Concerns about Burst/Evo Damage vs. NPC negation skills

Draven

Draven

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One of the things that this playtest seems to address is the issue with ever-increasing static damage causing an ever-increasing amount of NPC Body to keep up.

However, based on these playtests, it seems the following are true:

1) There's going to be a significant increase in burst-damage/negation skills.
2) There's going to be a decrease in NPC Body based on recommendation resulting from the decrease in static damage.
3) There's going to be an -increase- in static damage for lower-level characters during "key moments."
4) Evocation damage is remaining the same, which means it'll actually hurt lower-body NPCs more than it used to. Additionally, with the usage of Potence, an Evo caster can actually do significantly more burst damage than before.

What I'm concerned with is the following:

1) NPCs are going to get murdered even faster due to the new prevalence of burst-damage/negation skills.
2) NPCs will evolve to this new pattern, and since increased Body is the wrong answer, they'll counter with more negation skills.
3) Body might not decrease as much as expected, due to #3.
3) Wave battles will become the new norm, and as a result, NPCs will become more exhausted over the course of a weekend.

As an NPC Guildie in Oregon, the health and enjoyment of my NPCs is a top priority for me, along with the enjoyment of the PCs experiencing the story being told and the battles being fought. For the most part, I like these rules, but I worry about the weekend-long effects of them.
 
I must agree and add that with profs going down and body going down isn't it around the same ratio? Swinging 20's against some one with 100 body is the same as swinging 5's with some one having 25 body with the added notion that the C caster can take em out with a lower level spell now (which I think was Jim's point in the other thread)
 
I'm not sure I fully agree on the increase in one-shot defenses.

Over the course of a single day, as a PC, I often find that I fight anywhere from 50 - 75 enemies, between wave battles, random damage, and modules. This is approximately in-line with the 200+ arrows I use every day (I also swing my sword a lot). My character (Scout) is currently only low 20s, but even if I pretended he were upgraded to roughly 30 and changed him to a primarily 1/day aggressive skills build (not my intention with the new rules, but good for discussion), I would likely only have about 10 - 15 "take out abilities" (slays, assassinates, terminates, eviscerates, etc.) and maybe as many as 25 other "interesting" one-shots (Shatters, Stun Limbs, etc.). *For sake of discussion, I think crit attacks / back attacks are only interesting in groups of about 5.*

That isn't even one special ability per enemy and the crit attacks / back attacks don't really require a defensive ability. The above numbers are also a really high estimate based on an extreme, build that purely focuses on one-shot abilities. I suspect the average level 30 character will be close to 1/2 to 2/3 of those numbers. But pretending that every single level 30 is the above type (I am using 30 because that is roughly the plateau level for character growth of hardcore players), that still means that roughly half the enemies have to be fought with nothing more repetitive damage, even if none of them have defensive abilities.

Also, I suspect that builds like mine (4 profs and 4 backstabs, mostly defensive one-shots, only Terminate, Eviscerate, and Shatters as offense) will be common enough that defenses across the board won't be necessary. My PC has less than 1/2 a dozen one-shot abilities and at most a dozen Shatters (reserved specifically for shields, since it is darn hard to shatter a sword with a bow in these rules). Sure, those defensive abilities won't hurt me that much, but if you put them on NPCs because you assume I have an offensive build then they just end up being frustrating for the guy next to me that does have an offensive build and never gets to actually connect with those abilities.

-MS
 
It wasn't included in my original post, even though my brain was factoring it, was the following:

Due to the lack of incentive to take combat-centric High Magic beyond 15 (Healer's Resolve is basically garbage in the new world of healing, and Elemental Burst lost its wand boosting quality), Casters are more likely to be Battlemagic focused. As an example, if I rebuild my E Caster into another straight E Caster, he's likely dumping about 20 Formals (60 Build) into 2+ columns. That's a KO effect at 7th, a semi-KO effect at 3rd, and potentially another KO effect at 8th, 9th, and 1st. The only slots that are unlikely to become a KO effect is 5th, because Spell Shield, and 2nd, because....whatever Magic Armor is turning into. So, 7 KOs per column, that's 14 KO effects.

Additionally, there's more than a few people who feel that the system will guide builds towards caster-hybrids away from pure-martialists. That'll also cause more caster-KOs to enter the system (though at a significantly less quantity, as hybrids tend to pack more protectives/self-sustain over offensives).
 
I think there's something there, but I'm willing to bet that there are a good selection of folks who will be using 3rd and 6th level for extra weapon and spell shields.
 
Dan Nickname Beshers said:
I think there's something there, but I'm willing to bet that there are a good selection of folks who will be using 3rd and 6th level for extra weapon and spell shields.
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Yeah, absolutely, and primarily hybrids or heavily-focused backpacks. I know a lot of newer E casters who don't want to deal with chucking packets at all, so being able to prep more healing/protectives at 3rd level will be -great- for them.

But I don't think that the new system will lower KO effects in the populace, by any means, and those who rely on them will probably maximize their reserves. Those who are turning to them instead of gigantic piles of profs will probably be turning to them in large quantities.
 
Seeing that pocket casters are being removed from the game, I think that the net KO effects will actually go down, quite noticeably, even with greater access to martial KO effects and more caster KO effects, at least in the game I play in.

-MS
 
mikestrauss said:
Seeing that pocket casters are being removed from the game, I think that the net KO effects will actually go down, quite noticeably, even with greater access to martial KO effects and more caster KO effects, at least in the game I play in.

-MS
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A lot of Prisons in your chapter?

Up here, there are some Prisons, but mostly Life spells.
 
There are at least a few people I can think of who joke about having "Prison Storms" here in PNW.
 
Draven said:
A lot of Prisons in your chapter?

Up here, there are some Prisons, but mostly Life spells.
Click to expand...

A lot of everything. I play HQ. It is an old chapter (the oldest) with a lot of players who have been around for close to two decades (I know since I've been around since day one). I've lost track of the number of times I have seen characters unleash Prison storms or Confine storms. There were events where I was literally playing the big bad of a wave battle (or even a weekend) and I was "spelled down" by a pure fighter.

The removal of pocket casters and near unlimited Banes will definitely obviate the need for ridiculous amounts of stacked defenses, at least in my chapter. Other chapters may vary.

-MS
 
Mike Strauss is not wrong. Jeez... my secondary's been around for 21+ years. I've seen more than my share of Prison Storms thrown.
 
Zymm said:
Mike Strauss is not wrong. Jeez... my secondary's been around for 21+ years. I've seen more than my share of Prison Storms thrown.
Click to expand...
You still have that prison sword Paul ;)
 
Draven said:
What I'm concerned with is the following:

1) NPCs are going to get murdered even faster due to the new prevalence of burst-damage/negation skills.
2) NPCs will evolve to this new pattern, and since increased Body is the wrong answer, they'll counter with more negation skills.
3) Body might not decrease as much as expected, due to #3.
3) Wave battles will become the new norm, and as a result, NPCs will become more exhausted over the course of a weekend.

As an NPC Guildie in Oregon, the health and enjoyment of my NPCs is a top priority for me, along with the enjoyment of the PCs experiencing the story being told and the battles being fought. For the most part, I like these rules, but I worry about the weekend-long effects of them.
Click to expand...

Regarding the first concern, playtesting should tell us if combat encounters are getting quicker. But I agree that the new rules promote less body and that spell damage will probably take out NPCs quickly. Part of that is there may be more casters (the cost for spell damage never increases while profs and backstabs keep getting more expensive). I think meditate also means more spell damage and more kill spells (scholars can cast faster and reuse misses).

I don't know how plot will handle this, but it seems they can either let combat speed up with spellcasters pwning more battles, or plot can give monsters more spell defense, or they can give NPCs more lives.


This is why I spent a few days asking for performance objectives. I've almost given up but I like repeating myself: I just can't figure out what the rules are trying to accomplish. It seems that there is no clear concept of what combat in the new system should be.
 
There aren't performance objectives for the play tests per se, because there is a lot of stuff still not in the system. High magic isn't where we want it, incants are still going through iterative development, there are some other new things that have not been tested at all (spoiler alert: we didn't forget about replacing spirit store. Foreshadowed.)
 
That might be the issue then Dan. Getting a clear statement of "X,Y,Z is what we want to accomplish with our new rules" and then making new rules and changes based off that statement will help focus what playtesters and others can look at. I think that's one of Jim's main points. Once we have a goal, we have a direction to head towards and make it happen.
Jim, chime in if I'm wrong in my assumption.
 
Gilwing,

There is a thread that mentions a decent amount of intent that is available in the coordinator forum. I do not feel comfortable copy / pasting ARC's post from that private forum, but I've posted here a few times asking to have it made publicly available. It should hopefully address the majority of these design questions, and provide greater insight into the development thought process.
 
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