-FN-
07-02-06, 02:57
Constitution, Heals, and the Balance of defense...
This is an ongoing document of mine that is constantly changing. Kind of like a "If I win the lottery and can afford to buy Reakktor" file, lol - I'm sure a week from now it'll be different. But with the tentative 'balancing' coming up, I figured I'd throw it out as-is to start some conversation and get some Community Ideas for Dirus to work with on the table :)
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= WHO'S WHO? =
The way I see it, the PE is your average, blue-collar, Joe. The Spy is your average, scrawny, computer geek. The Tank is a crack addict on PCP. The Monk is a freak of nature that uses mental power to compensate for... stuff.
So when any of these classes take/deal damage, you have to put the order of that process into effect:
Total Damage Attempted -> Damage Blocked via Armor (calculate which takes the most damage depending on the damage type) -> Damage Naturally Resisted -> then reduce the overall damage by whatever Shelter/Deflector Block -> Evaluate how THAT CLASS would recover
The Tank should take the least damage and recover the fastest.
Regant orders the Psi Monks to use their knowledge of genetic engineering [...] for breeding a stronger and more robust warrior. The Psi Monks, who have studied genetic engineering ever since Thor's capture of Neocron and the introduction of the new doctrine, pursue this task most intensely and develop a prototype, which they call GenTank, after just a few months. The GenTank can be produced as a fully trained warrior in a short amount of time and has all the characteristics Regant requested.He's genetically engineered to be a warrior and have genetically enhanced reflexes and tactical abilities. They should be able to take a lickin' and keep on kickin'.
The PE should take the second least amount of damage and recouperate moderately fast. Not as fast as the tank, but surely faster than the Spy.
The Spy should be relying on speed and stealth to survive. Any damage taken should hurt like a bitch and take a bit recover from... but that's only if he takes the damage.
The Monk should take the MOST damage, but providing his PSI Buffs are up, be adequately compensated during the damage reduction.
= CONSTITUTION AND NATURAL RECOVERY =
In this order, what SHOULD they all have in common? Constitution. The Tank should have the highest, as he does, the PEs second, and the Monks and Spies should be tied for third, both compensating with their Constitutional-shortcomings via PSI and Technology, respectively. So the initial damage is pretty easy to see and compute... however, when they recover:
The Tank should bounce back relatively fast. Even without a heal, he should be regenerating his HP faster than any other class. Each class should then follow suit with regard to natural regeneration. Of course they all have their compensations, but their base regen should be set in stone regardless. I'd like to see self-regeneration time based on Constitution. For every 10 points of CON you have, 1 point of HP is healed back per tick. In this scenario, a Tank would heal back 100 HP on his own in 10 seconds IF his CON is 100-109. However a PE would only heal back 60 points over 10 seconds with 'capped' CON. And the Spy and Monk would trail behind at 4 points per tick. Then monks with their slowest heal would have PSI heal to compensate, Spies would have the low PSI Heal + Medkits + Stealth, and PEs would have a little of all of the worlds, as intended.
Alternatively, a new STR skill could be added (since it's the most lacking of the 5) called Regeneration. Or maybe it's a CON skill, but I'd rather see it in STR for the sheer fact that it would be the target of Tanks without forcing other characters to spec it. The skill would simply be a minor modifier or addition on this regneration ability. So a 100 CON tank with 50 points in Regeneration might heal up 15 points per tick instead of 10. 1 extra point per 10 Regen points. So a tank *could* heal 20 per tick, which would be sexy... but his damage output, force resist, or transport, would be pretty heavily nerfed. See the '= WEAPONS: DAMAGE, FREQUENCY, ETC =' section below before you freak out and think this will make tanks overly unbalanced.
= ARMOR =
Next, we come to Armor. The heavier the armor, the better defense it should provide. The heavier the armor, the harder it should be to wear. Tanks should have the best armor with their STR/CON advantage. At the moment, Monks do because of the way the game's offensive mechanics are designed. Monks should have armor that is crappy to nonexistent and truly rely on their PSI abilities to defend them. Half of the "overpowered" monk issue is that their defenses are exponentially better than other classes from the get-go because their Holy Spirit armor provides for ~65 Force, ~72 Pierce, ~58 Fire, ~172 energy, and ~42 xray resists! Then they have 45 CON to distribute and access to Heavy Belts. Then add the Holy Shelter's 51-75% fir/enr/xry damage blocking... COME ON!? Why any PPUs die at all is nearly unfathomable. If PSI Monks can have low con/low str armor that is light, easy to wear, and saves them from the elements that much, why did they ever need GenTanks? And why don't GenTanks have armor that lightweight that does equal protection? Hell, a GenTank could wear strap 4 PSI vests onto their arms and legs, then pile a few on their chest, and be good to go!
The Tank's line of armor should have more variety and tanks themselves should be RE-designed to have a Defense and Offense set of setups. Armor that requires more CON, has higher defense, but restricts usage of weapons (+25 to a resist, -10 to H-C or something). So the Defense based Tank would be balanced with the Offense based tank in a 1v1 duel. The Offensive tank does more damage, but the Defensive tank resists it. After the first volley of attacks, a Defense Tank would lose 10% of his health to 50 inflicted damage while the Offense Tank would also lost 10% of his health to 50 inflicted damage, even though the Defensive Tank's damage is not as high as the Offensive Tanks... Going to attack an OP? Get your Offensive setup on! Going to be holed up inside the OP on the defensive line? Get that defensive armor on. But no matter what, Tank armor should be superiour to all other classes armor. Not to say other classes can't have a singular peice of armor that does 100 resist of one type (a la Spy PA), but it should be balanced to the point where that gain shows up as a loss somewhere else.
The PE's line of armor should give them a little more variety as well, but overall their armor defense is pretty well balanced. Middle of the road Inq, Duranit (not Duranium) availability, and Titan/Viper King usage coupled with low level PSI buffs is good. Aside from more bone configurations, PEs are pretty much set.
The Spies are alright where they are. They almost have too much xray when it comes to armor + bones, but if more bone types were introduced, that could be balanced better. Somehow, technology should play into their armor though... I was hoping for something like armor that requires 100 T-C called a "Variable Defense" Suit (I can hear TRADE-NC already... "WTS - VD for 500k" :lol:). This armor basically has 125 points of resist that can be changed ON THE FLY. So you go out to Battledome to hunt warbots, via some interface (right-click on the armor, activate/use?), you adjust your armor resist points to 125 Energy points. Then you go to Cycrow later to hunt firemobs, adjust them to Fire points. Then you're in PvP later and your character's setup is weak on Xray and Fire, so you split them into 90 Xray and 35 Fire, but after the first few hits, it's a Fire-Modded Weapon, so you stealth away, heal up, and shift your armor to fire... one can dream, right?
Then you've got your monks... Their 'top-of-the-line' armor shouldn't give them more than 50 in ANY stat, in my opinion.
Physically, the Psi Monk is at a considerable disadvantage due to his historical evolution. Even with the greatest effort, it is nearly impossible for him to become a good fighter in the traditional sense.
Lies. All lies! :lol: Monks should be relying on their PSI for their defense, hands down. They rely on it for their offense, but get the best of the armor AND PSI worlds and the middle-of-the-road in the CON world. It just doesn't add up. However, to retain the defensive superiourity of PPUs, I'd suggest bringing additional resist bonus to PPU Powerarmor and only offensive bonuses to APU Powerarmor. A PPU should still be able to stand on his own in a high-level cave or run away from several damage dealers. The APU however, should NOT be a god-like character... if he were, the history of NC would be COMPLETELY different. APUs should get low-end armor, spy-like Constitution, and retain their place as highest overall damage dealer.
What was planned as a short strike becomes the longest military conflict in the history of the new world. While Ceres dispatches his armored warriors to the battlefield, the Psi Monks raise one Tank after the other and the factories spew out thousands of hover tanks.
That's from the NC history in a battle between Ceres's Warbots and Regant's Troops. Firstly, Tanks on the forefront and Monks backing them up - that's the way it was originally designed. If TODAY'S monks were in that battle, it would've been:
What was planned as a short strike becomes the shortest conflict in the history of the new world. APUs pwned every warbot because they do energy damage and the PSI monk armor, coupled with Holy Shelters, made them nearly invincible.
:p And secondly - HOVER TANKS? I WANT THOSE! :D
= SHELTER, DEFLECTOR, and HEAL =
The effects of Shelter, Deflector, and Heal should be based on a character's PSI skill. Tanks receiving the least (still getting the benefit mind you) benefit from S/D/H, Spies not recieving much either (pretty much stay where they are), PEs should be able to get into level2 buffs and Blessed buffs at a 'reworked' level so they can just barely reach them, and Monks should get the most out of S/H/D.
Alternatively, Heal could be based on CON instead of PSI, but that would bring the PPU back into the realm of necessity when leveling, pvping, etc., which I hate. I personally think that a Tank with his self-regen and a medkit, should stand a decent chance against an APU and PPU - why? Mainly because the PPU should NOT be directly effecting combat as he currently does (i.e. Para & Damage Boost). An APU/PPU team should really be more like sending an APU who rivals a tank with high damage output and reasonable defense because of the PPU into the ring with an all-out-killing-machine who already has those things all wrapped up into one... his restriction is reloading, bearing the weight of a huge weapon, and the aiming reticle. The APUs restriction is TIME. When his buffs fall, he's weak and should drop fast. Granted, the APU/PPU team should win based on the fact that the APU can get a heal... but it should still be an extended fight. Had you put a PPU on the Tank's side, he should win HANDS DOWN. More HP, More defense, high damage output. That's just not the way it is currently.
This is an ongoing document of mine that is constantly changing. Kind of like a "If I win the lottery and can afford to buy Reakktor" file, lol - I'm sure a week from now it'll be different. But with the tentative 'balancing' coming up, I figured I'd throw it out as-is to start some conversation and get some Community Ideas for Dirus to work with on the table :)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
= WHO'S WHO? =
The way I see it, the PE is your average, blue-collar, Joe. The Spy is your average, scrawny, computer geek. The Tank is a crack addict on PCP. The Monk is a freak of nature that uses mental power to compensate for... stuff.
So when any of these classes take/deal damage, you have to put the order of that process into effect:
Total Damage Attempted -> Damage Blocked via Armor (calculate which takes the most damage depending on the damage type) -> Damage Naturally Resisted -> then reduce the overall damage by whatever Shelter/Deflector Block -> Evaluate how THAT CLASS would recover
The Tank should take the least damage and recover the fastest.
Regant orders the Psi Monks to use their knowledge of genetic engineering [...] for breeding a stronger and more robust warrior. The Psi Monks, who have studied genetic engineering ever since Thor's capture of Neocron and the introduction of the new doctrine, pursue this task most intensely and develop a prototype, which they call GenTank, after just a few months. The GenTank can be produced as a fully trained warrior in a short amount of time and has all the characteristics Regant requested.He's genetically engineered to be a warrior and have genetically enhanced reflexes and tactical abilities. They should be able to take a lickin' and keep on kickin'.
The PE should take the second least amount of damage and recouperate moderately fast. Not as fast as the tank, but surely faster than the Spy.
The Spy should be relying on speed and stealth to survive. Any damage taken should hurt like a bitch and take a bit recover from... but that's only if he takes the damage.
The Monk should take the MOST damage, but providing his PSI Buffs are up, be adequately compensated during the damage reduction.
= CONSTITUTION AND NATURAL RECOVERY =
In this order, what SHOULD they all have in common? Constitution. The Tank should have the highest, as he does, the PEs second, and the Monks and Spies should be tied for third, both compensating with their Constitutional-shortcomings via PSI and Technology, respectively. So the initial damage is pretty easy to see and compute... however, when they recover:
The Tank should bounce back relatively fast. Even without a heal, he should be regenerating his HP faster than any other class. Each class should then follow suit with regard to natural regeneration. Of course they all have their compensations, but their base regen should be set in stone regardless. I'd like to see self-regeneration time based on Constitution. For every 10 points of CON you have, 1 point of HP is healed back per tick. In this scenario, a Tank would heal back 100 HP on his own in 10 seconds IF his CON is 100-109. However a PE would only heal back 60 points over 10 seconds with 'capped' CON. And the Spy and Monk would trail behind at 4 points per tick. Then monks with their slowest heal would have PSI heal to compensate, Spies would have the low PSI Heal + Medkits + Stealth, and PEs would have a little of all of the worlds, as intended.
Alternatively, a new STR skill could be added (since it's the most lacking of the 5) called Regeneration. Or maybe it's a CON skill, but I'd rather see it in STR for the sheer fact that it would be the target of Tanks without forcing other characters to spec it. The skill would simply be a minor modifier or addition on this regneration ability. So a 100 CON tank with 50 points in Regeneration might heal up 15 points per tick instead of 10. 1 extra point per 10 Regen points. So a tank *could* heal 20 per tick, which would be sexy... but his damage output, force resist, or transport, would be pretty heavily nerfed. See the '= WEAPONS: DAMAGE, FREQUENCY, ETC =' section below before you freak out and think this will make tanks overly unbalanced.
= ARMOR =
Next, we come to Armor. The heavier the armor, the better defense it should provide. The heavier the armor, the harder it should be to wear. Tanks should have the best armor with their STR/CON advantage. At the moment, Monks do because of the way the game's offensive mechanics are designed. Monks should have armor that is crappy to nonexistent and truly rely on their PSI abilities to defend them. Half of the "overpowered" monk issue is that their defenses are exponentially better than other classes from the get-go because their Holy Spirit armor provides for ~65 Force, ~72 Pierce, ~58 Fire, ~172 energy, and ~42 xray resists! Then they have 45 CON to distribute and access to Heavy Belts. Then add the Holy Shelter's 51-75% fir/enr/xry damage blocking... COME ON!? Why any PPUs die at all is nearly unfathomable. If PSI Monks can have low con/low str armor that is light, easy to wear, and saves them from the elements that much, why did they ever need GenTanks? And why don't GenTanks have armor that lightweight that does equal protection? Hell, a GenTank could wear strap 4 PSI vests onto their arms and legs, then pile a few on their chest, and be good to go!
The Tank's line of armor should have more variety and tanks themselves should be RE-designed to have a Defense and Offense set of setups. Armor that requires more CON, has higher defense, but restricts usage of weapons (+25 to a resist, -10 to H-C or something). So the Defense based Tank would be balanced with the Offense based tank in a 1v1 duel. The Offensive tank does more damage, but the Defensive tank resists it. After the first volley of attacks, a Defense Tank would lose 10% of his health to 50 inflicted damage while the Offense Tank would also lost 10% of his health to 50 inflicted damage, even though the Defensive Tank's damage is not as high as the Offensive Tanks... Going to attack an OP? Get your Offensive setup on! Going to be holed up inside the OP on the defensive line? Get that defensive armor on. But no matter what, Tank armor should be superiour to all other classes armor. Not to say other classes can't have a singular peice of armor that does 100 resist of one type (a la Spy PA), but it should be balanced to the point where that gain shows up as a loss somewhere else.
The PE's line of armor should give them a little more variety as well, but overall their armor defense is pretty well balanced. Middle of the road Inq, Duranit (not Duranium) availability, and Titan/Viper King usage coupled with low level PSI buffs is good. Aside from more bone configurations, PEs are pretty much set.
The Spies are alright where they are. They almost have too much xray when it comes to armor + bones, but if more bone types were introduced, that could be balanced better. Somehow, technology should play into their armor though... I was hoping for something like armor that requires 100 T-C called a "Variable Defense" Suit (I can hear TRADE-NC already... "WTS - VD for 500k" :lol:). This armor basically has 125 points of resist that can be changed ON THE FLY. So you go out to Battledome to hunt warbots, via some interface (right-click on the armor, activate/use?), you adjust your armor resist points to 125 Energy points. Then you go to Cycrow later to hunt firemobs, adjust them to Fire points. Then you're in PvP later and your character's setup is weak on Xray and Fire, so you split them into 90 Xray and 35 Fire, but after the first few hits, it's a Fire-Modded Weapon, so you stealth away, heal up, and shift your armor to fire... one can dream, right?
Then you've got your monks... Their 'top-of-the-line' armor shouldn't give them more than 50 in ANY stat, in my opinion.
Physically, the Psi Monk is at a considerable disadvantage due to his historical evolution. Even with the greatest effort, it is nearly impossible for him to become a good fighter in the traditional sense.
Lies. All lies! :lol: Monks should be relying on their PSI for their defense, hands down. They rely on it for their offense, but get the best of the armor AND PSI worlds and the middle-of-the-road in the CON world. It just doesn't add up. However, to retain the defensive superiourity of PPUs, I'd suggest bringing additional resist bonus to PPU Powerarmor and only offensive bonuses to APU Powerarmor. A PPU should still be able to stand on his own in a high-level cave or run away from several damage dealers. The APU however, should NOT be a god-like character... if he were, the history of NC would be COMPLETELY different. APUs should get low-end armor, spy-like Constitution, and retain their place as highest overall damage dealer.
What was planned as a short strike becomes the longest military conflict in the history of the new world. While Ceres dispatches his armored warriors to the battlefield, the Psi Monks raise one Tank after the other and the factories spew out thousands of hover tanks.
That's from the NC history in a battle between Ceres's Warbots and Regant's Troops. Firstly, Tanks on the forefront and Monks backing them up - that's the way it was originally designed. If TODAY'S monks were in that battle, it would've been:
What was planned as a short strike becomes the shortest conflict in the history of the new world. APUs pwned every warbot because they do energy damage and the PSI monk armor, coupled with Holy Shelters, made them nearly invincible.
:p And secondly - HOVER TANKS? I WANT THOSE! :D
= SHELTER, DEFLECTOR, and HEAL =
The effects of Shelter, Deflector, and Heal should be based on a character's PSI skill. Tanks receiving the least (still getting the benefit mind you) benefit from S/D/H, Spies not recieving much either (pretty much stay where they are), PEs should be able to get into level2 buffs and Blessed buffs at a 'reworked' level so they can just barely reach them, and Monks should get the most out of S/H/D.
Alternatively, Heal could be based on CON instead of PSI, but that would bring the PPU back into the realm of necessity when leveling, pvping, etc., which I hate. I personally think that a Tank with his self-regen and a medkit, should stand a decent chance against an APU and PPU - why? Mainly because the PPU should NOT be directly effecting combat as he currently does (i.e. Para & Damage Boost). An APU/PPU team should really be more like sending an APU who rivals a tank with high damage output and reasonable defense because of the PPU into the ring with an all-out-killing-machine who already has those things all wrapped up into one... his restriction is reloading, bearing the weight of a huge weapon, and the aiming reticle. The APUs restriction is TIME. When his buffs fall, he's weak and should drop fast. Granted, the APU/PPU team should win based on the fact that the APU can get a heal... but it should still be an extended fight. Had you put a PPU on the Tank's side, he should win HANDS DOWN. More HP, More defense, high damage output. That's just not the way it is currently.