Ranger Archive

Thread: Combat Revamp Ideas (Not specifically ranger related)

Owen-Lars
Wed Sep 08, 2004 6:22 am
#1
Some Possible Combat Revamp Changes


Over the time ive spent thinking about changes i would like to swg there are two that cover alot of different systems that i realy hope get attention. Lots just need tweaks but there are a few systems that have a lot of potential in changing the whole way swg combat works. So in that regard ive spent a little time making this short list of ideas on how i would like to see things. These ofcourse have very little relation to ranger skills however as we are often talking about combat changes in here i thought some of you may wish to read it.


The two things i would love to see changed coupled with weapons and armour tweaks and balances are:


  1. I would like ham costs to be removed from the game and instead have attacks on timers (ala COH, WOW)

  2. Buffs were out of the game andanother longer lasting and quicker buff system was in place






1: HAM& HAM COST:


HAM would change completely for me, the ham values of the person would depending on how much enhanment the player gets, how effective their armour is and how powerfull their shots are, here isa rundown of the ham set up as i would have it:


Primary Pools:


Health: This value is pure life, shots doing normal damage hit this pool.


Action: This value is your explosive energy, a player who attacks this is exhausting your energy supplies.


Mind: This value is your mind state. Players can target this pool with devastating effect.


Secondary Pools:


Toughness: This value replaces stregthand is used to calculate the protection you get from wearing armour. A high toughness rating means you geta higher protection rating in armours.


Power: This value replaces quickness and is used to calculate the power of your shot. A high power rating means a higher damage rating.


Focus: This value is used to calculate how much Energy you use. A high energy value means you drain less energy from your energy pool.


Regen Pools:


Constitution: Same as before, regen of pools


Stamina: Same as before, regen of pools


Willpower: Same as before, regen of pools


Special Pools:


Energy: The pool is unattackable and it is where the player drains energy by using specials. The bar goes down as each special is used and is calculated but taking into account the focus value and the weapon energy cost. This pool regens very fast when sat in camp or sat in a cantina.Ithas a fixed regen rate and when you run out of energy you cannot use specials until you have enough.


Battle Fatigue:Same as current BF, is accumulated during combat or excesive exersize. This value reduces the effectiveness of your medicines and effectiveness of your implants.



Probly the biggest thing you will notice here is thechange in secondary stats and the addition of the energy pool. This is to push the ham system forward and make ham count for something.As it currently standsanyone can get buffed for the same amount, they can all have the same armour effectivness (with the same armour item), ham has little impact on playstyle and you die when using specials.


I wantmove away from this and this new system would do that.Your toughness rating would be taken into account when calculating armour protection values. Basically when you buy an armour set it will have a set of values for each damage type and a focus cost. The damage values here are dependant on the quality of the armour and the skill of the armoursmith, the best armours will be very good indeed (but not 90% stuff, things would be balanced). When you put the armour on the protection values will be calculated using your toughness ratings so someone high in toughness will get a big bonus in armour protection over a low toughness player.


Power rathing in HAM now dictates the damage bonus you get when firing a weapon. Someone who is high in power value will get a bigger bonus to firing a weapon than a low power valued player. The bonus to damage is calculated using the power values of the player and the damage of the weapon.


The engery pool is something that has been added to move away from theHAM cost we have atm. Instead of costing health action and mind (which is essentially killing the player) the cost should be taken from an unattackable pool, more specifically the energy pool. This pool cannot be attacked and drains as you use specials, once the pool is drained you cannot use specials until you have enough energy. This prevents spamming, allows you to customise your character and gives a cost to using specials without killing the player, also not costing ham in the mind pool (an unhealable pool)


Another system that has been added is one that moves away from the combat delay we currently have. Basically i hate it, im stuck unable to heal or perform another ability because im suffering from the after effects of a shot ive carried out. This should not be the case. When using a special ability it should have a cost (to energy) and i agree with that, it prevents constant spamming of specials however instead of stopping a player from doing something for a certain amount of time because of a specific skill, the player should just not be able to perform the same move until it has 'recharged'.


What i mean is that say im an uncapped rifleman, i use a strafeshot2 and this gives a bigger delay than a headshot 1 would. Theproblem isnt that i get a delay after each shot or there is cost to firing a special, its because ive used a strafeshot2, i now cannot use a headshot until the after effects of the strafeshot2 have worn off. I dont like this. Each profession should have a base delay after each shot (riflemen being the longest delay) but this delay should not be effected by the special. Instead i would like to see a system where the specials themselves are regulated and delayed. Spamming a single move is bad and makes tactics redundant, having a system that allows you to use other skills in your arsenal and encourages the use of them can only be a good thing in my eyes.


A set of examples showing how the current systems and new system work:


Current:


Master Rifleman fires strafeshot2

Delayed from everything for x.xx seconds (non speed capped)

Master Riflemanfires strafeshot2

Delayed from everything for x.xx seconds (non speed capped)

/repeat


I dont like this, you use only the most powerfull shots because they are available to you, this means there is too much focus on dps rather than actual tactics.


New:


Master Rifleman fires strafeshot2

Strafeshot2 exhausted (10 seconddelay due to power of the shot)

Master Rifleman auto-fires at target

Master Rifleman fires flushingshot2

Flushingshot2 exhausted (8 second delay due to power of the shot)

Master Rifleman auto-fires at target

Master Rifleman Heals Himself for xxx

Master Rifleman auto-fires at target

Strafeshot2 recharged

Master Rifleman fires flurryshot2

Flurryshot2 exhausted (7 second delay due to power of the shot)

Flushingshot2 recharged

Master Rifleman fires strafeshot2

Strafeshot2 exhausted (10 second delay due to power of the shot)

Heal recharged

Many may not but i like the idea that the player is challenged to come up with good tactics to win a fight. A powerfull shot should not stop you from attacking more than others, just take longer to use again. Some specials can have combat delays such as a sniper ability for example but that should be seperate, normal specials should be on their own distinct timers to prevent spamming and encourage tactics.







2:IMPLANTS (replacement for buffs)


Implants would beadded to 'replace' the buff system. Basically you will be able to purchase implants from either docs or another profession. These implants are rated and are designed to allow the use of 'Enhancers'. The implants on their own do not do anything apart from allow you choose which type of enhancment you want depending on what it is, for example the Skeletal Reinforcment Implant controls direct access to your bones and will allow the use of the Defensive Enhancment, the The Hyper-Synaptic Implant links directly to your synaptic functions and allows the use of Offensive Enhancments however you can only have one implant installed at a time.Thereare variousenhancements you can have:



  • DefensiveEnhancmentPack (Health, Action, Mind, Toughness), this buff would be seen as the defensive enhancment, its gives you more life, therfore harder to take down. This enhancment pack is installed by a doctor

  • Offensive EnhancmentPacks (Stregnth, Focus), this buff would be seen as the offensive set up as it reduces the amount of energy you use, and increases the power of your shots, this is ofcourse at the cost of potential defensive bonuses. This pack is installed by a doctor.

  • State Of Mind Enhancment Packs (Constitution, Stamina, Willpower, Energy). This pack increases the time it takes for you to regenerate health action and mind values and also increases your energy values. This pack is applied by a musician or dancer and can be applied at the same time as the defensive and offensive packs (doesnt require implant)

The implants work as pre made components players can ask to be installed and each implant has a rating that 1: Indicates how many enhancment charges it will allow before breaking and 2: The enhancmenteffectiveness figure. The packs on the other hand have a power and duration figure.


The durability (1) figure could go up to a max of 50 uses and this means you can install up to 50 enhancment packsover its lifespan before you will need a new implant. The multiplyer figure (2) is used in the calculation of the enhancment value. All together your HAM base values, enhancment pack ratings, implant ratings and doctor/dancer/musician skill are all taken into account to calculate just how much of a buff you will recieve.


An example for how the buff system works using base ham values.


Example 1:


You have aDenfensive Implant with a durability rating of 50 andan effectivenessof 500. Your Health, action, mind, toughness are as follows: 1000,1000,1000, 500. Thedefensive enhancmentpack you use has adurability rating of 4 hours, and a power rating of 500.The way you would get thebuff is: firstyour base stats would be divided by the pack power rating, so Health: 2, Action: 2, Mind: 2, Toughness: 1. This value is then multiplyed by theimplant effectivenessfigure (500 in this case) which means: Health: 1000, Action: 1000, Mind: 1000, Toughness500. There is no change because this template is made for2x buffs. Theenhancer is applied by a doc with 100 enhancment rating giving 100% of the buff so the players ham now looks like this: Health: 2000, Action: 2000, Mind: 2000, Toughness: 1000 and will be like that for 4 hours.


This character is clearly tuned to a defensive set up but another example of a less powerfull person would be:


Example 2:


Implant rating of 400 durability of50 uses, HAM of 750/750/750/400 (H/A/M/T) and a pack rating of 500 for 3 hours. HAM / pack power = 1.5/1.5/1.5/0.8. These values are multiplyed by the implant rating of 400 = Health: 600, Action: 600, Mind: 600, Toughness: 320. The buff is applied to the player by a doc with 80 enhancment rating so only gets 80% of the buff. This results in an and ham value of: Health: 1230, Action: 1230, Mind: 1230, Toughness: 656 for 3 hours.


Hope this helps in showing the variation in results depending on the players HAM set up and the rating of the equipment/components.


Implants are crafted by either docs or perhaps droid engineers/bioengineers. These items as described earlier simply let you instal enhancment packs to them. The enhancment packs arebasically doc made buff packs that usemore resourcesthan a single pack currently does to offset to combined applications (4 stats in one for the defense pack). The overall resource cost would still be less so most likely the credit cost would also be less, however the main point is that the time it takes to apply the enhancer would be extremely reduced. You ask what pack you want in relation to your implant and bing, the dock applies the pack in one single charge.


This makes buffing up much more quicker, cheaper and overall limits yourdowntime so you canget back into pvp and combat right away without having serious costs related to death (refresh timeand credits). This should create a much more attractive and accesible pvp environment and hopefully increase pvp participation.







The main underlying concept of these ideas is to not make buffs less attractive, just make them cheaper, quicker to get, more specific, have base ham count andchange the wayspecials are used to promote tactics and thinking.


As for ranger specific changes im working on some easy to implement stuff at the moment related to the combat balance. They cover alot of areas.


Ranger changes in regard to these ideas would be certainly creature damage multiplyers, we wouldnt need to invest heavily in power because of damage mods would take care of that, also defense mods etc would be included, the list is endless on what things could effect rangers in this regard.


Ok that about does it. Sorry for being brief in parts, just brainstorming once again on how i would idealy like to see things.


Thanks for reading



THORTAC BALCOR
The Lost Ranger
RANGER
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