[HUGE PROBLEM] High-tier item balance (first post updated with suggestions!)

[Moss]

You're missing some pretty important details about how armour works.

Which is obvious if you've ever tried hitting a person in banded armour with a one handed sword, I can tell you it certainly doesn't take twenty hits to kill them.

This is from the module.ini:

# You can modify the damage system by editing the following values:
# The first three values determine the amount which will be directly subtracted from damage due to armor.
# The next three values determine the percentage reduction from the damage.

armor_soak_factor_against_cut      = 0.9
armor_soak_factor_against_pierce    = 0.75
armor_soak_factor_against_blunt    = 0.6

armor_reduction_factor_against_cut      = 1.0
armor_reduction_factor_against_pierce    = 0.5
armor_reduction_factor_against_blunt    = 0.75

Not having tested it out myself I can only guess exactly how they function. The second set can probably be interpreted as a percentage of the armour value as a percentage (i.e. an armour rating of 40 would give you a 40% reduction to cutting and a 20% reduction to damage from piercing weapons). The second set is harder to understand, as they wouldn't work as percentages.

If we take the top numbers as percentages of armour value, then an armour of 40 would subtract 36 points immediately as well as an extra forty percent from all cutting damage, which is obviously not the case. 24C damage + 40% for powerstrike + 40% for speed = 47 base damage. Armour rating of 40, so -38 to damage leaving it at 9, reduced by a further 40% makes it 5 damage. Which means at the very best it would take twelve hits from a sword to kill an opponent in heavy armour, which is obviously not the case.

Actually, I think I'll quickly test that, it's been a long time since I've had speed bonus reporting on.

Edit:
Yep, the damage values are more than twice as high.

 

[AWdeV]

Yes yes yes. The main skill needed to play this game with succes at times seems to be twirling and with a proper suit of proper property, you ain't gonna twirl fast enough. You'll get savaged from all sides, by the same single sodding sneak.

 

[CryptoCactus]

Just for everyone's reference, from The Man himself :

隐藏

Thank you for the suggesting it. The workaround I found for this is adding two new variables to module.ini file: armor_soak_multiplier and armor_percentage_reduction_multiplier. I am setting these to 0.5 and 1.0 now respectively for the native module. You can set them to 0.0 and 1.0 to make a fully percentage based system. To return to the old system one can set them to 1.0 and 0.0.

Okay, so that was really rather vague. Can someone describe the meaning of soak and reduction in precise mathematical terms? Especially which one is applied first? Thanks a lot!

We have this for .891:

armor_soak_factor_against_cut      = 0.5
armor_soak_factor_against_pierce    = 0.33
armor_soak_factor_against_blunt    = 0.25

armor_reduction_factor_against_cut      = 1.0
armor_reduction_factor_against_pierce    = 0.65
armor_reduction_factor_against_blunt    = 0.65

As far as I can determine, reduction is a percentage factor multiplied against damage. Soak is a subtraction against damage.

Sooo, for a blunt hit vs armor, say blunt damage rolled base=20 and armor value is armor=40. I'm guessing it's

Final damage = (base - (armor * 0.25))  *  (armor/100 * 0.65) = 2.6

Hmm looks a bit low. Can someone please clarify?

Hi Fisheye,

You have got it mostly right. The correct formula should be:

Reduced_damage =base_damage - (armor * 0.25) = 10
Final damage =  Reduced_damage * (1 -  (armor/100 * 0.65))  = 7.4

http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,26790.msg670028.html#msg670028

So that's how armor works, unless the formula's changed since then. Some confirmation from Armagan or someone would be nice

reduced_damage = base_damage - (armor * armor_soak_factor) = X
final_damage = X * (1 -  (armor/100 * armor_reduction_factor))  = Y

Also, I'm guessing speed modifiers are applied to base_damage, rather than final_damage, as it makes much more of an impact that way. Could be wrong though.

 

[Commoner]

reduced_damage = base_damage - (armor * armor_soak_factor) = X
final_damage = X * (1 -  (armor/100 * armor_reduction_factor))  = Y

This formula is actually on the right track by making the damage absorption from armor take on a percentage based armor reduction as well as a flat armor soak value. Even with this formula though, it is ludicrously hard to kill a player in the best tier armor with the lighter weapons but a simple matter to dispatch them with the heavier two handed weapons.

Let's try applying the new formulas to the examples I gave above. So, let's compute how well a short sword functions against a player with Banded Mail and Scale Gauntlets.

Short Sword vs. Banded Mail + Scale Gauntlets
(median of 31 per strike)

reduced_damage = base_damage - (armor * armor_soak_factor) = X
final_damage = X * (1 -  (armor/100 * armor_reduction_factor))  = Y

reduced_damage = 31 - (54 * 0.5) = 4
final_damage = 4 * (1  - (54/100 * 1)) = 1.84

number of strikes to kill armored player = 60 / 1.84 = 32.6

So, it takes about 32 hits with short sword slashes to kill someone in the best Nord armor. This is a marked improvement from the 60 hits we computed awhile ago, but still on the order of ridiculous in my opinion.

Now for the purpose of comparison, let's try to determine how many hits it would take from a Great Long Axe to take down the same target.

Great Long Axe Vs. Banded Mail + Scale Gauntlets
(great long axe has a median of 68 damage per strike)

reduced_damage = 68 - (54 * 0.5) = 41
final_damage = 41 * (1 - (54/100 * 1)) = 18.86

number of strike to kill armored player = 60/18.86 = 3.18

Thus, in roughly about 3 hits, the player with the Great Long Axe can take down a player in Banded Mail and Scale Gauntlets. This is in comparison to the player with the short sword who needs to make 32 successful attacks on the armored player in order to dispatch him.

In my opinion,  the new damage absorption  formulas is a big improvement from the old system that was presented in the Mount & Blade manual. However, as you can see, there is still a very large gap in the effectiveness of the lighter weapons as compared to heavy two handed weapons against when dealing with heavily armored foes.

I personally think that switching to pure percentage damage reduction is still a much more preferable option to the current formulas. With the current system of damage formulas being used,  heavy armor is simply way too effective at mediating damage from lighter weapons while at the same time giving very little actual protection against the heavy two handed weapons.

As I already explained above, using a pure percentage based damage reduction system for armor absobtion will go a long way in toning down the amount of protection the higher tier armor can provide against the lighter weapons while at the same time making very little difference against the heavy two-handed weapons. Which, to my mind, is a very important step in order to smooth out the overall balance issues between fighting with light weapons and fighting with the heavy two-handed weapons.