5% per level? Or is that still too weak on its own to be much use to anybody? i.e. 20% extra damage at level 5, and 0.5 second increase to use a curative at level 5. (And yes, I'm purposefully, suggesting things which I think in general, would synergize better with the opposite weapon type, so that it becomes handy in group combat, but not so powerful one on one)
I started thinking along these lines, having some increasing effect with wound level, but that's a pretty boring mechanic IMO and it gives you nothing to really strive for.
But wouldn't this be in addition to the things you wrote in your original post, not instead of?
Oh, well, why do you want something more? We can tweak things up or add things if we need to, but I think the more effects you give to higher wound states, the more potential it has to be this runaway train that the victim can't overcome... sort of like how current monks can just wreck you once they reach 5-mo.
The idea as I understand it is as follows. Currently, both Bashing and Slicing give the same wounds. I.e. if I hit you with a hammer, and your wounds go to lvl 1, then when I hit you with a sword, your wounds are now at lvl 2. I believe @Estarra is proposing that when I hit you with a sword your wounds wound now be lvl 1 bruises, and lvl 1 open wounds. Bashing afflictions would then be based on Bruised wounds, and Slashing afflictions would be based on open wounds. As to why they must have an effect on their own, I'm not sure, but it seems to me like a reason to justify the two different wound types, and to give some extra strategy to fighting styles that mix blunt and cutting. I'm also fine with no extra affect from the wounding style, even if its broken into two types.
edit: Or perhaps the wounding levels can have an effect for monks, but not for warriors?
@Synkarin, I was thinking maybe park the baseline speed at 3s and the speed bonus might put it at 2.8 or something. You can have weapon variety if you have artifacts with the bonus effect: e.g., you might want a broadsword (inherent damage boost) with the speed boost artifact. Maybe add a limitation that you cannot double the inherent effect.
@Daganev, sorry, I'm not really following what you're suggesting. In my proposal, you don't go to the next level with each hit, it's more like the current wounding system. And I explained why I wouldn't want two different sets of wounds as in bleed/bruise. You can still get the same "flavour" by having different effects (bleeding, stun, etc.) and the subsequent attack messages.
@Kaimanahi (hihialahameha) anticipated my question: How will non-weapons classes interact with the physical/ice afflictions under each proposal? The google docs have lines like "Non-warriors who do physical damage may only afflict negligible wounding (level 1) [proposal #1]", and it's unclear how, or indeed if, the ice balance will work for everyone else.
For instance, proposal 1 replicates the broken limb afflictions with moderate tier bleeding/bruising on that limb. However, it stipulates that caster attacks only deal 1/2 wounds, which doesn't provide any concrete effect on any limb location. How will that jive with effects like Wildewood's treehug/knobbled branches/glinshari spore, a combination of effects that are central to the class in their hindering aspects. How will that shake out with (shudder) sap, where the point of dealing broken legs is to prevent standing once sprawled? How will dendroxin and calcise work with this system? More than a few caster classes use and rely on external physical affs and bleeding, integrating wounding to automatically present the affliction replacements and limiting wounding to weapon-users only cuts those casters out of using a quarter of the healing balances and afflictions. Complete overhauls of some would be absolutely necessary from this change alone - probably a bad idea.
Proposal 2's options 2 and 3 could present similar issues, depending on what the actual aff tables end up being. I don't think that @Kelly's suggestion has this particular issue, as the cumulative effects would only happen with wounding attacks. I won't comment on its merits and flaws beyond that, however.
Yeah, I tried to keep other classes in mind to the best of my knowledge when I made my afflictions, and I think BrokenLimb would still be used for things like Nihilist Sacrifice and available by calcise/dendroxin.
@Daganev, sorry, I'm not really following what you're suggesting. In my proposal, you don't go to the next level with each hit, it's more like the current wounding system. And I explained why I wouldn't want two different sets of wounds as in bleed/bruise. You can still get the same "flavour" by having different effects (bleeding, stun, etc.) and the subsequent attack messages.
I should probably just wait and listen to what @Estarra intended, but the way I read the proposal, I thought there was a "flavour" problem in that a person gets hit 10 times with a hammer, and then somebody comes along with a sword, and does critical slicing effect, rather than a first time slice.
With that goal in mind, I was just trying to suggest ailments instead of bleeding/balance loss, that took the various arguments into consideration.
So, if I misunderstood @Estarra's intention, I retract my suggestion :P
Well, I want to get rid of bleeding as it currently is. Skills that currently cause bleeding would either increase bleed wound in a random location or get replaced. Yeah, yeah, I know there are skills out there that cause bleeding and OMG it'd effect a couple of skillsets/classes more than others, but I don't like how the current bleeding is as an outlier in the system and frankly even if we don't do a bleeding wounds, I'll probably just yank out current bleeding and ask envoys to give suggestions to rework those skills impacted.
I have always wanted to differentiate blunt and cut weapons more than we have. I don't think it makes sense to share wounding of each damage type in a RP sense, and would like to fork them.
As I look at the overhaul proposals, it seems to me it is much easier to drive up wounds per body part or at least keep the victim on the run healing wise, especially as it is not terribly hard to go 2-3 wound levels at the cost of power (see the example skills). Note there is also no RNG so there are much more clear and predicable tactics which I would think would make warriors more straightforward.
Of course, we may see metagaming where multiple people take same damage type to maximize wounds (or bleed/bruise, whatever we do). If there is strong agreement that this (or any system that requires building wounds) just imbalances group combat too much, we can simply get rid of the wound system and instead do some kind of momentum-like mechanic for warriors (so the warrior needs to build something on him/herself rather than the target).
I would note that I don't oppose the bruising/bleeding mechanic so long as the "bleeding" mechanic doesn't interfere with the current bleeding in game. It may get confusing calling two different things by the same name though. It's not that it's a bad idea, it's just that replacing bleeding with this mechanic across the boards will result in Nekotai, Telekinetics, Shadowdancers, Ninjakari, Nihilists, Harbingers, and Blacktalon at the bare minimum to rework skills that have been balanced around a stable bleeding mechanic for 8+ years. 10 guilds for half the specs available for 6 guilds? The cost benefit here is off kilter. Then the question is what can you replace bleeding mana drain with that is comparable? Afflictions? The drain from focuses provided by curing afflictions is helpful but does not come close to replacing bleeding A new mechanic? Undermines the goal of the overhaul to simplify mechanics and reduce volume of mechanics and afflictions. Just more flat mana drain? Boring, IMO, and with some siginificant group balancing challenges.
3 second stun, for the record, is excessive even at critical namely because it can be repeated without a power cost. When looking at the critical wound abilities, we have to really be cognizant of the fact that these attacks can be repeated over and over and over at warrior speeds, so they have the potential to be wildly more powerful than a caster equivalent that would cost power and is limited by general 3 second equilibrium times.
I'm just going to quote this again, because my understanding is that removing bleeding from the game isn't just piddle fluff. This is 100x worse than reworking sap.
Of course, we may see metagaming where multiple people take same damage type to maximize wounds (or bleed/bruise, whatever we do). If there is strong agreement that this (or any system that requires building wounds) just imbalances group combat too much, we can simply get rid of the wound system and instead do some kind of momentum-like mechanic for warriors (so the warrior needs to build something on him/herself rather than the target).
Please, please, please no. Momentum is the thing that I hate the most about monks, and I wouldn't wish it on any other class. Clearly we value things differently, as I would personally keep bleeding, and do away with momentum in favor of some other gate on kata classes
Of course, we may see metagaming where multiple people take same damage type to maximize wounds (or bleed/bruise, whatever we do). If there is strong agreement that this (or any system that requires building wounds) just imbalances group combat too much, we can simply get rid of the wound system and instead do some kind of momentum-like mechanic for warriors (so the warrior needs to build something on him/herself rather than the target).
I'm not sure what this means, I'm pretty sure that's just normal gaming.
There's one thing I'm confused about when you say bleed is an outlier in the system, Estarra. What does that mean? Bleeding is not within the wounds-afflictions system insofar as it contributes as a requirement for afflictions or something. I personally quite like the bleed mechanic and how it is interacted with, so my opinion may be skewed, but I do believe it is a fun, and it is easy to understand for both the user and the opponent. At the same time, it's not quite that easy to kill with it as well. There are imbalances within bleeding and the current abilities that use bleeding, but I don't think they are an outlier or have an overbearing presence in combat.
If we really want to rework bleeding, it'll also be more than just a couple of classes. All five of the Glomdoring guilds will be affected, and while some can just be tweaked (shadowdancers are slightly less dependent on bleed), others will require reworks (bleed is a huge part of harbinger, perhaps even more than nekotai). TK will need a new finisher, though I guess getting rid of vessels will alleviate some complaints about TK always being the better choice. Nihilists, too, have a bleed dependent strategy, though it's not their primary go-to. A rework is certainly possible, but I do feel it's not a lot of benefit. I'll work with whatever is decided, however. But I really want to put it out there I would really really prefer to keep current bleed mechanics.
Wounds versus momentum: wounds is the better choice. As a monk, momentum allows me to ignore the state of the enemy, and just focus on my own self, which is an extension of the usual way some casters fight - they just need to manage their own power and where they are in their strategies, but even for casters, most need to pay attention to opponent vitals at the very least, if not track their afflictions and their general status. Momentum takes all of that away - there is no consideration of the opponent. Hit the right momentum, and everything is there for you. This is not fun for the opponent. It also means that the monk without momentum is quite literally useless beyond non-momentum gimmicks. It's not a fun mechanic. Keeping it for monks helps make them different, and I wasn't really considering pushing for it to be removed, but if I was ever given the chance to change it, or at least make it less punishing for low-momentum monks and put a little bit of opponent tracking into the mechanic, I would be on top of that opportunity so fast a rabbit couple wouldn't be able to go one round before I was done.
As for Kelly's proposal, I've looked at it in detail, and if Estarra is in favour of it, I think it may well be a good idea too. For one, it has plenty of complexity (Rivius might want to take a look at it and give it some thought) and at the same time, it removes RNG, which is a huge plus, without sacrificing any complexity. Number of afflictions are much lower, and the premise is on both the user's choice between building wounds for effects (and unlocking higher level affs) or hitting afflictions. There is a choice there, that the warrior must think for instead of just spamming certain buttons. Similarly, on the opponent side, they are faced with the same choice since healing potions no longer heal wounds. They have to consider: cure afflictions, or cure wounds? Simple or default priorities will be able to handle most things generally as well - if heavy wounds but no hindering afflictions, cure wounds first, if debilitating afflictions, prioritize the aff etc. At the same time, those who go the effort to learn the system and do priority customization against each spec will allow the good fighters to get a head up on their peers.
Monks in this system might be a little trickier. There are two suggestions I can think of for integrating monks into Kelly's proposed system:
1) Put them entirely within the new system, wound requirements and all. You could do the following:
A) Delete most of the arm/leg actions (and ka-weight requirements) and just have 2 sets, one set to give wounds (punch = 1, kick = 2) and one set to give affs. Make momentum limit the amount of wounds that can be given in a form. Therefore, 5mo forms can give 5 points of wounds (although 2 punches and 1 kick can only give 4 wound points anyway, so the actual limit is still 4), whereas 1mo forms can only give 1 (so even if you punch twice, only the first punch will give wound damage). Similarly, momentums 0 and 1 can only give 1 aff if the monk chooses to give affs instead of wounds, while momentum 2 and 3 can give 2 affs in a form. Momentum 4 and 5 will allow 3 affs. Choosing to do an affliction will lower momentum. This is probably not ideal, since monks basically become warriors v2.0. However, it may be the easiest to balance: monks become warriors who are more sensitive to hindering (in addition to wound reqs for affs, low momentum means you can only give one aff even if you've built high wounds in multiple bodyparts, which means opponents can limit the monk's power even when they fall behind in curing) and who have a clear strength (potentially to do even more wounds and afflictions than a warrior) and weakness (much less wound and aff output at low momentum).
Keep the same ka-weight system with various punches and kicks giving differing levels of wounds customised to each punch/kick. So you gain the space to give a monk perhaps a 4 wound-point kick, but you can make it cost 1500 ka weight (requires boost) or lower momentum etc. Momentum thresholds for ka-weight can stay the same or be tweaked, with the ka-weight for each punch/kick to be revised etc. Basically a more involved rework - might take a lot of time and resources, but is similar to the current monk mechanic without being an exception to Kelly's proposed system.
OR you can:
2) Make them entirely separate from the wounds part, as per the current status quo. Continue with the current system, and tie specific afflictions or effects to specific punches or kicks, limited by ka-weight. Monks can give these without wound requirements. The pros and cons are as follows:
- They cannot snowball fellow warriors' wounds. Both good and bad (bad because no synergy, good because it helps keep group combat in control) - They are now much more limited, since there is a much smaller pool of afflictions. This is difficult for envoys (T_T) though I suppose I can come up with unique and cool one-off effects that are not afflictions to fill in gaps where needed. - Very similar to current system, where monks basically ignore wounds, and therefore require minimal re-balancing beyond deciding which afflictions go to which punch/kick. - Will result in similar complaints as before, where monks are seen as warriors-on-crack (no wound requirements for debilitating afflictions). - Will require a re-balancing of the wounds-amplification system for monk damage. Currently, wounds-amplification is basically the way a monk wins a fight, because their damage without any sort of boosting is dismal. Some way for a monk to snowball damage may be needed.
As for Kelly's proposal, I've looked at it in detail, and if Estarra is in favour of it, I think it may well be a good idea too. For one, it has plenty of complexity (Rivius might want to take a look at it and give it some thought) and at the same time, it removes RNG, which is a huge plus, without sacrificing any complexity. Number of afflictions are much lower, and the premise is on both the user's choice between building wounds for effects (and unlocking higher level affs) or hitting afflictions. There is a choice there, that the warrior must think for instead of just spamming certain buttons. Similarly, on the opponent side, they are faced with the same choice since healing potions no longer heal wounds. They have to consider: cure afflictions, or cure wounds? Simple or default priorities will be able to handle most things generally as well - if heavy wounds but no hindering afflictions, cure wounds first, if debilitating afflictions, prioritize the aff etc. At the same time, those who go the effort to learn the system and do priority customization against each spec will allow the good fighters to get a head up on their peers.
This is a spot on summary.
Regarding monks, I think it would be nice to get away from the current snowballing of momentum. It's just too rough to fight back against, and I will freely admit that I am jealous of how easy it seems in comparison to warriors having to build wounds.
I have always wanted to differentiate blunt and cut weapons more than we have. I don't think it makes sense to share wounding of each damage type in a RP sense, and would like to fork them.
I would rather you think of wounds as cumulative damage to the body part. I mean, let's think about in real life if you have this gaping wound on your arm and then someone comes with a hammer and gives it a whack, you're sure as heck going to feel pain both from the open wound and from further trauma. I tried to make the afflictions as generic as possible so that the flavor text for each attack could make sense - like DisabledLimb is replacing Amputate and Mangled Limbs. I similarly tried to create the effects in such a way that it would make sense from an RP perspective, as well, where the cumulative damage to the body part would begin to induce greater and accumulating suffering.
If we want to remove momentum altogether, I'm fine - that does create the problem of monks being pretty much the same as warriors, though. It would also create the problem of balancing monk wound output so it is equivalent to warriors - going by your suggestions, Kelly, the standard rate for warrior wounding is 2 wound-points per balance (one for each weapon for one-handers, two for one hit for two-handers). But monks have 3 hits (minimum of 3 wound-points?) - unless we make a punch give "half" a point... which will then overly complicate the system, and defeat that purpose. We could make kicks only give afflictions, but that would mean monks get to give both full wounds AND afflictions in the same form, which is bad too.
We could rescale momentum, I suppose, to do something different than snowball a monk's wound/aff output.
One idea I can think of to make momentum NOT affect wound/aff output at all (and thus not be a snowball mechanic), is to make it cycle through while boosting damage. All the current momentum mechanics will stay, with the difference that there will be no -mo abilities that give big wound boosts or afflictions. Instead, a hit at 0mo and 1mo will do normal damage, 2mo will do +10% damage, 3mo will do +30% damage, 4mo will do +60% damage, 5mo will do +100% damage. A hit at 5mo will reset momentum to 0. This means a monk will deal increasingly high damage, but drop back to nothing and repeat the cycle normally. It becomes part of a cyclic damage increase, and doesn't lead to snowball and consistently high damage the way wounds and momentum currently works.
But even if we do this, the problem described in the first paragraph (how to make 3 monk hits equivalent to a warrior's output) still needs to be resolved.
But even if we do this, the problem described in the first paragraph (how to make 3 monk hits equivalent to a warrior's output) still needs to be resolved.
Maybe increase the monk balance recovery proportionately; e.g., if warrior balance is 3s, then monk balance would be 4.5s. Or maybe add some limitations to the body parts that can be hit; i.e., monk cannot stack multiple wounds on the same body part (must hit three separate body parts).
I like the idea of the cyclic boost, or generally anything that forces the monk to expend the momentum for some boost. I think my problem with momentum right now is that once you reach 5, there's really nothing to do but run.
Well, the forcing it to be on different bodyparts might work with the 1A version of my theorycrafting suggestions. Won't work with the second one, for sure. Then grapple and grapple-enders can play a role by being a way to concentrate wounds that punches cannot, but which has the risk of being writhed out of. This is a full rework? of sorts, I guess. If the admin don't want to do this, then probably one of the above three I suggested would be the best ways of implementing Kelly's suggestions for monks. Otherwise, according to Kelly's suggestions about momentum, something like this can be considered:
Monk momentum no longer affect anything except damage. A form that does damage will increase the momentum, upon dealing damage (and thus increasing momentum) when at 5mo, momentum will reset to 0, or 1. Momentum will give an increasing boost to damage with the following scale: 0mo: +0% 1mo: +10% 2mo: +20% 3mo: +30% 4mo: +60% 5mo: +100%
Remove the 8sec limitation to prevent momentum from dropping, allow momentum to stay indefinitely, but reset it upon changing of targets (I've changed the numbers in the above table a little to account for this caveat). This means monks won't be "hindered" from their momentum, and since it doesn't affect their wounds/aff output anyway, "hindering" their momentum won't change what they can do. Instead, their affliction will be wound based, just like warriors, as per follows:
Monks will only get two sets of punches and kicks and one set of a grapple and grapple-ender (These should all be in the specialization skillset). The first set only does wounds, and all monk actions (punches and kicks) will give 1 wound point. They can only give 1 woundpoint per bodypart per form, so two punches to the same bodypart won't have any more than 1 woundpoint for effect. Grapples are the exceptions, they will give 2 woundpoints to whichever bodypart it is used on, and grapple-enders will give another 1 woundpoint and an affliction, assuming the target does not writhe out of it. The second set of actions (punch/kicks) only does afflictions.
Modifiers will probably have to be limited like, one-per-form, or something, and some will need to be combined (and their effects changed, like hard and soft, since they won't affect wounds anymore) so they are roughly equivalent and meaningful choices. Monks can get power abilities to passively apply one or two of their modifiers to all their forms for a limited period, like the Shofangi bull-skill, and the Nekotai scorpionfury, allowing them to use their one modifier slot per form for something else at the cost of power.
Lastly, some possible additional considerations: One way to differentiate between monk guilds might be the cutting/blunt types they are given. Tahtetso, for example, is all blunt. We could tweak the damagetype the guilds do to look like this: Nekotai: All Cutting (Make embedding a dart permanent, make it a prereq for nekotai kicks, make dart-embedded kicks do cutting damage) Shofangi: Cutting punches, Blunt kicks (no change) Ninjakari: Blunt punches (change the chain messages to be whipping or something), Cutting kicks (something about barbs on their legs, wrapped barbed chains on their feet, etc?) Tahtetso: All Blunt (no change)
or other combinations etc. could work to change how the different guilds get access to what kind of wound effects/afflictions more easily. We could always keep the current status quo, of course, though that means Tahtetso will end up with no cutting effects when they do wounds. Not a big problem, though.
Comments
If you eliminate the need for precision, then people will maximize speed, which will probably bring most people into the 1.6-2 second range for each hit (I know as an aslaran, I would sit right around 2.2-2.5 sec at 230-240 speed). I'm sure a more current warrior can verify those numbers. It's going to increase how fast you can build wounds, especially in a situation where you built a set number each and every time Combine that with ice being 1.5 second balance and the only way to cure wounds in the proposed setup, 1.5-2 seconds per 2 wounds means you're going to easily outpace curing unless they are spending quite a bit of time hindering you. They start throwing out 3 second stuns that are proposed and other general hindering, wounds are going to be pretty crazy.
Even with all that said, I just said that weapons stats would need to be reconsidered on how they fit into the whole deal, I didn't say it was necessarily a bad thing. They just need to be taken into account on how they fit into the new system. Numbers can be tweaked and adjusted to be more balanced, but the current setup won't work too well.
Kelly's idea is better, but I think if we really want weapon variety, have to eliminate any kind of inherent speed bonuses in a weapon spec, because speed is king and will always trump other specs.
I believe @Estarra is proposing that when I hit you with a sword your wounds wound now be lvl 1 bruises, and lvl 1 open wounds. Bashing afflictions would then be based on Bruised wounds, and Slashing afflictions would be based on open wounds.
As to why they must have an effect on their own, I'm not sure, but it seems to me like a reason to justify the two different wound types, and to give some extra strategy to fighting styles that mix blunt and cutting.
I'm also fine with no extra affect from the wounding style, even if its broken into two types.
edit: Or perhaps the wounding levels can have an effect for monks, but not for warriors?
@Kaimanahi (hihialahameha) anticipated my question: How will non-weapons classes interact with the physical/ice afflictions under each proposal? The google docs have lines like "Non-warriors who do physical damage may only afflict negligible wounding (level 1) [proposal #1]", and it's unclear how, or indeed if, the ice balance will work for everyone else.
For instance, proposal 1 replicates the broken limb afflictions with moderate tier bleeding/bruising on that limb. However, it stipulates that caster attacks only deal 1/2 wounds, which doesn't provide any concrete effect on any limb location. How will that jive with effects like Wildewood's treehug/knobbled branches/glinshari spore, a combination of effects that are central to the class in their hindering aspects. How will that shake out with (shudder) sap, where the point of dealing broken legs is to prevent standing once sprawled? How will dendroxin and calcise work with this system? More than a few caster classes use and rely on external physical affs and bleeding, integrating wounding to automatically present the affliction replacements and limiting wounding to weapon-users only cuts those casters out of using a quarter of the healing balances and afflictions. Complete overhauls of some would be absolutely necessary from this change alone - probably a bad idea.
Proposal 2's options 2 and 3 could present similar issues, depending on what the actual aff tables end up being. I don't think that @Kelly's suggestion has this particular issue, as the cumulative effects would only happen with wounding attacks. I won't comment on its merits and flaws beyond that, however.
So, if I misunderstood @Estarra's intention, I retract my suggestion :P
I have always wanted to differentiate blunt and cut weapons more than we have. I don't think it makes sense to share wounding of each damage type in a RP sense, and would like to fork them.
As I look at the overhaul proposals, it seems to me it is much easier to drive up wounds per body part or at least keep the victim on the run healing wise, especially as it is not terribly hard to go 2-3 wound levels at the cost of power (see the example skills). Note there is also no RNG so there are much more clear and predicable tactics which I would think would make warriors more straightforward.
Of course, we may see metagaming where multiple people take same damage type to maximize wounds (or bleed/bruise, whatever we do). If there is strong agreement that this (or any system that requires building wounds) just imbalances group combat too much, we can simply get rid of the wound system and instead do some kind of momentum-like mechanic for warriors (so the warrior needs to build something on him/herself rather than the target).
If we really want to rework bleeding, it'll also be more than just a couple of classes. All five of the Glomdoring guilds will be affected, and while some can just be tweaked (shadowdancers are slightly less dependent on bleed), others will require reworks (bleed is a huge part of harbinger, perhaps even more than nekotai). TK will need a new finisher, though I guess getting rid of vessels will alleviate some complaints about TK always being the better choice. Nihilists, too, have a bleed dependent strategy, though it's not their primary go-to. A rework is certainly possible, but I do feel it's not a lot of benefit. I'll work with whatever is decided, however. But I really want to put it out there I would really really prefer to keep current bleed mechanics.
Wounds versus momentum: wounds is the better choice. As a monk, momentum allows me to ignore the state of the enemy, and just focus on my own self, which is an extension of the usual way some casters fight - they just need to manage their own power and where they are in their strategies, but even for casters, most need to pay attention to opponent vitals at the very least, if not track their afflictions and their general status. Momentum takes all of that away - there is no consideration of the opponent. Hit the right momentum, and everything is there for you. This is not fun for the opponent. It also means that the monk without momentum is quite literally useless beyond non-momentum gimmicks. It's not a fun mechanic. Keeping it for monks helps make them different, and I wasn't really considering pushing for it to be removed, but if I was ever given the chance to change it, or at least make it less punishing for low-momentum monks and put a little bit of opponent tracking into the mechanic, I would be on top of that opportunity so fast a rabbit couple wouldn't be able to go one round before I was done.
As for Kelly's proposal, I've looked at it in detail, and if Estarra is in favour of it, I think it may well be a good idea too. For one, it has plenty of complexity (Rivius might want to take a look at it and give it some thought) and at the same time, it removes RNG, which is a huge plus, without sacrificing any complexity. Number of afflictions are much lower, and the premise is on both the user's choice between building wounds for effects (and unlocking higher level affs) or hitting afflictions. There is a choice there, that the warrior must think for instead of just spamming certain buttons. Similarly, on the opponent side, they are faced with the same choice since healing potions no longer heal wounds. They have to consider: cure afflictions, or cure wounds? Simple or default priorities will be able to handle most things generally as well - if heavy wounds but no hindering afflictions, cure wounds first, if debilitating afflictions, prioritize the aff etc. At the same time, those who go the effort to learn the system and do priority customization against each spec will allow the good fighters to get a head up on their peers.
Monks in this system might be a little trickier. There are two suggestions I can think of for integrating monks into Kelly's proposed system:
1) Put them entirely within the new system, wound requirements and all. You could do the following:
A) Delete most of the arm/leg actions (and ka-weight requirements) and just have 2 sets, one set to give wounds (punch = 1, kick = 2) and one set to give affs. Make momentum limit the amount of wounds that can be given in a form. Therefore, 5mo forms can give 5 points of wounds (although 2 punches and 1 kick can only give 4 wound points anyway, so the actual limit is still 4), whereas 1mo forms can only give 1 (so even if you punch twice, only the first punch will give wound damage). Similarly, momentums 0 and 1 can only give 1 aff if the monk chooses to give affs instead of wounds, while momentum 2 and 3 can give 2 affs in a form. Momentum 4 and 5 will allow 3 affs. Choosing to do an affliction will lower momentum. This is probably not ideal, since monks basically become warriors v2.0. However, it may be the easiest to balance: monks become warriors who are more sensitive to hindering (in addition to wound reqs for affs, low momentum means you can only give one aff even if you've built high wounds in multiple bodyparts, which means opponents can limit the monk's power even when they fall behind in curing) and who have a clear strength (potentially to do even more wounds and afflictions than a warrior) and weakness (much less wound and aff output at low momentum).
OR you can:
2) Make them entirely separate from the wounds part, as per the current status quo. Continue with the current system, and tie specific afflictions or effects to specific punches or kicks, limited by ka-weight. Monks can give these without wound requirements. The pros and cons are as follows:
- They cannot snowball fellow warriors' wounds. Both good and bad (bad because no synergy, good because it helps keep group combat in control)
- They are now much more limited, since there is a much smaller pool of afflictions. This is difficult for envoys (T_T) though I suppose I can come up with unique and cool one-off effects that are not afflictions to fill in gaps where needed.
- Very similar to current system, where monks basically ignore wounds, and therefore require minimal re-balancing beyond deciding which afflictions go to which punch/kick.
- Will result in similar complaints as before, where monks are seen as warriors-on-crack (no wound requirements for debilitating afflictions).
- Will require a re-balancing of the wounds-amplification system for monk damage. Currently, wounds-amplification is basically the way a monk wins a fight, because their damage without any sort of boosting is dismal. Some way for a monk to snowball damage may be needed.
Regarding monks, I think it would be nice to get away from the current snowballing of momentum. It's just too rough to fight back against, and I will freely admit that I am jealous of how easy it seems in comparison to warriors having to build wounds.
We could rescale momentum, I suppose, to do something different than snowball a monk's wound/aff output.
One idea I can think of to make momentum NOT affect wound/aff output at all (and thus not be a snowball mechanic), is to make it cycle through while boosting damage. All the current momentum mechanics will stay, with the difference that there will be no -mo abilities that give big wound boosts or afflictions. Instead, a hit at 0mo and 1mo will do normal damage, 2mo will do +10% damage, 3mo will do +30% damage, 4mo will do +60% damage, 5mo will do +100% damage. A hit at 5mo will reset momentum to 0. This means a monk will deal increasingly high damage, but drop back to nothing and repeat the cycle normally. It becomes part of a cyclic damage increase, and doesn't lead to snowball and consistently high damage the way wounds and momentum currently works.
But even if we do this, the problem described in the first paragraph (how to make 3 monk hits equivalent to a warrior's output) still needs to be resolved.
I like the idea of the cyclic boost, or generally anything that forces the monk to expend the momentum for some boost. I think my problem with momentum right now is that once you reach 5, there's really nothing to do but run.
Monk momentum no longer affect anything except damage. A form that does damage will increase the momentum, upon dealing damage (and thus increasing momentum) when at 5mo, momentum will reset to 0, or 1. Momentum will give an increasing boost to damage with the following scale:
0mo: +0%
1mo: +10%
2mo: +20%
3mo: +30%
4mo: +60%
5mo: +100%
Remove the 8sec limitation to prevent momentum from dropping, allow momentum to stay indefinitely, but reset it upon changing of targets (I've changed the numbers in the above table a little to account for this caveat). This means monks won't be "hindered" from their momentum, and since it doesn't affect their wounds/aff output anyway, "hindering" their momentum won't change what they can do. Instead, their affliction will be wound based, just like warriors, as per follows:
Monks will only get two sets of punches and kicks and one set of a grapple and grapple-ender (These should all be in the specialization skillset). The first set only does wounds, and all monk actions (punches and kicks) will give 1 wound point. They can only give 1 woundpoint per bodypart per form, so two punches to the same bodypart won't have any more than 1 woundpoint for effect. Grapples are the exceptions, they will give 2 woundpoints to whichever bodypart it is used on, and grapple-enders will give another 1 woundpoint and an affliction, assuming the target does not writhe out of it. The second set of actions (punch/kicks) only does afflictions.
Modifiers will probably have to be limited like, one-per-form, or something, and some will need to be combined (and their effects changed, like hard and soft, since they won't affect wounds anymore) so they are roughly equivalent and meaningful choices. Monks can get power abilities to passively apply one or two of their modifiers to all their forms for a limited period, like the Shofangi bull-skill, and the Nekotai scorpionfury, allowing them to use their one modifier slot per form for something else at the cost of power.
Lastly, some possible additional considerations:
One way to differentiate between monk guilds might be the cutting/blunt types they are given. Tahtetso, for example, is all blunt. We could tweak the damagetype the guilds do to look like this:
Nekotai: All Cutting (Make embedding a dart permanent, make it a prereq for nekotai kicks, make dart-embedded kicks do cutting damage)
Shofangi: Cutting punches, Blunt kicks (no change)
Ninjakari: Blunt punches (change the chain messages to be whipping or something), Cutting kicks (something about barbs on their legs, wrapped barbed chains on their feet, etc?)
Tahtetso: All Blunt (no change)
or other combinations etc. could work to change how the different guilds get access to what kind of wound effects/afflictions more easily. We could always keep the current status quo, of course, though that means Tahtetso will end up with no cutting effects when they do wounds. Not a big problem, though.