[RPG/aRPG's] Skill damage = %weapon damage... WHY???
SorcererV1ct0r
Member Posts: 2,176
in Off-Topic
Why so many modern games are using this? Dragon Age 2/Inquisition, Torchlight, Diablo 3... On Diablo 2, is possible to complete the game naekd(video bellow). Sure, a magical wand increasing your skill level and allowing you to cast faster is one think. Everything become %WD simple makes weapon damage the most important stat. It reduces the difference of the skill level to simple a lucky factor. If you find a good weapon, the game is easy. If you don't find, the game is hard. You don't need to worry about resistances and other stats, only weapon matters...
It kils the entire difficulty progression and character progression. A fireball cast by a novice who learned the spell five seconds ago and for the most powerful wizard in world is the same. Only the weapon makes the difference.
No monk needs to train to have super human body, no sorc needs to pratice, everything resolves around have a big weapon and more heavy and sharp the axe is, more cold a wizard frost ray is and more muscle a monk's have to his punches and kickes(note that his weapons disappear during animations in most games). Even for bow skills, d2 did it right Exploding Arrow adds to bow damage, instead of multiplying.
Torchlight have this BUT at least allow you to have some customization of character. And it only not ruins caster classes, but ruins melee classes too. Armor, his own strength, everything becomes useless. But each time, more and more RPG's are doing this. It kills the immersion in any fantasy world.
I miss be able to do this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcrNAWmhv1w
Is like cooldown, is something that makes zero sense, most MMORPG's started to use and now every game have cooldown. Few games like PoE have few skills with cooldown.
It kils the entire difficulty progression and character progression. A fireball cast by a novice who learned the spell five seconds ago and for the most powerful wizard in world is the same. Only the weapon makes the difference.
No monk needs to train to have super human body, no sorc needs to pratice, everything resolves around have a big weapon and more heavy and sharp the axe is, more cold a wizard frost ray is and more muscle a monk's have to his punches and kickes(note that his weapons disappear during animations in most games). Even for bow skills, d2 did it right Exploding Arrow adds to bow damage, instead of multiplying.
Torchlight have this BUT at least allow you to have some customization of character. And it only not ruins caster classes, but ruins melee classes too. Armor, his own strength, everything becomes useless. But each time, more and more RPG's are doing this. It kills the immersion in any fantasy world.
I miss be able to do this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcrNAWmhv1wIs like cooldown, is something that makes zero sense, most MMORPG's started to use and now every game have cooldown. Few games like PoE have few skills with cooldown.
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If your damage output doesn't ever change, then a fight between two high level characters would take forever as they both hit each other 100+ times but do relatively minor grazes every time. This would get boring very fast. It also makes archery a real problem... you'd typically have to shoot someone over 100 times before it becomes fatal! So having a small increase in damage output as you level up kind of makes sense in a way, and unless you drastically reduce the number of HP you get when you level up, I think it's needed. Imagine if you could only ever do 1d8+2 damage to somebody with over 200 hitpoints, you'd be slugging away at each other for hours!
With regards to weapon damage being most important, let's face it, that was always the case with D&D especially, since there are no disadvantages to simply using the highest damage weapon you're able to. tbh, I don't really like D&D's combat system anymore, for that reason... but it's hard to come up with a combat system that's suitably realistic but fun and engaging at the same time.
As for cooldowns... I've always hated that mechanic. I just can't find a way to rationalise it... "I can do this reallly good attack that does even more damage or has a better chance to hit, but I can only do it once, for some reason, and must now continue using a less effective attack for the next 30 seconds!", but that mechanic seems to be popular, for some reason, which I guess is why so many RPGs do it. A lot of players find the combat classes "too boring" without a resource management mechanic (and obviously not playing a fighter isn't an option). I don't know who started the cooldowns mechanic but I wish it would go away.
/rantover
On DA:O the skills scale with character proficiency and attributes. On DA:2 and DA:I all skills scale with weapon. Your skills, attributes and etc doesn't matter. Only your weapon matters. On D&D get more damage as you level up makes sense since you become overall stronger. Also, a Monk can fight pretty well unarmed and casters can do it on D&D.
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About cooldown, i agree. It makes no sense. IMHO casting delay and casting time are better for stronger skills. To illustrate a difference, imagine as meteor spell :
- Cooldonw - Casts a meteor and by some reason can't cast again for X seconds
- Casting delay - Casts a meteor and the meteor takes Y amount of seconds to arrive and hit the enemy
- Casting time - The caster need to concentrate for Z seconds to "materialize" the meteor
IMHO cooldown is the worst mechanic of all and the mechanic who makes less sense.
Having said that, some ARPGs (e.g. Grim Dawn) have some spammable spells that don't scale off weapon damage, so you can build a character either way. Diablo 3 is not exactly the best specimen in the genre...
As for cooldowns, they are pretty much necessary for the pace of the game. These games are meant to be fast and furious, not waiting around for 3 minutes whilst your avatar finishes casting a spell. Not to mention they would have been overwhelmed and killed by swarms of enemies by then...
About cooldown, is a mechanic who doesn't make any sense. Look to PoE(path of exile), in PoE Storm Call have a "casting delay", takes a time to the "lighting" hit the target. Flameblast is a spell who more you "concentrate", more damage will deal.
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IMHO D2 did right with loot. Example? Look to my naked stats and eqquiped stats.
My stats naked
And eqquiped
My gear increases a lot of my golem's survavibility(only spend 1 point in golem), increases my number of revived monsters(since i've only spend 4 points), allow me to use sorc skills like meteor and firewall(to kill magic immune monsters without CE/Merc/Iron Golem), have a teleport charged item on "W") when i complete the set, i will get a vampire transformation and 25% DR. About the damage? 1,6k to 2,1k. Is not like i need all of my gear to kill the weakest imp on hell difficulty... But i wanna complete the set(head still missing) because i it will change more than numbers that means nothing...
I honestly love transformation skills on RPG's. IMHO beamdog should add vampire, lich, etc template into NWN:EE
One skill that i love on IWD is Tenser's Transformation.
Same as crossbows or guns - you enter combat ready to shoot at once, but after you do you have to reload.
Or a sprint - you can take off at breakneck speed, but then you need to catch breath before you're able to repeat it.
PS Not trying to defend it, though. It works great with turn-based mechanics, but is kinda weird and hard to manage in real time.
As for proper ARPGs it doesn't matter if cooldowns make sense - they are games not simulations!
Since nobody can materialize a meteor in real life, i think that depends if the game aims to make an believable world. cooldows, not only they don't make sense and break the immersion but cooldowns are a poor mechanic to balance skills and is very annoying.
PS : I agree on DA:2. Well, but you need to manually reload a gun, unless the crossbow have some magic or mechanism to reload then, i can't trow way my crossbow, use a knife for 5 sec than pick then again reloaded... On M&M VI-VIII there are no cooldown, but "Recovery Time" exists.
I think I'm done with Dragon age, and maybe Bioware games altogether. Their last couple games have just been cramming in all the crap I hate about MMOs and shoe horning in unrelated multiplayer. Their next game sounds like they're just doing mass effect's multiplayer, so no interest in that. And plus, needing origins to play this crap, makes me think twice about playing anything they put out, these days.
I had other issues with the game, but I will say Pillars of Eternity did an awesome job with the crossbows and firearms. You can start the combat with them loaded up, but reloading takes time. So a great strategy was to have pretty much the whole party start with an opening salvo, then the melee guys switch to their hand to hand weapons and close in. Some people even made builds around extra weapon slots and carried like 3-4 guns, just to keep switching to a loaded weapon. It was the same reason you used to see some cowboys carrying 2 revolvers. You can't fire 2 guns at once and hit anything more than a few feet away, your eyes and the sites don't work that way. They would just switch to the second gun, so they wouldn't have to reload.
As somebody who has done fencing for over 10 years, having combat work like that makes no sense at all to me. D&D3e got it right with different moves/styles of fighting you can try, but they were either modal (power attack/expertise), or attempts to do something like trip or disarm your opponent, doing no damage and provoking an opportunity attack (hence it could be spammed but you'd be risking a lot by doing that... just like in real life). I know it's a game and not a simulator, but that doesn't mean "anything goes". But the majority obviously feels differently, I suppose, because most RPGs have that mechanic, and game developers aren't stupid. They know what people want.
Also, a side rant: why do no CRPGs take into account special properties of weapons, and simply reduce it to "this one hits harder than that one", meaning there's no reason to use anything other than the hardest hitting weapon you're capable of using? The only tabletop RPG I've seen do this is Warhammer FRP.
Now in Diablo, there isn't any clear cut divide between casters and non-casters. Anyone can learn to add some magic to their attacks, down to the lowliest rogue henchman being able to fire ice arrows. Thus, it makes sense for magic and physical attacks to work the same way: want to hit someone harder? - get a bigger sword; want to zap someone harder? get a better wand. It's also worth remembering that at the end of Diablo 2 Tyrael presses the reset button on the world, so there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for why magic works differently in part 3.
In D&D, I think wands/staves/crystal balls etc aren't needed, but in later versions of D&D, they can improve your magic abilities. I seem to remember that being a thing... or is it a case of "the game assumes you have a basic one (just like it assumes you have a set of lockpicks), but if you buy a better one you get bonuses"?
But overall, I guess finding better weapons is part and parcel of modern RPGs... the whole idea is to gradually improve your character from a poor farmer into a badass hero, and to keep players interested, most writers feel they have to keep fuelling that improvement constantly. I remember coming back to Baldur's Gate after playing NWN for a while, and being surprised at how long it took me to level up, because I'd gotten used to the idea of being level 3 by the end of the prologue.
Trouble is, if you keep feeding advancement too much, you get to the point where it becomes meaningless. You find a new and impressive sword, and you just as quickly throw it away when you find an even better one half an hour later. I'd prefer it if there are a few really good weapons and you pick one that works for your character and stick with it for much of the adventure... like in Baldur's Gate.
I think many developers are convinced that people just don't have the patience that they used to, and want everything given to them straight away, so they feel like they must continually grant players increased power.
So in HP universe, is something that probably you can expect only for a Dumbledore-like wizard to archive.
I like NWN1 because is possible for someone at mid level defeat a high level with strategy, information and planning.
Like the battle vs two dragons
This is why I don't like D&D at high levels... 6-8 is a good range for a soft cap, I think, it works around that range, but once you get to level 10 and beyond the game becomes seriously broken. In my opinion, of course.
Master needs to know what your part is capable and trow good challenges, but is possible to have an balanced experience even at epic levels.