Solved Rebalancing the Fighting System

Pieter Boelen · Jun 9, 2013

Baste said:
Then I understand. In the stock game you aren't really safe as your blocks can still be pierced, but you can indeed get hit from behind while blocking without taking damage.

Is that not possible anymore? I don't remember anyone adding in direction-dependent code. :shock

Skyworm · Jun 9, 2013

I am not 100% sure about directions, but I remember well that in stock game, and I think up to Build 13, too, you could deal with a whole lot of enemies alone. Sure they were somewhat surrounding you. When pressing the block key one was perfectly safe from any blade damage then.

Maybe it is not directions that have been changed, but number of enemies. It is much harder top block blows from 2 enemies than from one, especially, if one is attacking from behind, and you don't even see him attacking. Then, he may strike at the very moment your block is down while you are striking at the guy in front. Just an idea.

Skyworm · Jun 9, 2013

Cheers Baste,

and thanks for looking in, for you seem to know a lot more about this than we do! :dance

Baste said:
It's quite peculiar that you find that the Defense skill lowers damage taken in melee combat, because the Defense skill is not used in any melee damage calculation.

I think we got to that conclusion mainly because defence is skilling when we are blocking *shrug*

The only skills used in melee damage calculations are Melee and Luck.

Now, at least it is good to know this for sure now.

Not only are Melee and Luck used for melee damage calculations, but difficulty as well. The higher the difficulty, you do less damage to enemies and they do more damage to you. This could be part of the reason why combat is hard.

Sure, that's what I'd expect from a higher difficulty level. And that's the reason to choose it.

About blocking being changed so that it is not always working, what does that mean? Blocking does not always work as it is in the stock game. It is possible for blocks to be pierced depending on weapons used, the contenders' Melee skill, and which abilities they have.

I don'`t exactly know how the mechanic was in stock game, but I remember 2 points:
1. When blocking (=pressing the block key), you got no or much less damage then otherwise. Thus, you could cover behind bloxk and drink potions and hold out against many enemies. Kind of boring, and kind of overpowered.
2. There were no enemies that stuck you down with 1 or 2 blows. Oh well, except maybe two, in entire game, those two being in that Assassin sidequest.
So basically, I'd say ins tock game, blocking was always working.

Now I think there are different ways to have blocking not always working.
1.
- By adding random factors to blocking, means, even if you press block key, the action may still fail.
- By adding random factors to piercing. Even if you block, it can be pierced.
- Make this piercing damage close to what it would have been completely without block.
This then results in a system, where it does less matter, what you do (=press the block key when attacked), and where it matters more what some random factors do, that you can not influence. Resulting in guys striking you down with 2 blows and you being unable to do anything about it.
This is what we actually have. There are these guys that are simply invincible, because they are piercing through your block all the time. And you don't survive this. Only solution here in game play is to avoid this combat, or to use god mode to cheat it.
These guys are the really frustrating ones.
The frustration comes from doing the right thing, and still loose.

2.
What I was thinking of, was a way to decrease those random factors about oiercing and blocks not working, and replace them by something a player can influence. Something of that:
You need to block timed to the attack of your opponent. Much like it was done in Sid Meiers Pirates. Covering behind blocks for minutes being impossible, because blocking would be a short timed action that needs to happen when your enemie is attacking you, not 5 seconds before. Just one idea.

But I understand such a thing would be difficult. So now I'm coming back to Pieter ....

I'm thinking perhaps playing on lower difficulties isn't such a bad idea. Up the challenge by enabling all realism settings and salary modifiers and such instead.

Exactly my point. Only problem with this is, that lower difficultiy level will affect many other aspects of the game, too, such as ship to ship combat, and the economic challenge.
If I had the fee choice, I would set naval combat and economy difficulty to swashbuckler, and melee to apprentice or journeyman. Unfortunately, we don't have such an option. Or could we? That would be my suggestion here.
It would also be a solution that won't cut into game experience for those who like melee as it is.

Hylie Pistof · Jun 9, 2013

I took some screenies that illustrates the problem. The first is at level 14. Note the skills. The next is level 16 as I arrived at Jamaica. The last is just before leaving Jamaica after buying and selling lotsa goods including the golden cuirass, getting ships repaired, repairing dozens of swords, and fighting in the dungeon. Note the melee particularly.

Skyworm · Jun 9, 2013

Unfortunately, I still can not upload any pics, well then:

It is possible to bring up melee higher perhaps if you start early. I started "stormy start" at Seahawk storyline at Jamaica, and went into the dungeon to practice after I repaired my first blade.
Melee is now 95% 6-5, wearing battle cuirass. Character is at level 6.

Gnaah, Hylie, I envy your leadership .... :pirate07:

Pieter Boelen · Jun 9, 2013

You should be getting more Leadership now with yesterday's change, no?

Maybe I'm going to have to do some playtesting myself; see how the whole skill progression goes. Indeed I do see it being stuck there. :shock

I did once think about putting some event handlers to make a block ineffective after a certain time has elapsed.
But I'm not sure that can be done. I seem to remember trying that before and failing.
Such a function should replace the current system, I imagine, not be in addition to it. Then it would just become harder.

For the difficulty, search your PROGRAM folder for GetDifficulty .
Not sure how much I like splitting the different difficulties. Get more settings. Again. :facepalm

Hylie Pistof · Jun 9, 2013

Leadership and Luck are tied together. I talk to the townfolk constantly to build them up.
In this game I ignored combat early on for some reason. If it were not for the tattoo and a teacher my melee would still be 1.

Hylie Pistof · Jun 10, 2013

Hylie Pistof said:
I took some screenies that illustrates the problem. The first is at level 14. Note the skills. The next is level 16 as I arrived at Jamaica. The last is just before leaving Jamaica after buying and selling lotsa goods including the golden cuirass, getting ships repaired, repairing dozens of swords, and fighting in the dungeon. Note the melee particularly.
View attachment 10844 View attachment 10845 View attachment 10846

I did it all by meself!!! I got one full point to melee!! :bird:

It turns out that after losing some officers in some tuff fights I started getting melee points again. It is not an ideal way to do it as those officers are expensive.

Pieter Boelen · Jun 10, 2013

It also doesn't sound particularly logical that losing officers give fencing skill.

KillPhil · Jun 10, 2013

if it helps: I was editing the fencing since playing this build mod because it was way too hard.

You had ideas about increasing the HP you get per level. That wont work. The Enemies level up too and then they will have way more HP than you.

BUT it was very helpfull for me to increase the basic HP value from beginning (changed it from 40 to 80 i think).

And I edited the block params for some weapons I tested. I changed the Block-Values for "normal" weapons to 40-50% and just for testing for the "super-weapons" (like the officier-sabers) I changed them to 90%.
Result: normal weapons work fine, there is a good chance for a 100% succesfull block but not all the time. And I think when the block isnt succesfull, you get way less damage. The weapons with 90%+ blocking are blocking nearly every time. If they dont block you get maybe 5 HP damage, so that would be too much.

But I think it helps to generally increase the block parameters for all weapons. On the one hand it makes the fencing a bit easier and on the other duels are way more interesting. because if you get a good enemy, he will block quite as good as you. So duels have a much longer duration, which is in my opinion better than "2 hits through the block and dead", which makes blocking a bit senseless.

Just had an idea: Is it possible to set the defense-skill and the blocking values from the blades in a relation? So if your defense skill is good, the block-parameter of the blade goes up?

Skyworm · Jun 10, 2013

Ah ... that sounds logical. Increasing start HP was one Idea I had myself, though not yet tried it. Thanks for that input.

In my new game I have concentrated much on fencing from early on, both in weapon selection and in practice. I found that it was much more doable than I thought, and I can say that player experience has a great impact. But for having any learning curve, you need to get into duel style fights, any group combat is just too random and too chaotic to learn anything.
But in duels, I noticed that blicking indeed works well if you do it right - at least in most of any cases. Especially, if you focus on a good defence weapon like the wallon sword early on.
But there are still those guys that cut you down and you don't stand a chance to block them of hurt them yourselves. In some cases it worked to shot them ... :guns:

Also, I can now prove that it is definitely melee and not defence that has a big im pact. Had some group fights and some officers with low melee, but high defence, and high melee, buit low defence. The ones with low melee died much quicker all the time.

Perhaps one siomple thing that can be done with melee combat is indeed increasing the start HP a bit. It will make it somewhat easier to begin with, and it won't spoil the game for those who enjoy it in late game ... it doesn't matter much if you have 440 HP or just 400 ... but at start it makes a huge difference if you have 40 or 80.

Baste · Jun 10, 2013

Melee doesn't increase faster even when starting a new game with the file I uploaded? I increased the Melee skill's advancement multiplier and lowered it for the Defense skill, so it should make a difference:

Code:

if (_exp < 1000)
    {
        switch (expName)
        {
//        case "Leadership":    expMult =  3; break;    // LDH 30Apr09
        case "Fencing":        expMult =  6; break;    // Baste - for Beta 2.4 testing! Do not include in build yet!
        case "Sailing":        expMult =  1; break;    // included for completeness
        case "Accuracy":    expMult =  1; break;    // included for completeness
        case "Cannons":        expMult =  1; break;    // included for completeness
        case "Repair":
            expMult = 50;                            // repair is a lot of small skill gains, minimum of 20 sent by repair functions
            if (sti(_refCharacter.rank) < 3)        // keeps player from getting repair skill 5 or 6 in the tutorial - 25Feb09
            {
                expMult = 20;
            }
            break;
        case "Defence":        expMult =  3; break;    // Baste - for Beta 2.4 testing! Do not include in build yet!
        case "Sneak":        expMult =  3; break;
        }
    }

If it doesn't work, I'll try a change in LAi_fightparams.

Skyworm · Jun 10, 2013

Cheers,

Pieter Boelen said:
You should be getting more Leadership now with yesterday's change, no?

Not yet Pieter. I did not devbide plunder. I'm sailing now since 4 month and I want to go for as close as 6 as possible. Unfortunately, that means I don't got anyleadership yet, skill is at 2 actually thanks to an item I bought. I think after I robbed Cuba blind, 'll devide plunder and then I'll see what the chances do :cheers

Maybe I'm going to have to do some playtesting myself; see how the whole skill progression goes. Indeed I do see it being stuck there.

What is stuck?

I did once think about putting some event handlers to make a block ineffective after a certain time has elapsed.
But I'm not sure that can be done. I seem to remember trying that before and failing.
Such a function should replace the current system, I imagine, not be in addition to it. Then it would just become harder.

Perhaps there is an easier way then?
Increasing start HP doesn't sound too bad I think.
And I think weapons are worked on actually ... perhaps it would be possible to giv players access to a decent defensive weapon early. A simple thing like a cutlass ... not much damage, but perhaps with a much more decent blocking bonus?
Just to keep players alive early.

Not sure how much I like splitting the different difficulties. Get more settings. Again.

Aye, sort of counteracting your effords. Indeed I am sorry for that ... on the other hand, I would like sort of a change that does not affect the gameplay of those who actually like the system. I understood that there are some.

Pieter Boelen · Jun 10, 2013

Skyworm said:
What is stuck?

If you look at the Fencing skill in Hylie's screenshots, between them it doesn't increase even a single %.

Skyworm said:
Aye, sort of counteracting your effords. Indeed I am sorry for that ... on the other hand, I would like sort of a change that does not affect the gameplay of those who actually like the system. I understood that there are some.

Hopefully our efforts now can lead us to a situation where we can keep just the one difficulty setting. :wp

(Adding more is easy enough in theory. Adding it to all the dialogs and interfaces? Not so much.)

Skyworm · Jun 10, 2013

Pieter Boelen said:
If you look at the Fencing skill in Hylie's screenshots, between them it doesn't increase even a single %.

That's strange, yes. I noticed it oes not overall later, when I reached a certain level, but in my new game, I tried to get it up early on and that worked well.

Hopefully our efforts now can lead us to a situation where we can keep just the one difficulty setting.
(Adding more is easy enough in theory. Adding it to all the dialogs and interfaces? Not so much.)

Perhaps something that is in InternalSettings.h? I'd be fine with that.

Pieter Boelen · Jun 10, 2013

Skyworm said:
Perhaps something that is in InternalSettings.h? I'd be fine with that.

So not changeable in-game at all. You'd be welcome to add it. :shrug

Hylie Pistof · Jun 10, 2013

Pieter Boelen said:
It also doesn't sound particularly logical that losing officers give fencing skill.

Losing officers does not give fencing skill, but later it started moving again. I have noticed this before and forgotten.
Note to self. When melee stops increasing hire a sacrificial lamb. :nerbz

It is known that the opponents are at a higher level than you are. How much higher is their level? I am thinking about one Captain I fought at level 14 who had to be at least at level 22 going by his HP.

I own a cutlass and it is a poor defensive weapon because of its bad balance. It would be better to make the starting sword something like the Waloon or the Milanese sword.

Baste · Jun 10, 2013

The way I understand it, the level of opponents is calculated like this: Half of player's level + random number up to player's level - player's Luck divided by 3 x 2 divided by 3 plus difficulty value minus 1 divided by 5 + 0.5

That looks complicated, and I'm not sure if I expressed it correctly mathematically. Here it is in LAi_CreateOfficer, for both officers and opponents:

Code:

if(isfriend)
    {
        nRank = makeint((pRank/2.0 + Rand(pRank) + (pLead / 3.0) + (pLuck / 3.0)) * (2.0/3.0 + (4.0-makefloat(GetDifficulty()))/5.0) + 0.5);
    }
    else
    {
        nRank = makeint((pRank/2.0 + Rand(pRank) - (pLuck / 3.0)) * (2.0/3.0 + ((makefloat(GetDifficulty())-1.0)/5.0)) + 0.5);
    }

As Pieter showed, Swashbuckler's difficulty value is 4.

Also, I don't mean to nag, but I would like some confirmation on whether or not my changes to the file I uploaded works.

Don Lasagnetti · Jun 10, 2013

Baste said:
Also, I don't mean to nag, but I would like some confirmation on whether or not my changes to the file I uploaded works.

Sure, downloaded your file and going to test it now! :duel:

Hylie Pistof · Jun 10, 2013

I did not install it as I wanted to continue with the current game, but did just install it. Off we go again. :pirates

Solved Rebalancing the Fighting System

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