Rebalancing armour and damage

[Potjeh]

So it seems to me that attacks still either just ping off armour or are a OHKO in a lot of scenarios. IMO both are undesirable outcomes, but with the way armour works now (ie deducting a flat number from damage) makes it hard to strike a balance between the two. The problem is worsened by the fact that there's no armour penetration now, so most UA attacks will ping off armour, leading to boring decks that are mostly just Striking attack and defence cards.

What I propose instead is to make armour reduce a percentage of the damage, so all attacks do some damage. Raising percentages with quality would make for OP armour in late game, though, so I think that instead the quality ratio (capped at both ends) of the attacking weapon and the armour should be used (q10 for fists, use knuckles/gauntlets for better q). Additionally, I think that it'd add an interesting new dimension to attack cards if they had inherent armour penetration that would deduct from armour. So we could have low damage high penetration attacks for opponents who's armour outclasses your weapons, or high damage negative penetration attacks for hunting or quickly dealing with no-gear alts.

The only issue left is the base damage that's being reduced. With the weapon/armour q ratio in place I think adding damage for q is not needed. Strength should be the only multiplier (well, perception for archery), so hitting con equal to your str always does the same percentage of total HP worth of damage. Speaking of archery, I think it could work well with this system if damage scales by per / agi, and instead of attack cards inherent armour penetration is based on weapon and projectile type.

TL; DR
I want damage formula to be: base dmg * ((sqrt(str/10)) - (base ac * clamp(armor q / weapon q, 0.5, 2) / penetration))

[Sevenless]

That comes out a little rushed/jumbled for someone not familiar with your concept.

Could you walk through some proposed scenarios with the math and outcome on it? Nubs/attack alts vs high level player scenarios, Equal opponents, and Equal opponents but differing quality of gear would be nice to see.

It's a complex fix for a complex problem, so all the different possibilities need to be covered.

[Lunarius_Haberdash]

I find it entirely appropriate that armor deflects/absorbs damage. The purpose of armor is to prevent attacks from getting to you and hurting you at all. It is also worth noting that when facing a skilled combatant in real life melee combat (being a student of the middle ages and medieval warfare) that it was far more common for the only blow landed to be a killing blow.

This is why the bizarre designs of armor, the narrow slits for vision, the high raised ridge around the neck, all of the protection against a blow that would kill you. There is actually a rapier technique, for instance, against heavy plate armor. Taking advantage of the flexibility of the blade the combatant would essentially slip between the plates in the armor to deliver a killing thrust to the heart.

Medieval combat was either a long exchange of blows that harmed neither opponent, or short and brutal as the killing blow was landed.

In other words: It's emulating real combat fairly well.

[TeckXKnight]

I agree on every level with this idea. That the flat base and growth of armor, weapons, and attacks ultimately means that insurmountable challenges today will be pitifully easy tomorrow is disappointing. I love the way combat decks work and how defenses and attacks interact.

Many will disagree based on the fact that if you're not getting a kill in 1 hit, then you're not getting a kill. I don't see the problem with this though. Let people escape. It's fine.

[Potjeh]

Whoops, just realized I made errors in my formula. Should be: base dmg * sqrt(str/10) * (1 - clamp( base ac * clamp(armor q / weapon q, 0.5, 2), 0%, 100%) * (1 - penetration))

So let's say you're doing an attack that does 50 base damage, and the target has no block up. Without armor and with con and str equal, you'll do 50% of your HP worth of damage at all str and con levels. if you're fighting someone who's square root of stats is half your own (for example 40 vs 10) you'll be doing 100% of their HP worth of damage. If their stats' square root is twice your own, you'll do 25% of their HP worth of damage.

Let's give the target total armor that blocks 50%, and is of equal quality to your weapon. Against same stats you'll be doing 25% (50% of 50%) of their HP worth of damage. Against 1/2 modifier stats you'll do 50% (50% of 100%) of their HP worth of damage. Against 2x modifier stats you'll do 12.5% (50% of 25%) of their HP worth of damage.

Now let's say square root of your weapon's quality is twice the square root of the target armour's quality (for example q40 sword vs q10 armour). Armour is still 50% base block. The armor / weapon q modifier ratio is 0.5, which means effective armour is 25%, ie 75% of damage gets through. Against same stats you'll be doing 32.5% of HP worth of damage (75% of 50%). Against target with 1/2 stats modifier you'll do 75% damage, and against target with 2x stats modifier you'll do 18.75% damage.

If the target's armour has modifier twice that of your weapon, effective armour will be 100%, ie no damage will pass through in any of these scenarios. This is where the inherent penetration of attacks comes into play. If that same 50% HP attack has 50% penetration, half the damage will ignore armour and the other half will calculate against it as normal. So against equal stats and armour that has twice your weapon's modifier you'll still do 25% of their HP worth of damage. With equal weapon and armour it's 32.5% (25% bypasses and 25% is reduced by the armour). With weapon twice as good as armour, it's 43.75%.

[venatorvenator]

Related to this, has anyone tried combat with higher stats and higher q gear in valhalla to see how it goes on the late-game? I'm curious to see if that changes anything.

[burgingham]

In other words: It's emulating real combat fairly well.

This is exactly the problem with many of your arguments. Realism is a horrible advisor when it comes to discussing HnH game mechanics. This is not a simulation, it is a permadeath sandbox. So it needs one thing: Balanced game design. Not realism.

Nobody cares what real armors do. What people are discussing here is how to balance combat properly.

[jorb]

Your exact formulas aside I kind of like the gist here. Will consider.

[Procne]

The thing I don't like about percentage damage reduction is the fact that early low quality armors are pretty useless, even against the weakest enemies, just like tableware is useless in early game

[Erock]

New characters shouldn't be knocking off half of your defense with 1 unarmed in this theoretical "new system"