Dice removal (thoughts on Agility and skills)

[NikitaTheTanner]

I've been thinking a lot about a revamp of skills and attributes, with potential of adding perks and traits, but I will share these ideas later, once development reaches deeper stage and we can discuss on where to move forward.

I am pretty sure there will be purists, who would prefer to keep as much features as possible, even if they are slightly broken, and more functionalist guys like myself, who would prefer core gameplay to be more balanced, while sacrificing some of the game versatility. Even then there probably would be subdivisions among the two and we would probably have several versions of the game, although I hope we'll still be able to come together and discuss things.

For now, I've had ideas on how to remove dice-rolling in combat without sacrificing game balance. In original Daggerfall, weapon damage depends largely on Strength, while your hit chance depends on Agility and weapon skills. While it is an okay system, I would personally prefer to move into more modern action RPG systems (e.g. Oblivion or Skyrim), especially if later whole game will be converted into 3D as I hope. I am pretty sure that I am not the only one who thinks that way.

But what to do with Agility? In Oblivion it was only semi-useful, determining ranged weapon damage. I propose system inspired by Dark Souls, where different weapons scale differently with either Strength or Dexterity (Agility).

Example: Daggers will scale more with Agility, while Warhammers will scale primarily with Strength, and Longswords might provide a balanced mix of two, scaling equally with both attributes. This is just an example of how the system could work, the numbers and weapon types can be determined with some calculations.

In the end, hits do not miss, damage is determined by two attributes and weapon skills. Agile rogue will be better off with a dagger or a short-blade, while strong characters will benefit more from warhammers and flails. A balanced approach to leveling will give you a swordsman, which is also reasonable since swords are one of the harder weapons to master. Shortbows will rely on Agility more, while longbows will rely more on the Strength.

As for weapon skills, it would be best if they just determined damage. And not just scaled it, but provided better results. In original game weapons often have a wide margin of damage, like [1 to 6] or [3 to 16]. Weapon skills could effectively affect how likely you are to have higher damage. The damage would need to be adjusted, but that is my overall idea.

This can be a part of the future more complex system I am planning, but once calculations are done, it could also be implemented as its own feature. Removal of dice-rolling alone should be a great start of improving gameplay. As I am sure there are fans of the older style, it should be an optional mod, but I hope it will gain popularity. I personally prefer character actions determined by the character stats and player's actions, rather than dice.

If there is any coder, who liked the idea and would like to help implementing it, we can discuss details of this system and percentages. I am currently busy learning modeling and also thinking about some basic texture work within the game, sadly I am not too familiar with the coding process. I am also happy to discuss this particular feature with anyone else as well.

[kingOfWyrms]

The question of how to modernize Daggerfall is a very tricky one. Balancing between Player Skill and Character Skill is a fascinating subject. Action RPGs nowadays allow near full control of the character to the Player instead of relegating some of it to the computer, but doing that without in-depth systems that would be able to in a way replicate the range of a dice-based system causes the game to be very systematic. For example, in Skyrim, when I fight a Bandit, I always know how many strikes it'll take to kill it. Their HP and AR doesn't vary enough between instances of Bandits to cause any variation between how many strikes each can take, and the fact that the Player Character themselves has no random variation in damage output other than a possible Critical Hit with a Sword doesn't help. Obviously, this could be solved by randomizing enemy stats, which I see as the best option.

I think randomization would be best kept for the computer controlled objects, and try to remove as much of it as possible from things the Player Character would have reasonable agency in. Dice rolls in CRPGs encourage save-scumming, and though we can simply use self control and roll with the punches, when a difficult situation keeps killing you and you eventually win by luck of the dice, it very much goes against the idea of an RPG, choice and consequence.

It's a difference between realism and balance, immersion and skill. Because Daggerfall currently has no way of indicating how much health an enemy has left, I think the best option would be to randomize enemy stats and attack damage, but keep player actions as a set damage/spell cost/whatever. Should someone install an enemy health bar though, I think that would have to be thrown out the window. The idea, to me, is making something skill based, while unpredictable, which I realize may be a technical impossibility.

One last thing, an item that scales with Strength or Agility is fairly easy to balance, but something that scales with both is a lot more finicky. I have just spent over an hour trying to come up with an example formula, but I apparently need to go back to school. You can probably figure it out on your own, or someone with a better understanding of math can explain the many complicated different formulas that could be used, all to differing effects. Sorry I couldn't explain this part better. Suffice it to say that there are several scaling formulas that could be used for single-attribute scaling, and several different formulas on top of each of those on how to do dual-attribute scaling. Take this paragraph with a grain of salt though, I wouldn't totally trust someone who says they see a problem but can't understand the problem themselves.

[NikitaTheTanner]

For this topic I am more interested in mechanics of damage calculation. I do not think it requires a complicated formula.

What problems are there?

Let's say Daggers and Warhammers are polar opposites, just as an example.

Daggers might only scale with Agility, +1% Damage per point. Meaning +100% Damage at 100 Agility.
Warhammers are opposite, scaling only with Strength, Meaning +100% Damage at 100 Strength.

But what about other weapons?

Let's take Longswords as a medium ground. If it scales with both Strength and Agility equally, it means that it can't get +1% per point, that would make it OP (+200% Damage at 100 both). But if it scales only 0.5% per point, it would be scaling much slower than others (+100% Damage at 100 both).

I propose that Longswords could scale say at approximately +0.65% Damage per point of either Strength or Agility, capping at total +130% Damage. That is not too much and it would take longer time to cap, but it would also make it stronger in the late game.

Other weapons will have to scale somewhat in between, some gaining more from Strength, others more Agility. I don't think it is too complicated, over time it would become intuitive to most players. Also it could be reflected somewhere in the interface later on.

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As for other stuff:

NPCs' health will depend on their level and class, just like player's health. Classes of enemies in Daggerfall are quite varied and their level can depend on the zone encountered, like I've said in a proposal regarding deleveling the world.

Inside the zones, NPCs are randomly assigned a level within the range, thus their health is somewhat random. Some surprise encounters with higher or lower level enemies should also be possible in rare cases.

Creature levels and health will be more or less static, but with possibility of small variation among individual creatures. I am not against small randomization in terms of enemies stats, but it should be reasonable.

I also do not see a problem with enemy healthbars, though I am not sure if they are needed at all. I am more in favour of stripping as much UI as possible. But even if someone installs healthbars, I do not see how it could be detrimental.

[Jay_H]

I propose that Longswords could scale say at approximately +0.65% Damage per point of either Strength or Agility, capping at total +130% Damage. That is not too much and it would take longer time to cap, but it would also make it stronger in the late game.

I'd suggest making using the opposite approach: two-handed weapons would have the higher damage cap than one-handed weapons. With a Longsword you can hold a shield, but with a Daikatana or Warhammer you can't. The Longsword would become the most powerful choice by far once parity is met in terms of damage, since it would start to exceed two-handed weapons in both offense and defense. Ensuring that there is no one perfect choice requires players to consider, sacrifice, and plan out their builds, sometimes adapting to new circumstances.

NPCs' health will depend on their level and class, just like player's health.

This occurs in vanilla. To test it, use a save file editor and make your character level 50, and then find a randomly generated human outdoors. It'll take a few minutes to cut down its health. AndyFall showed that enemy health is determined by its class; the Overlord class had a very unbalanced health incrementor, so at level 5 you'd have to connect like 50 attacks to bring one down.

[NikitaTheTanner]

This occurs in vanilla.

That is true, I was just explaining it to the kingOfWyrms.

I'd suggest making using the opposite approach: two-handed weapons would have the higher damage cap than one-handed weapon

That is also true, but I am only talking about the scaling. The overall damage will still be higher with two-handed weapons, since their base damage is higher, but some one-handed weapons might have a better scaling.

E.g.
Longsword base damage let's say 10 pts. +130% scaling, Max damage = 23 pts.
Warhammer base damage let's say 15 pts. +100% scaling, Max damage = 30 pts.

If anything, it only makes weapons like Warhammers and Daggers better in the early game, since it is easier to reach 100 cap in either Strength or Agility, but it is harder to reach 100 cap at both Attributes.

Numbers are arbitrary, just for example. I will think all the numbers in detail, once I familiarize myself with vanilla system through and through.