Solved Rebalancing the Fighting System

[Skyworm]

Cheers gentlemen,

I did find that 1-on-1 fights can be quite difficult when I had to fight some duels in the Woodes Rogers storyline.
That is set on Journeyman difficulty instead of Apprentice though. How does the game play if you DO play on Apprentice?

Also, please extract this file to PROGRAM\Characters . I added some log messages to the XP calculations in there.
You should now get an on-screen message for every time you get Fencing or Defence XP in a fight.
If you ARE fencing, but NOT getting any messages, that indicates something is wrong.
Also, if you ARE getting the messages, but your Fencing skill does not seem to be increasing, have a look at that "exp" value the message shows.
That could also be where the problem comes from.

Well, sorry for reporting back that late, but my computer was against me yesterday, it kept me from doing any testing.

I used your file to get a better impression poof melee combat.

Good news first, the system is not technically broken. You get both melee and defence skill when doing melee combat. The higher you advance in skill, the less you get. To give an example:
It was very easy to get to melee 8 by using good old Malcolm as a practice dummie.
But then, running 4 times through the Spightstown dungeon did not get me to 9.

Now with melee 8, I also cheated me money to buy the battle and even golden cuirass. To my great frustration, not even with this superior melee skill (effectively 7 modified by the cuirass) and a completely overpowered equip (I consider a golden cuirass at level 3 overpowered ^^), I was not able to make it through that dungeon at swashbuckler. It was barely doable at adventurer, but only with the help of many lots of reloaded savegames.

In my opinion, the whole melee system suffers from many random factors that influence the result of any single blow.
- block can take effekt, or not
- armor can take effekt, or not
- damage can range
With this, you can withstand 10 blows in a row without getting harmed, or getting killed with one.

The most curios experience was this:
Me. lv 4, golden cuirass and melee-8:
1st, cutting through a 4 man group of enemies in a narrow tunnel and surviving.
2nd, 1 minute after, being cut down by a single man in the next tunnel. I reloaded the game more than 10 times and still did not get past this guy.
Almost anything seems to be possible.

Personally, melee combat is most enjoyable on journeyman with close to overpowered equip. Perhaps if I adjust my play style to that, I can do with it.

I's like to take a look at what difficulty-levels exactly do, may one of you point me where to look at?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

A few things that might play into fencing being too hard:

1. Player fencing skill increase is slower than enemy fencing skill increase
This would be supported by the "fencing skill increase comes to a halt" issue, which is what I put those LogIt lines in place for

2. Enemies quickly get better weapons than the player; this could be related to the weapon assignment code being rewritten fairly recently

3. Blocking no longer magically works all the time. Relevant code in PROGRAM\Loc_ai\LAi_fightparams.c

4. Player HP vs. enemy HP becomes unbalanced. Code at the top of PROGRAM\Loc_ai\LAi_CreateOfficer.c

5. Difficulty level. These are defined in PROGRAM\Dialog_func.c:

#define DIFFICULTY_APPRENTICE        1
#define DIFFICULTY_JOURNEYMAN        2
#define DIFFICULTY_ADVENTURER        3
#define DIFFICULTY_SWASHBUCKLER        4

Search your PROGRAM folder for GetDifficulty to see all instances where difficulty plays a role.

We'd have to narrow down which of these factors is the main culprit.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

1) Player fencing skills do not advance at all. It is extremely rare to advance even 1 skill level no matter how long the game is played.

2) Weapons used have little to no effect on the results.

3) Blocking often does not work at all and the player is killed with one stroke even while wearing armor.

4) HP only affects fighting in that the fight lasts longer, giving the opponent more chances to kill you with one stroke.

5) Will look into that in a few days when this computer gets put back together.

 

[Skyworm]

Cheers,

A few things that might play into fencing being too hard:

I think one problem is, that fencing may not be overall "too hard" It's definitely too hard for me, but there are others who seem to enjoy it as it is, and even others, wo would like to have it even harder.

1. Player fencing skill increase is slower than enemy fencing skill increase
This would be supported by the "fencing skill increase comes to a halt" issue, which is what I put those LogIt lines in place for

Fits to what I noticed. After sparring intently with malcolm, I noticed that running through the entire Speightstown dungeon did not add a singe % to melee. It added some to defence though.

2. Enemies quickly get better weapons than the player; this could be related to the weapon assignment code being rewritten fairly recently

Don't think that is a big issue. The weapons I find in dead corpses are the same they have been fighting with when alive, right? Thus, I get the same weapons as my enemies very quickly.

We'd have to narrow down which of these factors is the main culprit.

Well, the reason why I asked about difficulty levels was a idea I had in mind.
As I understand, difficulty level has its influence on many parts of the game, at least these 3:
- ship to ship combat /(how damaged enemy ships are when encountered)
- economic game (salary of crew?)
- melee combat
Now the idea was to make sepereate oggles for these 3.
For ecomomy and naval combat, I think I'd like to go to swashbuckler now. For melee, I's greatly prefer journeyman, nothing above. I think this can already be done for most of any situations, by just talking to an officer before doing something ... for example go to land - set to journeyman, go to sea - set to swashbuckler, board - set to journeyman. It would be more comfortable with an overall switch or a line in some file I can change.

Making melee easier will possibly discourage people who like action-style challenges (I most certainly do not).

Edit:
Clarification ... is it melee or defence skill that makes me survive being hit in melee combat?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

1. So outside the tutorial, are you seeing that Fencing skill LogIt message with the files I posted?

2. Fair point by Skyworm; so that shouldn't really be the problem.

3. Blocking not always working is intentional, of course. It shouldn't be quite that bad though. What happens if you use a weapon with a high Block value?

4. For all regular characters, we made it so that the HP increase per level isn't that much anyway.
I do recall seeing characters with 100+ HP anyway though. And of course boardings must be some sort of exception,
because there the enemy HP is based on your crew vs. theirs. I saw 600+ HP.

Should we make the town guards ever so slightly stronger? They're a bit of a liability, are they not? Even with the interesting weapons they use.

Making melee easier will possibly discourage people who like action-style challenges (I most certainly do not).

This game isn't great for action-style challenges anyway.

Clarification ... is it melee or defence skill that makes me survive being hit in melee combat?

Fencing skill should be for your attack, Defence for, well, your defence.

 

[Skyworm]

Great idea splitting the threads, I was already loosing the overbiew ...

I''ve jst done some further testing.

Again standard storyline, this time I did not use Malcolm for sparring. Baught a cheap armor and a bosun's choice, and entered the spightstown dungeon at apprentice level.
Start: Melee 10% 2-1, defence 12% 2-2
End: Melee 20% 6-5, defence 9% 2-2
So it goes up in normal play, too.
Overall, it was doable. I was fine with most fights, but there were some hard nuts with 3 or more opponents at once. But I did it with some reloading and without god mode

But even at this low level, some of them kept one-hitting or two-hitting me.

I think, I could try with that difficulty level switching according to situation, and using overpowerd equip. Well, what's console good for, right? So at least I think I have a solution for my personal fun.


Besides that, some general thoughts.
I don't think melee shall be earliest enjoyable at level 15 or so. Melee is nothing like, say, taking over a fort, or doing big fleet battles, those being events that clearly belong into sort of late-game.
Melee is a integral part of the game, and it may happen everytime, everywhere. You can be attacked in a dark street of a town at night, at a tavern, while being boarded by enemies, or while walking through the jungle. Also, in many story line quests. Thus, melee shall be somehow be balanced for the early game experience, too.

The most annoying part is that one-hitting. There is nothing you can do against. Bad luck - dead.
Also, health potions are completely useless now. They have a heal-over-time-effect. But time is the one thing you do not have. hit 1 brings you from your 70 HP down to 15. Then you'll just have no 5 or 10 seconds it may take for the potion to bring you up again, because the very next hit will kill you now.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

What happens if you do the EXACT same thing, but give yourself a Fencing skill of 10? Or a Defence skill of 10? Does the fencing become properly playable then in the early game?

 

[Skyworm]

What happens if you do the EXACT same thing, but give yourself a Fencing skill of 10? Or a Defence skill of 10? Does the fencing become properly playable then in the early game?

Unfortunately I don't know how to "give" me a certain skill level.

But in my first test, I used Malcolm for fencing practice and advanced to fencing 8. Plus, I cheated me to buy a golden cuirass. But even with that equip, it was not really fun at adventurer and swashbuckler. One- or two-hitting still happened. No idea if defence would improve it. It goes up much slower than fencing.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

You got THAT FAR in the TUTORIAL? I don't think that is quite intentional!

You've use the console before, right? Execute:

PChar.skill.Fencing = 10;
PChar.skill.Defence = 10;

 

[Hylie Pistof]

3) Defense is far more important than melee. If I have 2 officers and one has a melee of 3 and defense of 1, and the other has a melee of 1 and a defense of 3 the one with the defense of 1 always dies first. Same swords.
If I have a choice between a sword with a high damage value and one with a high defense value I always take the one with a good defense, like the Milanese rapier or the Waloon sword. Currently my officers are all using the French Admiralty rapier while I am using the French court sword. Why? Better defense. One stroke kills still happen tho. I have seen an opponent kill two of us with one big swing many times. Even the Sabre of Nicholas Sharpe is not much help until later in the game, although the difference is noticeable.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

So... Fencing skill doesn't increase at all after a certain point and is bugged. However, Defence is more important, suggesting that you're not getting that quick enough either.
Or is it that the unsuccessful blocks just hurt a bit too much for comfort?

Would it help to know the HP, Fencing and Defence levels of your enemies to see if they have an unfair advantage somewhere?
We already seem to have established that their weapons are not the problem. Right?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

All blocks are unsuccessful to some extent. The only question is how much damage you take, from very little to death.
Likewise offense is also unsuccessful as it is normal to deliver less than the minimum damage that your sword supposedly does. The only time you deliver good damage is if you get lucky and catch him while he is shooting you or is winding up for a stroke.

The HP is already shown and I just figure that high HP = high skills. Isn't there a toggle in the console that turns that stuff on?

 

[Skyworm]

You got THAT FAR in the TUTORIAL? I don't think that is quite intentional!

Arr. Fencing went up quite smoothly. You can just ask good old Malcolm. Since one does not die while fencing him, one can go up very fine. But nly in fencing, defence is far behind. Got fencing up to 8, while defence obly to 2.
But, fighting your way a few times through the dungeon at low level does the same thing ... you just have to reload more often.

You've use the console before, right? Execute:

PChar.skill.Fencing = 10;
PChar.skill.Defence = 10;

I am using console quite frequently. Will try give me those skills, and look if I do better.

I sign anything Hylie wrote.

Oh well, and to get a good impression of melee combat on low levels, just start that french fry game at apprentice. It starts with a duel. Took me 7 times to get this damned guy down.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

You can press the O key to load the "Character" menu for other characters and see what you're up against.

Not having seen these problems in action myself, what specific things would you like to change in the system?
Feel free to describe a whole new system; perhaps only by rewriting the attack and block code can we figure out what we want it to do.
We do need to go from "seeing problems" to "seeing potential solutions" though. What should we try?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Arr. Fencing went up quite smoothly. You can just ask good old Malcolm. Since one does not die while fencing him, one can go up very fine. But nly in fencing, defence is far behind. Got fencing up to 8, while defence obly to 2.

I found some code that prevents Defence skill from increasing during the Tutorial and in similar situations.
Also I distinctly remember that in the early game, you gain a LOT more XP than you otherwise would.
So your early actions define who you'll be for a large part.

Oh well, and to get a good impression of melee combat on low levels, just start that french fry game at apprentice. It starts with a duel. Took me 7 times to get this damned guy down.

Indeed that isn't the easiest duel. I remember that.

 

[Skyworm]

Cheers,

I just gave it a short try with defence 10 in the speightstown dungeon. Cheap armor., bosun's choice, fencing at 2 I think, apprentice level.

Now this was the very first time during my testing that I survived that dungeon without having to reload. So, yes, defence has a huge impact on the fencing. I still got damage, but not these one-hits. When hit damage was about half killing me. That could be countered by some healings then, so health was up again for the next enemy.

For me, it "felt" much better than before.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

So... Defence level of 10 makes for reasonable gameplay at the start? Perhaps we should then increase the effect of Defence by a factor of 10? Or at least a bit more than it is?

 

[Skyworm]

That would go in the right direction, though I don't know if defence is the best way to do so.

Basically, I'd like to change the ratio between "damage done and received" and "hitpoints available".
Actually ...
- my pistol shot kills an enemy instantly (possible)
- his pistol shot kills me nearly (reduce me to about 10% of hitpoints)
- swing with melee weapon can kill enemy with one hit
- enemy swing with melee weapon can kill me with one hit
Alls this leads to something I's call "mortal combat". It's just quick dying, on both sides.
Luck - good or bad - has a great impact on the result, and much of it is about who hits first.

I think hitpoint hace not been much changed since the original game, and damage of weapons too.
Now look - 65 hp early, a simple weapon dealing about 10-15 damage. That would mean 4-5 hits to cut one down.
Now we have shoot - slash - dead.

I'd like to have it less luck based, more player skill based.

When I block in the right moment (timing) I am safe. If I do it wrong, I get severely hurt. Something like that.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

About possible solutions instead of just venting............Do we all agree that combat was ruined in patch 6? That is my opinion.

I happen to have a patch 5 install on an old hard drive....... What folders would be good ones to compare to each other to find what got ruined?

 

[Skyworm]

Unfortunately, I can't say anything about patch 6. Haven't played it. I stuck with build 13 very long, and started with 14 when it was at 2.2 already.