Let me start off by saying all the folks at Stardock are a credit to the industry. I have a great respect for your work as well as your principles and practices. Keep up the inspiring work! That said, I’m writing this post to try and help out with ideas and solutions to some of the problems that have been mentioned concerning Elemental. Please feel free to use all or part of these ideas as you see fit though be aware that they are designed with other parts in mind and should be altered accordingly if taken out of context.
Before I get too far into this, I’ld like to mention that I am a bit of a stranger to forums and so of course I have rarely visited them or posted on them. That said, forgive me if I make any forum newbie mistakes. Many of these problems and ideas have been brought forward by others, for those I am simply presenting additional information and solutions.
Damage Variance
As you are likely already aware, widely scaling damage is very unrewarding to players. It offers no meaningful consistency to player choice and much of a given success or failure is attributed to luck. A simple solution would be to merely reduce the range of variable numbers to something more consistent that still allows a measure of uncertainty that should be present to keep combat interesting. I personally feel that this solution would result in a less robust and engrossing combat system than it could be, though it would still be adequate.
A partial re-design of the combat formulas could make a very significant impact on both the level of interest and longevity of tactical combat in particular. To be more specific, the math involving attack, defense, and weapon/ability/spell damage could be redefined so that lower values had a more significant impact and were more heavily influenced by character statistics and equipment.
Weapons would no longer add a flat bonus to attack, but instead add a variable damage value on top of a static damage value derived from the character’s statistics. Weapons could also be made more interesting by having ranges with different strengths such as weapons with low ranges, high ranges, high or low bonuses to attack, weapons with special features such as multiple attacks (splitting total damage between attacks), and weapons that grant additional usable abilities to the wielder. An important change to make note of is that additional damage from weapons can only be reduced by armor.
Attack values would be figured from a combination of strength, dexterity, equipment, and special abilities to help determine how likely it is to hit a target. Splitting up damage and accuracy will make it harder to snowball a hero into an unstoppable force and at the same time allow more creative design on the part of the player.
Defense would be broken down into two parts, Defense and Avoidance. Defense is derived from constitution, dexterity, equipment, and special abilities. Defense would lower incoming damage by flat number based on constitution and dexterity with a number range based on the armor equipped vs the type of weapon used. Armor can reduce the flat damage as well as weapon damage from incoming sources. Avoiding attacks altogether would be determined by dexterity, equipment, and special abilities.
These changes would make it easier to scale bonuses from equipment with groups as well as negate the necessity of creating numerous items and methods of constantly improving stats for heroes and sovereigns to stay major contenders in battles late-game.
Here is an example of this concept in action. I’m using arbitrary numbers and formulas for the sake of clarity. I apologize in advance, this can be confusing to follow at first, but in practice is simple for the user.
Sovereign A (Player)
Strength 10
Dexterity 10
Charisma 10
Intelligence 15
Essence 15
Constitution 10
Equipment: Axe (1~6 Damage)
Sovereign B (AI)
Strength 12
Dexterity 12
Charisma 12
Intelligence 10
Essence 10
Constitution 13
Equipment: Light Plate Cuirass (Armor 3~7, -2 Avoidance, -0.25 Combat Speed)
Let’s say we have a battle between two Sovereigns where the player is attacking the AI during a tactical battle on open terrain. Sovereign A has an attack rating of 10 if we assume a formula such as ½ strength (5) plus ½ dexterity (5) plus any equipment bonuses, which there are none in this case.
Logic formula:
StrengthContribution + DexterityContribution + EquipmentContribution = Attack
Sovereign B has an avoidance of 6 if we take 2/3 of dexterity (8) plus equipment bonuses (a penalty in this case, -2 for the Light Plate Cuirass).
Logic formula:
DexterityContribution + EquipmentContribution = Avoidance
Determining if a character can hit another character would come down to plugging the attack and avoidance values into a formula that fits well for balance. I honestly am unaware of the specifics of how Elemental currently calculates hit chances at this time so for simplicity and brevity we’ll just use the following formula.
Logic formula:
AttackerAttack - DefenderAvoidance = HitChance
Sovereign A has 10 strength, 10 dexterity, and has an axe equipped. The flat damage the character would deal would be say 2/3 of strength (6.6) plus 1/3 of dexterity (3.3) for 10 (9.9 rounded up) with a 1-6 weapon damage range for the axe for a total damage range of 11~16.
Logic formula:
StrengthContribution + DexterityContribution + WeaponRange = DamageRange.
Sovereign B has 12 dexterity and 13 constitution is wearing a light plate cuirass. Sovereign B would have a flat damage reduction of 7 (12.4 / 2 then rounded up) using a similar formula of 2/3 dexterity (8) plus 1/3 constitution (4.3) and dividing by half. The plate would reduce weapon damage by 3~7 unless the attack were made with a hammer type weapon which would ignore the reduction. Sovereign B would reduce the damage of incoming attacks by 10~14 damage unless they were dealt by a hammer type weapon which would be reduced by 7 only.
Logic formula:
(DexterityContribution + ConstitutionContribution)/2 + ArmorRange = DamageReductionRange
Sovereign A would deal 10 flat damage and 1~6 weapon damage (11~16 total) on a successful hit and Sovereign B would reduce 7 flat damage and 3-7 weapon damage (10-14 total possible). Sovereign B would lose 3 HP from flat damage (10-7) and the difference of 1~6 - 3~7 (We will say the numbers were 6 and 1 respectively) for a total damage of 8. If the weapon and armor range results were 2 and 3, only 2 points of damage would be dealt. Any result where the amount of damage reduced is higher than the damage dealt will end with a single point of damage being done.
Logic formula:
(FlatDamage - FlatDamageReduction) + (WeaponRange - DamageReductionRange) = Damage
*Note: Addition of a way to display the possible damage range for each unit will need to be added.
Combat with Group Units
As has been mentioned before, group units (squads and such) become incredibly powerful and are often too difficult to handle for Sovereigns and Heroes without stacking on tons of rings, amulets, or packs. As an alternative, a group unit could have statistics similar to an individual with some adjustments. A group unit could provide a minor bonus to attack and defense and provide a buffer against being wiped out in a single attack as well as provide some additional benefits from teamwork within the unit. For each character in a group unit a small bonus to attack, defense, and HP is added to simulate working as a cohesive group. These bonuses are lost when members perish but are restored when the group gains new members. When a group unit is attacked the first character in the stack is the only one to suffer damage and if that character takes enough damage to die, the remaining members of the unit are not damaged with the excess. Group units also have no limit on the number of counter attacks they can perform in a round (it is unrealistic to attempt to wear out a group of combatants at the same time). Some creature/unit abilities and a number of spells will allow a magic user to damage an entire group at once and possibly wipe it out entirely in a single attack. Abilities and spells cast on the group unit effect the entire group unit though any included non-group damage component only deals damage to the first character in the group unit. Eg. Stab of Ice would deal damage to the first character in the group unit but the entire group unit would suffer the lost turn effect.
*Note: There will need to be a new UI element created to handle multiple health bars within a single group unit.
*Note: There is a good possibility that this will slow down combat involving multiple group units when combined with the above damage variance suggestion. Including some anti-group unit spells, specialized weapons, and unit abilities will likely make this concern moot.
I intended to cover a few more topics in a single post but it’s already getting pretty lengthy. Thanks for giving this a read.
