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Combat FAQ
Converted to the Wiki:
Combat System
Updates
(6/15) Assassins have had their base evade chance upped to 10% from the
standard 5%
Released 5/14/02
1. What does it mean that you “rewrote”
combat?
Well, maybe rewrote is an improper description. Perhaps “wrote” or
“scripted” combat would be better. The way combat was previously, it
was all done by the POL core. Very little of it, basically only the
hitscripts, were actually scripted. The rest was all handled by the core
which left very little room for customization and flexibility. What I have
done, is removed combat from the core and completely scripted all of it.
2. Ok….What exactly does that mean?
What that means is, all of the dynamics of combat are now scripted. Meaning
they can now be changed, tweaked and fiddled with. Let me give a brief “basic
functionality” comparison of the two:
POL Core Combat:
In the POL core combat, many things were either completely unchangeable, or were
not changeable on the fly, i.e. requiring a server restart. For example,
weapon speeds. Weapon speeds CAN be changed, but for the change to take
effect, a server restart is required. Also, things like weapon damages,
animations, sound effects and such would require a server restart as well.
The core also handles weapon and armor wear and tear, as well as the
calculations for chance to hit, chance to parry such and so forth. Those
things are completely unchangeable when using the POL core combat.
New Combat:
In the new combat, I have designed it so that everything can at least be
changed, and most things can be changed without a server restart, most of the
important ones anyway. We can now change weapon speeds on the fly, we can
change damages, animations, sound effects, chance to hit, chance to parry,
chance for weapon or armor wear all on the fly as well. This will allows us to
do many nifty things including the combat special abilities, Bard Songs and Mage
spells that can directly effect combat like increasing or decreasing attack
speeds, increasing or decreasing damage and whatever else we can come up with.
3. How does armor come into play?
Armor, or AR, is now used a little differently. In the POL Core combat,
your AR was seen as a set amount of damage reduction. An example:
You are wearing armor that affords you 25 AR. You go and fight a
Lizardman. Through the combat calculations, the Lizardmans damage for an
attack is determined to be, say, 10. The core then determines a random hit
location on your body, say it chooses your legs. The AR of the armor on
your legs is then looked at, lets say its 20 for that piece. The core then
determines a random value between 50% to 100% of the 20 AR that your leg armor
is at. That determined value is then subtracted wholesale from the damage
dealt. If the result is 0 or les, you take zero damage from the hit.
As you can see, taking the values into account with the above example,
this person would take zero damage from any hit that was 10 or less at a
minimum.
Enter the new view of AR.
First off, AR is now “overall”, not location based like in the core. For
any hit you take, the system will use your overall AR, the value displayed in
your status gump, as the AR value to reduce damage against, rather than just the
AR of the item in the location you got hit at. What this means is that you
have much more flexibility in the armor you decide to wear. If your
classes overall AR cap is 12, and a plate breastplate gives you an overall AR of
12 all by itself, you will receive the benefit of that 12 AR for any hit that
you receive anywhere on your body, even if that breastplate is ALL that you are
wearing.
Secondly, damage reduction as a result of armor is now a percentage reduction
rather than a straight subtraction. Your overall AR value becomes a
percentage that is taken from the damage dealt, with the remaining damage being
applied. Using the example above with the Lizardman:
You have an overall AR of 25. The lizardman hits you for 10 base damage.
The combat system then looks at your AR of 25, converts that to 25%, and
then removes 25% of the 10 base damage, which is 2, leaving 8 damage that is
actually dealt to you. Much different than the core combat…
4. You said you have changed the chances to hit. How so?
Core combat left much to be desired in the chance to hit department. You
will notice, with the new combat system, that you will be hitting MUCH more
often, and by the same token, mobs will be hitting you much more often as well.
Missing sucks. Especially when you get on a roll and miss over and
over and over again, very disheartening.
Overall, the chance to hit is now much higher. In addition to this, there
are now several different “kinds” of hits. There are now “glancing
hits”, “good hits” and “critical hits”.
Base chance to hit is determined by comparing the attackers weapon skill and the
defenders weapon skill. The formula for those that wish to know is this:
chanceToHit = attackersWeaponSkill – defendersWeaponSkill + 80
chanceToHit is a percentage that is then checked against a random percentage of
1-100% to determine if a hit was made.
If it is then determined that you actually hit what you were attacking, the
system then checks to see what “kind” of hit you made. This check is
made with the attackers and defenders Tactics skill. This is the formula:
goodHitchance = attackersTactics – defendersTactics + 50
For equal tactics skill between the attacker and defender, you will have a 50%
chance to score a good hit. A good hit means that the full base damage of
the weapon is used. If you make a good hit, another check is then used to
see if that hit qualifies as a critical hit. This check is done by using
the attackers anatomy skill divided by 10. That is your percent chance to
inflict a critical hit.
If you fail the good hit check, it is assumed you deal a glancing hit. Damage
dealt for the kinds of hits are as follows:
Critical Hit: base damage + 25%
Good Hit: base damage
Glancing Hit: base damage / 2
5. What is “base” damage?
“base” damage is the range of damage that a weapon or mob has set for it.
Base damages are specified as “virtual dice rolls”. For example, a
Lizardman may have a 3d6+2 specified as his base damage. This means
virtually roll 3 six-sided dice add up the result and then add 2 to that total.
All base damages for weapons and mobs are specified like this.
In the example above, the range of damage would be randomly determined to be a
value between 5 ( 3 dice rolls of one, plus 2 ) and 20 ( 3 dice rolls of 6, plus
2 ).
6. Sometimes while in combat I get a “You evaded so-and-so’s attack!”
message. What’s that?
I have added in the ability to evade attacks. All melee classes have a
base 5% chance to Evade an attack. Evade “abilities” will soon be
available for purchase from the Ability Trainer NPC to allow you to
“upgrade” your base chance at evading attacks. When you Evade, you
take no damage from the blow. The Evade check is made after what ever is
attacking you has successfully passed their to-hit check. A bonus for Dexterity
is also included. Currently, you receive a dexterity/30 percent bonus to
your base chance to evade.
Side note, mobs also get a base 5% chance to evade your attacks.
7. Does Parry work different?
Ayup...
The base chance for Parry, and the effect of parry are both different. First
off, for you to be able to parry a blow, the blow must come from in front of
you. The attacker must be within your forward 180-degreee arc.
Once it is determined the attack is within this arc, your chance to parry is
determined as follows:
chanceToParry = defendersParry – attackersWeaponSkill + 30
In the POL core combat, it’s merely parry skill / 2. Now, the attackers
weapon skill is taken into account.
When a blow is determined to be parried, the blow is completely deflected.
You take no damage from the attack.
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