Vinland 2 Help

Hey guys,

At the moment we're working on Vinland 2, which is no longer a single player survival game but rather a party based RPG set in the Vinland world (think Baldurs Gate with Vikings!), and we're currently trying to create a combat model.

At the moment all we have is 2 skills which determine to hit chance, and the possibility of adding stats, weapon hit boni and armour.

Currently we have;
Weapon Skill = 1-100 (Primarily concerned with to-hit, though this is shared over a number of weapon classes)
Mastery Skill = 1-100 (Primarily concerned with special abilities and damage though it should also increase to-hit chance slightly)
Dodge Skill = 1-100 (Not in yet, but we can bring it in if needed)

Armour = (no numbers set, split into Dodge Chance Bonus and Damage Absorption). There is a possibility of adding a special armour skill that improves the dodge chance and damage absorption.

Dexterity = To Hit and Dodge Chance (this could be seporated into Dexterity and Agility if these need to split)
Strength = Damage bonus

We would also like to bring in bonus's for different weapons, for example an axe could have a to-hit bonus as it's more difficult to avoid a slashing attack, but to counter it has a slower swing rate.

Any ideas on how to turn these into combat mechanics? If so, what ranges should these skills / stats / armour use?

Weapon Skill impacts on the speed and hit/crit chances of the weapon type in question.

Mastery Skill does the same but impacts all weapons types, but is only available after you have maxed out one weapon skill to 100.

So, for example:

Swords: 19
Axes: 100
Maces: 17
Bows: 0
Crossbows: 55
(Whatever weapons you will have in the game)

And Mastery Skill goes from 1 to 5, say 2% hit, crit and speed bonus for each level, so it's 10% to all of those when Mastery is maxed out(try to have some alternative skill choices too so it doesnt end up in everyone just maxing out one weapon skill and then mastery)

So after Axes are maxed to 100, you can put points in Mastery Skill as it's unlocked.

I suggest you have different armour types. Leather is good against maces, plate good against swords but weak against maces, mail is decent against swords and axes. And say, you can put leather under the mail so it becomes more resilient to maces/or under full plate, so it becomes resilient to maces, but it results in reduced speed stats.

Example:

Leather and Full Plate (-3 dexterity, -2 strength)
Leather and Mail (-1 strength, -1 dexterity)
Mail and Full Plate (-4 dexterity, -2 strength)
Full Plate (-4 dexterity)
Mail (-2 dexterity)
Leather (+1 dexterity)

You see, there are loads of different combinations. Rogues are forced to keep on that light equipment, since nothing else really helps them.

I'd also say, maybe you should have another skill: Cunning? It would affect the hit/crit chance minimally, say 0.25% per one level of Cunning, and it would make your attacks more effective because you use your wits more(maybe you use less stamina per attack if you have higher cunning)

I also have an idea, what if the strength would multiply the weapon damage with a factor dependant on the strength level, say n+wd:10, wd being weapon damage and n the strength level. So in the case below, it would go: 30+41:10, which would come out as 7.1 damage, which would be added straight in to the damage output. So damage would now be 48.1

Let's take in the cunning then. Cunning gives 0.25% extra damage dependent on the cunning level, so in sigurd's case 10x0.25=2.5 dmg. Now the damage is 50.6

Example:

Sigurd Thorvalsson
30 strength
15 dexterity
10 cunning
Weapon: Double-edged axe(41 damage)

Sigurd cleaves through the viking with his double-edged axe. You deal 50.6 damage. The viking stumbles backwards, shockwaves of horror passing through him. Viking is stunned for one turn.(if you have a turn based RPG)

Just some ideas :3

Thanks Marcus, very useful. I particularly like the Cunning skill, I will add that to my list now. The idea behind the weapon skill is that they will be done by class (Blunt, Slash, Pierce, Ranged and Polearms), as if you are familiar with one combat style then you will have an idea of other similar ones also. We then have the masteries which are specialising in a single weapon (Swords, axes, warhammers, etc). With this method, we encourage more hybrid classes, for instance a magic user may choose to get Blunt Skill as it impacts their staff use (which also improves their dodge chance thanks to the weapon's great utility in blocking), while dedicated warriors will want to specialise even more to get the absolute best out of their weapons.

We considered having different damage types (Slash, Pierce, Blunt), and applying an absorbtion rating to each suit of armour but we were mindful that this is getting dangerously close to overwhelming players with stats, for instance if you came across;

Chainmail (5 Dodge, 5 Slash, 5 Pierce, 5 Blunt)
Leather (7 Dodge, 2 Slash, 5 Piece, 6 Blunt)

Which would you choose? Surely this could be just as easily represented as;

Chainmail (5 Dodge, 15 Absorb)
Leather (7 Dodge, 13 Absorb)

I would argue we don't need the different damage types, damage is damage. It also means we are more open to weapons having additional abilities like these;

Mace; Stun
Sword; Increased hit chance
Axe; Decreased dodge chance (for the opponent)
Staff; Increased dodge chance (for self)
Axe; Increased critical damage

And generally lets us be more clever about the actual difference between combat styles.

Keep the different numerical suggestions coming, this is what we are most interested at the moment! We're trying to get some ideas of different models and then we can pick and mix the algorithms most suited to our game, particularly in relation to armour and hit chance / damage reduction.

I would still argue that we need to show the impact of different weapons/fighting styles. For example, maces obliterate your body even if you're wearing platemail - a good warhammer usually broke a bone or two when it hit you successfully, even with full plate due to the shockwaves the impact sends through your body. Maces would have stun and maybe some debuffs, dependent on the size and heaviness of the mace - say, you lose speed if it hits you.

As for axes, they're just scary and dangerous

Anyways, here's my list of weapon perks:

Mace; Stun, debuff
Sword; Increased hit chance, (cunning has an effect on this)
Axe; Decreased dodge chance (for the opponent), Bleed
Staff; Increased dodge chance (for self)
Axe; Increased critical damage

(Suggestion) For each hit you deal, you have a chance to severely injure your opponent(not same as crithit), and that would mean:

- Cut a limb
- Stab internal organs
- Slash/stab neck
- Anything gory and unpleasant you can come up with

There would be a random factor dependent mainly on your cunning.

Cx0.10=% chance to severly injure your opponent.

Let's say our perfect rogue has 30 cunning. Divide it by 10, and we get 3%. That's his chance of severely injuring his opponent - one out of 33.

Ok, now you might think: "How does a severe injury differ from a crithit?" well, I've the answer ready. Severe injuries ALWAYS cause bleeding and a major debuff to your opponent. What kind of a major debuff? I thought about 25% in hit accuracy and 10% hit in their dexterity. But isn't that just overpowered? Nope, since it happens only in one case out of 33 times, if the character has 30 cunning. (What's the max level you can have anyways?)



About the numerical suggestions(Tut tut Mordred, using the PoP forums to do your work are ya? ), but fortunately I'm happy to help.

Ok, well start with the basics. I think I had an idea like this in my previous post, but if there would be four armour classes, light, medium, heavy and plate.

Light armour includes:

- All sorts of leather armour
- Cloth
- Compressed paper armour(yes, they made very effective armour out of paper in China...)

Ok, these have following perks, I think that they should be hidden and player should discover them himself.

Leather:
- Flexible(+1 dex)
- Absorbs a small amount of magical damage.

Example:

You are hit by a fireball which deals 20 magical damage. The leather armour you are wearing has an armour value of 10.

So we do this: MD-N:5= Amount of magical damage absorbed.

20-10:5=2

Amount of magical damage absorbed= 2 dmg.

This also means that if some leather armour is too strong, it will absorb almost all of the magic damage if the magical attack is weak. So there has to be some balancing feature in this, for example opponents use higher-grade spells as you advance in levels or leather armour will never have very high armour value.

Cloth:
- Offers no protection to melee dmg.
- (Suggestion) Only armour class that can be magically charged(buffed with magic)

About magically charging the equipment, I thought it's either to give them additional traits/stats boosts or just boost the magical capabilities of the cloth equipment - say, give it a boost to (Skill related to Magic, suggestions: Intelligence, Wisdom, or just combination of these two: Magic).

How complicated and realistic must it be?

I would have the following to add:

a) add another kind of no armor: "bare chested/naked".

=Increase dodge.

because: our bodily hair is very sensitive to the environment around us. Having no clothes to cover it, and having it exposed to the air, the character might detect swings and moves from the enemy more easily. Like a dog's whiskers.

because: there is a proven theory that says "the more protected one feels, the more reckless one acts". It is real, but I forgot the technical name. Anyway, having nothing to protect you makes you unconsciounsly more defensive.

because: it would encourage people to play the archetypical figure of the Viking barbarian, or the tattooed Pict.


b) Concerning magical equipment, you have the chance to do marketing by innovating in this aspect. Instead of doing the old "+1 defense", "+3 dodge", as nearly every other RPG-ish game does, you could instead add unusual and indirect effects.

Something in the lines of "this plate mail becomes purple when near fresh water"; "this shield flashes brighly when hit by metal"; "this axe, formerly used to cut icebergs, is great for setting light armor in fire" ; "this leather armor has so many rings and straps on it, that swords and spears become stuck when they hit you"; "this leather armor is an illusion: it looks like a platemail".

the lovely coder for this is lurking now here in the background.
Well, i just decided to silently register me here so i can have a talk too.

The current system i am developing together with Gareth (and its neither final nor did both of us agree on - see it as a early prototype) is working the following way:

A character will have a set of base stats (like strength, intelligence, agility etc... )
He/she will also have a subset of so called talents - those include things like sword-mastery (how good i can fight with a sword) or axe-mastery etc.. but also stuff like climbing, swimming, orientation etc...

Everytime we perform an action that needs to get tested for success of failure (be it in combat or for other non-combat stuff) the same principle applies:
We use some of the base stats in a weighted fashion, as well as a talent and a random number and check this against a fixed value that will determine how "hard" this test is.
In the case of combat this fixed value will be a second test from the enemy.
If we get higher or equal than the value we test against the test is considered successfull. We than determine the percentage how much we are above the value we tested against, this will show how good our action was.

Combat Example:

additional change: Weapon Talent is splitted into attack/parry (so we can choose to favour more agressive or defensiv style)
(currently weighting attack just made up: 5 Brut 5 Agi 3 Int)
current weighting parry : 3 Tough 5 Agi 6 Int )

Player
Health = 20
Brut = 10, Agi = 12, Int = 7 Tough = 9, Init = 3
Sword Talent = 4 / 4 (using sword) Sword Min/Max Damage = 2/5 Sword Init +1
Armor = 1
Base Attack = (5*10 + 5*12 + 3*7)/13 + 4 = 14.08
Base Parry = (3*9 + 5*12 + 6* 7)/14 + 4 = 13.21


Enemy
Health = 18
Enemy = Brut 8, Agi 13, Int = 9, Tough = 8 Init = 4
Axe Talent = 6/2 MinMaxDamage = 4/6 Axe Init + 2
Armor = 2
Base Attack = (5*8 + 5*13 + 3*9) / 13 + 6 = 16.15
Base Parry = (3*8 + 5*13 + 6*9) / 14 + 2 = 12.21

Following Random Numbers are used :
6, 17, 8, 3, 20, 12, 8, 11, 4, 18, 10, 8, 9, 20, 15, 20, 1, 15, 9, 16, 12, 0, 3, 5,
20, 17, 10



Round 3) (Player Turn - next turn is 3+3+1 = 7) (current round + init value + weapon init modifier)
14.08 + ( 6) = 20.08 against 13.21 + (17) = 30.21 --> attack failed (34% lower)

Round 4) Enemy Turn - next turn is 4 + 4 + 2 = 10
16 + 8 = 24 against 13 + 3 = 16 --> attack succeed (50% higher) (we get random attack between 4-6 = 6, 50% of this is 3... 3-1 (armor player) = 2 hitpoints lost
player hitpoints = 20-2 = 18

Round 7) Player (next round is 7+3+1 = 11)
14 + (20) = 34 against 13 + (12) = 25 --> attack succeed (36% higher) (attack 4*.36 = 1.44 -2 (armor) = -.44 --> we hit but make no damage


The numbers arent balanced right now, it was just to ilustrate the mechanic how i see it atm...

Key parts: several stats are included (and weighted) in the test, the used talent skill with an extra weight.
weapons can be made more defensiv or active and also can be made fast or slow, as well as having a range of damage.
The system also can kinda simulate that we hit, but the opponent is getting nearly away, so we do low damage (or he totally screwed up his parry and we hit him very strong, maybe even more than the actual weapon damage is)

The above example also includes the initiative system wich isnt described here... (but kinda easy to see how its working)


Also: currently it seems i am able to exclude the formulas from the base-game so they can be edited/modded by the player.
Same is true for random events / quests. and i am currently trying hard to make at much stuff moddable as possible.
(I admit, i just wrote this to get you interested =P)

Please keep in mind: all of this stuff is just testing and experimenting atm, we didnt agreed on anything for now.
I would like to hear about your opinions about such a system and possible downsides i maybe overlooked.

(i also hope gareth doesnt kill me for posting this, but as i see that he getting quite valueable feedback here i thought it might be good to get into more detail)