Balance between offense and defense - some ideas
Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2011 2:01 am
Once again I am grinding and bored, so I'll type while the monsters respawn.
I said in a previous post that rebalancing the game is unnecessary--or at least less important than other things. I tried an experiment to see if I was right. Turns out I was only mostly right--it is necessary, but I still think it is less important than other things. And I had some new ideas about how to balance.
I restarted, and this time I put every single upgrade point into attack damage. I was able to finish all of the available quests in 0.6.9 at level 18 with no legendary items. Still have 25 HP. My block chance is 36%, all from equipment. But, from the time I encountered the young gornaud before the entrance to the mine to Prim I have had to save the game after every single monster encounter. I "die" constantly. The monsters near Blackwater usually kill me 4 or 5 times before I get them. I save, drink 2-4 minor potions, and then attack the next monster. The game is virtually unplayable focused to this degree.
In my opinion, it should be completely unplayable if you focus your character development like that. So I agree that some rebalancing is necessary.
I've had a few ideas on how that balance could be achieved. Some of these seem relatively easy, compared to changing formulas and altering the stats of existing characters. Maybe you could implement a few of these, to varying degrees.
1. Change the save feature so that you can only save 1 time per screen. It's a big change, but if you do this then other changes might not be necessary. (My focused character experiment would have never been able to get through the gargoyle cave or Flagstone without multiple saves per screen.)
2. Make healing potions and meat more expensive and dropped less often. I would really think about putting points to block if each bonemeal potion cost 400 (and the other healing items were equally expensive.)
3. Take the upper half of monsters, in terms of toughness, and double or triple the frequency that they get critical hits.
4. Right now, when you are fighting with one monster none of the other monsters in the room get to move. When you are fighting with 2 or 3 monsters, all of the ones that are fighting get turns, but the others do not. You could let every monster move during the monster phase of combat.
Some monsters should just continue to wander around. Some (weaker) monsters should take the opportunity to flee to the far corners of their area. Some monsters should help their pack-mates (I'm thinking dogs and humanoids.) The wanderers might just walk into you and join the combat, too. So you always have to worry about multiple monsters joining into your battle.
During combat, each monster that is not fighting should take a turn moving right after the fighting monster(s) take their fight turn(s). If a moving monster gets into fighting range, and they have enough action points left, then they get to attack.
Moving monsters seems like the most difficult of these ideas to implement, but I think it would add the most to the game. It's the least artificial of these possible solutions.
5. Take away the ability to save anywhere and anytime. Make it so that you can only save when you rest in a bed. This might actually be too much. Or you have to add more beds to the game. Someone else suggested a tent object that would let you sleep anywhere. You could implement that, and disallow saving without sleeping. And if you sleep in the tent then you are almost certainly going to get woke up by an attacking monster. You will be only partially healed and they get the first attack.
Having said all of that, I would still prefer more maps and quests over any changes designed to instill balance. I'd like some really hard quests, that saving often wouldn't get you through.
Almost 900 rocks and no RoLS, yet. I've got to stop this and go to bed.
-Randy
I said in a previous post that rebalancing the game is unnecessary--or at least less important than other things. I tried an experiment to see if I was right. Turns out I was only mostly right--it is necessary, but I still think it is less important than other things. And I had some new ideas about how to balance.
I restarted, and this time I put every single upgrade point into attack damage. I was able to finish all of the available quests in 0.6.9 at level 18 with no legendary items. Still have 25 HP. My block chance is 36%, all from equipment. But, from the time I encountered the young gornaud before the entrance to the mine to Prim I have had to save the game after every single monster encounter. I "die" constantly. The monsters near Blackwater usually kill me 4 or 5 times before I get them. I save, drink 2-4 minor potions, and then attack the next monster. The game is virtually unplayable focused to this degree.
In my opinion, it should be completely unplayable if you focus your character development like that. So I agree that some rebalancing is necessary.
I've had a few ideas on how that balance could be achieved. Some of these seem relatively easy, compared to changing formulas and altering the stats of existing characters. Maybe you could implement a few of these, to varying degrees.
1. Change the save feature so that you can only save 1 time per screen. It's a big change, but if you do this then other changes might not be necessary. (My focused character experiment would have never been able to get through the gargoyle cave or Flagstone without multiple saves per screen.)
2. Make healing potions and meat more expensive and dropped less often. I would really think about putting points to block if each bonemeal potion cost 400 (and the other healing items were equally expensive.)
3. Take the upper half of monsters, in terms of toughness, and double or triple the frequency that they get critical hits.
4. Right now, when you are fighting with one monster none of the other monsters in the room get to move. When you are fighting with 2 or 3 monsters, all of the ones that are fighting get turns, but the others do not. You could let every monster move during the monster phase of combat.
Some monsters should just continue to wander around. Some (weaker) monsters should take the opportunity to flee to the far corners of their area. Some monsters should help their pack-mates (I'm thinking dogs and humanoids.) The wanderers might just walk into you and join the combat, too. So you always have to worry about multiple monsters joining into your battle.
During combat, each monster that is not fighting should take a turn moving right after the fighting monster(s) take their fight turn(s). If a moving monster gets into fighting range, and they have enough action points left, then they get to attack.
Moving monsters seems like the most difficult of these ideas to implement, but I think it would add the most to the game. It's the least artificial of these possible solutions.
5. Take away the ability to save anywhere and anytime. Make it so that you can only save when you rest in a bed. This might actually be too much. Or you have to add more beds to the game. Someone else suggested a tent object that would let you sleep anywhere. You could implement that, and disallow saving without sleeping. And if you sleep in the tent then you are almost certainly going to get woke up by an attacking monster. You will be only partially healed and they get the first attack.
Having said all of that, I would still prefer more maps and quests over any changes designed to instill balance. I'd like some really hard quests, that saving often wouldn't get you through.
Almost 900 rocks and no RoLS, yet. I've got to stop this and go to bed.
-Randy